In the age of air travel, taking the train is a pretty retro way to cover the 6,000-plus kilometers between Moscow and Beijing.
Read MoreFrom Russia with Love: Riding the Rails from Moscow to Beijing
Russia
Cold, Gold and Characters Galore in the “Wild East” of Siberia
Today, Irkutsk is showing her age: the roads are a mess, and some of the quirky wood cabins are sinking into the ground. Still, the town has a lively, frontier feeling, maybe because anything goes when you’re thousands of miles from the capital city.
Read MoreMoscow: The Kremlin, Churches and Vodka on the Side
She may be over 800 years old, but Russia’s capital city has never looked better, thanks to gargantuan efforts to repair and restore Moscow’s most important buildings ahead of the 2018 World Cup.
Read MoreSt Petersburg: Renaissance, Revolution and Russian Dolls
in Travel
With its Venetian canals and faux-Parisian palaces, St. Petersburg’s Renaissance style may come as a surprise — or relief — to anyone expecting the drab Soviet aesthetic generally associated with Russian cities.
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