Ready for Your Next Great Travel Adventure?
To help get you started, and to set the scene, below are descriptions from my books of some of the world’s most amazing destinations. These clips are to help you learn about the location, prep for your travels and drive up your excitement about a specific place.
After the quotes, you’ll find a brief overview, with guidance for rising entrepreneurs. These destination pages are being continuously updated so check back before each trip.
RUSSIA
Moscow
We lost the trail of the Dnieper to follow the Volga River into Moscow, the capital of the Russian Republic, where we came down onto the ground at daylight in Red Square. “Oh cool,” I whistled as I twirled around “this is fantastic.”…I was pointing towards Lenin’s Mausoleum…“that is one of the strangest sites I’ve ever seen. I am fascinated by this volition to preserve a man in wax. And then when you’re in there, the guards yell at you to be respectful and reverential. I don’t know if they still do that, but it was a unique experience.”
…Red Square was a flat, blank cement carpet, flanked on all sides by the historical buildings and towers that defined the cultural ascendency of the Russian people. The name had fit so conveniently into the cold war rhetoric, and Red Square it would always be because the name actually comes from the Russian word krasnaya which also means beautiful. Krasnaya Ploschad was what it was called in Russian, the beautiful referring not to walls but probably to the Cathedral…
The exterior of St. Basil’s, which was really called the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin by the Moat, was one of the most recognized sites in Europe. The onion-shaped domes and kaleidoscope of festival colors reminded passers-by of the old country’s once dominate role in the religion. Recalling that after Istanbul as Constantinople, this was the seat of Orthodox Christian power. After a few moments admiring the uniqueness of the design, we walked inside. St. Basil’s had its noteworthy artwork, but it was the location more than the interior of what was now a museum that was the main attraction…
The west side of Red Square was lined by the grand towers of the Kremlin, the defined seat of the government and all manner of Cold War pop culture tales. But to get inside one had to go around the other way and enter through the Armory. Walking the long way, away from the crowds, we crossed over the square to follow the imposing walls that pushed up against the Moscow River embankment. “I think there are like four cathedrals in there…”
Inside the Kremlin walls, we made our way in and out of the magnificent churches and museums, then looped away from the magnetic center to return to the open air. Our gazes roamed over the faces of Moscow in the streets leading away from Red Square, reminding us that despite its deep religious roots, this was a tough city. The crowds did not lack for averted stares, shrunken indifference and the bulges of guns under their clothes.
For a location planted so far to the north and to the east of the populations of Europe, Africa and Asia, into a landscape of rock, plains, forest and water, the city was stunningly cosmopolitan. People looked like they came from every corner of the world, and that was just the Russians. The scope of a country that stretches from the Arctic to the Black Sea and into the Pacific, had forced the blond Russians to share the sidewalk with dark hair comrades from the central Asian steppes. The legacy of the cold war had mixed in Africans from Uganda with Asians from Vietnam alongside Cubans and Chinese.
…travelling north into the countryside where the rolling green hills, cottages and villages contrasted so sharply to the pounding dreariness of the city. He saw the spectacular five-story bell tower rising above the walls ahead of us before I could comment on where we were going. It emerged and greeted us as so many had seen it as a symbolic center for reaching out to hope. We circled above, the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra, a monastery like no other standing, in the hills in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 50 miles northeast of Moscow.
Going into its seventh century, the monastery was really now more of a museum with its world heritage architecture, displayed by not one but several churches, and its artwork and treasures, surprisingly preserved behind fortress walls through the upheavals of 20th century Russia. In fact, one wonders what was stolen and destroyed when one sees what was left behind…
Starting at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, which contains the relics of St. Sergius, we followed the crowds into the Vestry to see the treasures that had been laid out over centuries by those who chose to support the monastery as their article of faith. Back outside, we meandered our way through the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Refectory church, the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, before coming to stand at the foot of the bell tower at the Chapel-at-the-Well…
– Describing Russia in Walking with J by Karsten Quarters
Far to the east and north of all Europe, Russia’s storied capital city, Moscow stood alone on a vast plain of dry packed dirt rolling comfortably towards groves of relentlessly regenerating trees. The old city creaked beneath the weight of a history of challengers who had tried, but always failed, to dislodge its weather-beaten inhabitants from their endless pursuit of survival. Glass and steel suburbs from Arkhangelskoye to Zheleznodorozhny twisted around the grand ancient buildings of an ever-lasting civilization.
In every direction, the city supported the cosmopolitan faces of well-fed citizens; blonds from the steppes, Asians invested in the Siberian plains, Africans teaching in the universities, all of the Europeans. Despite a continuously shrinking indigenous population, Moscow remained the largest city in Europe, and the center of the region’s most populous country.
– Describing Moscow in The Unbroken Line by Case Lane
Place: Russia, the largest country in the world, and most populous in Europe, crossing eleven time zones from Europe to Asia
Visited: Once
Most Recent Visit: TBD
Original sites: Overwhelming
Through Moscow and St. Petersburg alone you can find more than enough art and culture, then you can venture into the countryside and if you dare make your way all across the country
Familiarity: Medium
English usage: Scattered
Surprise: Religion and devotional practices were more prominent than expected
For Rising Entrepreneurs in Business: A little tricky given current (2018) politics and economic concerns but there is no ignoring this BRIC with its population and resource base.
Country Details: U.N. Country Stats for the Russian Federation
Reading Recommendations
In case you missed this classic in school, and you want to have a stronger sense of the country before arriving, time to read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. But don’t forget the book is about 1,300 pages, so unless you are a fast reader, start long before you are ready to travel. Other Russian fiction must-reads are famous in their own right like Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina for starters.
Want more details about visiting to Russia: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
