1,000 Places to See Before You Die

by Patricia Schultz

  The newly refurbished Volga Dream, a 314-foot luxury liner, feels more akin to a private yacht than to a cruise ship, with just 56 cabins—all with river views—and 60 crew members. Guests can enjoy private recitals of Rachmaninoff and Chopin in the Neva lounge, rejuvenate in the sauna after history-filled days on shore, or sample the vodka collection in the handsome Ladoga Bar while a first-rate kitchen prepares dinners of local cuisine interpreted with a European flourish.

  WHERE: departures from Moscow and St. Petersburg. HOW: U.S.-based Exeter International offers Volga Dream cruises between Moscow and St. Petersburg and between Moscow and Astrakhan. Tel 800-6331008 or 813-251-5355. Cost: 10-day tours (with 6-night cruise) from Moscow to St. Petersburg or reverse, from $2,900, all-inclusive. When: Jun–Oct. BEST TIME: May–Oct for nicest weather.

  The Birthplace of Russia

  NOVGOROD

  Novgorod Oblast, Russia

  Veliky Novgorod, which means “Great New City,” is the misleading name for a place where Russian history began over a thousand years ago. Led by the Viking warrior prince Rurik of Jutland, Norsemen made the strategic town overlooking the Volkov River their capital in the 9th century. Rurik’s successor, Oleg of Novgorod, then used the fortified town as a base from which to conquer surrounding territories, and by 880, the budding empire of Kievan Rus—the early progenitor to modern-day Russia—was born.

  Novgorod continued to flourish, and by the 12th century it was Russia’s biggest center for trade, education, and the arts. An early form of democracy took root here, with government by a people’s assembly, which elected an archbishop and commissioned a ruler or prince to provide defense. One of Russia’s oldest buildings from that time, the Cathedral of St. Sophia, built in 1052, still stands in the town center. The imposing white stone church was built to withstand attack, though perhaps it wasn’t the walls alone that defended it. According to legend, a 12th-century icon of the Virgin Mary saved Novgorod from destruction when the town was under siege. As the story goes, an enemy arrow pierced the icon, causing tears to flow from it and darkness to descend. In the confusion, the offending army attacked itself and the town was saved. The icon still hangs inside the church today, and up close, you can see a notch over the saint’s left eye, where the arrow is said to have struck.

  St. Sophia and the town’s other historic sites are protected within the walls of Novgorod’s beautifully preserved kremlin, one of the oldest in Russia. Overlooking the river, the fort was originally constructed in the 9th century and later rebuilt of brick.

  Muscovites rebuilt Novgorod’s kremlin in brick in the 15th century.

  WHERE: 120 miles/193 km south of St. Petersburg. VISITOR INFO: www.novgorod.ru/english. WHERE TO STAY: The modern, 132-room Hotel Volkhov is 2 blocks from the kremlin. Tel 7/8162-225-500; www.hotel-volkhov.ru/en. Cost: from $100. BEST TIME: May–Sep for nicest weather.

  Twilight Magic in the City of the Arts

  THE WHITE NIGHTS FESTIVAL

  St. Petersburg, Russia

  St. Petersburg may not be the country’s economic or administrative capital, but when it comes to the arts, this glorious city on the Neva River is Russia’s brightest star. Boasting renowned ballet and opera companies and a world-class symphony, it is also the former home of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff; the place where Diaghilev, Nijinsky, and Balanchine made their names; and where Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoevsky penned some of Russia’s best-loved works.

  The calendar is always awash with cultural offerings, but the city is especially vibrant in summer, during the performance-packed White Nights Festival. Founded in 1993 by Valery Gergiev, the world-renowned director of the Kirov Opera, the festival began as a two-week event centered around the solstice, when the sun disappears for only a few hours and residents celebrate the season’s long, white nights of summer. It has grown to an eight-week spectacle that lasts from May to July and attracts more than a million visitors.

  Especially coveted are tickets to the prestigious Stars of the White Nights concerts, held at the dazzling, five-tiered Mariinsky Theater, which has premiered some of Russia’s greatest works—including Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov in 1874 and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in 1940. The state-of-the-art Mariinsky Concert Hall, opened in 2006, has flawless acoustics, and the 2,000-seat New Mariinsky Theater is under construction.

  One of the many highlights of the White Nights Festival is the Scarlet Sails celebration, in late June, which presents mock pirate battles, rowing competitions, outdoor concerts, and a fireworks display over the Neva. Late-night river and canal cruises to witness the raising of the bridges are a fun tradition in this “Venice of the North.”

  The Grand Hotel Europe, a refurbished landmark built in 1877, upholds its tradition with beautifully furnished guest rooms and unrivaled service; Tchaikovsky chose to spend his honeymoon here. Its elegant restaurant L’Europe, with an exquisite Art Nouveau stained-glass ceiling, occasionally hosts Swan Lake duets while guests dine. The simple, pleasantly furnished Northern Lights Hotel, in a 19th-century building, is another option, near St. Isaac’s Square and just a 15-minute walk from the Mariinsky.

  MARIINSKY THEATER: Tel 7/812-326-4141; www.mariinsky.ru. GRAND HOTEL EUROPE: 7/812-329-6000; in the U.S., tel 800-2371236; www.grandhoteleurope.com. Cost: from $400 (off-peak), from $680 (peak); 3-course dinner at L’Europe $105, jazz brunch $160. NORTHERN LIGHTS HOTEL: Tel 7/812-5719199; www.nlightsrussia.com. Cost: from $120 (off-peak), from $160 (peak). HOW: U.S.-based Exeter International offers a 6-night White Nights trip filled with performances. Tel 800633-1008 or 813-251-5355; www.exeterinternational.com. Cost: $7,175, inclusive. Originates in St. Petersburg. When: early Jun.

  Splendors of Another Age

  THE WINTER PALACE AND THE HERMITAGE

  St. Petersburg, Russia

  Looming majestically over the Neva River, the mint-green and white-and-gold Winter Palace was designed by court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1754, during Empress Elizabeth I’s reign, and served as the official residence of every subsequent czar and czarina until the 1917 Revolution that took place just outside. With over 1,000 rooms and 117 staircases, it is an unmissable showcase of Russian Baroque magnificence, from the Malachite Hall—filled with rich green columns, vases, and decorative details made of the gemstone—to the elaborate Hall of St. George, featuring twin rows of crystal chandeliers and a parquet floor fashioned from 16 kinds of rare woods. The Armorial Hall boasts a blinding display of gilded columns and bronze chandeliers. Lavish winter balls were hosted in the elaborate Great Hall.

  But the Winter Palace is best known as the home of the Hermitage Museum, Russia’s Louvre, and one of the world’s richest repositories of art. Scattered throughout the Winter Palace and five other buildings on the vast Palace Square are 150,000 works that make up only a fraction of the museum’s 3-million–piece collection. Many were gathered by Catherine the Great, one of history’s great art collectors. The bounty includes more than 40 works by Rembrandt, 40 by Rubens, 8 Titians, masterpieces by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and a collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art that has few rivals. The antiquities collection includes over 100,000 items from ancient Greece and Rome; 50 rooms of relics from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Byzantium; and a Treasury Gallery laden with gold and jewelry dating back to the 7th century B.C.

  The 18th-century Yusupov Palace, a pleasant 20-minute stroll away, is a monument to conspicuous consumption that was home to five generations of a wealthy landowning family. Its sumptuously decorated rooms and precious Rococo theater, where Chopin and Liszt once played, hint at what life was like in the decades before the Revolution. The palace is also the famed site where Grigory Rasputin (“the mad monk” and advisor to the throne) was assassinated in 1917.

  The domed St. Isaac’s cathedral stands nearby, completed in 1848 and decorated inside with frescoes, mosaics, and 14 kinds of precious stones. There’s also a beautifully crafted cupola and a three-tiered iconostasis. For poster-perf
ect views of the cathedral, check into the Art Nouveau Hotel Astoria, with updated, handsomely furnished rooms. Next door (and under the same management), the Angleterre Hotel was a favorite of artists and poets in the 1920s, and its attractive, contemporary rooms cost a few rubles less. For sheer czarist grandeur, opt for the inimitable Taleon Imperial Hotel, within the once-private 18th-century Eliseev Palace and brimming with oil paintings, antique furnishings, and intricate parquet floors. The elegant, reasonably priced Tradition Hotel, located on the north bank of the Malaya Neva, near the early-18th-century Peter and Paul Fortress, is a 20-minute walk from the Hermitage.

  STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM: Tel 7/812710-9625; www.hermitagemuseum.org. HOTEL ASTORIA: Tel 7/812-494-5757; www.thehotelastoria.com. Cost: from $375 (off-peak), $500 (peak). ANGLETERRE HOTEL: Tel 7/812-4945666; www.angleterrehotel.com. Cost: from $300 (off-peak), from $410 (peak). TALEON IMPERIAL HOTEL: Tel 7/812-324-9911; www.eliseevpalacehotel.com. Cost: from $375 (off-peak), from $475 (peak). TRADITION HOTEL: Tel 7/812-405-8855; www.traditionhotel.ru. Cost: from $200 (off-peak), from $310 (peak). BEST TIME: May–Sep for pleasant weather.

  Imperial Grandeur in Two of Russia’s Greatest Homes

  CATHERINE PALACE AND PAVLOVSK PALACE

  Pushkin and Pavlovsk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

  A short journey outside of St. Petersburg, you’ll find two of Russia’s most magnificent imperial estates: Tsarskoe Selo (Czar’s Village, now part of the town of Pushkin) and Pavlovsk. (The Peterhof Palace completes the trio; see p. 326.) Tsarskoe Selo dates back to the early 18th century, when Peter the Great gave the land to his wife, the future Empress Catherine I, who had a modest summer residence built there in 1717. Their daughter Empress Elizabeth replaced it with a grand palace, named for her mother and designed in part by Bartolomeo Rastrelli (who would seal his fame with the Winter Palace; see previous page). The Catherine Palace was completed in 1756 and immediately set a new standard for royal excess.

  The flamboyant Rococo structure stretches over 1,000 feet, and at one time the gilded electric-blue façade alone contained over 200 pounds of gold. Inside lie dozens of grand rooms with lavish ceiling murals, inlaid wood floors, sumptuous oil portraits, and dazzling gilt work. Catherine II (aka “the Great”) later commissioned Scottish architect Charles Cameron to add a new wing that includes the spectacular Agate Rooms, covered in semiprecious stones.

  Most awe-inspiring of all, however, is the Amber Room, a staggering $11 million reconstruction of the early-18th-century room that, along with much of the rest of the palace, was looted and almost completely destroyed during World War II. Its reconstruction—25 years in the making—recaptures the original magic with its exquisite inlaid amber panels, mosaics, and wall-mounted mirrors.

  A few miles away stands Pavlovsk, the gold-and-white palace that Catherine the Great gave to her son, Paul (in Russian, Pavel; hence its name), in 1777. Conceived as a summer home, it was built in a neo-Palladian style that is more restrained than that of Catherine’s own over-the-top confection. By palace standards, its 45 rooms are intimate (though exquisite). Although Pavlovsk seems miraculously untouched by the ravages of history, it is, like the Catherine Palace, an extraordinary replica. Hitler’s troops burned the original in 1944, and it took a virtual army of Russia’s finest artisans 25 years to successfully recreate it, then fill it with many of the original furnishings and artwork that a loyal palace staff somehow managed to hide. The surrounding 1,500-acre estate is now a lovely park of ponds, lime tree–lined allées, rolling lawns, pavilions, and woodlands.

  The tastes of Catherine I and II are reflected in Catherine Palace.

  WHERE: 16 miles/26 km south of St. Petersburg. CATHERINE PALACE: Tel 7/812-4652024; www.tzar.ru. PAVLOVSK: Tel 7/812-4702155; www.pavlovskart.spb.ru. BEST TIMES: May and Sep for nice weather and fewer crowds.

  A Czar’s Palace to Rival Versailles

  PETERHOF

  Leningrad Oblast, Russia

  Russia has no shortage of grand and gilded palaces that stagger the imagination, but one of the most splendid of them all is the summer palace of Peterhof (Petrodvorets), just outside St. Petersburg. Peter the Great took his inspiration from Versailles (see p. 118), introducing European grandeur to Russia. Like the city of St. Petersburg itself, which he founded when he moved the imperial seat of power here from Moscow in 1712, the palace would be his “window to Europe.”

  Although he had help from the French architect Jean-Baptiste LeBlond, the chief designer of St. Petersburg, Peter drew up his own plans for the palace and sprawling estate on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. It was completed by 1721, and plans for expansion were under way when the great czar died unexpectedly in 1725, and the project came to a halt.

  In fact, the entire project was nearly abandoned until Peter’s daughter Empress Elizabeth took the throne in 1741 and set her sights on building the grand palace that Peter had always imagined. She commissioned the celebrated court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to work his magic, transforming the structure into a long, narrow, 30-room palace with a lavish interior. Highlights include the photogenic Chesma Hall, adorned with oversize paintings depicting the victory of the Russian navy over the Turkish fleet in 1770. Notable among the original rooms is Peter’s simple but beautiful study—one of the few rooms to survive the destruction of World War II.

  The most outstanding feature of the rich yellow palace, however, lies outside. It is the Grand Cascade—a monumental series of more than 170 fountains and canals that were partly designed by Peter himself. The gilded, spouting figures and oversize deities are truly magnificent—particularly the statute of Samson tearing open the jaws of a lion, a symbol meant to commemorate Russia’s victory over the Swedes in 1709. All the fountains are powered by a 13-mile-long system of gravity-fed pumps. The 300 acres of gardens are a fine place to take in the grandeur and contemplate the narrowly avoided destruction of this extraordinary place. Petrodvorets and nearby St. Petersburg experienced near-annihilation during the 900-day German siege in World War II, but the Cascade was painstakingly rebuilt.

  Musical fountains and golden statues mark Peterhof’s entrance.

  WHERE: 20 miles/32 km southwest of St. Petersburg. VISITOR INFO: Tel 7/812-4505287; www.saint-petersburg.com/peterhof. BEST TIMES: May and Sep for pleasant weather and fewer crowds.

  Exploring the Divide between Europe and Asia

  YEKATERINBURG AND THE URAL MOUNTAINS

  Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia

  The majestic and little-visited Ural Mountains stretch for over 1,200 miles, from the arctic ice of the Kara Sea to the Central Asian Steppe of Kazakhstan in the south. Modest by Himalayan or Andean standards (the highest peaks reach about 6,500 feet), the Urals are one of the world’s oldest mountain chains and have long served as both the geographic and symbolic demarcation between Europe and Asia. They harbor rich biodiversity, with lynx, elk, sables, wolves, otters, brown bears, and more than 200 bird species inhabiting virgin boreal forests.

  The gateway to the Urals is burgeoning Yekaterinburg, Russia’s third largest city and infamous as the site of the Romanov family’s execution during the bloody Russian Revolution of 1918. The massive Byzantine-style Church of the Blood stands on the site of the former house (since destroyed) where they were held captive. But there is more to see here than this somber memorial. Yekaterinburg is chock-full of theaters, cinemas, museums, and houses of culture, and the Baroque 1912 Opera House hosts a stellar lineup of opera and ballet performances each season.

  Yekaterinburg is also one of the best places to arrange a journey into the wilderness of the Urals. Reputable outfitters can organize a wide range of adventurous outings, lasting anywhere from one to 17 days, that may include everything from hiking, rafting, and mountain climbing to horseback riding; may even offer winter trips, featuring dogsledding, ski tours, ice fishing, and snowmobiling.

  If you choose, you can also delve into some of Russia’s darkest history in this region. Perm-36, about 200 miles northwest of Yekaterinburg, was
one of the most infamous gulags in the repressive Soviet system. Political prisoners—artists, intellectuals, writers, and dissidents—languished here in cold, windowless, concrete cells, surviving on meager portions of bread and watery gruel. The reconstructed prison camp is a moving museum and memorial to the victims.

  WHERE: 880 miles/1,416 km southeast of Moscow. WHERE TO STAY: The modern Hyatt Regency Ekaterinburg is the city’s finest hotel. Tel 7/343-253-1234; http://ekaterinburg.regency.hyatt.com. Cost: from $350. HOW: Ural Expeditions & Tours offers geologist-led tours lasting 1–17 days, including as many activities as you can handle. Tel 7/343-356-5282; www.welcome-ural.ru. Cost: 2-day rafting trip, $520; 2-day trek, $460. BEST TIME: Jun–Aug for warmest weather.

  An Epic Train Ride Across Mother Russia

  THE TRANS-SIBERIAN EXPRESS AND LAKE BAIKAL

  Russia

  The world’s longest continuous rail line, the Trans-Siberian Railway stretches over 6,000 miles—one-third of the distance around the globe—and crosses eight time zones between Moscow, in the west, and Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast. The network of routes is one of the truly heroic engineering marvels of the last century, crossing taiga, steppe, desert, and mountains. An arduous trip of several months before the rails were laid, this epic journey can now take just 7 days.