peacetraveler22 | Travel Announcement: Return to Russia!

It's now official! I just purchased my tickets to Russia. :) Here I am, standing on the frozen Neva River in Peter. Glorious! Dates of the visit will be 23 February - 9 March. For those in the U.S., airfares on Aeroflot are incredibly cheap now. Nonstop flights from Washington, DC or New York City to Moscow cost only $492 USD roundtrip, including taxes. I can't even fly to many places in the U.S. for this price.

The first week I'll travel with my Russian friend on a road journey to some new cities, though I'm not yet sure where. Proposed options include the following:
(1) Moscow → Yaroslavl → Vologda → St. Petersburg → Moscow

(2) Moscow → Vladimir → Novgorod → Cheboksary → Kazan → Moscow

Where to go? What to do? Suggestions for other intriguing driving routes from Moscow? Help me! :) I'm mostly interested in unusual people, wild and frozen nature and village life. Museums, Orthodox churches, and standard tourist attractions aren't really important to me.

If there's interest, I can try to arrange a reader gathering somewhere in Moscow the second week. Although I'm not sure where in the city is convenient for most people? If you know a good gathering place, like a restaurant or pub, please tell me in the comments.

I'm excited for the trip, to see if attitudes toward an American visitor have changed since my visit last February when I attended the Olympic Games. Since then, relations between our countries have shifted dramatically and even here on my blog I've noticed more anti-Americanism and hostility, even when the topic of my posts have absolutely nothing to do with politics.

Btw, I'm sure many of you saw Ilya Varlamov's post hanging in the TOP all day yesterday, but if not I suggest you give it a read. A foreign tourist's brutal impressions of Russia. Her story makes my first Russian post seem like a fairy tale. I think she was harsh in her review of the country, though she's certainly entitled to her opinion. It's especially amusing to view the reader comments to the story (over 4,000 of them now!!).

Russia - your country remains a fascinating place for me, and I'm very happy to return!

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Не за что!

About Kazan online information is complete, but the photos of other cities of Tatarstan:

Svijazhsk: http://udikov.livejournal.com/1320848.html
Bulgar: http://udikov.livejournal.com/1273993.html
Iske-Kazan: http://udikov.livejournal.com/1216248.html
Kama mouth: http://udikov.livejournal.com/1213337.html

Well, Kazan, too: http://udikov.livejournal.com/1322897.html

I can introduce you to the members of the Committee of Tourism of Tatarstan and then in addition to blogger excursions you will probably help more and local authorities. If you want to - let me know.

Yes, I would appreciate if you pass my information and blog along to the Committee of Tourism of Tatarstan if you have contacts there. Perhaps they can arrange a blog tour for me, in exchange for promotion of the region on my blog. All of my subscribers are Russian speakers, and I've previously done a project with Russian Railways last year for the Olympics. However, my Russian language skills are very bad, so it's best if they communicate with me in English, if possible. If not, we can work through Google translate. :)

Great! I will write to them tomorrow. Excursions organize. We did the tour with them for expeditions of my friends, and they gave me great help when traveling in Tatarstan. Here is contact their spokesperson, Anastasia Plotnikova - pr.tourism@yandex.ru, I will write them, but you also please write directly. My address - udikov@ya.ру, if not difficult to put in a copy - so I checked the that your messages are not lost. I do not know how the guys with the English, but in general we have a lot of foreigners came to visit, and usually give no problems. I am sure it will be very interesting trip. What are we, Kazan, can help in your journey?

Travel Announcement: Return to Russia!

Re: Kazan Guide

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