Blog
Moscow’s GUM: what to see, buy and eat on Red SquareGUM is the most famous shopping arcade in Russia and one of the prettiest buildings on Red Square. Entry is free and it’s open every day from 10:00 to 22:00. The big change of recent years: after the 2022 sanctions, the major Western luxury houses (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Cartier, Prada…) closed their boutiques. But […]
Nevsky Avenue in St. Petersburg: What to See and How to Walk ItNevsky Avenue (Nevsky Prospekt, in Russian Невский проспект) is the main street of St. Petersburg: 4.5 kilometers that start at Palace Square, next to the Hermitage , and run all the way to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Walking it end to end without stopping takes about an hour; but in practice you’ll need half a […]
Renting a Car in Russia in 2026: What Works, Requirements and PricesYes, you can rent a car in Russia in 2026, but the landscape looks nothing like it did a few years ago: the big international rental brands (Hertz, Sixt, Avis, Europcar) have all left the Russian market, your European Visa or Mastercard won’t work to pay, and everything now goes through local Russian companies . […]
The Must-See Churches and Cathedrals of St. Petersburg: Tickets, Hours and PricesSt. Petersburg has more than 200 churches, but as a traveller there are really only five you need to care about: the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood and St. Isaac’s Cathedral (550 rubles each), the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (1,000 rubles, with the Romanov tsars buried inside), Kazan Cathedral (free) […]
VDNH in Moscow: A Complete Guide to the City’s Most Soviet ParkVDNH (in Russian ВДНХ, also written VDNKh or VDNJ) is a huge 325-hectare complex in the north of Moscow where the Soviet Union showed off its achievements: monumental pavilions, gold-leafed fountains, space rockets and statues of Lenin. Today it’s one of the most visited public spaces in Russia, with around 30 million visitors a year, […]
Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow: Tickets, Hours and Must-See WorksThe Tretyakov Gallery is the great museum of Russian art and, together with the Kremlin , the one unmissable sight in Moscow. General admission costs 700 rubles (around €7), it closes on Mondays and it’s split across two main buildings: the historic Lavrushinsky building (Russian painting from the 11th to the early 20th century) and […]
The Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg: the imperial eggs and how to visitThe Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg holds the largest collection of works by the House of Fabergé in the world, with 9 of the famous imperial Easter eggs as its star pieces. It sits in the Shuvalov Palace, five minutes from Nevsky Avenue, opens every day from 10:00 to 20:45 and general admission costs 700 […]
Prices in Russia 2026: what it really costs to travel (and live) thereWith the current exchange rate ($1 ≈ ₽72), cumulative inflation of more than 40% since 2021 and a sharp rise in hotel and restaurant prices in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia has become noticeably more expensive for the foreign traveller. Does that make it an expensive country now? Not exactly: it’s still cheaper than Western […]
Moscow’s bridges: the 10 most beautiful and how to see them on foot or by boatMoscow is a city of bridges: the Moskva River alone, as it flows through the city, is crossed by around 40 of them, and there’s something for every taste: historic ones, Stalinist ones, futuristic ones, one with a metro station inside and even one that pushes out into the river and stops halfway. In this […]
Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow and the VDNH Cosmos Pavilion: What to See and How to VisitThe Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow is the city’s best space stop: it sits right beneath the huge titanium obelisk of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space , just as you step out of VDNKh metro station. It opens every day except Monday and admission costs 490 rubles (around €6), paid at the box […]
What to See in Veliky Novgorod: A Guide to Russia’s Oldest CityVeliky Novgorod is the oldest city in Russia and one of those places you really shouldn’t skip if you’re travelling between Moscow and St. Petersburg. It sits about 190 km south of St. Petersburg (three hours by train), its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and you can see it in a single […]
Tsaritsyno, Catherine the Great’s Caprice: Palaces, Musical Fountain and Gardens in MoscowThe Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve is the most unexpected corner of Moscow: a group of pseudo-Gothic palaces, fantasy bridges, ponds and woodland that Catherine the Great ordered built as a country residence and never got to use. Entry to the park is free; you only pay to visit the palaces. I’ll take you inside, with prices and […]
Kolomenskoye Park: relax like a Muscovite among churches and palacesLess than 15 km south of central Moscow lies Kolomenskoye, the former summer residence of the tsars in the 16th and 17th centuries, today turned into a huge open-air park-museum. Entry to the park is free, and you only pay if you want to go inside the monuments. Its two jewels are the Church of […]
Lake Baikal: What to See Between Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude on the Trans-SiberianLake Baikal is the great jewel of Siberia and, for almost everyone who passes through, the highlight of the entire Trans-Siberian. It sits between two cities the train links in a single run —Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude— and from them you can arrange the excursions to those corners you’ve seen in a thousand photos: the shaman […]
Novosibirsk Travel Guide: What to See and Do in Siberia’s CapitalNovosibirsk is the capital of Siberia, Russia’s third-largest city and the big Trans-Siberian stop between Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk. Don’t expect a postcard city of kremlins and golden domes: it’s young, huge and very Siberian. But it has the largest opera house in the country (yes, bigger than the Bolshoi), one of Russia’s best zoos, the […]
Where to eat cheap in Moscow: 10 budget restaurants in the centreEating cheap in Moscow is easier than it looks. The Russian capital still keeps the tradition of the stolovye (the Soviet self-service canteens), now joined by modern chains, food halls and charming spots where you can fill your plate for very little. In this guide I’ve picked 10 places to eat cheap in Moscow , […]
Saily and Airalo in Russia: Do They Work in 2026? (and the alternative that does)Short answer: no. Neither Saily nor Airalo works in Russia in 2026, but for different reasons, and it’s worth understanding them so you don’t waste time or money before your trip. Saily doesn’t offer —and never has offered— plans for Russia ; Airalo did have them, but pulled them from its catalogue in 2022 after […]
What to Do in Yekaterinburg in 1 or 2 Days: A Practical 2026 GuideYekaterinburg is the capital of the Urals and Russia’s fourth-largest city, the point where the continent shifts from Europe to Asia and where, in 1918, the last tsar Nicholas II was executed along with his entire family. It’s also a classic stop on the Trans-Siberian. One or two days is plenty to see the essentials, […]
Which Brands Left Russia (and What They’re Called Now)Since February 2022, more than a thousand Western companies have suspended or pulled out of Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. For anyone landing in Moscow or St. Petersburg today, the effect is disorienting: the commercial landscape looks familiar —the same burgers, the same shopping malls, the same coffee to go— but […]
Gorky Park in Moscow: What to See and Do in the Russian “Central Park”Gorky Park is Moscow’s most loved and most visited urban park, the “Russian Central Park”. It stretches along the bank of the Moskva River, just a short walk from the centre, and brings together in a single visit open-air Soviet art, historic 18th-century gardens, a hill with the best views of the city and a […]