Friend of mine just rented an apartment at Noviy Arbat street. Tiny apartment went for monthly $2 000. It is small, poor equipped and has no benefits except one — the view.

City Beaches are popular in metropoles around the world. Moscow has a few real (river) beaches, even a nude beach, but they are far away from the center and you don't really want to take a bath in the highly poluted Moskva. Kak na Kanarah is an alternative to the city beaches and the few pools in the center. I went to visit this newly open pool bar on the Moscowriver embankment, right in the center near Park Kulturi.

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It’s easy to fall in love with Kazan. It’s exotic, it’s friendly and the centre of the city is beautiful. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, one of the first things that strikes you in Kazan is that it’s a bilingual city. All signs are written both in Russian and Tatar and there are as many Tatar flags flying as there are Russian. An incredibly proud people, the Tatars love to show off their city and their cultural heritage, even if their ethnic group is the minority in the republic. I came to Kazan without any expectations and found it to be the nicest mid-sized Russian city I have been to.

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