Why Russia still matters (and the frank 2026 context).
Russia is, by any measure, one of the world's most consequential travel destinations: the cultural inheritance of three Romanov centuries plus seven Soviet decades, the geographic scale of an entire continent, the literary mythology of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and a folk culture (banya, pelmeni, kvass, traditional textiles) that runs deep in rural areas. Saint Petersburg's Hermitage holds three million artworks, Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Matisse, Picasso, across the Winter Palace's miles of corridors. The Moscow Kremlin contains five centuries of Russian state power compressed onto one fortified hill. Lake Baikal contains 20 percent of the planet's unfrozen freshwater. The Trans-Siberian crosses one third of Earth's circumference. The frank 2026 reality: Russia is at war, and Western tourism has effectively collapsed since February 2022. Most major European and American airlines have ceased Russia operations; Aeroflot is sanctioned and unable to fly to most Western destinations; flight access for Westerners is via Istanbul (Turkish Airlines), Dubai (Emirates, FlyDubai), Belgrade (Air Serbia), Yerevan, or Beijing. Once inside Russia, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express do not work, domestic transactions run on the Russian-built MIR card system which Westerners cannot easily obtain, while Chinese UnionPay cards still function in many Russian banks and ATMs and have become the workaround of choice for foreign travelers. Bring USD or EUR cash for everything; declare amounts above $10,000 at customs. Western insurance policies typically exclude Russia and Ukraine entirely. Should you go? That's a personal decision that depends on your nationality (US passport holders are at materially higher arbitrary-detention risk than, say, Indian or Brazilian passport holders), your work (journalists, NGO researchers, and LGBTQ+ activists face elevated scrutiny under expanded 'foreign agent' and 'extremism' laws), and your appetite for navigating sanctioned banking, restricted consular access, and a politically tense atmosphere. For travelers who do go, the country itself remains broadly safe in the everyday tourist sense (low street crime in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, efficient metro, working hotels), the risks are political and bureaucratic, not muggers and pickpockets.