St Petersburg
St Petersburg’s first palace is the modest, two-storey Summer Palace in the summer garden’s northeast corner. Built for Peter from 1710 to 1714, it is…
Must-see attractions in Russia
St Petersburg
The photogenic salmon-pink backdrop to the Anichkov is provided by the 1840s rococo Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace. Check the posters outside for details of…
Moscow
The glowering State Duma was erected in the 1930s for Gosplan (Soviet State Planning Department), source of the USSR’s Five-Year Plans. It is now the seat…
St Petersburg
Named after Kirill Naryshkin, one of Peter the Great's commanders who oversaw the building of the original fortifications, the bastion is better known for…
St Petersburg
The 'Singers' Bridge' crosses the Moika River near the Capella music academy and was also once called the Yellow Bridge for its colour. The cast-iron…
Moscow
The pink-and-white St Barbara’s Church, built between 1795 and 1804, is now given over to government offices.
Moscow
Built in 1698, St Maxim the Blessed’s Church is now a folk-art exhibition hall.
Orlovskoye Polesye National Park
Western European Russia
Orlovskoye Polesye, 85km northwest of Oryol, is a placid slice of taiga, with over 360 sq km of thick forest, lakes and wildflower-dotted grasslands. It's…
St Petersburg
This museum occupies the flat where poet Alexander Blok spent the last eight years of his life (1912–20). The 4th-floor apartment has been preserved much…
Moscow
The 700-room Great Kremlin Palace, built as an imperial residence between 1838 and 1849, is now an official residence of the Russian president, used for…
St Petersburg
Noi Trotsky’s monolithic design for the local KGB headquarters (and currently the St Petersburg headquarters of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, its…
Moscow
From 1885, composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky spent his summers in Klin, 75km northwest of Moscow. In a charming house on the edge of town, he wrote the…
Moscow
‘My estate’s not much,’ wrote playwright Anton Chekhov of his home at Melikhovo, south of Moscow, ‘but the surroundings are magnificent’. Chekhov lived…
Northern European Russia
At this expensive-yet-low-budget theme park of sorts, visitors have to run the gauntlet of determinedly cheerful storybook characters and talking animals…
Western Siberia
If you only have a couple of hours to kill, take a stroll though this oasis of green just north of the train station. It contains a bust of a jolly…
Western Siberia
The restored stone ramparts of the Kuznetsk Fortress are massive and topped with cannons, but represent only 20% of their 1810 extent. Kids ride ponies…
Sakhalin Island
The pagoda-roofed Sakhalin Regional Museum has a strong exhibit (sadly in Russian only) exploring the Japanese/Soviet overlap of the city’s history,…
St Petersburg
This moving statue of St Petersburg’s most famous 20th-century poet was unveiled in 2006, across the river from the notorious Kresty holding prison, to…
Moscow
Boris Pasternak – poet, author of Doctor Zhivago and winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature – lived for a long time on Moscow’s southwestern…
Western European Russia
In this interactive museum split between two buildings, kids will get a kick out of the Stone Age and Bronze Age finds from the Tula area, including…
St Petersburg
Housed in the fabulous 18th-century palace of Chancellor Bezborodko, this museum of communications is the perfect addition to Pochtamtskaya ul (Post…
Monument to the Victims of Political Repression
St Petersburg
This gruesome piece of sculpture by Russian artist Mikhail Shemyakin was unveiled in 1995, shortly after the end of the Soviet Union, and during a time of…
Western Siberia
The Art Museum displays a lot of fussy decorative arts but the rectilinear 1862 building is a historical curiosity in itself. It was built as the Siberian…
People’s Will D-2 Submarine Museum
St Petersburg
The People’s Will (Narodovolets) D-2 Submarine was one of the first six diesel-fuelled submarines built in the Soviet Union and has been wonderfully…
St Petersburg
Located in the upper floors of the All-Russian Geological Science and Research Institute, this huge and lovingly maintained museum contains thousands of…
Northern European Russia
A good central starting point for exploring the town’s historic centre is Ded Moroz’s part-time ‘residence’ where the Russian Santa shows up from early…
St Petersburg
Karl Bulla (1853–1929) was one of the city's most famous photographers and is immortalised in a life-sized statue on Malaya Sadovaya ul. Around the corner…
Northern European Russia
On a fine summer's day, scores of strolling families, rollerbladers and cyclists take to the Lake Onega promenade – an appealing park area scattered…
Western European Russia
‘To take one’s own samovar to Tula’ is a Russian idiom coined by Anton Chekhov, denoting a pointless activity. Local production of this essential part of…
Western European Russia
This old-fashioned train station was where Tolstoy set off for his final journey in 1910. It’s now maintained as a one-room museum by a charming bunch of…
St Petersburg
This quirky little museum pays tribute to bread and the role it has played in history (of the city and of the world). A model bakery exhibits the…
Moscow
Immediately inside the Trinity Gate Tower, the lane to the right (south) passes the 17th-century Poteshny Palace, where Stalin lived. The yellow palace…
St Petersburg
This large green space gathers a cross-section of Petersburgers, including young families, teens and canoodling couples who stroll the leafy paths and…
Western European Russia
Turgenev’s estate, Spasskoe-Lutovinovo, may be the literary mecca around these parts, but not to be outdone, Oryol has this museum filled with old photos…
Russian Far East
Housed in a former tsarist-era trading house and Soviet-era HQ for the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), this impressive museum has 26 halls containing…
Vladivostok
Vladivostok’s well-oiled funicular railway makes a fun 60-second ride up a 100m hill every few minutes (unless the old girl is experiencing one of her…
Western European Russia
This 17th-century stone building once held the administrative chambers of Pskov. Today it houses a small museum that gives some insight into the workings…
Western European Russia
There are fine views across town from this restored early-19th-century hilltop monastery. The white steeple and gold-domed church are easily recognisable…
Western European Russia
Author and journalist Nikolai Leskov (1831–95), who wrote the book on which the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is based, is remembered at this museum. It's…
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