| | Program Itinerary | |
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THIS TOUR IS SOLD OUT | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Itinerary Overview: | | | |
| | | | | Day 1 | | Fri, Jul 25 | | Arrive Moscow | | Day 2 | | Sat, Jul 26 | | Moscow | | Day 3 | | Sun, Jul 27 | | Moscow | | Day 4 | | Mon, Jul 28 | | Moscow •
Star City • board Trans-Siberian | | Day 5 | | Tue, Jul 29 | | Onboard the Trans-Siberian • Kazan | | Day 6 | | Wed, Jul 30 | | Onboard the Trans-Siberian • Ekaterinburg | | Day 7 | | Thu, Jul 31 | | Arrive Novosibirsk | | Day 8 | | Fri, Aug 1 | | Novosibirsk • Total Eclipse Day | | Day 9 | | Sat, Aug 2 | | Novosibirsk | | Day 10 | | Sun, Aug 3 | | Novosibirsk • fly to St. Petersburg | | Day 11 | | Mon, Aug 4 | | St. Petersburg | | Day 12 | | Tue, Aug 5 | | St. Petersburg | | Day 13 | | Wed, Aug 6 | | Depart St. Petersburg |
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| | Day 1 Friday, July 25, 2008 Dinner
Arrive Moscow, Russia: Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral | |
| | | Upon arrival at Moscow Airport, you will be met and transferred to our centrally located hotel. (At the time you make your reservation you choose
either a 4- or 5-star hotel package in Moscow and St. Petersburg.) Following dinner at your hotel, we’ll depart for a
short optional evening walking tour in famous Red Square with the brilliantly illuminated cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral, perhaps the most recognizable symbols of Russia. | |
 | Overnight: Hotel Golden Ring
(4-star) or Hotel Metropol (5-star)
(3 nights) | | | | | Day 2 Sat, July 26 B/L
Moscow: State University, Novodevichy Convent, Kremlin and Armory Museum | | | Following breakfast we’ll depart on a full day orientation of Moscow, the economic and political center of | |
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| | Russia. Founded in 1147 by Yuri Dolgoruky (literally “Yuri of the Long Arms”), Moscow rose to prominence during Mongol domination and eventually became the Russian capital. Eclipsed for 200 years by St. Petersburg, Moscow was restored as the Russian political center after the October Revolution in 1917. | |
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| | We’ll begin our orientation with a drive to Moscow State University to enjoy panoramic views of the city and continue on to the beautiful grounds of Novodevichy Convent, founded in 1524. We will also visit the huge memorial complex of Victory Park with its many fountains and monuments. Our tour will continue with a drive back to the city center, past the Bolshoi Theater and the notorious Lubyanka Prison. | |
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| | Following lunch at a local restaurant, our tour will take us to the Kremlin and Armory Museum. The Moscow Kremlin reminds modern-day Russia of its medieval past. In the mid-14th century, the Russian princes, ruling from the Kremlin, became so powerful that Moscow was named the center of the Russian Orthodox Church. Today, the Kremlin remains the center of Moscow and Russian politics. Inside the fortress walls are palaces, cathedrals and government buildings and the Armory Museum, which now houses Russia's national treasures such as religious icons, Faberge eggs, a bejeweled chalice belonging to Prince Yuri, and Catherine the Great’s ball gowns and shoes. | |
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| | This evening will be free to dine at one of Moscow’s many new restaurants and explore the area on your own. | |
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| | Day 3 Sun, July 27 B/L
Moscow: Moscow Metro, Izmailovosky Park, Tretyakov Gallery | |
| | After breakfast this morning we’ll begin with a tour of Moscow’s underground Metro. The first Moscow Metro station opened in 1935, and today there are over 150 of them along the 125 miles of track. The stations in the city center are showpieces of Socialist art, furnished with statues, frescoes and mosaics, and with marbled, gilded, and bronzed walls and ceilings. | |
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| | We will use the metro to make our way to Izmailovosky Park flea market. Located on the former royal hunting preserve, this huge market is the best place in Moscow to find deals on a huge variety of Russian souvenirs and crafts, from matrioshka dolls to lacquered boxes, from Soviet memorabilia to watercolors, with great opportunities for people-watching.
You will have free time here to wander on your own. | |
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| | After lunch in the city center, we will tour the Tretyakov Gallery housing the most spectacular collection of Russian icons. The entire collection, rarely seen outside of Russia, contains 5,000 paintings, 3,000 works of ancient Russian art, 900 sculptures, and 30,000 drawings and engravings. After the tour, the balance of the day is free to explore on your own. | |
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| | Press Map for Larger Version | |
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| | Day 4 Mon, July 28 B/L/D
Moscow: Star City and Trans-Siberian
Express | |
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This morning after breakfast, we’ll check out of the hotel
and travel a short distance to Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City). The Yuri Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Center, or GCTC, in the once highly classified and
secretive Star City, is located in a forested region and is named for Yuri
Gagarin, the first human in space. Today the GCTC remains the premier
training facility for Russian cosmonauts and foreign astronauts planning
manned space flights, and closely cooperates with the European Space Agency
(ESA) and the Johnson Space Center in the USA. | |
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We will explore the MIR Space Station Simulator
and learn about Russian-American cooperation in space that the GCTC supports
by training joint crews on the simulator of the International Space Station
(ISS). We will see the Soyuz-TMA integrated simulator and the ISS mock-up,
as well as the massive Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where crews train in
simulated weightless conditions. The world’s largest centrifuge, used for
simulating G-loads, is on our itinerary as well. |
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Lunch will be in the Star City cafeteria, which
is used by the crew members in training and other facilitators at Star City.
After lunch we will visit the Star City Museum and the GCTC planetarium,
which provides a unique view into space - from space. | |
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This evening we’ll transfer to the railway
station and board our private train to begin our journey on the legendary
Trans-Siberian Express to Novosibirsk. We will be served dinner in the
vintage-style Dining Cars and leave Moscow behind as the late-summer sun
sets. | |
| | Overnight: Onboard the
Trans-Siberian Express (3 nights) | |
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| | Day 5 Tue, July 29 B/L/D
Trans-Siberian
Express: Kazan | |
| | We’ll wake this morning to the rhythm of our train rolling along the Trans-Siberian line, the longest continuous rail line in the world. Our first stop will be the 1000-year-old city of Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, with its fascinating multiethnic history. Ghenghis Khan and his successors controlled Kazan for centuries, only to be conquered by Ivan the Terrible in 1552. These cultures show themselves today in the city’s many mosque minarets and onion-domed churches. The Tatars, actually Turkic Muslims, make up a majority of the population, while most of the remaining population is Russian. | |
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| | During our bus tour of this city of over one million inhabitants, we will visit Kazan’s striking Kremlin, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. This evening, we’ll dine in style aboard the train, heading over the Ural Mountains, crossing from Europe into Asia. | |
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| | Day 6 Wed, July 30 B/L/D
Trans-Siberian
Express: Ekaterinburg | |
| | This morning we’ll awaken to find ourselves arriving in Ekaterinburg. Founded in 1721 and named after Catherine I, Ekaterinburg is best known as the place where the last czar, Nicholas II, and his family were imprisoned and executed by the Bolsheviks. | |
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| | The city is also where Boris Yeltsin was born and attended university, and where US pilot Gary Powers was shot down in his U2 spy plane in 1960. Known as Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era, the city is markedly different from other Siberian towns due to its rich mining industry, developed before the revolution, and because of its many defense plants, which caused Sverdlovsk to be closed to foreigners until 1990. | |
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| | Our city tour will include a stop at the Soviet Army Square with its unusual Black Tulip monument, commemorating the tragic loss of life in the various Soviet military campaigns, most notably Afghanistan. We will also visit the small but interesting Mineralogical Museum, the History & Local Studies Museum and the Military History Museum, as well as the impressive Church on the Blood, which stands over the spot where Czar Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918. | |
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| | Day 7 Thu, July 31 B/L/D
Novosibirsk: City tour & Opera and Ballet Theatre | |
| | With a population of 1.6 million, Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, and its industrial and scientific center. Novosibirsk did not exist before the Trans-Siberian railway was built, growing up around the place chosen for the rail line’s Ob River crossing. | |
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| | We’ll arrive at midday and leave the train for our eclipse hotel. We’ll take a driving tour of the city, including stops at Lenin Square and the Church of the Ascension, as well as the Opera and Ballet Theater whose landmark rotunda and tall portico have become one of the city’s highlights. | |
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| | Join us this evening for dinner and an orientation/weather briefing in preparation for tomorrow’s total solar eclipse. | |
| | Overnight: Sibir Hotel or Hotel Ob (3 nights) | |
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| | Day 8 Fri, August 1 B/L/D
Novosibirsk: Eclipse Day! | |
| | Today is dedicated to seeing the total solar eclipse. We’ll leave the hotel in plenty of time to set up at our specially selected eclipse viewing location. After fourth contact, we’ll return to the city for dinner and to share our eclipse experiences. | |
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| | | Local eclipse contact times (approx.) | | |
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| | | | | | | First contact (eclipse begins): 16:41 | | | | Second contact (totality begins): 17:44 | | | | Third contact (totality ends): 17:46 | | | | Fourth contact (eclipse ends): 18:45 | | | | Duration of totality 2m20s | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | Novosibirsk Eclipse Day Weather | | | | by Eclipse Meteorologist Jay Anderson | | | | | | | | Russia’s fourth-largest city provides ready access to the eclipse track and to the most favourable area for viewing outside of China. Novosibirsk lies within a small region of south central Siberia that has a notable sunny microclimate. Lying in the midst of the world’s largest landmass, the city is well-removed from oceanic moisture sources. The immense Altai Mountains and the Gobi Desert to the south block monsoon flows that invade Asia at this time of year. | | | | | | | | Southern Siberia experiences the same types of weather systems typical of the northern Great Plains, with periodic low-pressure disturbances and generous thunderstorms. Temperatures are pleasantly warm and humidities typically low. Cooling associated with the eclipse will tend to dissipate smaller cloud elements and the higher angle of the Sun when compared to Chinese locations will make viewing more certain in a partly-cloudy sky. | | | | | |
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| | Day 9 Sat, August 2 B/L/D
Novosibirsk: State Museum, Akademgorodok (Academy City) | |
| | Today we will continue our exploration of this thriving Siberian city with a visit to the Novosibirsk Art Museum, which displays mainly 19th and 20th-century Russian art, and includes an extensive collection of mystic/artist Nikolai Roerich's representations of the Altai Mountains south of the city. Our next stop will be the Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional Studies, whose task has been to collect original artifacts and information about Siberia’s many indigenous peoples, most of who were still living in the old ways in 1920 when the museum was founded. Today, fourteen of the Siberian indigenous nations are represented here, as well as the early Slavic settlers in the area. | |
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| | After lunch at a local restaurant, we’ll continue on to Akademgorodok (Academy City), founded in 1959 by Nikita Khrushchev when he relocated USSR’s top scientists to this special town built expressly for scientific research. Akademgorodok continues today as perhaps the most renowned world-class research campus. | |
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| | Day 10 Sun, August 3 B/L/D
Fly to St. Petersburg - Nevsky Prospekt | |
| | After breakfast we will transfer to the airport for our flight to St. Petersburg (included). Upon arrival, we will be met by our local guide and transferred to our centrally located hotel and then enjoy lunch at a local restaurant. | |
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| | St. Petersburg is often described as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its miles of canals, laced together with graceful bridges set amidst 18th century buildings, have earned it the name, “Venice of the North.” Conceived of by Peter the Great, and designed by his favorite European architects, St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia from its birth in 1703 until the Revolution. | |
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| | Our drive along Nevsky Prospekt, the three-mile avenue that is the backbone of the city, introduces us to Peter’s beautiful city. Stops include Gostiny Dvor, the city’s oldest and largest shopping center, Eliseyevsky, an extravagantly beautiful pre-Revolutionary food store, decorated with crystal chandeliers and selling the finest caviar in St. Petersburg, and the impressive Kazan Cathedral. | |
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| | We will also stop at Peter the Great’s original home, a log house which was the first living quarters built in St. Petersburg. This 645-square-foot cabin was where Peter lived while he planned and worked on the new city of St. Petersburg. Now enclosed by a small stone building, Peter's house still contains some of his belongings. We’ll dine in the city this evening. | |
| | Overnight: Hotel Helvetia (4-star) or Hotel Astoria (5-star) (3 nights) | |
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| | Day 11 Mon, August 4 B/L/D
St. Petersburg: Catherine's Palace, Pavlovsk Estate | |
| | We will travel out of town today to Pushkin, to see the royal residence Catherine's Palace, originally built in 1717 by Catherine I. In 1752, famed architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli enlarged and embellished the palace, extending the facade to its current grandeur. The estate and palace buildings were almost completely destroyed by the Germans during World War II, but have been carefully and expertly restored into a brilliant architectural monument. The fully restored Amber Room inside Catherine's Palace boasts beautifully crafted amber wall panels re-created from photos and descriptions of the originals, and have become one of the highlights of the Palace. | |
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| | We’ll enjoy lunch of Russian favorites served by staff dressed in traditional garb at the dascha-styled Podvorye Restaurant. We will then continue to Pavlovsk Park, given to Czar Paul I and his wife by Catherine the Great. Designed by Scottish architect Charles Cameron, the lovely park and palace is a tribute to the reserved beauty of classicism, in great contrast to the dramatic Baroque style favored by Catherine. Although the Nazis destroyed the palace itself during the Second World War, most of its treasures were hidden in advance of the attack. Outstandingly well preserved, they are now on display. We will return to the city for dinner and overnight. | |
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| | Day 12 Tue, August 5 B/L/D
St. Petersburg: St Isaac’s Cathedral & Hermitage Museum | |
| | After breakfast at the hotel, we will visit lavish St Isaac’s Cathedral, which took 40 years to complete. Czar Alexander I awarded the project to the inexperienced winner of a competition, a young French architect, Auguste Montferrand. The beautiful design was fraught with problems, and construction was halted for years while new technology was invented to build the massive structure. The 48 red granite columns around the lower part of the building each weigh 110 tons, and the upper columns around the rotunda weigh 67 tons apiece. The dome is covered with 220 pounds of gold, and the interior columns faced with lapis lazuli and malachite. Two hundred artists contributed to the exterior and interior decoration, and the cathedral is bursting with sculptures, frescoes, stained glass works and woodcarvings. | |
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| | We’ll then continue on to the Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace. The Winter Palace was built in 1754-62 as the principal home of the czars, and was lavishly rebuilt in 1839 after it was destroyed by fire. Originally a small private palace gallery begun by Catherine the Great with a purchase of 255 paintings from Berlin, the Hermitage today houses the largest museum collection in the world. It includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin and Picasso. The fabulous rooms with their inlaid floors and gilded woodwork and the grand double entry staircase are works of art in themselves. | |
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| | The afternoon is free to browse at the Hermitage or stroll Nevsky Prospekt for last minute shopping. Join us this evening for a Farewell Dinner and toast to our successful journey. | |
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| | Day 13 Wed, August 6 B
Depart St. Petersburg | |
| | After breakfast this morning, you will transfer to the airport according to your flight schedule for your onward flight. Optional extensions for St. Petersburg will be offered in the Fall of 2007. | |
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