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River Volga
The mighty Volga provides an additional road into Russia. Traveling by river from
Kazan to Rostov-on-Don makes a pleasant tour.
Kazan:
The cultural center of the Tartars, this city boasts a Kremlin dating from the
16th century which, with its towers and churches, is fascinating to visit. The Tartar
State Museum and the 18th-century Mosque are also of interest.
Ulyanovsk:
Lenin's birthplace; his parents' house here used to be a popular museum.
Samara:
A major space centre, the city was founded in the 16th century around a fortress
surveying the Volga and Samara rivers. The Old Town is notable for its fine
turn-of-the-century buildings. The Volga shoreline and the nature reserves of the Zhiguli
Hills are accessible from Samara.
Volgograd:
Formerly Stalingrad, the Victory
Museum celebrates the victory over the Nazis, and the whole city is a monument to the
year-long battle that took place there. Tours to the battlefields are available. The town
stands at the confluence of the Volga and Don rivers. Boat trips and fishing tours taking
in both rivers are possible on both. Visits to outlying Cossack and Volga-German villages
provide a glimpse of the region's history.
Kaliningrad
The tract of land sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic shoreline is an
annexe of the Russian Federation. Its principal town is now called
Kaliningrad, although
it was known as Kцnigsberg when it was the centre of German Eastern Prussia. The area was
ceded to the erstwhile Soviet Union following the Second World War. The territory's future
prosperity depends on the Government's plans to give it special economic status.
Architectural remnants which survived the war mark the city's German heritage, such as the
Dome Cathedral. The philosopher Immanuel Kant, the town's most famous son, is
buried near here, and his memory is honoured by the Kant Museum. The Amber
Museum, housed in a restored German fortress tower, glorifies this local precious
stone. The town has many attractive parks and gardens, as well as a zoo. Nearby, Svetlogorsk
is a verdant coastal spa resort which has lost none of its charm. The Kurshe Spit
is a beautiful sand peninsula extending nearly 100km (63 miles) along the coast, and is a
rich habitat for plants and animals.
Rostov-on-Don
Once an Armenian town, its low buildings still show Armenian influences. Especially
interesting is the Cathedral of Resurrection. There are several parks, four
theatres, an orchestra, a race-course and a beach. Rostov is the gateway to the Caucasus.
Sochi
A popular resort with a subtropical climate, and a famous health spa, it is situated on
the Black Sea's eastern coast beneath the dramatic Caucasus Mountains. An
observation tower on Mt Bolshoi Akhun, 23km (14 miles) from the town, provides a
spectacular view of the town, almost all of the Caucasian Riviera and the surrounding
mountains. There is a large Riviera Park with many tourist facilities and a Botanical
Garden, founded during the last century, with beautiful, interesting trees and shrubs
from all over the world. Boat and hovercraft trips on the Black Sea are available from the
town's port.
Dagomys
For those who want a resort-based
holiday, this new holiday centre lying to the north of Sochi is ideal. Overlooking the
Black Sea, it is beautifully located amongst thickly wooded hills and subtropical
greenery. The new Intourist complex has a hotel, several restaurants, coffee shops and
bars and sports facilities. An esplanade connects the complex with the beach where there
are boats and pedaloes for hire. A visit to the Panorama Bar on the top floor of the
Dagomys Hotel is recommended. Nearby is the Dagomys State Tea Farm where visitors
can sample the fragrant Krasnodar tea accompanied by the delicious local pastries, jams,
fruits and nuts whilst enjoying the spectacular mountain scenery.
The Urals, Siberia and the Far East
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg is the birthplace of Russian President Boris
Yeltsin. The city is also historically important as the last resting place of the Romanov
royal family, murdered during the Bolshevik revolution.
Siberia covers an area of over 12,800,000 sq km (4,000,000 sq miles) and contains
unimaginably vast stretches of forest and taiga. This 'sleeping land', the literal
translation of its name, possesses a million lakes, 53,000 rivers and an enormous wealth
of natural resources. Although the temperature in winter falls well below freezing point,
the weather in summer can be very warm. Tourism is less well-developed than elsewhere in
Russia and some parts are still not accessible to international curiosity. However, much
of the region has beend up recently, including Sakhalin Island and the Chukchi
Peninsula just across the Bering Strait from Alaska. The taiga is within easy reach of
many of the region's cities. Air-hopping is one way of discovering the wilderness. A
famous alternative is the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest continuous railway in
the world, a journey which is one of the greatest travel adventures. The line cuts through
an area bigger than Western Europe, crossing a landscape which includes arctic wastes,
tundra and steppes. The most scenic part of the journey is between Khabarovsk and
Irkutsk.
Khabarovsk on the Amur is the largest industrial centre of
eastern Siberia and an important transport junction. The town (founded in 1858) was named
after the scientist Khabarov. The red brick houses in the centre have curious roofs shaped
like pine needles, and are intermingled with the constructivist architecture of the 1930s.
Worth a visit is the regional museum which offers an insight into the different cultures
of the Amur people. Among its 100 or so different goods for export are such exotic items
as ginseng and Ussuri tigers.
Irkutsk is over 300 years old and owes much of its
development to its location at the tradeways to Mongolia and China. At the end of the last
century the city began to take on the aspect of a 'boom town' where trade in gold, fur and
diamonds had suddenly created new wealth. It was to Irkutsk that many 19th-century
revolutionaries, such as the Decembrists, were exiled. The University of Irkutsk was
the first establishment of higher education in eastern Siberia. Today, as in former times,
this important Siberian city is one of the world's biggest suppliers of fur.
The town lies on the banks of the Angara, the only outflowing river from Lake Baikal.
The lake is accessible from Irkutsk by hydrofoil during the summer. Statistics
about Baikal are astounding; with a depth of 1637m (5371ft) it is the world's deepest
lake. Its surface area equals that of The Netherlands and Belgium put together. It
is 25 million years old, and it would take three months to walk around its 2000km
(1243-mile) shoreline. The purity of its water is maintained by millions of tiny crayfish,
providing a habitat for a wide variety of fish, including sturgeon, loach, grayling and omul
(a type of salmon), one of many species unique to Baikal. Its shores are a feeding ground
for wildfowl and the occasional bear. Freshwater seal colonies are found around the Ushkan
Islands in the centre of the lake. Olkhon Island is the site of primitive rock
drawings and a unique necropolis of an ancient Siberian tribe whose members are thought to
have been ancestors of indigenous North Americans. The local climate is often harsh; the
surface of the entire lake often freezes over in winter (trains were moved across the ice
during the Russo-Japanese war). The sarma wind can sink boats and rip the roofs off
buildings. While the human race now dominates the lake, it remains to be seen whether it
will be a responsible custodian of the region's flora and fauna.
Many of the inhabitants of the Buryat Republic are Buddhists. Dozens of picturesque
temples (datsans) sprang up round Lake Baikal after Empress Elizabeth, Peter the
Great's daughter, recognised the Buddhist religion in Russia. Although most datsans
were destroyed during the 1930s, many of their treasures were preserved in the Russian
Orthodox church in Ulan Ude, the capital. The Sandalwood Buddha, on
display in the town's Exhibition Hall, is said to have been made with the Buddha
himself sitting as a model.
Yakutsk
was founded as a garrison town, and is capital of the vast
Sakha (Yakutia) Autonomous Republic. Today it is a major scientific centre for permafrost
research. The republic's landscapes range from Alpine meadows to moss-covered tundra, with
sandy deserts close to the Arctic zone. This is pioneer country, complete with gold-mining
settlements.
Vladivostok, a military and naval port, wasd to foreign
visitors in 1990. As a gateway to the Pacific and the East, the town has enormous
commercial potential. It is within easy reach of the Ussuriysk taiga, a unique
habitat for plants of the pre-glacial period, as well as tigers, leopard, bison, boar and
bears.
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