OVERWHELMING CULTURAL HERITAGE
Russia’s cultural heritage is overwhelming, the 19th century especially, is notable for superlative achievements in literature, architecture, ballet and composition. The theatre of St. Mary in St. Petersburg produced dancers Anna Pavlova and Vaclav Nijinsky, as well as the choreographers Marius Petipa and Mikhail Fokine. The “Ballet Russe” took Paris by storm in 1909 and later the companies of the Kirov and the Bolshoi were showered with fame and honours. Composers such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky and Shostakovich created concertos, symphonies and other orchestral works. Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Pushkin, Gorki and Tolstoy are some of Russia’s most famous writers.

ENORMOUS EXPANSES
Even post-Soviet Russia is still an enormous country, stretching from the borders with Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Turkey in the west, to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China and on to the Pacific 6000 km to the east. Russia is predominately flat, only the Urals reach a height of 1900 m, and a few mountain chains in the Far East. The three largest rivers west of the Urals, the Dnieper, Don and Volga, all rise within four hundred kilometres of Moscow and flow south into the Black Sea or Caspian. The entire East is part of Siberia, which has become symbolic of banishment and unimaginable emptiness.