Russia

The Russian government is closing its airspace at 0:00 on Friday 27 March, allowing only flights by national carriers to repatriate Russian citizens stranded abroad. The announcement was made at a time when experts believe that Russia could experience an Italian-style scenario without strong quarantine measures. On Wednesday,...

First the Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation, travelling to Russia, whether for business or pleasure, is always a complex process. Most travellers to Russia often complain that the process is complicated by the need to provide numerous documents, official invitations or certificates of stay in the country...

The spectacular crash of Aeroflot's Sukhoi 100, which crashed during an emergency landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, killed more than 40 people. The exact circumstances surrounding the accident - there is talk of lightning striking the aircraft - and the rescue operations are certain to further damage Aeroflot's reputation...

With the inauguration, within a few days of each other, of hotels in Moscow and Madrid, the Hyatt group has just strengthened its offer in two of Europe's key business metropolises. To make its debut in Madrid - and indeed on the Spanish market - the American hotelier has chosen its lifestyle brand Hyatt Centric and has opted for a prime location for its...

Reported by Cécile Balavoine. Photos Ludovic Maisant. Gone are the days of bling-bling Moscow, when magnums of champagne, high heels and oversized watches were the hallmarks of the social life. Today, it seems, the time has come not so much for the new rich as for the advent of a middle class whose standard of living is steadily improving. The collapse of the rouble, which...

[highlight] Benoît Lardy, Chairman of Tsar Voyages Opening a company in Russia is fairly straightforward. How did you come up with the idea of setting up a French-speaking tourism business in Moscow? Benoît Lardy - I was rather dreaming of Brazil. But as my wife is Russian, we decided to settle in Moscow, where we have been working ever since.

IDENTITY CARD Currency: rouble (RUB). 1 euro = RUB 70.5 (Nov. 2017) Area code: +7 (Russia); 495 (Moscow). Time difference: +2h. GETTING THERE AIR FRANCE operates four daily flights from Paris CDG to Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, code-sharing with AEROFLOT. For its part, the Russian airline, a member of Skyteam, offers five daily services,...

Before reaching the monastery of the Trinity of Saint Sergius, in the village of Sergiev Posad, a good hour's drive from Moscow, the Bleisure escapade begins with a stopover on the Abramtsevo estate, a former artists' colony where Turgenev and Gogol used to live. Then, in the 1870s, writers gave way to painters when the...

Reported by Cécile Balavoine. Photos Ludovic Maisant. "Between my many travels, I enjoy the rustic life on the Polenovo estate, the vast land that houses the house where my great-grandfather lived and where many of his works can be seen, as well as his studio. But I travel regularly to Moscow, both for business and pleasure.

Reported by Cécile Balavoine. Photos Ludovic Maisant. Moscow has had its fill of hotels. At last! It took almost two decades for the Russian capital to catch up in terms of hotels. The capacity of the city's hotels has been greatly expanded, and is now on a par with the start of the millennium. Even if the number of openings is not as frantic as it was at the beginning of the...

Reported by Cécile Balavoine. Photos Ludovic Maisant. Meeting in yet another hotel bar, organising a meeting in a room that always looks exactly the same as another... Why not take advantage of a stay in Moscow to explore some unusual addresses? Russia's capital is brimming with all kinds of places, but all perfectly suited to...

Reported by Cécile Balavoine. Photos Ludovic Maisant. The first groundbreaking dates back a long way: 1995. The first talks went back even further: to 1992. At the time, the idea was to redevelop a hundred-hectare wasteland four kilometres west of Red Square into a new business district...

La Grande Catherine, a trendsetter? In her own way. By welcoming Diderot to her court and buying Voltaire's library after his death in 1778, she set in motion a fashion that is still very much in vogue in the Russia of 2010: that of French belles choses. Admittedly, France no longer dominates the...

"City is the body that, like Epad at La Défense, will manage the operation of the new business district and its economic activities", explains its very young vice-president, Dmitri Grandkin. The aim is to turn this site, which is still under construction, into a high-flying business district within the next three to five years. Created in 1992 to...

"There isn't one Russia, there are three," says Pavel Chinsky, director of the French Chamber of Commerce in Moscow. "The 'Russia of the dollar king', with a dozen or so cities of more than a million inhabitants served by airports, stocked with large foreign retailers and mainly inhabited by expatriates. Then "The...