Since the collapse of the USSR, foreign travel around Russia has increased a lot, and visitors have already developed their own impressions and lists of places to visit. And there’s plenty that make Russia interesting and different from other countries besides “vodka-balalaika-matryoshka dolls”. The Russian National Tourist Office has listened to their preferences and compiled the following list of the most popular destinations.
1. St Petersburg - The cultural “Northern Palmyra”
Many of Petersburgers do not consider themselves Russians, but rather as Europeans. They go to Finland every weekend, they give their cafes and hotels Finnish names and distinguish 100 shades of grey in clothes. Yet by building the Peter and Paul Fortress, Peter the Great aimed to protect the city from the Swedes.
2. Moscow – magnificence and poverty the Russian way
In contrast to St Petersburg, Moscow is a city of wide avenues and massive Soviet buildings – from the Lenin Russian State Library which has 275 km of shelves, to Stalin skyscrapers representing Stalin’s Empire style.
All tourists, however, go to see the Kremlin and Red Square first. Having originally been a market and an execution yard (the place of bread and circuses), Red Square is now the first port of call for foreign and local tourists alike. Even today, it is the centre of Moscow life, allowing you to plunge into the history of the city quickly and easily.
3. Kazan – the oldest capital city
Kazan is officially called “the third capital of Russia”.
In 2005, the city turned 1000 years old. Despite its impressive age, the oldest Annunciation Cathedral, Kazan Kremlin, and the core of the old city, the Old Tatar Settlement and iconic buildings of the century-before-last, are still preserved in the centre of the city.
4. The Golden Ring – onion-domed churches
Fans of Russian Orthodoxy who wish to experience the calm and profundity of the Russian faith often go on tours around cities which are famous for their unique monasteries and churches of the 12th-17th centuries.