Travel Notes

Irkutsk Marriott

Travelers to Lake Baikal seeking more comfortable accommodation while in Irkutsk will soon have their prayers answered. The Siberian city will open a Courtyard by Marriott hotel in September, reportedly that city’s first four-star property, and Marriott’s thirteenth hotel in Russia.

The hotel is located in the city center, near Kirov Square and the Irkutsk Drama Theater. Rates start at R3,750 per night for a standard room, according to Marriott’s website. The chain is also reportedly to open its fourteenth Russian hotel before the end of 2011, near Moscow’s Paveletskaya Square.

Regime Change?

Visa travel between Russia and the United States is about to become easier for several types of travelers, including tourists. A visa agreement projected to arrive before year’s end would introduce three-year, multiple entry visas for tourists and businessmen and eliminate invitations as a step in the visa process.

The visa deal was originally to be finalized during Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s diplomatic visit to the U.S. this summer, but was pushed back to a later date this year, possibly when President Barack Obama visits Russia.

While many tourists and people working in Russia are hopeful about a loosened visa regime, a new online visa application form launched by the Russian Foreign Ministry for U.S. nationals was riddled with glitches, the Moscow Times reported, quoting several angry travel agents. The site, evisa.kdmid.ru, which is soon to become the sole way of applying for Russian visas, was repeatedly down and takes too much time, agents said.

New Home

The Museum of the History of Moscow (mosmuseum.ru) is leaving its premises on the city’s Novaya Square and relocating to the historic Supplies Warehouse Complex near Park Kultury metro.

Since 1934, the museum has been housed in the Church of St. Joseph the Theologian, a property for many years demanded by the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox believers said that the museum promised to vacate the premises in 1992, and for the past year have conducted Sunday services on the sidewalk out front of the museum in protest.

The new museum location is at a set of warehouses built in the early nineteenth century to store food for nearby army regiments. After the revolution and until 2006, the buildings housed a Red Army garage, storing cars for high-ranking officers. Recently, the warehouses narrowly dodged a controversial redevelopment project that would have included a glass roof. The plans fell through when Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was fired last year.

Planetarium Reopens

After a 16-year-long renovation, Moscow’s Planetarium has reopened. The project was plagued by protests, murky offshore deals, bankruptcies, protests, and required an engineering feat: raising the entire building several meters.

Built in the early Soviet years by two young constructivist architects, the Planetarium was a hit with Muscovites and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky even gave it a mention in one of his poems: “Пролетарка, пролетарий, заходите в планетарий!” Yury Gagarin trained at the building in the 1960s and during the perestroika era the building housed the strange Fantasy Theater, which produced plays based on science fiction novels.

During the 1990s, the Planetarium fell into disrepair and was little used, as the city and a private firm engaged in a decade-long tug-of-war over the building. Eventually, the private company accused the city of taking over its business by sending in armed raiders. In 2001, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov authorized the elevation of the building by six meters, in order to increase space. The decision was decried by preservationists.

Despite it all, the Planetarium finally opened this summer, boasting kid-friendly, hands-on exhibits typical of modern science museums. It also has Europe’s largest projection hall, a 4D theater, and an observatory on the roof, along with an exhibit on its own history. A ticket for the entire facility is a whopping R1,350 during evenings and weekends, and a slightly lower R1,100 on weekdays before 5 p.m.

planetarium-moscow.ru