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Russian tourism industry is growing fast after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. Almost all travel centers are concentrated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg cities because they have a lot of places of interest for travelers like Red Square and Kremlin in Moscow, Petropavlovskaya fortress and Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Russia is a popular place to travel because of its great cultural heritage and dramatic history.
Almost all country territories of Russia have no developed tourism industry but are rich in numerous ancient churches, monasteries, palaces. Unfortunately most of them are in need of restoration.
Also there are several places on interest in such Russian cities as Kaliningrad, Veliky Novgorod, Tver, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Ekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and Yoshkar-Ola.
Various cruises by such Russian rivers as Volga, Lena and Yenisey are popular among tourists coming to Russia. The traveling by Trans-Siberian Railway (running from Moscow to Vladivostok located on the shore of Pacific Ocean) is also a point of interest.
The resorts of Black Sea and Caspian Sea territories of Russia are also a popular destination. One of the major Russian resort-cities Sochi received the right to be the place of 22nd Winter Olympic Games of 2014.
In spite of numerous places of interest and attractions, developing tourism industry traveling to Russia is still not very easy especially for visitors from Western countries. There are several problems that are specific for Russia.
First problem is language barrier because Russian language is based on Cyrillic alphabet so the reading of various texts and addresses for the majority of tourists from Western countries is a very difficult task. The transliteration of Russian texts to English is not widely spread in Russia.
Also the number of English speaking people out of the limits of Moscow and Saint Petersburg cities is low. Also people speaking foreign languages are recognized as foreigners, so the prices for visiting places of interest, souvenirs are much higher than for local people.
Russian mountains
Russian fields
Russian rivers
Russian winter scenery
Russian steppes
Russian lakes
Moscow city
Saint Petersburg city
Sochi city
Novgorod city church
Yaroslavl city cathedral
Yoshkar-Ola city cathedral
You can bring all the usual types of clothes may be avoiding very extravagant ones if going to provincial cities and towns.
And about language I think you can learn some typical phrases like Spasibo meaning Thank you, Privet (less formal) or Zdravstvuytye (more formal) for Hello, Do svidaniya for Bye. I am not sure if it is possible to learn the language fast enough to have a conversation on various topics.
Good luck on your trip.
If you mean international passport cost the official fee is 2,000 Rubles (about 70 USD). But it is the price if you are doing all the necessary procedures yourself and have a time to wait.
Russian travel agencies may offer the special services when they are helping to obtain the passport in shorter period of time but of course for additional fee (up to 300-500 USD).
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