Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

Back in the 1930s, the Hermitage State Museum received an enormous collection of works of art, from cultural centres along the Silk Road.

Now, for the first time, visitors can enjoy the fascinating artifacts and discover the wonderful cultures that greeted travellers along the Silk Road at the the turn of the 19th century. A new exhibition Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, opens on 9 December, 2008, at the Hermitage State Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia and runs through to 5 April, 2009.

Visitors will see over 300 items, including wall paintings, sculptures, woodcarvings, expedition documents, photos, water-colour and tracing paper copies of ancient paintings, drawings, maps, and an extensive collection of manuscripts.

Labels: 2008, 2009, exhibition, Hermitage State Museum, Museum, Russia, St. Petersburg

A total solar eclipse will cross Russia at 2.20pm Moscow time on 1 August, 2008. The eclipse will be seen in Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean, Western Siberia, Yamal, and Altai.

Read about the possibilities of travelling to Russia to observe the solar eclipse, where the longest period of totality will be 2:27 minutes in the city of Nadym, Yamal.

Labels: 2008, astronomy, eclipse, Russia, solar eclipse

For the first time, a river yacht route, Dvortsovy Kruiz (Palace Cruise), has been opened, connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg via the Volga-Baltic waterway, The route will be operating on a trial basis through July 12 as part of the Annual Yacht Festival.

St. Petersburg is already a popular cruise destination but foreign cruise boats are currently barred from sailing Russian waters, although plans are underway to change this. Read more about this in the St. Petersburg Times.

Labels: 2008, Moscow, river, Russia, sailing, St. Petersburg

Russia may stop selling seats to tourists on its spacecraft starting in 2010 because of the planned expansion of the permanent crew of the International Space Station from three to six, meaning that Russia would have fewer extra seats available for tourists on its Soyuz spacecraft.

There is also a feeling that the space station should not become a holiday destination and that in the future space tourism should only be offered by private companies. Read a full report in the Earth Times.

Labels: 2010, Russia, space tourism