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Abramtsevo Estate Museum
In 1870, Savva Mamontov – railway tycoon and patron of the arts – bought this lovely estate 60km north of Moscow. Here, he hosted a whole slew of painters, who sought inspiration in the gardens and forests: painter Ilya Repin; landscape artist Isaak Levitan; portraitist Valentin Se
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Red Square
Immediately outside the Kremlin’s northeastern wall is the celebrated Red Square, the 400m by 150m area of cobblestones that is at the very heart of Moscow. Commanding the square from the southern end is St Basil’s Cathedral . This panorama never fails to send the heart aflutter, e
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ArtPlay
Following on the successes of Winzavod, ArtPlay operates according to a similar concept, occupying the buildings of the former Manometer factory. The ‘design centre’ is home to firms specialising in urban planning and architectural design, as well as furniture showrooms and antique
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Volga
Built in 1952, the Volga-Don Canal is the grandiose gateway of an aquatic avenue that now connects the White and the Black Seas via the Volga and Don Rivers. The huge Stalinesque neoclassical arch marks the first lock in the Volga-Don Canal. Take marshrutka 15a, 91a, 93a, 93c, 93 o
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Dolinsk Park
Lush Dolinsk Park is one of Nalchik’s highlights. Stroll the long promenade down to the chairlift (round-trip R180, 9am to 6pm), which ascends over a lake to the Restaurant Sosruko . Climb the staircase inside Sosruko’s ‘head’ for great views of the city and the mountains in the di
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Taltsy Museum of Architecture & Ethnography
About 47km southeast of Irkutsk, 23km before Listvyanka, Taltsy Museum of Architecture & Ethnography is an impressive outdoor collection of old Siberian buildings set in a delightful riverside forest. Amid the renovated farmsteads are two chapels, a church, a watermill, some Ev
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Bell Tower
The Cathedrals 122.5m-high bell tower is the second structure in St Petersburg after the television tower. At the base there is a small exhibition about the renovation of the tower in 1997, as well as an up-close inspection of the bell-ringing mechanism. The main reason to climb al
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Amur Regional Museum
A short walk northwest of pl Pobedy, this museum is housed in a former tsarist-era trading house and Soviet-era HQ for the Communist Youth League (Komsomol). Inside are 26 halls, with plenty of interesting photos, 1940s record players and a meteor that fell in 1991 near Tynda. Russ
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People’s Will D
The People’s Will (Narodovolets) D-2 Submarine was one of the first six diesel-fuelled submarines built in the Soviet Union and has been wonderfully preserved in this purpose-built museum. The sub itself saw action between 1931 and 1956, and sank five German ships during WWII. Toda
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Archaeology Museum
This small five-room gallery displays tools and living essentials from early peoples. Pottery, animal skin huts, dugout canoes, a tiny model settlement and many early hand tools are here. Dont miss replicas of small Paleolithic Madonnas, early carvings (in mammoth tusks) of the fem
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Vyborg Castle
Rising stoutly from an islet in Vyborg Bay, this castle was built by the Swedes in 1293 when they first captured Karelia from Novgorod. Most of it now consists of 16th-century alterations. The castle contains a couple of exhibition halls, including a mildly diverting small museum o
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Kyakhta Museum
Kyakhta’s star attraction is its delightfully eccentric museum, perhaps rather comically dubbed the ‘Hermitage of the East’ by some overzealous locals. It’s certainly one of Siberia’s fullest museums with room after musty room of exhibits relating to the tea trade, local plants and
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Lutheran Church
Tucked in a recess between Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya uls is this lovely church, in the Romantic-Gothic style, built for St Petersburg’s thriving German community in the 1830s. Its distinguished by a four-column portico and topped with a discreet cupola. Concerts are also he
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Novgorod Regional Folk Arts Centre
The folk arts centre is on the grounds of the former 15th-century Zverin Monastery (Зверин-Покровский монастырь). The craft shop sells exquisitely woven dresses, dolls and hats. Ask the local tourist office to call in advance if you’d like to participate in two-hour workshops (from
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John the Baptist Church at Tolchkovo
It’s a shame that dingy industrial surroundings discourage most people from visiting Yaroslavl’s most unique church. Protected by Unesco, the red-brick 17th-century structure boasts a staggering 15 green-coloured cupolas and some of the most extensive series of frescoes in the Orth
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Atsagatsky Datsan
Once the centre of Buryat Buddhist scholarship with an important scriptorium, this datsan was completely destroyed in the 1930s, but has crawled back to life since the fall of communism. The tiny on-site Ayvan Darzhiev Museum commemorates the Atsagat monk who became a key counsello
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Choral Synagogue
Construction of a synagogue was banned inside Kitay Gorod, so Moscow’s oldest and most prominent synagogue was built just outside the city walls, not far from the Jewish settlement of Zaryadye. Construction started in 1881 but dragged on due to roadblocks by the anti-Semitic tsaris
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Museum of Sakhalin Island: A Book by AP Chekhov
Yes, that’s really the name of this two-floor showing of Chekhov’s few months on Sakhalin. Look for the photo of Chekhov at a picnic with the Japanese consul and his entourage. More interesting than the untranslated Chekhov works are multimedia exhibits and lifesize models that giv
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Khangalov Museum of Buryat History
Housed in a badly ageing Soviet-era structure, the historical museum charges per single-room floor; the best of these is Buddiyskoe Iskustvo (3rd floor), displaying thangkas, Buddhas and icons salvaged from Buryatiya’s monasteries before their Soviet destruction. Other exhibits inc
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Chess City
A literary fantasy taken from the pages of the book The Twelve Chairs , and brainchild of former president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Chess City was built for the 1998 Chess Olympics and has an air of surreal suburban bliss. Its clustered on the edge of steppe as a large ensemble of cotta
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