Experience Russia's Wintertime Beauty by Trans-Siberian Rail or Celebrate New Year's in St. Petersburg

MIR Corporation has specialized in Russia travel for more than 25 years and offers an array of exciting winter tours.

Seattle, WA - Nobody loves New Year's Eve like the Russians. It's the most festive holiday of the year, with parties, presents, and vodka toasts. Russia is at its most beautiful in the winter, the crackling air burnished by fresh snowfall and residents sipping vodka, and luxuriating at a healthful banya bathhouse.

MIR Corporation has specialized in Russia travel for more than 25 years and offers an array of exciting winter tours. One celebratory tour revolves around New Year's in glorious St. Petersburg, with Moscow merrymaking and a visit to 12th century Suzdal.

In St. Petersburg, MIR guests can ring in the New Year with dinner in a Russian home, feasting, raising toasts and singing songs, or choose the lavish Czar's Ball at Catherine's Palace where tiered crystal chandeliers illuminate the polished parquet floors and an orchestra invites you to waltz. For four days, explore this 300-year-old imperial capital envisioned by Peter the Great, visiting Alexander's Palace, the Gold and Malachite Rooms at the Winter Palace, majestic St. Isaac's Cathedral, and the Usupoff Palace. Join a backstage tour at one of St. Petersburg's premier theaters before enjoying an evening ballet or opera performance.

MIR's Trans-Siberian Winter Wonder Land Route is a luxury private train adventure between Moscow and Vladivostok (or vice versa), an exciting option for experiencing this vast, multicultural region.

"There's nothing like the Trans-Siberian railway in the winter," said MIR Corporation founder Douglas Grimes. "You'll spend a night in a five star Moscow hotel and tour iconic Red Square and the Kremlin, and then board the distinctive world-class luxury private train, the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express, on its way across seven time zones."

The nearly 6,000-mile long route of the original Trans-Siberian from Moscow to Vladivostok is the longest single train ride in the world. On the 15-day eastbound Trans-Siberian Express Winter Wonder Land journey, tour Moscow's treasures (Red Square, Kremlin or Tretyakov Gallery), then settle in aboard the luxury private train and cross the forests of Siberia into the vast and sparsely populated regions of Eastern Russia.

Along the way, visit Suzdal's snow-tipped onion dome churches; experience an authentic Russian banya (steam-bath) at a forest resort; enjoy a sleigh ride (a la 'Dr Zhivago'!) through the snowy countryside; visit with Orthodox Old Believers; wind along the majestic frozen shores of UNESCO-listed Lake Baikal; explore UlaanBaatar of the Mongolian steppe; and finish this iconic journey in the seaside city of Vladivostok. (Vladivostok to Moscow is a reverse tour option.)

The MIR small group tour, Russian Winter Wonder Land: New Year's in St. Petersburg with Moscow and Suzdal, runs Dec. 29, 2013 to Jan. 7, 2014, and is priced from $5,595 per person. The Trans-Siberian Winter Wonder Land Route aboard the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express luxury private train features two departures -- eastbound Moscow to Vladivostok, February 23-March 9, 2014, or westbound Vladivostok to Moscow, March 7-21, 2014, with prices starting at $15,495.