Travel Notes

Towering View

The observation deck on Moscow’s Ostankino Tower could be re-opened as early as this fall. Ostankino Tower is 540 meters high, and the observation deck and restaurant “Sedmoye Nebo” (Seventh Heaven) are at 337 meters. The tower was ravaged by fire in August, 2000, and it was about a year before broadcasting from Ostankino was restored.

Yeltsin Slept Here

A tour of “Yeltsin’s places” is now being offered in Yekaterinburg, the ex-president’s birthplace. For around $50, visitors are shown the house on the shore of the city pond where Yeltsin lived and the building where the regional committee of the Communist party was housed. As well, tourists can visit a column in the foyer of the Polytechnic Institute, near which the future president of Russia reportedly kissed the future first lady.

Meanwhile, Petersburg travel agencies have reportedly started offering tours of “Putin’s places.”

Gilded Arrow

The “Krasnaya Strela” (Red Arrow) overnight express train between Moscow and St. Petersburg now has a deluxe car. The car includes four sleeper compartments and a bar. Two-room compartments feature a toilet, a shower with heated floor, a four-foot-wide folding bed, a second berth, a table, an armchair, video, CD and DVD players, and personal air conditioning. A ticket in the deluxe compartment costs 9900 rubles ($350), while a regular coupé compartment ticket is 900 rubles ($32).

Kazan Mirage

Tatarstan has opened its first five-star hotel, in the capital of Kazan. Designed by the Italian architect Marco Piva, who also designed Prince Albert of Monaco’s palace, the five-storey, $35 million Mirage Hotel features 109 guest rooms, including nine deluxe rooms and a presidential suite. The hotel is in the city center, facing the Kazan Kremlin. Standard rooms cost about $170 per night, while the presidential suite goes for $920.

The general-director of the hotel and the owner of Nira-export, Radik Shaimiev, also happens to be the son of the Tatar president, Mintimer Shaimiev. The Mirage belongs to the Summit international network.

McCartney in Piter

Paul McCartney will celebrate his 62nd birthday in Russia, according to organizers of the McCartney Russia Tour. The former Beatle will perform a concert in St. Petersburg’s Palace Square on June 20. He turns 62 on June 18. Concert organizers declined to specify how the musician plans to celebrate his birthday. “A total of 10,000 seats will be installed in St. Petersburg’s Palace Square for the concert. Another 50,000 places will be available for standing room only. The concert program will be brand new. It will not be his ‘Best of’ program, but something absolutely different, including some of his latest works,” organizers said. (Interfax)

Collective Museum

A new museum dedicated to the history of collectivization will open in
the Sverdlovsk Oblast village of Gerasimov before the end of the
year, RFE/RL’s Yekaterinburg bureau reported. The museum is being created by the local branch of Memorial, with money from the Open Society Institute. The museum will display photographs, letters, and other documents from the time of collectivization. Gerasimov is best known as the hometown of Pavlik Morozov, a 14-year-old boy who was allegedly murdered in 1932 after informing authorities that his father was hoarding grain.

Minsk to Fall

The Moscow hotel Minsk, centrally located on Tverskaya street, closed its doors this spring. The city will tear down the five-storey hotel, which was built in 1965, before the end of September. A three-star hotel able to accommodate 400 visitors, and including office and retail space, will take its place.

Security Measures

New security measures have been introduced at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. Prior to entering the airport terminal, all passengers now have to pass through metal detectors and their luggage must be scanned. Aeroflot has  issued a press release, asking passengers to arrive at the airport well in advance of their departure time, to avoid being late for check-in.

Metro Hike

In April, Moscow metro prices were raised from 7 to 10 rubles for a single ride. A ten-ride card costs 75 rubles (up from 50), and 20 rides cost 140 rubles. The last time metro prices increased was in October 2002, when they jumped from 5 to 7 rubles.