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What to see in Moscow: why we no longer create itineraries
Editorial Position
Updated:9 min1,719 words2

What to see in Moscow: why we no longer create itineraries

The seven articles with Moscow itineraries at this address are gone. These were the texts "what to see in Moscow in general," "Moscow in two days on your own," forty-five main attractions, twenty-five best excursions, twenty private excursions, twenty trips for schoolchildren, and a roundup of weekend road trips.

To the reader who came for a two-day plan, we will answer briefly. There is no itinerary here and there never will be, and the reason is not only our position. A ready-made itinerary for someone else's city with a list of excursions and links to book them is exactly the service that EU sanctions law describes and prohibits by name. For a publisher in the European Union, this is no longer a matter of taste.

💡 At a glance:

  • which seven articles were removed and where the old links now lead
  • why an itinerary in text form counts as a service, not journalism
  • how the purpose of the ban is worded in EU documents
  • which cities remain in our live sections for the same searches
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

We removed seven articles, and all of them did the same thing: they arranged sights into a sequence, scheduled them by day and hour, and led the reader toward the decision to buy an excursion. The old addresses in all language versions now have permanent redirects to this text.

One of those texts was a roundup of weekend road trips from the capital. We do not reproduce a single destination from it here and do not retell any route even in the past tense: there is no practical information about traveling in Russia in the articles in this section, and that rule has no exceptions. Another one was a program of excursions for schoolchildren. We consider the children's format the most inappropriate right now, and we explain why in the section on our position.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. We believe that after that date, an editorial team in the European Union cannot publish material whose sole purpose is to organize someone else's trip to that country. That is why we did not shorten these texts or remove links from them; we took them down entirely.

The money argument here is not about oil but about the services sector. The share of oil and gas revenue in Russia's federal budget fell to roughly 22 percent in 2025 and 2026, down from 42 percent in 2022 (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 12/09/2025). Meanwhile, the share of non-oil-and-gas revenue, which includes taxes from the services sector, rose to roughly 78 percent. The excursion market is the services sector in its purest form, and the money for a two-day program ends up exactly there.

Guide services are named in the ban directly

Precision matters here, so we will go through the documents.

Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 of October 23, 2025 replaced paragraph 2 of Article 5n of Regulation 833/2014 with a direct ban on providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia (EUR-Lex). The list of covered services includes travel agency and tour operator services, guide services, and related advertising services; the transition period for contracts concluded before October 24, 2025 ended on January 1, 2026 (Skadden, 11.2025).

The ban also extends to online platforms and apps used to book and sell tickets, to visa facilitation when linked to tourism, and to advertising of such activities (Fieldfisher). Article 5n in its broader form prohibits EU persons from providing a range of professional services to entities established in Russia, and advertising services are named separately in that list (European Commission guidance on Article 5n).

Now let us apply this to our former text. "Twenty-five best excursions in Moscow," with descriptions of programs, durations, and booking procedures, performs the function of an excursion bureau, just without the counter. "Moscow in two days on your own" is a guide's work written down in letters. We do not think we found a loophole, and we are not going to test where exactly the line lies: where a text stops being journalism and becomes a service, we stop in advance.

Why this ban was introduced

The purpose is stated in the documents directly, without diplomatic phrasing: to reduce the revenue Russia receives from such services and to curb the promotion of non-essential travel and leisure in the country (Skadden, 11.2025). In other words, the EU legislator explicitly recognized tourism as a source of state revenue rather than a neutral activity, and named the promotion of travel as a separate problem. The article "forty-five main attractions" is exactly that promotion.

It is also worth adding the market picture, because it removes the question of "who was this even bothering." Organized tourism to Russia fell by roughly 90 percent back in 2022; the reasons cited include the consequences of the war, the shutdown of payment systems, and Russia's own restrictive visa policy (industry statistics overview, Fox News, 2022). Our itineraries in recent years were serving not a flow of travelers but the inertia of search.

What this means for you as an EU reader

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025

EUR-Lex

Tour guide services

Explicitly named among the services covered by the ban

Skadden, 11.2025

Online booking and ticket sales

The ban also covers platforms and visa facilitation related to tourism

Fieldfisher

Advertising of such services

Listed separately among the prohibited services in Article 5n

European Commission

Paying with an EU card

Not possible: Visa and Mastercard suspended operations on 10.03.2022

The Moscow Times, 06.03.2022

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

Where to go instead

The need readers came to the deleted guides with was a compact historic center, a two-day plan without a car, and a clear program for a first trip. The live sections of the site answer that: Czechia with Prague, Hungary with Budapest, Austria with Vienna, Germany with Berlin and Dresden, Poland with Krakow and Gdansk. For family trips and school group programs, we have material in the Germany, Austria, and Netherlands sections.

The overall explanation for the whole section is collected in the section hub. Related texts: our position on the Moscow Kremlin and our position on winter material about Moscow.

Where we stand

We believe a route is the most transactional format in all of travel media: it does not tell you about a place, it organizes a trip. In our assessment, that is exactly why it could not be kept with a disclaimer at the top, as is sometimes done with historical essays. We decided to remove all seven guides, not to publish a shortened version or a "route for those who are going anyway" in their place, and to explain the reason at the same address.

Separately, about the school group program. The German Foreign Office warns against travel to the Russian Federation and explicitly cautions about the risk of arbitrary detention for German citizens and people with dual German-Russian citizenship (Auswärtiges Amt). In our assessment, the editorial team has no right to publish a ready-made children's trip program under those circumstances, with or without disclaimers. This is a case where the decision is not made by the person traveling, and that is why the cost of a mistake is different.

We write about the state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. In Russia, there are those who spoke out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish guides to Russia is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

You just don't want to write these guides, or is it actually prohibited?

Both, and we're not hiding behind the law. Where we stand would be the same even without sanctions. But the legal framework does exist: it's Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014, and its analysis is provided above.

Isn't a list of attractions a service rather than journalism?

The line is drawn by function, not format. Text that explains why a place matters is journalism. Text that arranges places by day, adds durations, and leads toward booking is doing the work of a tour desk. We decided not to get close to that line.

Can you at least say which museums are currently open?

No, and that's a deliberate refusal. We don't have a verified and current source for schedules, and a guess in text that people read before a trip is unacceptable. There will be no practical travel information in this section's materials.

Where do old links to routes lead?

To this page, in all language versions. The reader gets an explanation, a list of documents, and a list of destinations we continue to cover.

In short

Seven pieces with Moscow routes and tours have been deleted, and old addresses redirect here. Guide services, online booking, and advertising of these services are covered by the prohibition under Article 5n(2). The transition period ended on January 1, 2026. The purpose of the ban: to reduce Russia's revenue from such services and curb the promotion of non-essential travel. Organized tourism to Russia fell by roughly 90 percent back in 2022. Cities for the same needs are listed above.

How you can help

We don't collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026. Link check dates: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.