My wife and I had never been to Russia and we thought this cruise would give us a cross section of Russia, which it did. Moscow was a large city with a different subway. Red Square was bigger than expected. The river cruise through the country side let us experience some everyday people and local sights. We met some interesting Americans on board and enjoyed their company and the small ship with less than 200 on board. The food and service was great, we were exposed to some local style food with lots of vodka. In the evenings we had a very good piano player and singer. There were Russian talks that explained about Russian history and culture. The different cities that we visited along the rivers, canals and lakes gave us a view of a typical Russian small village and some of the types of homes that we visited. Guides were excellent and all spoke English.