Tourism in Russia

Most of the tourism in Russia is centered on the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as these cities are the most famous attractions of Russia.

Tourists are attracted by a very rich cultural heritage and rather tumultuous history of Russia. Popular tourist destinations in the major cities include the Tretyakov Gallery, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Red Square and the Kremlin in Moscow; St. Issac’s Cathedral, the Summer Palace of Peter the Great, the Russian Museum, the canals and waterways on the river Neva in St. Petersburg.

The Russian countryside tends to be quite rural and undeveloped. Big pieces of tundra, taiga, woodlands, and steppe stretch across vast expanses of the Eurasian continent.

In the countryside, there are many little towns with old castles. Some notable cities and towns, which have their own rich cultures and traditions, include Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea coast, Novgorod, Tver, Nizhni Novgorod, Ekaterinburg, Rostov and Kazan.

Tourists are also drawn to the cruises on the big rivers like Volga, Lena or Yenisei as well as journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian railway, the third-longest continuous service that stretches from Moscow to its eastern terminal of Vladivostok at the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. Other destinations include the golden Ring region towns of Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Rostov, Suzdal.

Russian cuisine is rich and varied. Some of the most famous dishes include borshch, schi, sirniki, okroshka, pirozhki, blini, pelmeni and shashlyk. Russia is also famous for its caviar, though severe overfishing has threatened the fisheries that provide the source of this delicacy.

Despite these attractions, travelling in Russia presents many challenges for foreigners, such as weather and the language barrier.

Questions

1. What are the centres of Russian tourism?

2. What are the most famous attractions of Moscow and St. Petersburg?

3. What can you say about the Russian countryside?

4. What do you know about national Russian cuisine?

5. What challenges for foreign tourists are there in Russia?

TEXT 2. Read and translate the text. Name 7 reasons to visit Russia.

Seven Wonders of Russia

As a response to Europe’s «Seven Wonders of the World» list, which didn’t include any Russian sights, Russia organized a national contest to select the seven most beautiful destinations the country has to offer. Almost 26 million people went online and voted for their favorites since the contest started in autumn 2007.

The «Seven Wonders of Russia» contest had several stages, after the first one 49 national locations were chosen and after the second one only 14 remained. Finally the people chose the places they thought best represented their country’s beauty. Officials hoped this event would raise attention to the need of protecting the country’s historical, natural and cultural treasures. Here are the Seven Wonders of Russia:

1. The Baikal Lake

This lake is situated in Southern Siberia and considered to be the deepest lake in the world as well as the biggest freshwater tank on the Earth. It is also known as the «Blue Eye of Siberia». Research has shown Lake Baikal is more than 25 million years old, which makes it the oldest lake in the world. Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.