Smolensk

A thousand-year-old city on the Dnieper, with one of Russia's longest 16th-century fortress walls and the Baroque Dormition Cathedral, plus the Talashkino artists' estate outside town.

Smolensk lies on both banks of the upper Dnieper in western Russia and is the capital of Smolensk Oblast, about 400 km from Moscow and about 70 km from the Belarusian border. One of Russia's oldest cities, it was first mentioned in the chronicles in 863 and sat at a key point on the 'route from the Varangians to the Greeks'. Besieged many times through history — by Poland-Lithuania, by Napoleon and by German forces — it became known as the 'Shield of Russia' and was named a Hero City in 1985.

The main sights are in the old town on the south bank of the Dnieper. The fortress wall built by Fyodor Kon in 1595–1602 originally ran 6.5 km with 38 towers; about 3.3 km and 18 towers survive, and you can walk through the parks along the outside of the wall between the Gromovaya and Veselukha towers. On the high ground in the north of the city, the Baroque Dormition Cathedral glitters with gold, and pre-Mongol 12th-century buildings such as the Church of Sts Peter and Paul and the Svirskaya Church are scattered around town. Lopatinsky Garden, Blonie Garden and Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street form the central strolling area. Eighteen kilometres outside the city, Talashkino and Flyonovo make up the artists' estate founded by Princess Maria Tenisheva, where Repin, Vrubel and Roerich all worked; to the west are the Viking-age burial mounds of Gnezdovo and the Katyn Memorial.

The best time to visit is May–September; winters are cold and snowy. Getting there: the Lastochka express from Moscow's Belorussky Station takes about 4 hours; in town, walking and buses are all you need, and the estates outside town can be reached by bus or taxi. Allow 2 days. Foreign visitors need a valid Russian visa (check the e-visa rules), and some museums are closed on Mondays.

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