I am about to write the most difficult introduction to a country since I started publishing on this site in 2020. For, how can I write about the rich culture and remarkable history of this country as if nothing were happening? How can I focus on the charm of the elegant canals running along the monumental Baroque and neoclassical buildings of imperial Saint Petersburg, the imposing grandeur of Moscow's Red Square or the rural and serene simplicity of old monasteries as the Volga cruiser silently glides by? How, when at the very same moment, behind the walls of some of those beautiful and photogenic buildings full of glorious history, the next round of vicious attacks on innocent civilians is being planned for the coming night with the sole purpose of reconstituting the empire lost in 1991, by destroying a sister nation in spite of largely common roots? I just hope that very soon I will be given a good reason to adjust the current introduction, which, apart from remembering the unforgettable, will then also properly highlight a less grim Russia, a Russia which will have regained a place among the nations of decency, worthy of its history and culture. Let the present reports on Saint Petersburg, Moscow, the Golden Ring and the Volga basin, based on travel in earlier and better times, be an expression of this hope, and let them above all not be construed as a sign on my side of indifference or approval for the indiscriminate harm and dehumanised injustice that is currently being inflicted.