Roads of the Middle Volga region. Saratov — Tolyatti — Samara

Breakfast at the hotel.

Sightseeing tour of Saratov. The panorama of the city is decorated with majestic temples, an elegant embankment and an impressive bridge over the Volga River.

Saratov is famous for its picturesque parks, theaters and numerous museums, the expositions of which can compete with the capital.

In Saratov, you can see a Gothic-style mill, a conservatory resembling a castle, an Art Nouveau market, and a Moorish-style merchant's mansion.

Visit to the museum-estate of N. G. Chernyshevsky. The Saratov Museum-estate of Nikolai Chernyshevsky was founded by the writer's son Mikhail in 1920.

The estate is a complex of memorial buildings, where the house of the Chernyshevsky family, the wing of Olga Chernyshevskaya, the house and the wing of close relatives are located.

Among the unique museum exhibits are items that preserve the memory of their owners.

Lunch (extra charge).

Visit to the Saratov Art Museum named after A. N. Radishchev. The Saratov State Art Museum was opened in 1885 and is one of the oldest museums in Russia.

His collection includes more than 30 thousand works of art.

The exhibition features works by the most famous Russian painters: Rokotov, Levitsky, Borovikovsky, Bryullov, Repin, Polenov, Savrasov, Shishkin, Kuindzhi, Surikov, Levitan and many others.

Return to the hotel. Free time. Overnight at the hotel.

Breakfast at the hotel. Room release.

Transfer across the Volga River to the city of Engels.

Sightseeing tour. The city of Engels is known throughout the country as a place of production of trolleybuses, they can be seen on the streets of many cities of our country. And all over the world, the city of Engels is known as the place where the first cosmonaut on the planet, Yuri Gagarin, landed.

The natives of the city were the wonderful children's writer Lev Kassil and the famous composer Alfred Schnittke.

Squares and monuments have been laid out in honor of famous countrymen in Engels. Engels is a cozy embankment where the Volga River bank has been preserved almost in its original form.

Visit to the children's writer L. A. Kassil's house-museum. The museum's exposition aims to help visitors get into a special, noble world, recreated in the work of Lev Kassil, to witness many of his discoveries.

The spectacular, vivid exposition includes elements of the game and the possibility of its active perception.

The exhibition includes illustrations to works, rare manuscripts, documents, personal belongings of the writer, photographs, graphics, books by the writer in different languages, books with inscriptions of famous cultural and sports figures.

Transfer to Balakovo.

Sightseeing tour, visit to the Estate of Paisii Maltsev. Founded in the 18th century, the settlement of Balakovo has undergone many changes.

Initially, the village was a refuge for Old Believers who returned from exile; over time, the fertile land and proximity to the Volga River allowed Balakovo to become a prosperous town, rivaling Samara in importance.

The mansion of the richest merchant Paisii Maltsev is a real pearl of architecture, the beginning of the twentieth century. It is built based on Western European Baroque with masks, vultures, attic, urns and balustrade on the roofs.

To this day, there is an authentic lilac garden, a stable and a carriage house in the backyard.

Lunch (extra charge).

Transfer to the city of Pugachev, sightseeing tour. The center of the ancient town of Pugachev, founded by the Old Believers during the reign of Empress Catherine II, has preserved its historical buildings almost unchanged.

A walk through the streets of the former Nikolaevsk is a good excursion to the ancient merchant town. Basically, these are one-story shop houses with elements of modern decoration, among which there are absolutely wonderful buildings.

Transfer to Samara.

Check-in at the hotel. Overnight at the hotel.

Breakfast at the hotel.

Transfer from Samara to Tolyatti.

Sightseeing tour. The city of Tolyatti is known for its huge car factory. However, its history began long before the invention of automobiles, with the construction of a small fortress designed to protect against nomadic raids.

During a sightseeing tour of Tolyatti, you will visit all three districts of the city and see its main attractions.

You will learn how and when the Stavropol fortress was built and why it ended up at the bottom of the river, how the Zhiguli hydroelectric power station was built, what connects this city with the Italian communist Palmiro Tolyatti and other interesting stories.

Visit to the VASE Museum. Avtovaz is more than just a car factory for the USSR and Russia. The company was faced with the task of creating a real people's car capable of changing the way of life of compatriots.

And Avtovaz managed to solve this problem. The museum tells about the work of the Volga Automobile Plant literally from the first years of its existence. For example, here is one of the first production cars assembled in Tolyatti.

Visit to the Museum of military equipment named after K. G. Sakharov. The Park Complex of the History of Technology named after K. G. Sakharov in Tolyatti is one of the largest museums of automotive technology in Russia. The museum's territory covers more than 38 hectares, which houses more than 500 exhibits.

Among them are automobiles, armored vehicles, aviation and space vehicles, engineering and railway equipment, as well as rocket, artillery and naval weapons.

Lunch (extra charge).

Transfer to Shiryaevo.

Visit to the I. E. Repin House Museum. The I. E. Repin House Museum is a peasant farmstead where the great artist, when still very young, stayed with his friends, as well as artists Fyodor Vasiliev and Evgeny Makarov.

Sketches were made here for his most recent work, "Boatmen on the Volga."

Return to Samara.

If you have time, an evening tour in Samara.

Overnight at the hotel.

Breakfast at the hotel.

Samara city bus and walking tour. Samara is an amazing city where everything is the best: it has the largest square and the highest railway station in Europe, the longest embankment in Russia.

And the city itself is located on the banks of the largest river in the Old World. The routes from Europe to Asia, from Russia to Kazakhstan, from Moscow to Siberia converge here.

Many unique ancient buildings, Volga embankments, amazing monuments and museums, breathtaking landscapes, the neighborhood of Orthodox churches and Catholic churches — this is a city that surprises!

Transfer of things to the luggage room of the railway station (optional).

Excursion to Stalin's Bunker. Stalin's bunker in Samara is the most powerful of the currently declassified bunkers of the Soviet government.

It was built in 1941-1942, the most difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, when the Soviet government was seriously considering moving the country's capital from Moscow to Kuibyshev (as Samara was then called).

The bunker is located at a depth of 37 meters, which is the height of a 12-storey building. This underground shelter for the party elite was completely built in less than 9 months. This required the continuous round-the-clock work of 3,700 people.

The interiors of the bunker have been preserved in their original form, and its engineering systems are still serviceable and usable.

Excursion to the Samara Art Nouveau Museum. The Kurlin mansion, built in 1903, is rightfully considered one of the most beautiful and original buildings in Samara, which embodied all the talent and experience of its architect— Alexander Zelenko.

The house, which has become a unique embodiment of Russian Art Nouveau, received the status of an official museum in December 2012. The historical Art Nouveau interiors, which are its main exhibit, have been recreated on the first floor of the mansion.

You will see unique items, including those created by the masters of the Nancy School, a creative association of artists, glaziers and other masters of applied art that existed in France in the city of Nancy in the early 20th century.

Free time.

You can walk around the city center, the park, and take a river walk along the Volga River on your own. The Samara embankment, descending in terraces to the Volga, is considered the longest in Russia.

It has a length of more than five kilometers and is divided into four sections, according to the number of building queues.

It is from here that many river cruises on motor ships heading to Astrakhan, Volgograd, Moscow and other cities begin.

Transfer to the railway station or Samara airport for the planes departing after 18:50.