Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
75
a city unto itself. It is believed to still host
elk, wild boar, and beavers, and is an excel-
lent place to get lost in the “wilderness” on
a bike or cross-country skis (p. 156).
The St. Petersburg island
Krestovsky
Ostrov
has sporting facilities near the
main entrance but thins out into lush,
peaceful forest farther back (p. 260). St.
Petersburg's botanical gardens host some
12,000 plant species.
The Typhoon Experimental Meteorol-
ogy Research Institute sets ecological stan-
dards for the country (www.typhoon.
obninsk.ru/english/main.htm).
10
ESCORTED TOURS &
SPECIAL
INTEREST TRIPS
ESCORTED GENERAL
INTEREST TOURS
Russia's tourism industry is only beginning
to tap the travel possibilities across the
world's largest country. No roads exist
across much of the territory, and hotels
and services in small towns are often little
better than gulags. All this makes an
escorted tour—with a group leader,
including airfare, hotels, meals, admission
costs, and local transportation—quite
appealing. The chief benefit is that the
tour company negotiates the hassle of get-
ting a visa; it's also handy to have tour
guides navigate museums and street signs
labeled in Russian only. The main draw-
back of an escorted tour is its high cost.
Special-interest tours remain rare in
Moscow and St. Petersburg, though some
adventure and ecological tours take you to
the wilds of the Russian Far East or the
Trans-Siberian railway.
For general-interest tours to Russia's
premier cities,
Escorted Russian Tours
(
&
800/942-3301;
www.escortedrussian
tours.com) provides a range of offerings
focusing on Moscow and St. Petersburg, as
do the U.K.-based
Russian Gateway
(
&
07050-803-160;
www.russiangateway.
co.uk) and the Russian-based
www.tours
torussia.com
.
One popular excursion is a
cruise
from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
It takes
your boat about 10 days to wind through
rivers and canals, with stops at the island
monastery at Valaam, the fairy tale-like
wooden village of Kizhi, lakes Ladoga and
Onega, and the Volga river towns of Yaro-
slavl and Kostroma.
Russian Tours
(www.
rus-tours.com) and
Russiana
(www.russi-
ana.co.uk) are two places to start.
For more information on Escorted
General-Interest Tours, including ques-
tions to ask before booking your trip, see
www.frommers.com/planning.
PACKAGE TOURS
Package tours are simply a way to buy the
airfare, accommodations, and other ele-
ments of your trip (such as car rentals,
airport transfers, and sometimes even
activities) at the same time and often at
discounted prices—kind of like one-stop
shopping. Packages are sold in bulk to tour
operators—who resell them to the public
at a cost that usually undercuts standard
rates.
Two tour companies to try are
Eastern
Tours,
run by Russian émigrés and focus-
ing on reasonably priced tours to Moscow,
St. Petersburg, and Kiev (
&
800/339-
6967;
www.traveltorussia.com); and
Cos-
mos Tours,
which includes several Russian
packages (
&
800/276-1241;
www.cosmos.
com). Be sure to read reviews of their tours
by former clients on www.frommers.com
or other independent websites.
Many of the mainstream packagers
haven't caught on to Russia yet, so the
choices are more limited. Russia-based
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