Russia Travel Guide: General Information about Russia.

This is a concise travel guide for Russia. We have written this travel guide on Russia to help you to develop an understanding for Russia and all of the beautiful points to travel. We also want you to understand the nuances of traveling to Russia such as how to be safe, what places to see, and much more. We assure you that our travel guide to Russia will be a very helpful tool when visiting this beautiful country. We also offer interpreters in Russia whenever you need. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need an interpreter in Russia or assistance in any way.

As a special service to our clients and readers, we at World Interpreting, Inc. are working hard to offer you something different aside from our language translation and interpretation services. As we actively pursue excellence in our services, we also want you to experience what it will be like to travel to other countries by providing you with concise country and city profiles and other interesting tidbits of information about each country. Travel Guide Russia is just one of these innovations we are introducing. We will be coming up with more.

Travel Guide Russia is our offering to you. It will take you to different fantastic places in Russia as well as some of the famous landmarks and notable cities, so you will already have a general idea about Russia if and when you decide to actually travel and explore this fascinating and intriguing country in Europe.

Travel Guide Russia will assist you in getting a bird’s eye view of the country’s geography, language, the places of interest, landmarks and things you can do in Russia as well as give you travel safety tips. We do hope you will come back often to travel with us to other destinations around the world.

Introducing Russia

While there is a saying the good things come in small packages, this is not true for Russia. It seems like a brief overview is not enough to describe the country. It is the largest county in the world, covering a total land area of over 17 million square kilometers or about 6.5 million square miles. It is home to an estimated population of more than 143 million people, yet the population density is just about 8.3 persons per square kilometer. This attests to the vastness of the country of Russia.

While most of the territory consists of plains, steppe, thickly forested areas and tundra, it does have the Caucasus and Ural Mountains, one of the first mountains in the world, 12 seas within its territory and covers two continents, Europe and Asia. The Russian Federation crosses 9 or 11 time zones and the country experiences all the climatic zones except the tropics. Thousands of inland bodies of water and rivers are found in Russia, with Lake Baikal as the world’s largest fresh water lake. It is also the world’s oldest, purest and deepest lake, which contains one-fifth of the fresh water surface of the world. Lakes Onega and Ladoga are the largest in Europe. Russia’s rivers number about 100,000 and the country has the longest river in Europe, the River Volga.

Parts of Russia experience continental climate, other parts are under the humid semi-tropical climate. Those up north experience polar climate while the regions down south have semi-arid climate while a larger section or 65%, covering several territories are under permafrost. It is therefore essential that you know the climate in the city or region you will be traveling to when planning your Russian itinerary so you can bring all the essentials to protect you while on vacation.

Russia is a very rich country, with a GDP/PPP of more than 2.3 trillion dollars. The country is endowed with large supplies of natural resources and mining is one of the country’s staple industries. As a world power, Russia leads in the production of military technologies. It is also a leader in energy production with its vast supply of oil and natural gas. The Russian economy is in transition since the creation of the Russian Federation in 1991 and is now also a world player in telecommunications, construction and finance sectors. It is also the third largest grain exporter in the world.

Russia is home to 160 ethnic groups with the majority practicing Orthodox Christianity. Twenty percent are Muslims while Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Buddhists belong to the minority group. While Russian is the official language, more than 100 languages are actually spoken in Russia.

Russia’s culture is very rich and the country’s rulers were very avid patrons of the arts. You can see that in the elaborate and ornate buildings that are in Moscow and St. Petersburg and the country’s more than 1,000 major cities. In St. Petersburg alone there are 221 museums, 100 concert halls, 80 theaters, 45 art galleries and 2,000 libraries. And then, there’s the Bolshoi Theater, home of the Bolshoi Opera and Bolshoi Ballet, which are among the oldest ballet and opera institutions in the world. Some of these are described in detail as you read through the pages of our Travel Guide Russia. We have included some of the places that you should not miss, things that you can do while on your vacation in Moscow and St. Petersburg and a very handy section of Russian words and phrases to help you communicate with the locals. We also have included some travel safety tips and a more detailed description of the climate in Russia.

It’s nearly impossible to visit more places in Russia in the limited time you will have in your journey, as there are already so many things to see and do in one city alone. While in Moscow you can spend several days exploring the sights around the Red Square and the many palaces and churches inside the Moscow Kremlin. In between your touring around the city you may want to spend some quiet times in the park. After recharging your body, then you can go shopping or even just window shopping in cavernous malls with names like Gum and Tsum. Remember, vast and large are words synonymous with Russia.

Then of course you still have to find the time to enjoy some Russian vodka, the all-time Russian favorite, the hot borscht soup and follow the locals in eating blini for lunch. Towards the end of your journey you will want to hunt for Russian souvenirs like the very popular Russian wooden toy, the matryoshka dolls.

Let our Travel Guide Russia be your travel assistant while you tour Moscow and St. Petersburg, two of the major cities in Russia that will allow you to capture the essence of Russia’s glorious history and its greatness as a nation. St. Petersburg was the former capital while Moscow is the current capital of the country. While this does not say much per se, once you start touring these cities you will understand the depth of their importance in the glorious past of Russia, now known as the Russian Federation.

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