More features:

• Poor, paranoid Paul

  Pushkin once called Paul the first, the Romantic Emperor, but readers may know of Paul (Pavel in Russian) as Poor Pavel....

• Soviet Disneyland

  
   Soviet DisneylandIf there were such thing as a Soviet Disneyland, Moscow’s VDNKh (pronounced VDN-hah) district would be it....

• Rostov Veliky

  
  A hidden gem of the Golden RingText and photos by Louise Whitworth  This tiny lakeside town, around three hours from Moscow along the route between Sergiev Posad and Yaroslavl, is a far too often over-looked gem of Russia's Golden Ring of medieval towns and villages....

• Stalin's Seven Sisters

  
  Poor old Stalin. After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, legend has it he was convinced that everyone in the world would now want to visit Moscow....

• Fabulous Faberge

                 Today Faberge eggs are without doubt the most famous and expensive Easter eggs in the world....

• Caucasian cuisine – A taste of the South

  One of the unquestionable pluses of St. Moscow's Soviet past is the sprinkling of restaurants serving cuisine from former USSR republics....

• Modern Russian Women

  These relentlessly ambitious and hugely successful Russian women are role models for their contemporaries....

• How Russians Say I do

      As a tourist in St. Petersburg, it is sometimes difficult to avoid falling over the brides hovering around the city’s tourist sights posing for photos....

• Russian ice swimming

  
  It’s minus 15 degrees outside on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Some Russians may take this time to enjoy a nice warm cup of tea in a café or perhaps a bracing walk in the park to enjoy the sunshine....

• The History of Russian Railways

  If Russia had no trains, what would Tolstoy have done with Anna Karenina? How would Lenin have returned to Russia in April 1917, sent back, as Churchill said, in ‘a sealed train like a plague bacillus’? On October 30 Russia celebrates the 170th anniversary of the opening of the first public railway....

• The Russian Banya

  With winter arriving late, the In Your Pocket Editors hunt for indoor winter entertainment and recommend ice-skating and the essential experience of the Russian banya....

• Russian Spring Pancakes

  
  Maslenitsa (Pancake week) is the only purely Russian Holiday that dates back to the pagan times. This is the time when people say goodbye to the long-annoying winter and welcome in the long-awaited spring....

• Russian Souvenirs

  
  MatrioshkasRussian dolls are the quintessential Russian souvenir. Usually painted with the cute faces of a Russian girl or stylised family, you can also get them painted with dictators of the world, former US presidents or even just left plain to paint yourself....