Literary Tourism: A Journey Through a Hero's Eyes

      Literary tourism is a special kind of travel when people set out not just to see sights but to seek places where books come to life. Tourists want to walk the same streets where literary characters strolled, see the houses and squares described in novels, and sometimes even visit the locations where adaptations of their favorite works were filmed.

      Recently this direction has become quite popular. We have gathered a few examples.

      Moscow is one of the most popular literary tourism destinations.

      Fans of Mikhail Bulgakov can follow the route of the novel The Master and Margarita: stroll around Patriarch's Ponds, where Woland first appears before Berlioz and Bezdomny, peek into the lanes of the Arbat where the characters lived, and end the walk at the famous "Not-Good Entrance" on Bolshaya Sadovaya.

      Travelers also include places from Soviet literature and cinema in their routes. For example, fans of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears visit VDNKh and the "House on the Embankment" — a symbol of the era where the film's heroine went from a modest student to a successful woman.

      Saint Petersburg is perhaps the most "literary" city in Russia. It not only serves as a backdrop for works but becomes a full-fledged character. This is where Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment unfolds — and you can still follow Raskolnikov's route: from his apartment on Grazhdanskaya Street to the pawnbroker's old woman's house on Sennaya.

      Pushkin enthusiasts can visit Kolomna and Moika Embankment, 12, where the poet spent his last days and which everyone who rereads Eugene Onegin longs to see.

      By the way, a few years ago journalists from Uralweb.ru walked around Saint Petersburg visiting locations from the film Brother.

      In the Urals, literary tourism is linked not only to the names of authors but also to plots born of the local nature and legends. Here you can literally enter Pavel Bazhov's fairy-tale world — walk through the places that inspired him to write The Malachite Casket.

      In the Sysert District the "Bazhov Trails" are held — a tourist route where natural landscapes resemble the pages of Ural tales.

      And in Sverdlovsk Oblast you can also see the sets built for the filming of Ugryum-reka. This place is located in the village of Kamenka.

      Modern travelers are also discovering new literary locations: for example, the places where the novels of Alexey Ivanov — Heart of Parma and Tobol — take place. These books have inspired numerous routes to the region's historical and natural attractions.

      The Marine Terminal in Sochi, where scenes from the film based on humorous Soviet-era stories — The Diamond Arm — were shot, has long become a cult spot. Tourists come here not only for the sea but also to walk along the embankment where the legendary lines were spoken.