Russia

Russia is not one destination and it is a mistake to sell it as one. Saint Petersburg was built on a marsh by a Tsar who wanted a European capital and got one: canals, colonnades, a palace on the Neva holding several million objects, and a scale that only makes sense once you are standing in it. Moscow was never built to impress anybody from outside. It is red brick and gold domes and a metro decorated like a cathedral, and it is where the country actually decides things.

The pleasure of going is having both, and the reason it works is the train. The high speed line between them turns what used to be an overnight journey into an afternoon, so a week is genuinely enough to see two cities properly instead of one city twice.

For a Pakistani passport the honest picture is this. Russia is further and colder than most of what we sell, the alphabet is unfamiliar and English is thinner on the ground than you expect. What answers all three is a local guide who is with you from the airport, and halal food that has been found in advance rather than searched for at eight in the evening. Both are part of how we run it.

The December group adds Murmansk, the largest city above the Arctic Circle, which is the reason to go in winter: it is the polar night, and on a clear night the northern lights. The eight day plan for that routing has not reached us yet, so the day by day below the price is not printed until it does.

This trip is invoiced in euros. Any rupee figure you are quoted is indicative and moves with the exchange rate.