Travel to Russia

Khabarovsk

Step in Khabarovsk it's like stepping back to the 1950's Soviet Union. However that said, the people are very warm and helpful. No English is spoken so either have a translator or know your Russian! The city has a wonderful flea market that bargaining is a must. There are two "western" restaurants that are very good  but it is so so so so cold! I would not reccomended as a destinaton vacation.

New Jerusalem Museum

Situated in a 17th-century monastery that was created as a representation of the Holy Land in Russia, the New Jerusalem Museum complex also contains a garden and several other historical buildings. The museum itself was founded in 1920. The museum's fund of exhibits numbers up to 170 000 - Western and Russian paintings, icons, rare and handwritten books, embroidery, and historical documents. The most interesting thing about the place will always be the long history of the monastery complex.

Ivanovo

Ivanovo is the administrative center of Ivanovo Oblast, and it is known as the textile capital of Russia. For this reason and because most textile workers are female, it is also known as the City of Brides. In the early  20th century, this city competed with Łódź for the recognition of being the main textile production center, but since the workers living conditions were very poor, the strikes were more than frequent. Due to this situation, one of these strikes led to the first Russian revolution, and the first Soviet in the world was set up in this city in 1905.

Murmansk

Murmansk is a city and seaport located in the extreme northwest of Russia, on the Kola Bay, close to the border with Norway and Finland. It is the largest city in the Arctic Circle and a very important navy base.The city is one of the main settings in the novel Artemis Fowl,The Arctic Incident, by Eoin Colfer, also the climatic scene of Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz takes places in Murmansk and around.

Matryoshka

The matryoshka doll is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside another, usually 6 or more, often designed following a theme, like girls in traditional dresses. It is said that a painter from a folk crafts workshop, Sergei Maliutin, saw a set of Korean wooden dolls representing the Seven Gods of Fortune, so he drew a sketch with a Russian version consisted of 8 dolls. The largest one was a girl in an apron, then alternating in boys and girls, finishing with a baby. It was carved by Vasiliy Zvezdochkin and painted by Sergei Maliutin.

The Cathedral of St. Basil

The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible, and was built from 1555 to 1561, to commemorate the capture of the Khanate of Kazan. It consists of 9 chapels on a single foundation, with a tented church design. The initial idea was to build a cluster of chapels, one for each saint on whose day the Tsar had won a battle, but the construction of the central tower unified all into a cathedral.

Khabarovsk

Named after the Russian explorer Yerofey Khabarov, this city was founded in 1858 as a military observation post and later, became an important industrial center for the region. The city lies at the confluence of the rivers Amur and Ussuri, and about 500 miles north of Vladivostok. It is accessible from there, by an overnight train running along the Trans-Siberian railway and the rail distance from Moscow is 8,523 km.
A department of Russian Geographical Society was formed in Khabarovsk and began initiating the foundation of libraries, theaters, and museums in the city in 1894. Since then, Khabarovsk's cultural life has flourished. Much of the local history has been well-preserved in the Regional Lore Museum and Natural History Museum, and in places like near the Nanai settlement of Sikhachi-Alyan, where cliff drawings from more 1,300 years ago can be found. The Khabarovsk Art Museum exhibits a rare collection of old Russian icons.

Lake Baikal

It lies in Southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest, and Buryatia to the southeast, and it is also known as the Blue Eye of Siberia.
The Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world as well as the largest (by volume) freshwater lake, containing over 20% of the world's liquid fresh surface water and it is a World Heritage Site. Olkhon, the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the second largest lake-bound island in the world.

Neva River

Located in northwestern Russia, it flows from Lake Ladoga through the city of Saint Petersburg to the Gulf of Finland, and it is it the third largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge, after the Volga and the Danube. The length of the Neva is 74 km. and 28 km of these, are with the city boundaries of Saint Petersburg, while the rest are within Leningrad Oblast.
It´s basin includes Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, two of the largest lakes in Europe, and spans over a large area of Northwestern Russia and southern Finland. Some interesting things to know about this River, are that Alexander Nevsky took his name after this river, following the victory over Swedes in Battle of the Neva in 1240, and this is the river that Grigori Rasputin drowned in.

Trans Siberian Railway

The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan. The main route goes from Moscow to Vladivostok via southern Siberia and was built between 1891 and 1916. It´s 5,772 miles long, travels trough 8 time zones and it takes about 7 days to complete its journey, being the 3rd longest continuous service in the world, after the Donetsk-Vladivostok and Moscow-Pyongyang services, both of which follow the Trans-Siberian.
There is a second primary route known as the Trans-Manchurian, which coincides with the Trans-Siberian as far as Tarskaya, about 1000 km east of Lake Baikal. From Tarskaya the Trans-Manchurian goes southeast, via Harbin and Mudanjiang in China's Northeastern Provinces, joining with the main route in Ussuriysk just north of Vladivostok. This is the shortest and the oldest rail route to Vladivostok.