It’s been a busy summer of play for the citizens of Moscow.

In one of the city’s manicured parks, a wave pool churned, inviting people to surf. Along a lush boulevard, residents played paddle tennis, pétanque and croquet. Fourteen open-air theaters, one of them floating on water, offered opera, drama and even clowns riding unicycles. Merry-go-rounds were in constant motion. Everything (except for the surfing coach) was free, including sunscreen and water on sunny days and raincoats and blankets on wet ones.

It is all part of a monthslong festival called Summer in Moscow, a shining emblem of the government’s multibillion-dollar efforts to turn the Russian capital into a giant carnival and keep Muscovites in a state of perpetual distraction from the grinding war in Ukraine.

“It is simply impossible to escape, and you cannot not get involved,” Nina L. Khrushcheva, a Russian American scholar who divides her time between Moscow and New York, said of the festival. “You must participate in it all.”

The invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin appears determined to continue despite U.S. diplomatic exertions, has sent tens of thousands of Russians to their deaths, strained the country’s economy and further isolated Russia from the West.