Weekly magazine “Arguments and Facts” No. 31. Without a flag and anthem, but with medals and Tchaikovsky 04/08/2021
The holiday season is in full swing. Where to spend it for those who have not yet decided? Consider non-beach destinations & ndash; active recreation, wellness or cruises.
Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism Zarina Doguzova:
For health and impressions
Active tourism is well combined with a measured rest in nature, beaches on lakes and even wellness programs, such as balneologia. If we talk about the regions not so far from Central Russia with incredibly beautiful landscapes and opportunities for active recreation and recreation, then these are Bashkiria and the Chelyabinsk region, in the Caucasus-Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, my native Ossetia, Chechnya and Dagestan.
In the North, this is, of course, Karelia and the Murmansk region. Then – Altai, the unique Baikal, both from the Irkutsk side and from Buryatia, and, of course, the Far East – and the Primorsky Territory, and Kamchatka, and Sakhalin Island, to which you can now also fly & shy;inexpensively.
An excellent format for a non-beach summer vacation & ndash; cruises: there are hundreds of different routes in our country, both along the rivers and along the Black Sea coast. These are very special trips, with their own traditions and atmosphere. A real “classic” cruise on the Volga, the largest river highway in Europe. You can go to it from all the major Volga citiesYaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Saratov, Volgograd, Astrakhan. A cruise along the Volga is both ancient merchant cities, and acquaintance with different cultures, new gastronomy, for example, in the republics of Tatarstan, Chuvashia. You can pass the Volga downstream and get to Astrakhan, where lotuses bloom in the second half of summer until the beginning of autumn.
Cruises between the two capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, are good. And from St. Petersburg, you can choose routes along the Russian North to Valaam and Kizhi, to the Solovetsky archipelago.
Cruise on wheels
But the cruise can be not only on the water. A new type of cruises has appeared in Russia-railway cruises. Here the principle is the same, only instead of a “hotel on the water” you are traveling in a “hotel on wheels”. The novelty of the season was the tourist train “Caucasian pearl”. It departs until the end of September every Saturday from Moscow. This is a unique route,a bright mix of the south, the Volga and the Caucasus. During a short trip, you can visit the thermal springs in Kislovodsk, take a walk by the sea in Novorossiysk, see the ancient citadel in Derbent or the Sulak Canyon in Dagestan, the most beautiful mosques in Chechnya, and complete the procession with a visit to Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd and a walk along the Volga.
In the city & ndash; and on the beach
You can spend your vacation comfortably in large cities that already have high-quality tourist infrastructure, opportunities for country recreation in nature and by the water, for example, on the banks of the Volga in Kazan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, on the Baltic Sea in St. Petersburg and Kalinin City, in the south in Rostov-on-Don. Atmospheric walks in Kaliningrad can be combined with eco-routes along the unique Curonian Spit, recreation on beaches with snow-white sand, as well as balneology. Kazan is the color of Tatar culture, and UNESCO sites on the island-city of Sviyazhsk and in ancient Bolgar, anda trip to the picturesque Kama Estuary. Samara is not only a very beautiful city with modern architecture, but also the longest embankment on the Volga, sandy beaches within the city, Samara Luka, Zhiguli Mountains, which are called “Volga Switzerland”. And Nizhny Novgorod is celebrating its 800th anniversary ,and this promises to be an event of this summer season. At the same time, from Nizhny Novgorod, you can go to the sandy beaches of the Gorky Sea, and to the famous Lake Svetloyar, as well as take a walk in the ancient cities of Semenov and Gorodets. To be calm on vacation, I recommend getting vaccinated before your vacation.