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[macedonianmike]

I thought it would be interesting to hear your opinions on this topic. It could also be useful for anyone looking to teach in Russia

What are the best and worst cities in Russia you have been to or lived in?

I currently live in Novosibirsk and can say that while it's not particularly beautiful it is a good place to live and work and relatively safe. Tomsk is another good city. Moscow is Moscow, if you like fast paced metropolis life it might suit you.
Bad cities: Novokuzntz, Lenin-kuznetz, Yurga.
Best village: Kargasok in Tomsk region.
Worst village: Bolotnaya in Novosibirsk or Kamerovo region I forgot.

Soon going to Irkutsk, can report on that later.

[Red and white]

I live in Moscow, and thoroughly enjoy it. My gf is from Novosibirsk and tells me I should go visit soon.

I was surprised how much I liked Perm when I went there last summer. Not sure it would make a place to live, but it seemed pleasant, friendly and cheap (at least by Moscow standards). And I keep reading about how it is having an artistic and cultural revival and is fast becoming the Paris of the Urals!

I also enjoyed visiting Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk, both in summer. Can imagine the latter being bleak when winter sets in, though.

Don't like St P at all, and would regard the Golden Ring as strictly for day-trips, although it's pretty.

In summer the smaller towns around Baikal are idyllic, but I'm guessing they are dead in winter and hard to live in. I was only briefly in Irkutsk and didn't get enough of a feel of it to really have an opinion.

But these are strictly visitor opinions - I'm not able to judge what living in most of these places would be like.

[maruss]

except I don't like Novosibirsk as a place-it is ugly and quite polluted.Perm had serious water pollution problems not so many years ago too and I think I know why he doesn't like St.Petes-it's impressive but soulless and the climate is often awful too!
Places to avoid are Chelyabinsk area because of radioactive contamination from previous Soviet misdemeanours,Norilsk which has horrific pollution(although non-residents need permits to go there anyway)Dzherzhinsk near Nizhny Novgorod for similar reasons and a host of other nasty places with industrial and environmental contamination which can be found all over Russia! e.g Magnitogorsk.There are also some miserable and run-down towns quite near Moscow which are not worth visiting and two I have seen are Orechovo-Zuevo and Voskresensk among many...(sorry if anyone reading this is from there-nothing personal!!).One foreign teacher I know was mugged in broad daylight at the railway station in the second one and none of the people standing around even batted an eyelid when they saw him lying on the floor dazed and injured after the guys who did it ran away!Foreigners are rare in such places and there is high unemployment and alchoholism etc. so this should be borne in mind.

[coledavis]

Hey Maruss,

Can you give us a list of Russian towns not to miss, jewels in the crown of the C.I.S. ?

If there was any money there, I'd go to Elets; graceful town with lovely surrounding countryside, friendly too. Voronezh is quite attractive too. Then there's Novosibirsk, quite popular with teachers; not beautiful, but friendly and with plenty of night life. I live in a small town some 40 miles south, which is no beauty either but is friendly and in reach of Novosibirsk and Akademgorodok, which is a nice woody establishment.

[maruss]

It's true that we've been mentioning bad places and of course that does not mean there are no good ones!The biggest problem in Russia is that distances are so vast and you have to factor this in when you plan to visit somewhere,as well as the transport available etc.Another point to bear in mind is that internal air fares are now often very expensive compared to a few years ago(not to mention some dodgy airlines with out of date planes,bad maintenance and even a few drunk pilots etc!).Places regarded as interesting to visit in Russia usually have historical buildings or associations and these can vary from churches and monasteries to battle sites etc etc.For example,Vladimir east of Moscow has a quaint old quarter-nearby Suzdal even more so-but the modern,Soviet-era section is drab and depressing and it must be borne in mind that in Soviet times,aesthetic and environmental aspects were not given much,if any consideration when building residential areas!If you look at many Moscow suburbs-two quite nasty ones I remember are Vykhino and Degunino ,which are referred to as 'sleeping zones' and were built for the proletariat to sleep and live in after they had done their shifts producing or labouring for the Socialist economy, you will understand what I mean!!
So very generally speaking,places with older and especially pre-revolutionary buildings preserved tend to be the most attractive to the eye...You also have to consider the area in which they are situated geographically and climatically as well as whether they are polluted by heavy industries etc.
Akademgorodok was a Soviet show piece for the top scientific elite and those priveleged to live there enjoyed far more freedom than most other Russians as well as access to better quality consumer goods etc.In the 1990's it went into decline-John Thubron wrote about this in his book 'In Siberia',although I gather it has begun to improve again as more funds are available for research etc.Another interesting subject on this vein are the closed cities in various parts of Russia which are inhabited by people working on defence research etc.There are several in Krasnoyarsk region for example, which do not appear at all on Russian maps and are known by numbers,rather than names.I met someone in Moscow who had worked and lived at one and he told me that they are usually very well run,clean and organised-people there have a good quality of living by Russian standards,there is no crime,public drunkeness or immorality and behaviour is exemplary compared to the social problems experienced in many other places.Unfortunately access is very restricted,even for non-resident Russians let alone foreigners, and there are apparently special buses from major cities nearby to them which can only be boarded by those with the correct documents...
Despite all its drawbacks and difficulties,Russia never ceases to fascinate us!

[JN]

[maruss]

But until the regime there changes,I don't think they will let me back in!

[macedonianmike]

Thubron's book was published in 1999.

[maruss]

It's still a good read though,as is Jonathan Dimbleby's book to accompany his t.v. series from last year.

[technodrome]

How does Yetaterinburg rate? I hardly ever see it mentioned.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

I have been to Ekaterinburg, and I have to say that I found it quite agreeable. It has a nice lake in the middle of the city, and there's seems to be quite a lot of development going on. In fact, I wouldn't hesitate to live and work there if the right opportunity arose.
That being said, I can't say it's the best city in Russia; that title would obviously go to Chaguyevka, Primorskiy Krai, which has not only a railway station, but two produkti