Street View on Google Maps comes to Russia

Welcome to Russia! You can now virtually travel through the world’s largest country to the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg using Google Maps Street View.

Take an online stroll around famous Red Square and Moscow Kremlin, or go to outskirts of Moscow to wander around the beautiful Tsaritsino or Kuskovo parks. You can also visit the former site of the palace in Kolomenskoye, once considered the 8th World Wonder.

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Red Square, Moscow

St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia and northernmost megapolis in the world, was once a country capital, and the history of this young city started with The Peter and Paul Fortress. Today, the entire historical center of St. Petersburg is a UNESCO Heritage Site that you can enjoy via Street View.

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Historical Center, St. Petersburg

Within St. Petersburg, you can see the great palaces and parks that Russian emperors and nobles built, with Peterhof being its crown jewel. In fact, whole southern shore on the Gulf of Finland consists of palaces and parks including Peterhof, the Oranienbaum, and Alexandria.

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Peterhof, St. Petersburg

We hope you enjoy your virtual trip to Russia, and look forward to sharing more countries, cultures and sites as Street View continues to expand to more places. For a demo on how Street View works, start here.

Also, if you have a story to share about a place in Russia, find it in Street View and share it on Google+ with the #streetview.

Posted by Boris Khvostichenko, Product Manager, Google Russia

Low-flying Russians!

Was out exploring the Barbarka forest last weekend...when all of the sudden this low-flying Russian-built Antonov An-2 plane flew overhead...it was so low that it felt like it was going to scrape the trees (though am sure the pilot still had a perfectly safe altitude). Guess the plane was heading towards Toruń's airfield.

National Mourning: Remembering Katyn

A sombre scene in the old market square of Toruń: pictures are on display of some of the 20,000 Polish soldiers murdered by the Russians during WWII at Katyn. The exhibition marks the 70th anniversary of the masacre and was originally situated in the court yard of the Town Hall. However, due to Saturday's devastating tragedy in Smolensk the exhibition was moved to a more central location in the square.

Ironically, the Presidential plane which crashed in Smolensk was on it's way to a memorial service to mark Katyn.

Katyn will now go down in Polish history as a terrible double tragedy for the nation.