Stalin`s Era (New)

Day 1. Moscow
Arrival in Moscow. Meeting with the driver at the railway station or at the airport (the driver will be holding the sign Russia Travel Group).
Transfer to the hotel (breakfast is included). Check-in. Accommodation for 7 nights at 3* hotel.
Free time.

Day 2. Moscow
8.00-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to City tour.

The tour of Moscow City will present you one of the most beautiful sights of the capital of Russia. We will start at your hotel and will organize this tour depending on its location, but it certainly will include the Red Square with the Mausoleum, St. Basil's Cathedral and GUM Department Store.

Second part of excursion: you will see the legendary Moscow Metro with its mosaics and frescos.

Return to the hotel by metro.

7.00pm Optional performance at the Bolshoi theatre.

Day 3. Moscow
8.00am-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to excursion.

Kremlin tour with visit to Cathedrals. The Kremlin has always been perceived as a symbol of power and might of the Russian land. Within the Kremlin walls you will see many architectural monuments, churches, cathedrals, museums, etc.

12.00pm Optional lunch at the Russian restaurant “Godunov”. You will taste traditional Russian cuisine.

1.00pm Second part of excursion: Moscow River Cruise.

During this unforgettable 1.5 hour excursion you will see the Moscow Kremlin, Big Stone Bridge, Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Novodevichy Monastery, Red October Factory (Confectionary), monument to the Peter I, Krimsky Bridge, Gorky Park, Sparrow Hills, Moscow University, Ostankino TV Tower, Luzhniki stadium and many estates, palaces and churches.

Return to the hotel by metro.

Day 4. Moscow
8.00am-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to Stalin`s Bunker.

Stalin's bunker is an unique memorial complex of Russian military history established in 1930s in accordance with State Defense Program and placed under the grandstands of the Izmaylovo Stadium. Due to its close vicinity to the military airfields this place became the "alternate command post for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief" of the Red Army. Stalin's bunker has a conference hall, working office and logistic services built in. The museum keeps an exhibition devoted to Iosif Stalin and to the soldiers of World War II.
Complex was opened for visitors in 1996. The creation of this object takes period of the “thirties” of the last century. Most of the events of that period have got political estimations, historical facts, which were a state secret are still unknown for the history.

Second part of excursion: you will visit World War II Museum on and Victory Park - the Memorial Hill.

Return to the hotel by metro.

Day 5. Moscow
8.00am-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to the Lenin Mausoleum.

By the Kremlin wall on the southwest side of Red Square stands the Lenin Mausoleum. Inside, in a glass sarcophagus, lies Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who died on January 21, 1924. Three days after his death, a wooden structure was erected on this spot. Four months later, it was rebuilt and then replaced in 1930 by the granite, marble and black labradorite mausoleum, designed by Alexei Shchusev. "Lenin" is inscribed in red porphyry. For more than 75 years Russians and foreigners have stood in the line that stretches from the end of Red Square to the mausoleum to view the once idolized revolutionary leader and "Father of the Soviet Union". Two guards man the entrance but there is no longer a changing of the guard. Photography is prohibited and cameras should be placed out of sight in bag. Once inside, visitors are still not allowed to pause for long. The mausoleum is usually open 10am - 1pm; closed Mondays, Fridays, and is free of charge. Once in while some die - hard Communists and Lenin Loyalists will gather at the mausoleum to honor the former leader. But after the attempted coup of 1991, the lines to Lenin's mausoleum have diminished dramatically, and sometimes there is no line at all. In 1994, a German executive tried to purchase the body and take it on a world tour with a final resting place in a Cologne museum. Today there is still a movement within the country to remove Lenin's body from the mausoleum and rebury him elsewhere (he had requested to be buried in St. Petersburg). Ironically though, with the new wave of capitalist, Lenin souvenirs are now more popular than ever, and Lenin's formaldehyde experts are offering their eternal Lenin Delux preservation techniques for a price of just over a quarter of a million dollars. Marble viewing stands on both sides of the mausoleum hold up 10,000 spectators on national holidays. Atop the mausoleum is a tribune, where the heads of the former Soviet Government and Communist Party once gathered on May and Revolution days. Behind the mausoleum, separated by a row of silver fir trees, are the remains of many the country's most honored figures in politics, culture and science, whose ashes lie in urns within the Kremlin walls. They include Lenin's sister and his wife, Sergei Kirov, Maxsim Gorky, A. K. Lunacharsky, the physicist  Sergei Korolyov and the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Foreigners include John Reed and William Hayword (USA), Arthur McManus (England), Clara Zetkin and Fritz Heckert (Germany), and Sen Katayama (Japan). There are also the tombstones of previous leaders of the Communist Party: Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, Frunze, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Suslov, Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov, and Stalin, who was buried next to Lenin in the mausoleum from 1953-61. Nearby are the granite-framed common graves of 500 people who died during the October Revolution of 1917.

Second part of excursion: you will visit Museum of Revolutions.

Return to the hotel by metro.

Day 6. Moscow
8.00am-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to Museum of Gulag History.

The museum impresses on visitors the enormous size of the Gulag system. A large map of the Soviet Union shows the vast network of camps across the country. It provides information about the colossal construction projects driven by prison labor, such as the Moscow-Volga Canal, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The map shows there was even a camp on Vrangel Island, one of the most remote and inhospitable places in a country with a lot of competition for that title. The museum, which works with the Federal Archive Agency, is currently limited to an exhibit about political prisoners in the Gulag, acronym for the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps. A system of forced-labor camps was created in 1919, shortly after the Bolsheviks seized power. After a series of organizational changes in the 1920s, the system was consolidated as the Gulag in 1930. By 1936, it held some 5 million prisoners. The Gulag was filled in three main waves — during the collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the purges of 1936-38 and immediately after the end of World War II.
Estimates vary as to how many prisoners passed through the system; Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose book "The Gulag Archipelago" first revealed the horrors of the system to people around the world, claimed that 40 to 50 million people served lengthy sentences in the Gulag from 1928 to 1953. Some Western scholars estimate that as many 30 million people died in the camps from 1918 to 1956. Following the death of Stalin in 1953, the population of the camps decreased dramatically as the result of mass amnesties. The Gulag itself formally ceased to exist when its activities were taken over by various ministries and the camps were placed under a new organization, the GUITK, or Main Administration of Corrective Labor Colonies.

Second part of excursion: you will visit KGB Museum - the "Chekist" Hall of the KGB of the USSR.

Opened in 1984 the Hall was created for professional training and educating of the State Security services employees. The training was done according to the best traditions of the Soviet special services. More them 2000 exhibits demonstrate intelligence and counterintelligence activity in Russian state. There you would know the name of the first Russian double agent who obtained valuable information of Mamai's plans in 1380 and also a lot of evidences referring to 19th and 20th centuries. A number of stands comment on the events of mass repression during Stalin's era and scrupulous work for rehabilitation. A separate hall illustrates the security services activity during the World War ll. Some exhibits of counterintelligence activity nowadays are of great interest. Much attention was paid to technical means of Intelligence. There are pictures of apprehension &foreign agents caught red-handed and the accomplices of that.

Return to the hotel by metro.

Day 7. Moscow
8.00am-9.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
10.00am Meeting with a guide at the hotel lobby. Departure to Armed Forces Museum.

One of the most significant military museums. Has no equal in the variety and number of unique exhibits. The museum workers have developed and conduct numerous tours. There are armed Forces in the period from 1923 to June 1941;the Great Patriotic War;armed Forces in the post - war period (1945-1991); military equipment and vehicles (out in the open)

Second part of excursion: you will visit Izmaylovsky Flea Market.

The world largest exhibition - fair of fine and decorative arts.Vast collections of contemporary painting, antique works, medals, coins and souvenirs. Wander along the pleasant rows under fairy-tale wooden towers! Enjoy a choir of Russian singers in national dress, with balalaikas! Have wonderful reminiscences of Russia.

Return to the hotel by metro.

Day 8. Moscow
8.00am-10.30am Breakfast at the hotel.
12.00pm  Check-out.

Meeting with a driver at the hotel lobby.

Transfer to the international airport.

Departure.

Price is starting from $ 1 330
 
Included:
- Accommodation in Moscow at 3* hotel
- Meals as per the itinerary
- All transfers according to the program with arrival/departure transfers
- All excursions due to the program with entrance fees, private air-conditioned car and individual licensed English speaking guide
- Visa support documents