You are hereBlogs / davidswanson's blog / Why You Should Visit Russia

Why You Should Visit Russia


By davidswanson - Posted on 16 May 2017

Just back from a week in Moscow, I feel obliged to point out a few things about it.

  • Most people there still love Americans.
  • Many people there speak English.
  • Learning basic Russian is not that hard.
  • Moscow is the biggest city in Europe (and far bigger than any in the United States).
  • Moscow has the charm, culture, architecture, history, activities, events, parks, museums, and entertainment to match any other city in Europe.
  • It’s warm there now with flowers everywhere.
  • Moscow is safer than U.S. cities. You can walk around alone at night with no worries.
  • The Metro goes everywhere. A train comes every 2 minutes. The trains have free Wi-Fi. So do the parks.
  • You can rent bicycles at lots of different spots and return them to any other.
  • You can fly direct from New York to Moscow, and if you fly on the Russian airline Aeroflot you’ll get a nostalgic reminder of what it’s like to have airplane seats large enough to hold a human being.
  • Everybody says that St. Petersburg and various other cities are even more beautiful than Moscow.
  • Right now the sun is up from 4:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Moscow, and until 9:30 p.m. in St. Petersburg. The longest day of the year in St. Petersburg is 18-and-a-half hours.

Americans seem not to know about Russia. While four-and-a-half million Americans visit Italy in a year, and two-and-a-half million go to Germany as tourists, only 86 thousand go to Russia. More tourists go to Russia from several other countries than go there from the U.S.

If you want to visit Russia and really learn about it, go, as I did, with the Center for Citizen Initiatives.

If you want the best tour guide I’ve had in Moscow or anywhere else, contact MoscowMe.

Here are some reports on my trip:

Love From Russians

The U.S. Behavior That Concerns Russia

Gorbachev: It Was Worse Than This, and We Fixed It

Things Russians Can Teach Americans

A Russian Entrepreneur’s Perspective

A Russian Journalist’s Perspective

Racists Love Russia?

What I Saw When I Visited a Russian School

American/Russian Vladimir Posner on the State of Journalism

Crosstalk Video on Russiagate Madness

Tags

Speaking Events

2017

 

August 2-6: Peace and Democracy Conference at Democracy Convention in Minneapolis, Minn.

 

September 22-24: No War 2017 at American University in Washington, D.C.

 

October 28: Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference



Find more events here.

CHOOSE LANGUAGE

Support This Site

Donate.

Get free books and gear when you become a supporter.

 

Sponsors:

Speaking Truth to Empire

***

Families United

***

Ray McGovern

***

Julie Varughese

***

Financial supporters of this site can choose to be listed here.

 

Ads:

Ca-Dress Long Prom Dresses Canada
Ca Dress Long Prom Dresses on Ca-Dress.com

Buy Books

Get Gear

The log-in box below is only for bloggers. Nobody else will be able to log in because we have not figured out how to stop voluminous spam ruining the site. If you would like us to have the resources to figure that out please donate. If you would like to receive occasional emails please sign up. If you would like to be a blogger here please send your resume.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.