Renovated river stations and exciting routes: all about 2023 navigation season

At the end of April, Moscow started a new navigation season, so passengers can take a river ride to go to 30 major Russian cities and historical centers from the Southern and Northern River Stations. Their berths have received and sent 285 motor ships with more than 40,000 passengers on board to dozens of cities across Russia, including Yaroslavl, Plyos, Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Saint Petersburg, etc.

Renovated river stations

The revival of river transport in Moscow began with the reconstruction of the Northern River Station. Re-opened in 2020, today it is one of the most popular recreation localities in Moscow. During the renovation, they landscaped the park and the embankment and also restored the historical building, with the river crossing between the Northern River Station and Zakharkovo relaunched after many years of downtime.

The station area is a venue of free events for children and adults, in addition to frequent excursions offered by the Moscow Transport Museum. It also accommodates city holidays, festivals, a restaurant and cafes, children’s and sports grounds in the park. In the summer, guests can spend time in the recreation area with a pool, and last winter it was the first time that they arranged a free skating rink on the main square. In the summer of 2022, it was visited by 30,000 people on weekends.

The Southern River Station re-opened after the reconstruction on April 28, 2023 to be as popular as the Northern Station. Restorers have recreated its unique architecture; visitors are welcome at the restaurant, the cafe and the media hall for events, the exhibition space of the Moscow Transport Museum, and the library, while on the roof there is an open observation deck.

Motor ships depart from the berths of the Southern River Station to Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Murom, and Kolomna after the navigation season started; the first ship went to the village of Konstantinovo, homeland of poet Sergey Yesenin.

The Northern and Southern River Stations are expected to send and receive more than 2,000 motor ships this season.

River tram and cruise routes

A real gem of this season is the Moscow Cruise route, also known as the River Golden Ring for residents and guests of Moscow to take a river journey to visit Yaroslavl, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov, Kostroma, Suzdal, Vladimir, Sergiev Posad, Kineshma, Uglich, Ryazan, Kasimov, Murom, and Pavlovo. The route begins from the Northern River Station along the Oka, Volga and Moscow Rivers and ends in the Southern River Station.

This season, motor ships will go through a Moscow-Ufa-Moscow circular cruise river route. Tickets are available on tour operator websites. They can also be bought at river station ticket offices. The schedule is published on the Moscow Transport Portal. 

In 2023, Moscow continued to update the route network by adding ten basic river tours, each highlighted in a specific color on the diagram and on the schedule. In addition, Moscow launched an integrated navigation system to facilitate passenger boarding/deboarding and wayfinding on berths and embankments. Today, boats travel both upstream and downstream, which was impossible before. Two routes run from the Southern River Station, with the Luzhniki-Tsentralny berth becoming a new hot spot for Moscow residents and guests, motor ships departing every 15 minutes. The Moscow Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure do their best for people to have safe and comfortable trips.

How to take a river ride

Taking a ride along the Moscow River has become even easier. The sudasuda.ru boat ticket engine offers residents and guests of Moscow to choose from river routes, using the nearest berths, departure time, price and other parameters, for children under seven years old most travel routes are free of charge. Passengers buy tickets on the website and receive them by email together with a QR code, tickets bearing all relevant information, such as route number, time and date of departure, berth, and boat name; QR codes are used as boarding passes.

In 2022, the Moscow Traffic Control Center (MTCC)under the Moscow Government launched an e-platform for shipowners. This is a convenient system for filing applications and documents, streamlining operations of tour providers. Shipowners can reserve a schedule for a certain period or for a whole season on their user accounts.

This year, the MTCC opened a River Situation Center to oversee 44 berths; it monitors the berth technical condition and the water area using the monitoring system and timetables boat rides. Almost 300 video cameras have been installed in the Moscow River water area to enable viewing the most popular and problematic sections of the city and berths.

Last season, Moscow got its first-ever water police patrol boat to go along the Moscow River. The MTCC green boat monitors the water area, documents violations or accidents on the water and promptly interacts with federal authorities or duty officers.

River transport is integrated into the Moscow Transport app for users to track ship movement on the map, buy tickets, check out a schedule or a berth and build connected routes for other types of transport.

The world’s first year-round boats

This year, regular electric boats will run along the Moscow River, the innovative transport to serve the first Fili Park-Kievsky route soon.

This will be the world’s first year-round, cutting-edge electric water transport for people to have seamless travels around Moscow, and most importantly, this can be done without harm to the environment and health of people. With a new type of passenger transport, Moscow will gradually get 21 electric boats, 23 floating berths with four coastal charging stations and two moorings with recharging capabilities.

One electric boat can carry out up to 50 passengers, including PRMs, with comfortable tables, LCD screens, bathrooms, Wi-Fi, USB ports, and places for bicycles or scooters.

In addition, they are building infrastructure for future scheduled river transport, including 10 and 16-meter floating berths accommodating 40 to 80 people at a time in the passenger area. For passenger convenience, they will have seating areas with Wi-Fi, scenic panorama cafes, and user-friendly information boards.

Traveling will be paid using regular methods, i.e., the Troika Travel Card, bank cards or Face Pay. Electric boats are to be fully integrated with the Moscow Transport System.