Sometimes called Russia’s ‘third capital’, Nizhny Novgorod is markedly less cosmopolitan than Moscow and St Petersburg. But its ancient kremlin on the banks of the Volga and its pleasant pedestrian promenade make it an appealing place to spend a few days.
Severobaikalsk might be much bigger but Nizhneangarsk, 30km northeast, is much older and remains the administrative centre of northern Baikal. A small museum in the high school traces the history of the settlement back to the 17th century. Most buildings are wooden and the town forms a quietly attractive low-rise ribbon of long parallel streets [...]
Historic and humbled, the grim port town of Nikolaevsk feels like a lost corner of earth compared to Komsomolsk, 12 hours south via the northward-drifting Amur River. It’s a bit rough at the edges, with some leering locals and crumbling concrete apartment blocks mixed with more evocative wooden homes.
Once one of eastern Siberia’s foremost towns, forgotten Nerchinsk is quietly intriguing. While hardly worth a special 300km trip from Chita, a day here handily breaks up a long Chita-Blagoveshchensk journey.
Nalchik, pleasant capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, strides the rise of the steppes to the foothills of the Caucasus. It was founded as a fort in 1822 to protect Russian advances into the Caucasus. Apart from a worthwhile museum and a side trips to Chegem Canyon and some medieval villages, visitors come to Nalchik to [...]
Midway between Moscow and the North Pole, Murmansk is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. It’s also the most easily-visited northerly city in Russia, perfect for experiencing the midnight sun and polar night.
Sunlight glints off the golden domes and catches your eye. The ancient, patchwork-patterned church is right in front of you, but you almost miss it because you are walking with your head down, shielding your face from the wind and employing all efforts to avoid slipping on hidden patches of ice. A steely-eyed babushka, laden [...]
A neat, fairly prosperous town set between several lakes, Monchegorsk makes a good base for exploring the centre and south of the Kola Peninsula - although the approach from the south is hardly encouraging as you pass through expanses of stunted or nonexistent vegetation, and then encounter the enormous Severonikel Kombinat factory whose past sulphur [...]
Minusinsk’s scattering of partly derelict 18th- and 19th-century buildings offers more architectural interest than Abakan, and its riverside houses can look picturesque when very selectively photographed. The old section is 25km east of Abakan across the protoka Minusinskaya waterway from new-town Minusinsk’s domineering concrete blandness. Jump off buses 120 or 10 beside the elegant 1803 [...]
The central Caucasus rises from the steppe in an eerie landscape studded with dead volcanoes and spouting mineral springs. The curative powers of the springs have attracted unhealthy, hypochondriac or just holiday-minded Russians since the late 18th century, when wounded soldiers appeared to heal quicker after bathing in them. The area had already passed from [...]