Problem
What to see first in Russia?
I tried to copy a map from Wikipedia but it comes out without the cities marked which is useless. So I went to Wikitravel which is where you should go for copying or printing out maps to plot your travels. If you are not using a map for commercial use (to sell it to others) you could instead take a screen shot of a map with your camera on your phone and load it up onto your laptop.
Map of Russia from Wikitravel showing Cities.
Russia is the largest country in the world, bigger than the USA. Bigger than Canada.
Most of the population lives in the Western half, towards Europe. St Peterburg is in the north, on the sea.
My Story
As a schoolgirl in the 1960s I visited the Baltic states and St Petersburg on a school cruise ship.
Later, in the late 1960s, I was postgraduate student at University College, London, and I won a place on a trip to Japan, paying only for the fare by plane and train via Russia onto a ferry across the Sea of Japan to Japan. (In Japan we stayed with families from the local chambers of commerce in each city, who wanted to practise English. In other cities we stayed in youth hostels. We were shown around the city in a group or by the Japanese families with whom we stayed.)
On the way out, we crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway for days, listening to endless Russian music, ending up in a station where we got off surrounded by signs in Cyrillic.
"Where are we? Are we there yet?"
Somebody read: "Volg-ga-grad?" We had never heard of Volgograd.
An older boy, tall, thin, left-wing, our self-styled student leader, who had studied history, politics and economics, picked up a local tourist brochure in English and read to us, "It says, 'Everybody has heard of Volgograd, worldwide.' Do any of you know it?"
We all shrugged and raised our eyebrows.
He continued, declaiming loudly, "It says, 'Everybody has heard of
the famous siege of Volgograd? In WWII.' I haven't!"
Somebody else murmured, "I've only heard of the siege of Stalingrad ... "
"That's it! They've changed the name. We're in STALINGRAD!"
Stalingrad means Stalin's city. Leningrad means Lenin's city.
I now know that the Volga is the river. Grad means town or city.
Next time I visit Russia I'll be better prepared, knowing a bit about the history of each major city and what I want to see there.
MOSCOW
Moscow, Russia's capital, with 13 million people, biggest city population in Europe, is on the Moskva river.
Shortlist of top sights to see:
Red Square.
Lenin's Mausoleum.
Tomb of the unknown soldier.
The Kremlin.
(Russian Parliament.)
Kremlin Hill. Mountaintop
panorama with a large cannon and large bell.
St Basil's Cathedral.
Gum Mall.
Bolshoi theatre.
Statues of famous Russians.
Amazing luxury city centre railway stations.
Dog statues in stations.
Victory Park and Victory Park metro station (In Cyrillic: Park Pobedy).
The Park celebrates the Patriotic War (WWII) with numerous fountains and monuments, lit at night, a museum, mosque and synagogue, tanks and guns, monument with army dog used to find injured or trapped soldiers. Victory Day is May 9th.
Dostoevsky Museum on Dostoevsky Street near Dostoevsky metro station.
His father worked at the next door hospital. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky[11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881),[b] sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
Two Pushkin Museums.
Pushkin wrote Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, and other works which inspired operas and orchestral music.
St PETERSBURG
Pushkin Statue, Arts Square, in St Petersburg, 'The Venice of the North', Russia.
St Petersburg
(Previously called Petrograd in WWI and renamed Leningrad). Russia's second city has a population of 5 million. The city is on the Baltic Sea.
The Venice of the North, named after Peter The Great. Peter founded the city and made it his capital. He executed would be assassins and those who plotted coups including his own son. He is buried in St Peter and Paul fortress.
He was keen on modernizing Russia, copying the West, and ordered men to be clean-shaven, with fines for wearing beards.
Sights to See:
Chapel in St Peter and Paul fortress containing the remains of the Romanovs (shot in the basement of a house in Ekaterina in 1918.)
The Hermitage. (Part of the Fortress.)
Cathedral on Spilled Blood, in St Petersburg, Russia's 'Venice of the North'. Photo from Wiki. by WangWei.
Cathedral of the Spilled Blood.
Built over the spot where the reforming tsar was assassinated in 1881, which led to his son getting tough on the plotters and people demanding reforms, potential trouble-makers, and he passed the restrictive May laws and encouraged pogroms (riots massacring areas where he thought potential trouble makers and Jews lived) which sent emigrants to America.
Luxury city centre railway stations.
Pushkin Museum.
Dostoevsky is buried in St Petersburg.
Pushkin statue.
Rasputin Museum, St Petersburg.
Visiting St Petersburg - Travel
Flight £121 to St Petersburg was on the screen. I went back next day and it had gone - possibly last cheap ticket sold out. The deal was 3 nights in Moscow and 3 night in St Petersburg.
Ekaterina
Ekaterina or Yekaterina city.
Ekaterina means Catherine in Russian. It is named after Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great (for whom St Petersburg is named.) I used to struggle with the spelling. At first I could recognize it if I saw it, but not remember it well enough to type it into my computer screen search box. Then I tried to focus on the letters and relate them to English words. Like Katherine with a K. I think of EE! Katerina. Or E(e)k/ Kat(h)er(e) in a (h!). Or Ye Kate r in a. (Sounds like 'a Shakespearean character saying, 'You, Kate, are in a ...?' Or Ye-katerina.
Sights To See
QWERTY monument, Ekaterina city, Russia. Stepping stones in the form of a Qwerty keyboard.
Church on the Blood, Ekaterina city, Russia. Built on the site where Emperor Nicholas II and his family, the Romanovs, including daughter Anastasia, were held captive in a house and assassinated in the basement in 1918.
A secondary church and small museum are on site.
The church on the blood, Ekaterina city.
A few miles away the bodies were hidden down a mine. (Later dug up and taken for burial in St Petersburg.) A chapel commemorating each victim was made on this mine.
Mafia Cemetery, Shirokorechenskoye Kladbishche Cemetery, Ekaterina city, Russia. Has upright tombstones engraved with mafia figures.
Volvograd (Previously called Stalingrad 1925-1961)
Wikitravel says:
- Mamayev Kurgan — the site of one of the twentieth century's most important battles: Battle of Stalingrad. This huge memorial is located on top of a large hill overlooking Volgograd and the Volga River. The name derives from the hill's supposed status as the grave of Mamai, a famous Tatar Khan and general (kurgan is a Tatar word meaning burial mound).
Panorama Museum
Houses a painting of the battle of Stalingrad.
Suggested Flights
One City Spring, Autumn or Summer Stops
My preference is avoiding winter. Snows start late October or November and can continue as late as March to May.
Bearing in mind that winters are cold and snowy and flights could be cancelled. Remember how Napoleon's marching army got stuck in the snow and his army had to turn back.
Return flight to Moscow. Do St Peterburg or Ekaterina the following year or a later trip.
Stopovers and Multi-Centres
Take a stopover in Russia on a flight further, for example between American or England or Europe via Russia to Asia or Australia.
stopover at Moscow and / or St Petersburg.
Fly to Moscow and train to St Peterburg, returning from St Petersburg.
Trains from Paris to Moscow, Paris-Moscow Express, not as fast nor frequent as one might think, once a week express takes 2 nights.
Train from Moscow to St Peterburg, only four hours.
www.airbaltic.com
www.skyscanner.net
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/russia
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Tourism-g298484-Moscow_Central_Russia-Vacations
http://www.visitrussia.org.uk
http://students.sras.org/a-guide-to-jewish-moscow/
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.
.jpg)
.svg.png)
