Doug, Annie and Katya recently shared their stories as they witnessed the fall of the USSR, but the question remains: How could it have happened? With the benefit of hindsight, historians have traced the USSR’s downward spiral. Here’s a brief synopsis. Read More
August 24, 2016 is the 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence Day. On this day, 25 years ago, Ukraine’s parliament adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. The momentous declaration came on the heels of the collapse of an attempted coup in Moscow, when communist hardliners tried to overthrow Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to prevent the looming dissolution of the USSR (see our series on Witnessing the Fall of the USSR). The coup ultimately failed, and so did the Soviet Union. Now, 25 years down the line, Ukraine celebrates long and loud on this proud national holiday. Parades, fireworks, private parties and public festivals are staged across the country. Read More
It's been 28 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We're marking the anniversary with eyewitness accounts from MIR colleagues and contacts. In this installment, Doug shares his memories of the fateful days of the August coup in 1991, and his travels from Seattle to Moscow to Kamchatka in the Russian Far East. Read More
It's been 28 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We're marking the anniversary with eyewitness accounts from MIR colleagues and contacts. This installment is from Annie Lucas, then tour manager and now MIR’s vice president. She was leading one of her first few MIR tours to Russia. In her early 20s, she had done this several times before, but it was still new to her. And on this trip, her own father (Bud Lucas, who kindly let us use his photos) had signed up to be one of the participants, making it even more important to her that the trip go smoothly. As Annie and her group of travelers packed for the coach ride into Russia, they heard the news on Finnish TV: Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, was said to be ill and confined to his dacha. A State of Emergency had been declared and an Emergency Committee formed to take the reins of government while he was recovering. That was all anybody knew. Read More
Anne Harnagel, a travel editor at the Los Angeles Times, spotlighted MIR’s Insider’s Russia: Moscow & St. Petersburg Rediscovered small group tour in the newspaper’s Sunday Travel section. The article, entitled “Go Deep in Moscow and St. Petersburg on this Insider Tour of Russia,” sums up all of the tour’s signature experiences, from a look at “[Moscow’s] lavish metro stations, the Kremlin and Moscow State University” to an in-depth exploration of St. Petersburg, “where participants will climb to the top of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, enjoy a cruise on the Neva River, attend the ballet or opera, visit Peter the Great’s royal dacha and dine on home-cooked Russian fare at a ‘civilian’ dacha with the owner.”Read the full article on the Los Angeles Times website.
Anya von Bremzen is an award-winning food writer and the author of such delectable cookbooks as Please to the Table and Maste... Read more
A recent feature in Men’s Journal Magazine about adventurous — yet still accessible — far north destinations included b... Read more
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