According to old Russian wisdom, ‘there is no settlement without a just man; there is no town without a saint’. And so the town of Sergiev Posad tributes St Sergius of Radonezh, founder of the local Trinity Monastery and patron saint of all of Russia. The monastery - today among the most important and active [...]
Although it lacks major tourist attractions, Saratov is a pleasant city with a thriving commercial centre and an attractive green river embankment. Founded in 1590, Saratov was initially a fortress forming a line of defence for the trade route along the Volga.
On a summer day, Samara’s river banks are packed with bathing beauties, in-line skaters and beer drinkers. The lazy Volga is indeed inviting on a hot day, and Samara is the place to jump in. If you’re not a beach bum, Samara has a few good museums and also serves as the base for excursions [...]
Fought for, lost, won, debated over, called ‘hell’ by a literary great, sought after by oil-eyed businessfolk - Sakhalin is the 948km-long heart of the Sakhalinskaya Oblast (Sakhalin Region) which includes 59 islands, including Moneron Island and the disputed Kuril Islands. By map, the area looks pretty darn Japanese but since WWII, the region has [...]
Commonly mistaken for ‘Siberia’, the Russian Far East is actually further from Moscow, more remote and colder. It’s also pretty big. Larger than Europe, it is comprised of taiga forest, snow-splattered or forested mountains, and northward rivers. Few foreigners make it here. Even trans-Siberian goers usually cut south from Baikal to Mongolia, missing the Far [...]
This beautiful and many-faceted part of Russia receives few travellers, despite being only a plane or train journey from Moscow, and that’s a pity. The colossal Caucasus mountains, 1100km of soaring peaks and deep valleys, stride from the Caspian to the Black Sea. Between the mountain range and the Black Sea is a coastal strip [...]
Rostov-on-Don is an expansive town with the bustle of a regional capital, but the wide leafy streets and scattered parks take away any notion of crowding. Passing through the city is the Don River, celebrated in Mikhail Sholokhov’s novels of the Civil War - And Quiet Flows the Don and The Don Flows Home to [...]
For a place called Rostov-Veliky, or ‘Rostov the Great’, this place gives the impression of a sleepy village. Perhaps for this reason, the magnificent Rostov kremlin catches visitors off guard when its silver domes and whitewashed stone walls appear amid the dusty streets. Rostov is among the prettiest of the Golden Ring towns, idyllically sited [...]
Pyatigorsk, the name being a Russification of Mt Beshtau (Five Peaks), began life as Fort Konstantinovskaya in 1780. It quickly developed into a fashionable resort as it attracted Russian society to its spas and stately buildings. Many of these buildings remain today, making this an attractive town to ramble around and appreciate the bars and [...]
Situated 265km southwest of St Petersburg and close to both the Latvian and Estonian borders, Pskov is a pretty town with a long, proud history, which you’ll be confronted with at nearly every turn. At the heart of Pskov lies a riverside kremlin with a beautiful cathedral inside, and from the old walls that still [...]