Today's Russia can be both an exhilarating adventure and a dreary and tiring ordeal with its museums and renovated Russian Orthodox churches along with vestiges of trial-and-error capitalism, glitzy casinos, billboard politics and gangster-hangout restaurants. For those willing to endure the risks and inconveniences, Russia is simply a fascinating place -- from the imperial beauty of Moscow and St. Petersburg to the bleakly romantic Siberian countryside.