Russia Discovery Guide
Why Visit Russia the Smart Way
Russia is the largest country on earth, spanning eleven time zones, and its two great cities hold a concentration of art, architecture and music that few places match.
Saint Petersburg was built from nothing on marshland from 1703 as an imperial capital facing Europe, laid out on canals and islands, with the Hermitage occupying the Winter Palace and several buildings beside it. Moscow has the Kremlin, Red Square, a metro built as an underground palace, and the Bolshoi.
Beyond them: the Golden Ring of medieval towns north-east of Moscow; Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake in the world; the volcanoes of Kamchatka; and the Trans-Siberian Railway, which takes six days to cross the country.
Note that this is currently very difficult to act on. Many governments advise against travel to Russia, flights and payment cards are heavily restricted by sanctions, and the practicalities have changed fundamentally since 2022. Check current advice before planning anything.
How to Experience Russia
The two cities
Saint Petersburg for the Hermitage, the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, Peterhof’s fountains and the canals; Moscow for the Kremlin, Red Square, the Tretyakov and the metro stations, which are worth a morning on their own. Four hours apart on the fast train.
If you want the Golden Ring
Suzdal, Vladimir, Yaroslavl and Sergiev Posad — medieval towns of white churches and onion domes within a few hours of Moscow, several of them UNESCO-listed, and far quieter than the cities.
If you want the Trans-Siberian
Moscow to Vladivostok takes six days; most travellers break it at Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk for Lake Baikal, and Ulan-Ude. The Trans-Mongolian branch runs to Beijing via Mongolia.
If you want wilderness
Kamchatka in the far east has around thirty active volcanoes, brown bears and geyser valleys, reached by helicopter and at considerable expense. The Altai mountains and Karelia’s lakes and wooden churches are more accessible.
Before anything else
Check your government’s advice and your insurer’s position. Both have changed substantially.
Where to Find Authentic Cultural and Historical Character
Russia is a civilisation with a long argument about whether it belongs to Europe, and that argument shapes a great deal of its cultural and political life.
Formality then warmth
Russians are reserved with strangers — smiling at people you do not know is read as insincere rather than friendly — and considerably warm once past that. Hospitality to a guest is generous to the point of insistence.
The dacha
A plot outside the city with a hut and vegetables on it, held by a large share of urban households and occupied at weekends and through the summer. It is where a great deal of Russian life actually happens.
The banya
A steam bath, beaten with birch branches, followed by cold water. It is a social institution rather than a spa treatment, and being invited to one is a mark of friendship.
Memory of the war
The Second World War — the Great Patriotic War — killed around twenty-seven million Soviet citizens, and its commemoration on 9 May is the most important date in the national calendar. Almost every family has a story, and the subject carries enormous weight.
Scale and endurance
Distance, winter and the habit of enduring both are themes Russians return to about themselves, usually with dark humour attached.
Regions
Travel Profile
- Regions 4
Responsible Travel Tips
The most important consideration for a visitor to Russia now is not overtourism but context. Sanctions, travel advisories and the war in Ukraine have changed what visiting means, and anyone going should understand that position before booking.
If you do travel, be extremely careful about what you say and post, and about what you ask Russians. Conversations about the war carry real legal consequences for Russian citizens under laws criminalising what the state calls discrediting the armed forces — the risk falls on them, not on you.
Do not photograph military sites, infrastructure, airports or personnel. This has always been sensitive and is now considerably more so.
Where you spend matters. Small guesthouses, local guides, museums and independent cafes keep money with people rather than with state-linked enterprises. In Indigenous regions — Buryatia, Tuva, Karelia, Sakha — use community-run operators and ask before photographing ceremonies or sacred sites.
Best Destinations By Month
May to September is the practical season for most of the country. June in Saint Petersburg brings the white nights, when the sky never fully darkens and the city stays up through them — the single best time to be there, and the busiest.
July and August are warmest, and the only realistic window for Kamchatka, the Altai and the Arctic. Moscow and Saint Petersburg can be humid and thundery.
September is quieter, cooler and often clear, with autumn colour through the Golden Ring in late September and early October.
December to March is properly cold — Moscow around −10°C, Siberia far colder — and is when the cities look their best under snow, when the ballet and opera seasons run, and when Baikal freezes solid enough to drive on by February and March.
The Russian new year holiday, roughly 1 to 8 January, closes a great deal.
Travel Cost Levels in Russia
What a day costs, by how you travel
Relative cost across the country
Lowest — provincial cities, the Golden Ring, the Volga towns and most of Siberia
Average — Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod
Highest — central Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and remote expedition destinations such as Kamchatka, where logistics dominate the cost
The critical practical point is that foreign bank cards do not work in Russia. Everything must be budgeted and carried in cash.
