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Moscow has a way of surprising you. Beyond the fashion shows, designer collections and stylish crowds, there is a city filled with breathtaking architecture, fascinating history, excellent food and shopping experiences worth making time for.

I was in Moscow recently for Fashion Week and The BRICS+ Fashion Summit, and while the runway was the main reason for my visit, it was the daily strolls from our hotel to the show venues that gave me a closer look at the city. Sometimes, the best way to discover a destination is to simply step outside and let the streets lead you somewhere interesting.

I have always maintained that Moscow is underrated. It may not be the first destination that comes to mind when people talk about beautiful cities to visit. Still, there is something about its grand buildings, expansive public spaces and mix of old-world charm and modern living that makes it unforgettable.

Start with Red Square

If there is one place you must see when visiting Moscow, it is Red Square. The historic square sits at the heart of the city and brings together some of its most recognisable landmarks, including the colourful domes of St Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin walls and the State Historical Museum.

Walking through the square feels like stepping into a postcard. The architecture is impressive, and there is plenty to take in, whether you are interested in history, architecture or simply finding a beautiful spot for your Instagram content.

Right beside the square is GUM, the historic luxury department store whose elegant shopping arcades are an attraction in their own right. Even if luxury shopping is not on your itinerary, the building is worth exploring for its architecture, impressive interiors and the range of stores inside.

One of my favourite experiences, however, was catching the sunrise with friends at the Zaryadye floating bridge. The bridge extends out over the Moskva River, offering sweeping views of the city and its landmarks. Watching the city slowly come to life in the early morning was a lovely reminder that some travel experiences are best enjoyed before the crowds arrive.

It was one of those simple moments that stay with you long after a trip ends.

Explore the Kremlin and the surrounding sights.

You cannot visit Moscow without appreciating the Kremlin, the historic fortified complex that remains one of Russia’s most important landmarks. Its towers, walls, cathedrals and palaces tell stories of the country’s political and cultural history.

The surrounding area is equally rewarding to explore on foot. St Basil’s Cathedral is a must-see, while the nearby Alexander Garden offers a quieter place to stroll and admire the surroundings.

Depending on how much time you have, consider visiting the Bolshoi Theatre, one of Moscow’s most celebrated cultural institutions. Even from the outside, its grand façade makes an impression.

My advice is to allow yourself time to walk between these sights rather than rushing from one attraction to another. Moscow is a city that rewards curiosity, and some of its loveliest details reveal themselves when you are not in a hurry.

A little shopping along the way

Fashion Week naturally comes with an appreciation for style, so shopping was always going to be part of my Moscow experience.

Our daily walks also took us to the underground Okhotny Ryad shopping centre, near Manezhnaya Square and opposite the Four Seasons Hotel Moscow. It offered a convenient opportunity to browse shops between the fashion shows, including stores featuring Russian brands.

It was an easy way to squeeze in some retail therapy without dedicating an entire day to shopping. For anyone interested in discovering local labels, it is worth adding to the itinerary.

And if you enjoy fashion, GUM deserves a little extra time. Beyond the shopping, its historic architecture and beautifully designed interiors make it one of those places where the experience is as much about looking around as it is about buying anything.

Moscow is quietly winning me over with its food.

I will admit something: food has not always been the highlight of my travel experiences. I have visited destinations where the sightseeing was wonderful, but the meals did not quite live up to expectations.

Moscow, however, is slowly making its way onto my list of cities with some of the best food I have ever tried.

During our visit, the Fashion Fund team organized different dining experiences at restaurants across the city, allowing us to explore Moscow beyond its traditional tourist attractions. Two places stood out for me: Rubel and BURO. TSUM.

Located on the ground floor of GUM, Rubel is particularly special because of its setting. One side of the restaurant looks into GUM’s elegant shopping arcades, while the other offers views towards the Kremlin.

The restaurant brings together traditional Russian cuisine, family recipes and contemporary dining. Its name comes from a traditional wooden tool once used to press and smooth linen, reflecting the restaurant’s interest in preserving elements of Russian heritage in a fresh, modern way.

The interiors draw inspiration from Moscow’s architectural history, with striking chandeliers and carefully selected historical details. There is a sense of occasion without the space feeling like a museum.

The menu takes diners on a journey through Russia’s diverse culinary traditions, with dishes inspired by different regions and generations of family cooking. Seafood features prominently, alongside familiar Russian favorites such as borscht, pelmeni, vareniki and traditional appetizers.

There are also more inventive creations, including a Russian-inspired barley dish with prawns and imaginative desserts that reinterpret familiar ingredients.

What makes Rubel particularly worth visiting is the combination of food, atmosphere and location. After exploring Red Square and GUM, settling in for a meal overlooking one of Moscow’s most historic settings feels like a natural extension of the experience.

BURO. TSUM: Where fashion meets food

If Rubel offers a taste of Russian heritage, BURO. TSUM brings a distinctly fashionable energy to the dining experience.

Located on the fifth floor of TSUM, Moscow’s iconic luxury department store, the restaurant sits at the intersection of fashion, shopping and contemporary dining. Its location makes it a natural stop for anyone exploring the city’s style scene.

The interiors take inspiration from classic French brasseries, interpreted through a contemporary design aesthetic. The result is an elegant space that feels right at home in one of Moscow’s most recognizable fashion destinations.

The menu combines European classics with modern culinary ideas and seasonal ingredients. Dishes include crab ravioli with shrimp, veal-stuffed cabbage rolls with morel sauce and creative interpretations of familiar favorites. The breakfast menu also offers interesting options, including blini, vareniki and zucchini pancakes.

One of the restaurant’s attractions is its setting. Depending on where you sit, you can enjoy views of the surrounding city, including the area around the Bolshoi Theatre.

For fashion lovers, BURO. TSUM is an especially appealing stop. You can spend the afternoon browsing designer stores at TSUM before settling in for a meal, making it easy to combine two of Moscow’s greatest pleasures: fashion and food.

Moscow deserves more attention.

What I took away from my time in Moscow was an appreciation for a city that offers so much more than its international reputation might suggest.

There is history in its grand squares, beauty in its architecture, character in its shopping streets and a culinary scene that deserves to be explored. Even the ordinary moments, walking between fashion venues with my delegate manager, Brovkina Ekaterina, and new friends I made along this trip, stopping to admire a building or discovering a restaurant along the way, became part of the experience.

I still maintain that Moscow is seriously underrated. People do not talk enough about how breathtaking the city is, and I would encourage anyone considering a visit to look beyond the obvious itinerary.

Make time for Red Square, explore the Kremlin area, catch a sunrise from the floating bridge, browse the shops and sit down for a proper meal at Rubel or BURO. TSUM.

And most importantly, leave room for a little wandering. Sometimes, the best discoveries happen between the places you originally planned to visit.

I want to do a DNA test to establish whether a baby my wife is carrying is mine. Is it possible to do a DNA test while she is still pregnant? If so, at what stage of pregnancy can it be done, and is blood used or another sample? Is it also possible to conduct a DNA test using the remains of a buried person? Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

A DNA test is done to find out the genetic make-up of any living thing, including persons. It can tell who the father, mother, brother, sister or cousin of a person is or is not, based on the genetic make-up of those tested.

When done between a father and child, a paternity DNA test can verify whether someone is the father of a child or not. If done later, samples of blood, hair, teeth, fingernail clippings, cheek swabs, used toothbrushes and blood stains may be used. When done earlier, while a woman is pregnant, a father may get immediate peace, apart from easily planning finances.

I do not know which hospital you went to or in which country you did the DNA test, but generally, the earliest DNA paternity test can be done from 49 days (or seven weeks) from the first day of your last normal menstrual period, without harming the mother or baby.

This is called a non-invasive prenatal paternity test. Here, the unborn child’s DNA from the mother’s blood, together with blood, hair, teeth, fingernail clippings, cheek swabs or used toothbrush samples from the alleged father, are used.

Other methods may also be used, including one done at 10 to 13 weeks of pregnancy, where placental tissue may be collected through the abdomen or cervix, and another that uses the water surrounding the baby (amniotic fluid) at 15 to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

However, these methods may be harmful. The latter two methods are invasive and may cause miscarriage, pregnancy infection, leakage of amniotic fluid, injury to the foetus and many other complications.

People who died and were buried recently, or even thousands of years ago, can still have samples taken for DNA studies, provided they were not cremated.

However, with time, the quality and quantity of usable DNA degrade. In this case, when a person has been dead for a long time, bones on the hands and feet, as well as teeth, which protect genetic material from decay, are usually used.

Ambulance drivers across Western Uganda have appealed to the Ministry of Health to urgently address their poor working conditions, citing extreme exhaustion, lack of medical cover, and long working hours that compromise both their health and patient safety.

The concerns were raised during a regional capacity-building training held this week in Mbarara City, where emergency vehicle operators revealed that overwhelming workloads and inadequate welfare continue to severely hinder their productivity.

Speaking at the engagement, Mr. Justus Agaba, an ambulance driver attached to Kiruhura Health Center IV, detailed the intense physical and mental strain operators endure daily due to staffing shortages.

‘I am compelled to work 24/7, which is not easy because I usually need to rest as a human being,’ Mr. Agaba said. ‘Government should look at employing more than one ambulance driver, especially in places where the volume of emergencies is high. Being human, one can make a mistake, which may cost a life.’

Mr. Agaba also expressed concern over the lack of health protection for emergency personnel who operate on the front lines of medical crises without safety nets.

‘We request that our welfare be paid attention to. For example, we don’t have medical insurance. Right now, if I fall sick, the entire medical bills will be quite expensive for an ambulance driver. We are not only drivers; we are different from other drivers,’ he added.

Highlighting technical gaps within the emergency response framework, Mr. Joseph Ssenkumba, Head of Training at the Association of Ambulance Drivers Uganda, noted that many emergency drivers lack formal preparation for pre-hospital care and routine handling of emergency patients.

‘I have realized that ambulance drivers stretch a lot; some of them work very long duties both at night and day, and some work alone, which should not be the case,’ Mr. Ssenkumba observed. ‘My call to government is to give more facilities and train them on how to handle patients because their duty is so critical-one mistake can cost a life.’

Addressing the drivers, the Commissioner for Emergency Medical Services at the Ministry of Health, Dr. John Baptist Waniaye Nambohe, acknowledged the operational challenges and emphasized that the training aimed to equip drivers with essential skills while offering a constructive platform to address their grievances.

‘So as key stakeholders, we understand they have grievances, and we hold such engagements to see what we can do to solve them,’ Dr. Waniaye stated. ‘These drivers are supposed to assist the paramedics in ensuring that the patient is moved safely on the side of the road and support putting this patient on a stretcher so that they are moved safely into the ambulance. We believe that now they have what it takes to do that perfectly.’

Dr. Waniaye further cautioned the operators against extorting patients, warning that unauthorized fees degrade public trust in the national health system.

‘We have cautioned them on illegal charges for ambulance services-that they should not charge patients unnecessarily unless that ambulance charge has been cleared by the authorities,’ Dr. Waniaye warned.

Outlining the current status of the country’s emergency fleet, Dr. Waniaye revealed that Uganda currently operates approximately 480 ambulances. About 170 of these are non-standard Type A transport vehicles remaining from older procurements. However, between 2020 and 2026, the government procured 306 modern, standard ambulances to improve emergency services across the country.

While ambulance coverage at the constituency level currently stands at 54 percent, Dr. Waniaye reassured the public that the government remains committed to expanding the fleet, with plans already underway to procure an additional 50 standard ambulances under the current financial year’s budget.

Every morning at 3:00 am, long before the sun rises over the rolling hills of Pajule Sub-county, 19-year-old Brenda Lakot trudges two kilometres into a pitch-black valley carrying a 20-litre yellow jerrycan. Her destination is not a borehole or a protected spring, but a shallow, stagnant stream shared by three villages and domestic livestock.

The water Lakot draws is murky brown, dotted with insect larvae, and carries a faint sulphurous stench. Yet for Lakot and more than 600 residents of Palenga Aywee Village in Pader District, this contaminated pool has been their sole water source for nearly two decades.

‘We strain it through a cloth, but the children still get sick,’ says Lakot’s mother, 42-year-old Santa Akello, gesturing toward a red, scaly rash covering her seven-year-old son’s legs. ‘Every month it is the same thing: diarrhoea, skin itching, or red eyes. We left the IDP camps in 2007 to come home and rebuild our lives, but how do you rebuild when the water you drink makes your family sick?’

In 2007, thousands of families packed up their belongings and exited Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps across northern Uganda following the cessation of hostilities. At the time, the government and international development partners pledged comprehensive reconstruction, basic service delivery, and rural development. Billions of shillings subsequently flowed into the region through flagship recovery initiatives such as the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) and the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF).

Nineteen years later, Palenga Aywee stands as a stark indictment of the deep equity gaps hidden beneath Uganda’s post-conflict success story. Official figures from the Ministry of Water and Environment estimate rural water coverage in Pader District at over 70 percent. Yet, an entire generation in Palenga Aywee has grown up drinking untreated surface water, resulting in recurring disease outbreaks, overwhelming local health facilities, and fostering a deep sense of institutional abandonment.

The human toll of this crisis is felt directly at Pajule Health Centre IV. A health worker at the facility, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to address the press, revealed that waterborne illnesses account for a staggering share of weekly outpatient visits from Pajule Sub-county, dominated by cases of acute diarrhoea, amoebiasis, and severe bacterial skin and eye infections.

‘When communities drink from open surface streams, you are fighting a losing battle against infectious diseases,’ explained a clinical officer at the health centre. ‘We prescribe antibiotics and ointments, but patients return two weeks later because they go home to the very same contaminated water. The ultimate cure isn’t sitting in our pharmacy; it’s a clean water point in the village.’

For school-going youths like Lakot, the burden extends beyond physical health into the classroom. During the dry season, fetching water takes up to three hours every morning, causing chronic lateness, physical exhaustion, and missed instructional time.

Binborn Kimara, the LC1 chairperson of Palenga Aywee, noted that local leaders have formally petitioned the Pajule Sub-county Council and the Pader District Local Government in nearly every annual planning cycle since 2008 without success.

‘Each year, we are told our village has been prioritised for the next financial year’s District Water and Sanitation Development Conditional Grant,’ Kimara lamented. ‘It is always in vain, as each year the drilling rigs go somewhere else.’

Palenga Aywee’s plight reflects a wider systemic breakdown across Pader, where residents in 793 villages still depend on unprotected sources for daily domestic use. Alfred Okello, the Pajule Sub-county chairperson, confirmed that his office recently reached out to World Vision, a non-governmental development partner operating in the area, to request intervention for a new borehole.

Pader District Water Officer Patrick Olanya admitted that out of the district’s 877 villages, only 84 currently enjoy reliable access to clean water, citing severely constrained local government budgets. Olanya added that out of 1,350 total domestic water points across the district, nearly 280 boreholes and shallow wells have been non-functional for over five years and are now classified as abandoned due to technical breakdowns, poor water quality, or depleted water tables.

The crisis spans the entire Acholi sub-region. While approximately 87 percent of households across the sub-region rely nominally on boreholes, spring wells, and protected water points, widespread breakdown and long-term abandonment leave communities stranded.

In neighbouring Agago District, where overall rural water coverage is reported at 85 percent and urban coverage at 75 percent, District Water Officer Emmanuel Oroma acknowledged that roughly 33 percent of households still lack functional access. Out of Agago’s 1,402 domestic water points, 627 stand abandoned and non-functional.

A similar pattern persists across other districts in the sub-region.

In Omoro District, despite an official coverage rate of 95 percent, about 25 percent of the district’s 121 villages struggle for clean water, with 426 of its 745 water points abandoned. In Nwoya District, official coverage drops to a critical low of 39 percent, with 168 of 621 water points out of service. Meanwhile, in Kitgum District, where coverage stands at 83 percent, District Water Officer Willy Picho confirmed that 116 villages-representing roughly 20 percent of local households-continue to draw water from unsafe sources daily.