Here's the thing about Moscow: It is a bit difficult. It is expensive, for one thing, and not particularly traveller-friendly, unless you have an expense account and/or speak Russian.

But here is the other thing: It rocks.

The capital of the Russian Federation drips with history (page-turning stuff from Ivan the Terrible to the Russian Revolution) and culture (think Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky). At the same time, it gives the impression of hurtling headfirst into its very own version of the future.

In doing so, it swings from one extreme to another, occasionally taking you with it. This is a city that adores sushi but comfort-eats borscht; and where the price of a hotel room will make your eyes water, but you can travel for next to nothing on a metro system decorated with chandeliers.

I first visited Moscow five years ago and fell in love with it for this and other reasons, despite it being one of the most challenging trips ever.

My companion and I struggled to read signs and menus despite toting phrasebooks and dictionaries, and memorising the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

We stayed at the infamous 3,000-odd room Hotel Rossiya, once the largest (and possibly the worst) hotel in the world, and were stopped on the street by uniformed men threatening to lock us up if we did not have the right paperwork (a moneyextorting ruse tourists are still warned about).

But the hassles were worth it, then as well as earlier this year, when I made a second trip there.

Some things are different. The Rossiya has been demolished and in its place is rising a swanky shopping and hotel complex designed by Norman Foster.

Service everywhere seems improved, as have the choices for eating and drinking.

Some things have not changed at all, however, and a good thing, too.

At the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basil's Cathedral, several immaculately preserved eras combine to provide a crash course on Mother Russia.

Other cities have kremlins - the word means 'fortress' - but Moscow's is the most famous, encircling ornate palaces, gold-domed cathedrals and the residence of the Russian president.

If you are lucky, you will catch a haunting choral performance inside the Cathedral of the Assumption, whose frescoed interiors have seen czars being crowned and religious leaders installed.

Nestled in the same complex is the Armoury, whose treasures include Catherine the Great's intricate, wasp-waisted wedding gown which would make a Vera Wang look like a gunnysack.

Beyond the fortified walls is the expanse of Red Square, where military parades were staged during the Soviet era, and where the founder of the USSR - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - still lies, disturbingly, in a crystal coffin.

Here, too, is St Basil's Cathedral - claustrophobic on the inside but gorgeous on the outside, with its multi-coloured domes, cupolas and spires.

There are heaps more to see, but the city is hardly compact, so be prepared to travel a bit.

Even if you do not need to get somewhere, take a ride on the metro and stop at stations such as Ploshchad Revolutsii and Kurskaya, where platforms are decorated with marble columns, statues, mosaic reliefs and even wrought-iron street lamps, several depicting military and revolutionary themes.

Above ground, head for the Church of Christ the Saviour, a building whose chequered past mirrors the city's own. Originally built in the 19th century, it was flattened to make way for a ghastly Soviet monument that was never built. Efforts to reconstruct the church were thwarted repeatedly, though the crater from the demolition was turned into the world's biggest swimming pool with a 200m diameter.

In the 1990s, it was finally resurrected and today looks pristine, with reflective gilded domes.

Things are much shadier but no less pictureperfect at Novodevichy Convent, one of the best examples of Moscow's distinctive baroque structures of the 16th and 17th centuries. Be sure to check out the star-studded cemetery next door, where everyone from shoe-banging Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev to playwright Anton Chekhov is buried.

'Face control' passport to wild club scene

Also, look out for one of the Seven Sisters, a collection of skyscrapers built during Joseph Stalin's time. Architecturally, they are somewhere between Gothic churches and New York's Empire State Building, with a detour in Batman's Gotham City.

Finally, spend an afternoon at the State Tretyakov Gallery, a temple to Russian art. It holds a gorgeous collection of icons - religious paintings that are stylised and mostly two-dimensional, but richly coloured and detailed nonetheless.

The most revered, Our Lady Of Vladimir, sits behind bulletproof glass in a church next to the museum.

Amazing as the sightseeing is, be sure to make time for people-watching.

Some of what you see will drive home the fact that this has been voted, three years in a row, as the most expensive city in the world for expatriates, and that there are more billionaires here than anywhere else on the planet.

Although millions of Moscow residents live below the poverty line, the rich inhabit their own free-spending bubble, which has spawned a notoriously elitist and wild club scene that operates by its own rules. These include 'feis kontrol' (face control), where the doorman sifts out all but the most wealthy or aesthetically endowed.

This happens in many cities, of course, but the difference here is how blatant it is (a magazine listing reads 'Club XYZ. Cost: US$36 (S$52.50) to US$50 per person. Open daily 11pm to 6am. Dress code, face control') as well as the bacchanalian goings-on once you are inside.

I cannot claim to have truly been 'feised'. On my first trip, my friend and I made it into a couple of places, but probably because of how foreign we looked rather than how cool.

If you do not fancy running the gauntlet, some of these spots open 24 hours and can be visited earlier in the day, when they may be a little more democratic.

At the Denis Simachev Bar (shop by day, dance club by night), Russians in designer togs chain-smoke and sip cocktails next to ejected fighter-jet seats and deliberately misplaced bathroom fittings. A cocktail costs about $20.

Cafe Pushkin is a restaurant rather than a nightspot, but after the clubbers have had their recovery breakfasts and left, you can watch businessmen do deals over lunch in a faux 19th-century dining room with 21st-century prices.

A meal here might cost $50 or more, but it does a business lunch for about $15.

To rub shoulders with regular folk, you need to get away from the expensive hotels - many five-star ones are priced above $1,000 a night and three-star ones about $400 - and shopping areas.

Chistye Prudy, one of the city's few green lungs, is a modest park with a pond. You might see office workers having a beer, old men arguing about politics and students napping on the grass.

It seems perfectly mundane, but then this would not be Moscow if you could not stand in a random spot, throw a rock and hit something interesting.

Explore the neighbourhood around the park and you will find several such treasures - places where famous writers and artists lived, a red egg-shaped house and a building with an animal-carved facade.

Finding treasures is one thing the city makes very easy indeed.