Kazan
Interactive museum dedicated to traditional Tatar food and drink, particularly sweet 'chak-chak', balls of dough that are baked in honey and served on…
Must-see attractions in Russia
St Petersburg
The magnificently restored Shuvalovsky Palace is home to the world's largest collection of pieces manufactured by the jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé …
Yekaterinburg
Take the lift up 52 floors to the viewing platform for one of Russia's best urban panoramas. Children under 15 years must be accompanied by an adult. The…
Northern European Russia
Besides the permanent exhibitions that feature medieval icons, and folk art such as embroidery, weaving and birch-bark creations, there's a collection of…
Volga Region
Writer Ivan Goncharov grew up in this three-storey house, which today is one of Ulyanovsk's most important museums. It tells the story of the house itself…
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk's Lenin museum was opened on the occasion of the October Revolution's 70th anniversary in 1987, only to see the entire communist system…
Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art
Meshchansky & Basmanny
Formerly a wine-bottling factory, this facility was converted into exhibit and studio space for Moscow artists in 2007. The post-industrial complex is now…
Northern European Russia
The history section charts the development of the harsh north, from its settlement by dispossessed and exiled peasantry in the 1930s, to the Gulag camps,…
Museum Estate of Simbirsk Urban Life in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries
Volga Region
Among the museums dedicated to the historic quarter of town known as old Simbirsk, this is easily the most interesting. It consists of a main museum…
Museum of Contemporary Art PERMM
The Urals
This museum was opened in 2009 with the aid of gallery dealer Marat Gelman. At that time it was housed in the historic Perm River Station Hall. It moved…
Arsenal/National Centre of Contemporary Art
Nizhny Novgorod
Situated in the former kremlin arsenal, on the right after you enter the main gate, this top-ranking national gallery has changing exhibitions of…
Sochi
How about this sparkling, red, 8m-high head shot of Ilyich as a backdrop for your holiday photos? This beauty was unveiled in 1980 to mark the 110th…
Kazan
Kazan's most unusual museum, packed with Soviet knick-knacks, is proof that Russia's socialist epoch fostered a lively contemporary cultural scene –…
Trinity Monastery of St Sergius
Sergiev Posad
In 1340 St Sergius of Radonezh founded this lavra (senior monastery), which soon became the spiritual centre of Russian Orthodoxy. St Sergius was credited…
St Petersburg
Also known as the Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, this is the city’s first museum, founded in 1714 by Peter himself. It is famous largely for its…
Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour
Yaroslavl
Founded in the 12th century, the Unesco-listed Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour was one of Russia’s richest and best-fortified monasteries…
Western European Russia
Russia’s most beloved poet, Alexander Pushkin, lived several years at his family estate, Mikhailovskoe, near the small town of Pushkinskie Gory …
Golden Ring
Rostov-Veliky’s main attraction is unashamedly photogenic. Though founded in the 12th century, most of the buildings date to the 1670s and 1680s.
Around St Petersburg
The classical Alexander Palace, built by Quarenghi between 1792 and 1796 for the future Alexander I, is surrounded by the charming Alexander Park…
Western Siberia
Riverside Trinity Monastery is undoubtedly Tyumen’s most appealing architectural complex. Its kremlin-style crenellated outer wall is pierced by a single…
Sakhalin Island
This extraordinary new addition to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's otherwise ho-hum architectural ensemble is a staggeringly impressive golden-domed cathedral, which…
Pskov National Museum of History, Architecture & Art
Western European Russia
As you can guess from its name, this museum, spread over several buildings, includes history and art exhibitions. The architecture bit comes from the…
Western European Russia
This late 19th-century estate is where Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as well being the place he was born, lived most of his life and…
Golden Ring
This large hilltop monastery 2.5km south of the centre was founded in the 14th century, though the oldest buildings today are the 17th-century gates, gate…
Golden Ring
A large collection of old locomotives, coaches, boxcars and other narrow-gauge railroad relics that once ran through this part of Russia (up to the middle…
Novosibirsk
This museum is dedicated to the works and life of the painter Nikolai Rerikh (Nicholas Roerick), beloved in these parts because of his life-long passion…
Tomsk
The gloomy basement of this former NKVD (proto-KGB) building is now a museum dedicated to the unspeakable horrors that took place here. Look out for the…
Western Siberia
Tobolsk's best museum, and indeed one of the best museums in Siberia, occupies a beautiful 18th-century former administration on the southwestern edge of…
Western European Russia
Tula has been a weapons manufacturing centre for centuries, a legacy celebrated at this fantastically kitted-out new building that houses an impressive…
Museum of Wooden Architecture & Peasant Life
Suzdal
This open-air museum across the river from Suzdal's kremlin offers a fascinating glimpse into the traditional lives of rural folk in this area. Besides…
Zarya Centre for Contemporary Art
Vladivostok
The full renovation and repurposing of a former clothing factory into a giant creative complex containing offices, studios, cafes and work spaces is one…
Kola Peninsula
This excellent museum delves into the Sami people's troubled history and their way of life, which continues to be threatened. It also celebrates the…
Golden Ring
Hearing your footsteps echoing in the gloom as you walk through this empty, unrestored cathedral (built 1744) within Goritsky Monastery makes it almost…
Altai
Housed in a wonderfully dilapidated 1912 merchant’s house with original art nouveau fittings, this fine museum is home to standing stone idols,…
Western European Russia
Designed by Konstantin Ton (1794–1881), the genius behind Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Kremlin Armoury and the Grand Kremlin Palace, this…
Altai
One of the more unusual sights along the Chusky Trakt is this sublime turquoise blue sulfur lake and geyser. This is no Yellowstone-style geyser erupting…
A.V. Anokhin National Museum of Altai
Altai
This well-put-together museum offers a good introduction to Altai culture with a range of ethnographic exhibits, wildlife displays and local art and…
Mineral Water Spas
There's a fantastic view of Pyatigorsk, and all the way to Mt Elbrus on good weather days, from the 993m summit of Mt Mashuk. You can reach here either by…
Novosibirsk State History Museum
Novosibirsk
In an elegant mansion, the State History Museum has recently re-opened after renovations and is now by far the best museum in Novosibirsk. The well…
University & Siberian Botanical Gardens
Tomsk
The classically colonnaded main buildings of the university lie in resplendently leafy grounds, giving Tomsk the sobriquet ‘Oxford of Siberia’. Most of…
