Hello and welcome to 2+2!
How well do you speak Russian?
Why are you going to stay in Moscow for so long? Are you interested in watching several World Football Championship matches being held here?
I live in a suburb of Moscow and find it a rather boring city. It's designed for earning money, not for living
People tend to be in a rush here. The cultural capital of Russia is St. Petersburg. Kazan is interesting if you're into the Muslim culture.
Hilariously, Yoshkar-Ola, a small regional centre, has recently built a lot of fancy classical style buildings due to the effort of the previous governor of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, but it remains a city of contrasts, with utterly dirty yards next to the fancy squares
Also, Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, has become a fancy city during the post-war reconstruction heavily sponsored by Putin's government.
I've subscribed to the thread and shall search for English-language videos about the sights of Moscow later.
You may also want to visit some Belarusian cities, incl. the capital city of Minsk. Citizens of many countries actually
don't need a visa to visit Belarus if they arrive through the Minsk airport and stay up to 5 days. The Minsk airport is also a known loophole for foreigners to sneak into Russia without a visa, as the border between Belarus and Russia is mostly open (at least, there are no checks on trains); there were talks about Russia granting short periods of visa-free stay to foreign tourists too, to match the Belarusian policy, but I'm not up-to-date on the latest visa policy developments, shall check later what policy is expected during the championship.
Last edited by coon74; 03-22-2018 at 11:15 PM.