Russian Federation: Useful
information about country.
fiogf49gjkf0d European
Russia
stretches from the borders of the states of Belarus and Ukraine to the Ural mountains, over 1000km east of Moscow; even without the rest of the Russian Federation, it constitutes by far the largest country in Europe. It was also, for many years, one of the hardest to visit. Today Russia is far more accessible, and although visas are still obligatory and accommodation often has to be booked in advance, independent travel is increasingly an option. Nonetheless, Moscow and St Petersburg remain the easiest places to visit, and these are covered below. For the adventurous, travel further afield can be booked through various agencies in Russia and abroad, and there are an increasing number of Web sites offering advice and travel services for the less standard routes.
Moscow and St Petersburg are mutually complementary.
Moscow
, the capital, is hugely enthralling. It is not a beautiful city by any means, and is a somewhat chaotic place. However, Moscow's central core reflects Russia's long and fascinating history at the heart of a vast empire, whether in the relics of the Communist years, the Kremlin with its palaces and churches of the tsars, the wooden buildings still tucked away in backstreets, or in the massive building projects of the mayor, Yuriy Luzhkov, which have radically changed the face of the centre.
By contrast, Russia's second city,
St Petersburg
, is Europe at its most gracious, an attempt by the eighteenth-century tsar Peter the Great to re-create the best of Western European elegance in what was then a far-flung outpost. Its position in the delta of the River Neva is unparalleled, full of watery vistas of huge and faded palaces. St Petersburg has not been revamped anywhere near as much as Moscow, which many consider a good thing, and it preserves a unity and stability lacking in the capital.
You will not be bothered by the so-called Russian mafia in either city, but, as in any other big city, you should beware of petty crime
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Russian Federation TOP CITIES :
Moscow
St Petersburg
Ekaterinburg
Irkutsk
Murmansk
Nizhniy Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod
Vilnius
Arkhangelsk
Astrakhan
Perm
Samara
Sochi
Abakan
Anapa
Baku
Belgorod
Blagoveschensk
Bratsk
Cheboksary
Chelyabinsk
Irkutski
Kabardinka Gelendzhik
Kaliningrad
Kazan
Khanty Mansiysk
Komsomolsk Na Amure
Kostroma
Krasnodar
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarski
Kursk
Magadan
Magnitogorsk
Nalchik
Novgorod
Novosibirsk
Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky
Petrozavodsk
Pskov
Ryazan
Saransk
St Petersburg
St Petersberg
Surgut
Svetlogorsk
Tatarstan Kazan
Tobolsk
Tula
Tver
All cities ...
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