Russian Travel Guide

The Ruskeala marble quarry

Ruskeala is a mysterious and mountainous region located in the very heart of the Republic of Karelia. It is home to a majestic canyon edged by snow-white cliffs that once served as a marble quarry. Workers however stopped extracting this cold stone and nowadays the canyon is considered a natural site. This huge bowl, once carved out by human hands, is now half full of the purest subterranean emerald-toned waters. The old, abandoned quarry is now a destination for tourists with a scenic two-kilometre trail passing along the edge of the canyon. RTG TV host Igor Maximenko checked out this route to see what all of the hype was about. 

Коллекция Russian Travel Guide. Города. Москва

The national presidential library

In the 21st century, many book collections are digital archives that are not susceptible to the wear and tear their paper brothers once feared. St. Petersburg’s Presidential Library is home to the largest virtual collection in Russia — one of more than 250,000 books on history and law in addition to rare documents and editions. A large part of these resources are available online to whoever wants them, but there are also some that can only be used in the library’s own reading room in the historic Synod building. A 3-D model of the publication appears on the computer screen so that readers can thoroughly examine the cover, text and illustrations. There they can also find all of the hand-written notes made hundreds of years ago by people such as the author or other readers, including Emperor Peter the First.