I came to Russia in 2015 for love: my wife is Russian. I came here with an open mind, knowing nothing about this country. Since then I have been exploring Russia and I have managed to travel to its most diverse, distant and fabulous corners. I swam in the Arctic, ate the most delicious khychin in a small Caucasian village, caught the northern lights and traveled through tundra swamps on a huge Russian all-terrain vehicle.
With so many places and experiences to choose from, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but I’ll try.
1. Look into the “City of the Dead”
Eltyubyu village, Kabardino-Balkaria.
My first trip was to the Caucasus, it lasted six months. There we got a taste for traveling and realized that while the children were not going to school, we were not very attached to our home, which meant we could travel.
I received the greatest impression in the mountain village of Eltyubyu. The people there are the kindest, and the khychin with cheese is the most delicious. There are very beautiful bald Caucasus Mountains around. Nearby is the “City of the Dead”. This is an ancient necropolis. There is very little land here in the mountains, there is nowhere to bury, and that is why people used to build such stone family crypts. They are found not only in this village, but also in other republics of the North Caucasus (the most famous and largest necropolis is Dargavs in North Ossetia).
To prevent uninvited guests and animals from coming, the houses were covered with stones or wooden doors. But now they are all open. You just don’t want to go in when you know their history.
Local residents don’t like to come here. And the guides remind tourists every time what kind of place this is and that they need to respect it and the memory of those who were here.
2. Swim under the Usva Pillars
Perm region.
One of my last trips took place in the Perm region. It was a golden autumn. And the endless Permian forests were shrouded in colorful foliage.
The most beautiful place there is Usvinskie Pillars. Huge rocks that rise above the Usva River by more than 100 meters. We floated along a river smooth as a mirror, and these Pillars hung above us.
Ahead, the surface of the water merged with the sky and the Pillars were reflected in this mirror. And therefore it seemed that they were completely endless.
You can still climb the Pillars and look ahead far beyond the horizon, and this is an incredibly powerful, impressive sight.
3. Travel in a reserved seat on the Moscow – Vladivostok train
I’ve traveled by train before, but for a maximum of 40 hours, but here we were talking about a week-long trip. But I decided to do it because I was told that only on the train can you truly learn about Russia and the people who live here.
A reserved seat is a separate life. As the train cleaner, whom we talked to every time she cleaned for us, said, the Moscow-Vladivostok train is a village with a thousand inhabitants and one street, where by the end of the trip everyone knows each other.
After a week in a reserved seat you really know all your neighbors, because without the Internet there is a lot of time left. You talk to your fellow travelers, and everyone has such different stories: some write music, others put out forest fires. This is a whole encyclopedia of life.
You talk, share food, play (demobilization taught me to play the fool). And then you just say goodbye forever.
The week-long trip turned out to be very eventful, and I even thought that I could travel for another week.
4. Visit the capes of Primorye
Primorsky Krai.
Just after a seven-day train trip, you can go see the capes in Vladivostok. I didn’t know they were there, and there were so many of them.
Imagine: you are standing on the edge of a cape, behind you are green trees, dense forests, and in front of you is a bright, bright sea. And there is complete silence and tranquility all around.
Words are not enough to fully describe it, you have to see it with your own eyes. All the diversity of colors and the fusion of elements in one place.
5. Climb the Yamal mountains and visit the reindeer herders’ tents
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
In Yamal we traveled in huge Russian SUVs with inflatable wheels. They drive through the tundra, rocks and swamps, where nothing else can pass. There are no roads, there is endless tundra and the polar Ural Mountains all around.
We stopped for a swim in the lake, where the fresh water was nicer than the pool. And at 00:30 we went to the mountains – it took several hours to go up. It was quite light. It turns out that Yamal has white nights even in August!
At about three o’clock in the morning the most beautiful sunrise of my life began. While the sun is not very bright, you can easily look into the distance, and the sky and rare clouds are colored orange, pink, and coral. A glacier is visible nearby, from which the light is reflected. And you don’t see the ends of the earth.
There we also visited the local residents’ tents. I was interested to see their life in the tents, to find out what they do (they breed deer and use both their meat and fur). There they fed me deer meat, which turned out to be similar to beef. I also tried deer tongue, it was delicious.
Now my dream is to visit there in winter and live in a tent for a week to see how they live in the harsh north in the cold.
6. Drive from Murmansk to Teriberka
Murmansk region.
Now Teriberka has become a tourist place, but before it was just a fishing village. There are many interesting places there (for example, the Dragon’s Nest) – they have names and look very fabulous. There are waterfalls and rocks all around, and in front is an endless ocean, and you understand that next is the Arctic.
The village overlooks the Barents Sea. This is especially interesting to me because Willem Barentsz was Dutch. Together with his team, he was the first to successfully pass through the Barents Sea to the White Sea. This was an important discovery for the study of the Arctic Ocean.
The path to Teriberka from Murmansk is very interesting. First you drive through the forest, and then you see how the trees suddenly disappear and the tundra begins. In winter it looks like an endless white desert where nothing grows. You get out of the car, and there is silence all around, not even birds, just you and the wind. We managed to return from Teriberka back to Murmansk, but the next day this road was covered with snow and it was closed.
Even more interesting places 🧐
