Russia is the largest country on Earth. Sweeping across the eastern part of Europe, from the Gulf of Finland in the north, and across the wide north Asian plain to the Pacific Ocean, it is a land that consists of contrasts that match the great expanse of terrain. Spanning a total of 17,075,200 kilometers (almost twice the size of the United States), the western and southern parts of Russia consists of rolling hills and flat plains.
   To the far south lie the Caucasus Mountains, near the border of Chechnya. A second range of low mountains (Ural) is located near the designated border between the two continents of Europe and Asia. The land between the mountain ranges includes the most heavily populated areas of the country. It is also the most temperate in climate.
   To the north and east of western Russia is an area known as the taiga (less vegetation and arable land) and further north, the tundra (permafrost). The taiga and tundra include vast areas of Russia, and much of the land there is unusable for habitation and agriculture.
   European Russia stretches from the borders of the states of Belarus and Ukraine to the Ural mountains, over 1000km east of Moscow; even without the rest of the Russian Federation, it constitutes by far the largest country in Europe. It was also, for many years, one of the hardest to visit. Today Russia is far more accessible, and although visas are still obligatory and accommodation often has to be booked in advance, independent travel is increasingly an option. Nonetheless, Moscow and St Petersburg remain the easiest places to visit, and these are covered below. For the adventurous, travel further afield can be booked through various agencies in Russia and abroad, and there are an increasing number of Web sites offering advice and travel services for the less standard routes.

    Moscow and St Petersburg are mutually complementary. Moscow , the capital, is hugely enthralling. It is not a beautiful city by any means, and is a somewhat chaotic place. However, Moscow's central core reflects Russia's long and fascinating history at the heart of a vast empire, whether in the relics of the Communist years, the Kremlin with its palaces and churches of the tsars, the wooden buildings still tucked away in backstreets, or in the massive building projects of the mayor, Yuriy Luzhkov, which have radically changed the face of the centre.

      By contrast, Russia's second city, St Petersburg , is Europe at its most gracious, an attempt by the eighteenth-century tsar Peter the Great to re-create the best of Western European elegance in what was then a far-flung outpost. Its position in the delta of the River Neva is unparalleled, full of watery vistas of huge and faded palaces. St Petersburg has not been revamped anywhere near as much as Moscow, which many consider a good thing, and it preserves a unity and stability lacking in the capital.

    You will not be bothered by the so-called Russian mafia in either city, but, as in any other big city, you should beware of petty crime.  

    If you have decided to travel to Russia, read the information you need to know about public safety, visas, crime, driving, health care, and more in our next section.

 

  INFORMATION AND MAPS  

   Russia has few tourist offices . Most travellers use the information desks at hotels and hostels, but the best resources are English-language newspapers, such as the Moscow Times (daily) or St Petersburg Times (twice weekly), and free quarterly magazines available at leading hotels.    High-quality maps in English at very low prices are widely available from kiosks, street vendors and central department stores. Those maps most commonly found in the West are produced by Baedeker, Geocenter International and Falk, but often do not take account of streets which have reverted to their pre-Revolutionary names or of new metro lines.

Climate

   Russia has a largely continental climate because of its sheer size and compact configuration. Most of its land is more than 400 kilometers from the sea, and the center is 3,840 kilometers from the sea. In addition, Russia's mountain ranges, predominantly to the south and the east, block moderating temperatures from the Indian and Pacific oceans, but European Russia and northern Siberia lack such topographic protection from the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.
   Because only small parts of Russia are south of 50° north latitude and more than half of the country is north of 60° north latitude, extensive regions experience six months of snow cover over subsoil that is permanently frozen to depths as far as several hundred meters. The average yearly temperature of nearly all of European Russia is below freezing, and the average for most of Siberia is freezing or below.
   Most of Russia has only two seasons, summer and winter, with very short intervals of moderation between them. Transportation routes, including entire railroad lines, are redirected in winter to traverse rock-solid waterways and lakes. Some areas constitute important exceptions to this description, however: the moderate maritime climate of Kaliningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea is similar to that of the American Northwest; the Russian Far East, under the influence of the Pacific Ocean, has a monsoonal climate that reverses the direction of wind in summer and winter, sharply differentiating temperatures; and a narrow, subtropical band of territory provides Russia's most popular summer resort area on the Black Sea.
   In winter an intense high-pressure system causes winds to blow from the south and the southwest in all but the Pacific region of the Russian landmass; in summer a low-pressure system brings winds from the north and the northwest to most of the landmass. That meteorological combination reduces the wintertime temperature difference between north and south. Thus, average January temperatures are -8°C in St. Petersburg, -27°C in the West Siberian Plain, and -43°C at Yakutsk (in east-central Siberia, at approximately the same latitude as St. Petersburg), while the winter average on the Mongolian border, whose latitude is some 10° farther south, is barely warmer. Summer temperatures are more affected by latitude, however; the Arctic islands average 4°C, and the southernmost regions average 20°C. Russia's potential for temperature extremes is typified by the national record low of -94°C, recorded at Verkhoyansk in north-central Siberia and the record high of 38°C, recorded at several southern stations.
   The long, cold winter has a profound impact on almost every aspect of life in the Russian Federation. It affects where and how long people live and work, what kinds of crops are grown, and where they are grown (no part of the country has a year-round growing season). The length and severity of the winter, together with the sharp fluctuations in the mean summer and winter temperatures, impose special requirements on many branches of the economy. In regions of permafrost, buildings must be constructed on pilings, machinery must be made of specially tempered steel, and transportation systems must be engineered to perform reliably in extremely low and extremely high temperatures. In addition, during extended periods of darkness and cold, there are increased demands for energy, health care, and textiles.
   Because Russia has little exposure to ocean influences, most of the country receives low to moderate amounts of precipitation. Highest precipitation falls in the northwest, with amounts decreasing from northwest to southeast across European Russia. The wettest areas are the small, lush subtropical region adjacent to the Caucasus and along the Pacific coast. Along the Baltic coast, average annual precipitation is 600 millimeters, and in Moscow it is 525 millimeters. An average of only twenty millimeters falls along the Russian-Kazak border, and as little as fifteen millimeters may fall along Siberia's Arctic coastline. Average annual days of snow cover, a critical factor for agriculture, depends on both latitude and altitude. Cover varies from forty to 200 days in European Russia, and from 120 to 250 days in Siberia.

Current Weather Conditions For Moscow, Russia

Current Weather Conditions For Saint Petersburg, Russia

Current Weather Conditions For Kazan, Russia





Russian Culture

Money and Banks

  Time zones of Russia

   The Moscow Standard Time Zone is 3 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time: GMT+3.  All Russian cities Time Zones are specified relative to Moscow Time:

Arkhangelsk 0	Anadyr + 9	Astrakhan + 1
Abakan + 4	Barnaul + 4	Blagoveschensk + 6
Belgorod 0	Bryansk 0	Birobidjan + 7
Vladikawkaz 0	Vladimir 0	Vologda 0
Volgograd 0	Voroneg + 1	Gorno-Altaisk + 4
Grozny 0	Dudinka + 4	Ekaterinburg + 2
Ivanovo 0	Irkutsk + 5	Igevsk + 1
Yoshkar-Ola 0	Kaliningrad - 1	Kaluga 0
Kirov 0	Tver 0	Kemerovo + 4
Kostroma 0	Krasnodar 0	Krasnoyarsk + 4
Kursk 0	Kurgan + 2	Kazan 0
Kyzyl + 4	Lipetsk 0	Maikop 0
Mahachkala 0	Magadan + 8	Moscow 0
Murmansk 0	Nalchik 0	Narian-Mar 0
Novgorod 0	Nignyi Novgorod 0	Novosibirsk + 4
Omsk + 3	Orenburg + 2	Orel 0
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky +9	Petrozavodsk 0	Penza 0
Perm + 2	Pskov 0	Rostov-na-Donu 0
Ryazan 0	Saint-Petersburg 0	Saratov 0
Samara + 1	Salekhard + 2	Saransk 0
Smolensk 0	Stavropol 0	Syktyvkar 0
Sochi 0	Tambov 0	Tomsk + 4
Tula 0	Tymen + 2	Ufa + 2
Ulan-Ude + 5	Ulyanovsk + 1	Khabarovsk + 7
Khanty-Mansiysk + 2	Chelyabinsk + 2	Chita + 6
Cherkessk 0	Cheboksary 0	Elista 0
Ujno-Sakhalinsk + 8	Yakutsk + 6	Yaroslavl 0
Vladivostok +7

Communications