Volga Region

The 17th Century Cathedral of the Archangel Michael at Nizhny Novgorod is open to the public unfortunately some of the Kremlin's original buildings are in ruins and the rest are used for administrative purposes.

Perm is the largest industrial city on the Trans Siberian Railway line. Boris Pasternak who lived and wrote Dr Zhivago lived in a blue house near the corner of Gogolya. The novel uses the town of Yuratin but is actually Perm.

Perm 36 is about 10kms from the town of Chusovoy which is 100kms east of Perm. This was one of the infamous labour camps of the Gulag Archipelago. Stalin ordered the building of the camp in 1946. The camp is now a memorial to those who perished here.

Ufa is the capital of Bashkortostan and it's origins date back to around 1570s. The Lenin Memorial Centre is on the corner of ulitsa Kirova. The centre is closed on Mondays.