Suggest an itinerary for 10 days

You'll need at least 3-4 days each for Moscow and St. Petersburg and perhaps some short day trips(for ex. Sergiyev Posad), but you can easily visit Novgorod between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Take the night train from Moscow to Novgorod(on the Russian Railways website it's Novgorod na Volkhove) and spend 1 night in the city and next morning take a train(3 hours) to St. Petersburg.

The must-see sights of St. Petersburg: the Hermitage, the Russian museum, St. Isaac's cathedral, Peter-and-Paul fortress, the Church-on-Spilt Blood, Usupov palace, the summer palaces in Tsarskoye Selo (Catherine's palace) and in Peterhof.
Of course, there are many more museums, palaces, cathedrals and other places of interest worth visiting, you might need a little longer in St. Petersburg than 3-4 days.
The major places of interest in Moscow: the Kremlin with the Armory and the Diamond Fund, St. Basil's cathedral, Tretiakov gallery, Pushkin fine arts museum. You could take a day trip to Sergiev Posad and/or to other Golden Ring cities.
Visiting Novgorod on the way between the two capitals is a good idea. Another old Russian city located not far from Novgorod is Pskov.

I think your idea to start in Helsinki sounds pretty good. That way you can visit Helsinki, from there take a train/ferry/plane/bus to St. Petersburg, spend there 3-4 days, it's a lot of things to do in and around the city. From St. Pete you can take a train to Novgorod spend there a day and from there train to Moscow. If you have time you can also make a stop at the city Tver, it's on the way from Novgorod to Moscow. To explore Moscow few days will be enough in my opinion.

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.