Visitors planning a city break to the Russian capital should expect locals to be unfriendly, the hotels to be awful, a scarcity of shops and for everything there is to be wildly overpriced.
According to the annual Cities Survey from TripAdvisor, which collates the opinions of more than 54,000 travellers to the top 37 urban tourist destinations around the world, Moscow came in last place in a competition-beating five review categories.
Though on the topic of “best overall experience” it only came third-last, the city was second-last for family-friendliness, restaurants and shopping, and rock bottom for helpful locals, taxi services and drivers, value for money and hotels.
Mumbai was actually voted the worst city for overall experience, despite only coming last on clean streets and ease of getting around – clearly categories which weigh highly on the minds of reviewers.
And second-last was the picturesque city of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, presumably because there is little else to do beyond admiring the view.
The survey did also rank the cities that came out top in each category, with Tokyo crowned the best destination for tourists overall (see gallery above for the rest of the top 10).
London sadly missed out overall, coming 11th, but achieved a respectable second place for nightlife and third for shopping, coming behind New York, and Dubai and New York, respectively.
Our own capital was perhaps let down by Londoners themselves – though for cabbies we ranked highly, for helpful locals London came 32nd of the 37 cities.
London’s worst performance was in value for money – visitors voted the city 34th in terms of how far a pound will stretch.
Other high ranking cities included Singapore, which was number one for comfort traveling alone and second for taxi service, cleanliness of streets, ease of getting around and family-friendliness; Rome, which topped the list of things to do and culture; and Dubai, first for shopping and hotels.
TripAdvisor spokesperson James Kay said: “London has always had a lot to offer tourists, so it is no surprise to see the capital ranking high for nightlife, shopping and attractions. But it seems we Londoners can still learn a lot from the friendly residents of Tokyo when it comes to making visitors to the city feel at ease.”