Start place: Moscow Sochi
Zdrastvutye! Welcome to Russia. Your festive adventure begins with a Welcome Meeting at 6 pm today, where your insurance and next of kin details will be collected. Please also have two copies of your passport, visa and migration cards ready. Your leader will collect one; the other is for you to keep on you at all times whilst on the trip. Please look for a note in the hotel lobby or ask the hotel reception where the meeting will take place – if you're going to be late, please inform the hotel reception. After the meeting, take to the snow-covered streets for an orientation walk and maybe share you first Russian meal with new friends. Perhaps experience the wintery charm of Red Square, dripping with light, as skaters glide across an ice rink. There’s so much to see and do in Moscow, and with limited time here on the tour, perhaps arrive a few days early to fully uncover the secrets of a city where the sights of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union brush up against the modern world. During free time in Moscow you might relive the nation's turbulent past at Victory Park, travel back to the beginnings of Russian art at the Tretyakov Gallery, or pick up some souvenirs at the Izmailovo Markets. Otherwise, perhaps step inside the colourful St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. Legend has it that tsar, Ivan the Terrible, had the two architects blinded so that they couldn't build anything as beautiful again.