Despite expensive hotels and visa difficulties, many travel industry insiders now view Moscow as a tourist destination with massive potential. RT has listed the capital’s hottest venues.

The word “basilica” may make you think of a church, but in Moscow it is a guest house – in a unique historic setting. The Basilica Hotel and Hostel shares grounds with the 18th-century Church of the Silver Trinity. For adventurous guests, there are free tours of the bell tower.

“People get a prime location here,” Tatiana Potapova, manager at Basilica, told RT. “It’s only a couple of kilometers from the Kremlin. And you get a beautiful view from your window, like the church. It is also a very artistic place – we hold exhibitions here in winter, and in summer we have performances in the courtyard.”

In this hotel, the ancient and the modern stand side by side. It is precisely this eclectic mix that makes Moscow one of the top places to visit in 2012, according to major online travel community, Trip Advisor. The Russian capital has ranked fourth in its list of 15 destinations on the rise, something that makes local travel journalists very happy.

“In Moscow, it’s a clash between European and Asian,” Alla Belyakova, editor-in-chief of Conde Nast Traveler, told RT. “Sometimes it’s a little hectic and a little bit crazy, but this clash and this craziness is what we think is beautiful – and this is what foreigners must be seeking, or are seeking in Moscow.”

If Moscow is to be loved by tourists, it must be loved by Muscovites first. This is the idea behind the Heart of Moscow initiative, which aims at boosting the capital’s tourist pull by promoting respect for the city and its past among its residents.

A series of souvenirs sold at Tsvetnoy, on one of Moscow’s historic boulevards, is to become a new brand for Moscow.

“Today, Muscovites see this city as the place to do business, a city of galloping consumerism,” Aleksandr Elzesser, the founder of Heart of Moscow, told RT. “We want to change that. If those who live here start to respect Moscow and try to make it cleaner and greener, visitors will love it too.”

Elzesser also believes the city’s glorious past is its most valuable tourist asset. To enjoy it, there is no better place to go than one of Stalin’s iconic Seven Sisters – the Hotel Ukraina.

Completed in 1957 and recently restored, this is one of Moscow’s high rises built after World War Two and designed to rival the skyscrapers of the capitalist West.

“The current owner has transformed it into a quite unique hotel, with very large open spaces decorated with original art that has belonged to the hotel since its opening. Thousands of art pieces are in the lobby and in the rooms,” Jesper Bo Henriksen, General Manager of the Hotel Ukraina, told RT.

Capitalizing on its unique historic legacy, the building has been turned into a true museum of Soviet art, housing original sculptures and more than 1,000 paintings – and something even more special.

The Moscow Diorama shows the city center as it was in the Soviet days. Created in 1977 for an exhibition in the US, it has traveled the world, gathering crowds and prizes. Now it offers a rare chance to take a sneak peak behind the Kremlin walls.

So whether it is something old, something new or a bit of both that draws you to Moscow, its blend of the past and the present may well turn this destination on the rise into your number one place to go to.