Rooplekha Das
Russia’s capital dazzles with Red Square, the Kremlin’s fortified walls and Saint Basil’s kaleidoscopic domes. Grand theatres, palatial metros and cutting-edge galleries reveal a city where imperial legacy meets reinvention.
Elegant and art-soaked, Saint Petersburg enchants with the Hermitage’s vast collections, pastel palaces and canal-laced avenues. Visit during the White Nights, when near-endless daylight casts a luminous glow over this refined cultural capital.
The world’s deepest and oldest freshwater lake, Baikal holds nearly a fifth of Earth’s unfrozen fresh water. In winter, it freezes into glass-clear ice; in summer, it shimmers beneath forested Siberian hills.
Remote and elemental, Kamchatka is a land of smoking volcanoes, geyser valleys and wild Pacific shores. Brown bears roam freely here, and helicopter flights reveal one of the planet’s most dramatic geothermal landscapes.
Northeast of Moscow, a cluster of medieval towns preserves old-world Russia. White-stone cathedrals, onion-domed monasteries and quiet village lanes in places like Suzdal and Vladimir feel beautifully suspended in time.
Set along the Volga River, Kazan blends Orthodox and Islamic heritage with striking harmony. Within its UNESCO-listed Kremlin, minarets rise beside cathedral domes—a powerful symbol of Tatar and Russian cultures entwined.
One of Russia’s oldest cities, Veliky Novgorod was once a powerful medieval republic. Its 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral and riverside Kremlin stand as enduring symbols of early Russian statehood and architecture.
Fringed by the Black Sea yet backed by snow-clad peaks, Sochi offers subtropical beaches and alpine ski slopes in one sweep. Olympic legacy aside, its greatest luxury is this rare mountains-meet-sea setting.
Adrift on Lake Onega, Kizhi is famed for its intricate wooden churches crowned with multiple domes. Built without nails in the 18th century, the Transfiguration Church remains a masterpiece of carpentry.
Often called Russia’s Golden Mountains, the Altai region delivers turquoise rivers, alpine meadows and nomadic heritage near the borders of Mongolia and Kazakhstan. It is Siberia at its most pristine and poetic.