Features

Exploring St Petersburg: why Russia’s cultural heart will win you over

St Petersburg is a sophisticated forward-looking city that feels and looks much more European than Moscow. Its pretty canals are lined with pastel-coloured buildings that house shops, cafés and a plethora of outstanding museums. This is Russia’s most charming city, its laidback and relaxed pace of life a welcome change from the country’s frenetic capital.... Read more »

Rediscovering Moscow: why the time to go is now

Bustling and energetic, Moscow is a vibrant 24-hour city with a captivating and chaotic spirit that blends Western and Eastern cultures. Grand palaces and pretty onion-domed cathedrals sit cheek-by-jowl behemoth Soviet buildings that are relics of years of Communist rule. At night, the city morphs into one of the world’s liveliest, offering a decadent nightlife... Read more »

An expert’s guide: the best places to stay in Moscow

One of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, Moscow has an energy like no other city, a chaotic spirit rumbling just beneath its polished surface. And since Russia is hosting the World Cup, 2018 is a big year for the city. Whether you’re hoping to be in the heart of the action, or you’re longing for a... Read more »

Baikal: exploring Siberia’s epic frozen lake

Anita Isalska explores the frozen surface of the epic Lake Baikal in Russia.  During Siberian winters, the mercury drops as low as minus 35ºC (minus 31ºF). Brightly painted houses in central Russia’s villages groan under the weight of snow. The surface of vast Lake Baikal freezes. But as I stand its shore, I see an... Read more »

Travel news: Moscow to Beijing in just two days?

Follow us on a whistle-stop tour of the latest travel stories, including news of a super-fast train line between Moscow and Beijing, the suitcase that heats up to kill bed bugs, and the airline that wants passengers to start checking in with their thumbprints.  Two-day Trans-Siberian Riding the Trans-Siberian Railway is one of the world’s... Read more »

Where to meet Europe’s only indigenous people

Encompassing northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula, Sápmi is the collective name for the traditional territory of the nomadic Sámi – Europe’s only indigenous people, who migrated to northern Scandinavia after the last Ice Age and subsisted by hunting reindeer. As the reindeer grew scarce by the seventeenth century, hunters became herders; today,... Read more »

Incredible photos of the world’s rarest tribes

There are places in the world where little sign of western development exists, but it still threatens to change traditions and beliefs forever. Jimmy Nelson found and documented 31 of these traditional isolated communities in his quest to photograph the “purity of humanity”. “I wanted to witness their time-honoured traditions, join in their rituals and... Read more »