Must-see attractions in Russia

  • 17th-century wooden churches and bell tower of Kizhi Pogost historical site.

    Kizhi Museum Reserve

    Northern European Russia

    One of Russia's unmissable attractions, the reserve is home to dozens of 18th- and 19th-century log buildings, some furnished in period style, which were…

  • Solovetsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Transfiguration Monastery (iconic view, Solovki Kremlin). White Sea, Russia, Arkhangelsk region, Solovki island; Shutterstock ID 1737751220; your: Sloane Tucker; gl: 65050; netsuite: Online Editorial; full: POI
1737751220

    Solovetsky Transfiguration Monastery

    Northern European Russia

    This imposing, stone-walled monastery is the heart and soul of the Solovetsky Islands. Founded in 1429, it has played various roles throughout its…

  • The crown of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich in the Armoury in the Kremlin, Moscow. 21/06/2003. (Photo by Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images)

    Armoury

    Moscow

    The Armoury dates to 1511, when it was founded under Vasily III to manufacture and store weapons, imperial arms and regalia for the royal court. Later it…

  • Jordan Staircase Of Hermitage Museum

    State Hermitage Museum

    St Petersburg

    The Hermitage fully lives up to its sterling reputation. You can be absorbed by its treasures for days and still come out wanting more. The enormous…

  • St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow, Russia

    St Basil's Cathedral

    Moscow

    At the southern end of Red Square stands the icon of Russia: St Basil’s Cathedral. This crazy confusion of colours, patterns and shapes is the culmination…

  • Kunstkamera

    St Petersburg

    Also known as the Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, this is the city’s first museum, founded in 1714 by Peter himself. It is famous largely for its…

  • Yusupov palace on the Moyka river.

    Yusupov Palace

    St Petersburg

    This spectacular palace on the Moyka River has some of the best 19th-century interiors in the city, in addition to a fascinating and gruesome history. The…

  • Exterior of Water Tower at Kremlin.

    Moscow Kremlin

    Moscow

    The apex of Russian political power and once the centre of the Orthodox Church, the Kremlin is the kernel of not only Moscow, but of the whole country…

  • Mausoleum on Red Square, Moscow, Russia; Shutterstock ID 64158388; Your name (First / Last): Josh Vogel; Project no. or GL code: 56530; Network activity no. or Cost Centre: Online-Design; Product or Project: 65050/7529/Josh Vogel/LP.com Destination Galleries

    Lenin's Mausoleum

    Moscow

    Although Vladimir Ilych requested that he be buried beside his mum in St Petersburg, he still lies in state at the foot of the Kremlin wall, receiving…

  •  Courtyard of Joseph Stalin's dacha.

    Stalin's Dacha

    Black Sea Coast

    Stalin's dacha, Zelenaya Roscha, is a fascinating place, built specifically to accommodate a small, private and paranoid man. Tours are in Russian but…

  • Mariinsky theater in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

    Mariinsky Theatre

    St Petersburg

    The Mariinsky Theatre has played a pivotal role in Russian ballet ever since it was built in 1859 and remains one of Russia's most loved and respected…

  • State Russian Museum....The Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a leading restoration center, an authoritative institute of academic research, a major educational center and the nucleus of a network of national museums of art...The Russian Museum collection contains more than 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art.....www.rusmuseum.ru/eng

    Russian Museum

    St Petersburg

    Focusing solely on Russian art, from ancient church icons to 20th-century paintings, the Russian Museum's collection is magnificent and can easily be…

  • Moscow's Red Square

    Red Square

    Moscow

    Immediately outside the Kremlin’s northeastern wall is the celebrated Red Square, the 400m-by-150m area of cobblestones that is at the very heart of…

  • Tobolsk Kremlin and the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral, built in 1689.

    Kremlin

    Western Siberia

    The centrepiece of the tower-studded, white-walled, 18th-century kremlin is the glorious 1686 St Sofia Cathedral. Less eye-catching from the outside, but…

  • Mikhailovskoe

    Western European Russia

    Russia’s most beloved poet, Alexander Pushkin, lived several years at his family estate, Mikhailovskoe, near the small town of Pushkinskie Gory …

  • The pond on New Holland island in St Petersburg.

    New Holland

    St Petersburg

    This triangular island was closed for the most part of the last three centuries, and has opened to the public in dazzling fashion. There's plenty going on…

  • Erarta, Museum of modern art.

    Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art

    St Petersburg

    Erarta's superb hoard of 2800 pieces of Russian contemporary art trumps its somewhat far-flung location. Housed in an ingeniously converted neoclassical…

  • Church of the Ascension, Gora Sekirnaya, Solovetsky Island, Russia.

    Gora Sekirnaya

    Northern European Russia

    Literally translated as Hatchet Mountain, this infamous 71m-high hill was the site of tortures and summary executions described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn…

  • St Petersburg, Russia. Sailing ship anchored by the Peter and Paul Fortress.; Shutterstock ID 161765633; Your name (First / Last): Brana V; GL account no.: 65050; Netsuite department name: Online Editorial; Full Product or Project name including edition: destination page images

    Peter & Paul Fortress

    St Petersburg

    Housing a cathedral where the Romanovs are buried, a former prison and various exhibitions, this large defensive fortress on Zayachy Island is the kernel…

  • Church on the Spilled Blood

    Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood

    St Petersburg

    This five-domed dazzler is St Petersburg’s most elaborate church, with a classic Russian Orthodox exterior and an interior decorated with some 7000 sq…

  • St. Sophia Cathedral on an early August morning, Vologda, Russia.

    St Sofia’s Cathedral

    Northern European Russia

    Powerful five-domed St Sofia’s Cathedral has a soaring interior smothered with beautiful 1680s frescoes. The astonishingly tall iconostasis is filled with…

  • Alexander Nevsky Monastery, named after St Petersburg's patron saint.

    Alexander Nevsky Monastery

    St Petersburg

    The Alexander Nevsky Monastery – named for the patron saint of St Petersburg – is the city's most ancient and eminent monastery. Peter the Great made a…

  • Bolshoy Zayatsky Island

    Bolshoy Zayatsky Island

    Northern European Russia

    This small, wind-whipped island is famous for its 13 labyrinths, including the largest one in northern Russia. A boardwalk loops around the island from…

  • Moscow, Russia - July 29, 2018: People at the Moscow Festival of Italy Grand Italia Fest in the Hermitage Garden; Shutterstock ID 1145341304; your: Sloane Tucker; gl: 65050; netsuite: Online Editorial; full: POI
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    Hermitage Gardens

    Moscow

    All the things that have improved Moscow parks no end in recent years fill this small, charming garden to the brim. Today, it is possibly the most…

  • Assumption Cathedral at dawn, Smolensk, Russia.

    Assumption Cathedral

    Western European Russia

    Dominating the skyline is this huge green-and-white working cathedral topped by five silver domes. A church has stood here since 1101; this one was built…

  • St Isaac's Cathedral.

    St Isaac's Cathedral

    St Petersburg

    The golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral dominates the St Petersburg skyline. Its obscenely lavish interior is open as a museum, although services are held…

  • The Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ in Kargopol, Russia.

    Nativity Cathedral

    Northern European Russia

    The five-domed, 1562 star of Sobornaya Ploschad sports intriguing timber-encased corner buttresses and houses a splendid iconostasis on the 2nd floor …

  • General Staff Building

    St Petersburg

    The east wing of this magnificent building, wrapping around the south of Dvortsovaya pl and designed by Carlo Rossi in the 1820s, marries restored…

  • Trinity Cathedral in Tyumen, Russia

    Trinity Monastery

    Western Siberia

    Riverside Trinity Monastery is undoubtedly Tyumen’s most appealing architectural complex. Its kremlin-style crenellated outer wall is pierced by a single…

  • The Northern Maritime Museum in Arkhangelsk, Russia.

    Northern Naval Museum

    Northern European Russia

    Beautifully presented nautical exhibits cluster around the striking centrepiece – the prow of a ship – in the light-filled main hall of Arkhangelsk's…

  • Hermitage Storage Facility

    St Petersburg

    Guided tours of the Hermitage’s state-of-the-art restoration and storage facility are highly recommended. This is not a formal exhibition as such, but the…

  • Street Art Museum

    St Petersburg

    It's well worth the effort making the trip out to see this magnificent collection of street art set inside a former 11-hectare industrial site. You'll…

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    Cathedral of the Nativity

    Sakhalin Island

    This extraordinary new addition to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's otherwise ho-hum architectural ensemble is a staggeringly impressive golden-domed cathedral, which…

  • Aerial view of Vologda Kremlin in Vologda, Russia.

    Kremlin

    Northern European Russia

    Vologda’s multidomed, attractive kremlin is the city’s historical centrepiece, a 17th-century fortified enclosure built as a church administrative centre…

  • Faberge egg at the Faberge Museum in Saint Petersburg.

    Fabergé Museum

    St Petersburg

    The magnificently restored Shuvalovsky Palace is home to the world's largest collection of pieces manufactured by the jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé …

  • Museum of Fine Arts, Petrozavodsk, Russia.

    Fine Arts Museum

    Northern European Russia

    Besides the permanent exhibitions that feature medieval icons, and folk art such as embroidery, weaving and birch-bark creations, there's a collection of…

  • Yasnaya Polyana

    Western European Russia

    This late 19th-century estate is where Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as well being the place he was born, lived most of his life and…

  • Deputy’s Palace Museum

    Western Siberia

    Tobolsk's best museum, and indeed one of the best museums in Siberia, occupies a beautiful 18th-century former administration on the southwestern edge of…

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