Russian Culture - Travel Advisor - The great things to see in Moscow, in Russia

  Russia has a rich cultural heritage, that comes to life in all the cities, the countryside and the small little towns.
   Moscow with the Tretyakov Gallery that features some of the most famous Russian icons, Saint Petersburg on the river Neva with it's famous 'white nights' and art collections of the Hermitage Museum and the Russian Museum and the countryside with it's many little towns, each with its own old cloisters and castles.
   Russian culture has a long history and tradition and Russians are very proud of it.

   Russia is a large and extremely culturally diverse country, with dozens of ethnic groups, each with their own forms of folk music, languages and religions. Although the majority of Russians consider themselves as Christians, and belong to Russian Orthodox Churches. It's a great achievement for the country where atheism was the official state religion for more than 70 years.
   Russians consider themselves as a well educated nation. They read a lot, they are fond of live opera, musical, ballet and drama performances at theatres and they enjoy attending some of the very modern movie theatres.
   The history of Russian literature, music, ballet, and drama includes some of the greatest artists and works ever produced.
Much of this art flowered in Russia during the 19th century, and major cultural figures of the period include such writers as Aleksandr Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolay Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and Anton Chekhov, and such composers as Mikhail Glinka, Peter Tchaikovsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky, and Aleksandr Borodin. Drama, ballet, and opera also have their traditions rooted in the 19th century; a prominent figure in theater at this time was Konstantin Stanislavski, who founded the Moscow Art Theater in 1898.
   Under the influence of the Soviet government, however, Russian cultural works of the 20th century were heavily censored, and many outstanding writers and artists were stifled or forced to publish their works abroad. The great tradition of Russian literature was carried on by a few writers of the Soviet period, such as Maksim Gorkiy, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The last was ultimately exiled in the 1970s because of his controversial work, including the famous novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962; translated 1963). See also Russian Literature. Music, dance (especially classical ballet), and film fared somewhat better during the Soviet period, and famous composers of the period included Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergey Prokofiev. See also Russian Literature.
  Russian achievements in literature, music, ballet, and drama are also well represented in a wide variety of cultural institutions. Russia maintains a huge number of museums of all kinds, including outdoor museums of architectural preservation. Most of the country's major cultural institutions are in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Best known to tourists are the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, one of the world's great museums, and the Armory Museum in the Moscow Kremlin. Also in Moscow are the Tretyakov Gallery, with a collection devoted to Russian art, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Folk-Art Museum, and the Museum of the Revolution, as well as many other smaller, more specialized collections.
   The Permanent Exhibition of National Economic Achievements in Moscow offers a large display of contemporary achievements in science, industry, and agriculture. To the northeast of Moscow there is a string of a half-dozen old kremlin (citadel) towns that served as seats of government for city-states during the Middle Ages. These have been restored as part of a tourist circuit known as the Golden Ring.
   Russia also has thousands of libraries of various kinds. Best known is the Russian State Library in Moscow, which houses more than 30 million volumes in some 250 languages-one of the largest library collections in the world. Other leading libraries include the M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library in Saint Petersburg, with about 28.5 million volumes; the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with about 19 million volumes; and Moscow State University Library, with about 6.6 million volumes. The best-known theaters in Moscow are the Bolshoi ("big") Theater, the Maly ("small") Theater, and the Moscow Art Theater. In addition, many of the larger productions of the Bolshoi ballet and opera troupes are presented in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, which seats 6000 people. Other theaters of note in Moscow are the Central Children's Theater, the Obraztsov Puppet Theater, the Moscow Art Theater, the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater, the Operetta Theater, and the Theater Art Institute. Saint Petersburg has the Mariinskiy Theater of Opera and Ballet, the Maly Theater, and the Pushkin Dramatic Theater.

Russian Culture - Travel Advisor - The Great Things To See In Moscow, In Saint Petersburg, In Russia...