A record 3.8 million passengers rode Moscow’s river transport in 2025 — up 10% year on year — as the city’s electric fleet grew to 31 vessels and cruise boats carried 360,000 more.
Moscow’s river tram is no longer a tourist curiosity but a scheduled transport mode: year-round routes with metro-style headways, heated cabins and Troika card integration. The 2025 season closed at 3.8 million passengers — a city record and a 10% jump on the previous year.
The backbone is the electric fleet: 31 vessels built at Russian yards, carrying 890,000 passengers in their second full season. A fourth radial route — Kievsky to Luzhniki — is in preparation, extending the network west along the Moskva bend.
Beyond the commuter routes, the Moscow Canal links the capital to the Volga basin: five seas, the classic Russian river-cruise promise. Long-route cruise traffic through the city exceeded 360,000 passengers, with most vessels berthing at the Northern and Southern River Stations — both recently reconstructed as full-service terminals.
The Northern River Station (1937) anchors the cruise trade on the Khimki Reservoir; the Southern handles Volga-bound traffic. Between them, the city piers — Kievsky, Tretyakov, Zaryadye — serve the sightseeing loops that carry the bulk of summer demand.
Ride the river the way Muscovites now do: as transport, not excursion. The electric boats are quiet, punctual and priced like the metro — the smartest cross-town transfer on a summer evening is Kievsky to Zaryadye by water, arriving at the pier beneath the floating bridge. For cruise passengers, the practical decision is the berth: Northern River Station sailings mean Khimki logistics and a taxi buffer; city-pier departures put you inside the Garden Ring with metro at hand. If your itinerary is two days or less, take the scheduled river tram, not a private charter — same river, a tenth of the price, and you disembark where the city actually happens.
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