To Russia, with love

Staff members of the tourism department in Lenin's hometown of Ulyanovsk welcome Chinese travelers.

While such wistfulness has traditionally been ardent among older generations, Chinese visitors are getting younger.

Most Chinese visiting Russia were older than 60 until last year, but travelers in the age group 30-50 have overtaken them as a "major force", Yan says.

Russia hopes to draw 1 million Chinese over the next two years, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets told media earlier.

One of the best-developed red tourism routes stretches from Moscow to Vladimir Lenin's hometown Ulyanovsk and Kazan, ending in St Petersburg.

The journey enables Chinese to learn about the Soviet Union while experiencing contemporary Russia, Ulyanovsk's government says.

Lenin's body is preserved in a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square, while St Petersburg hosts the Winter Palace, the opulent abode of the czars before the revolution.

Nearly all Ctrip packages include St Petersburg, Yan says.

Items Lenin used when he studied in Kazan have been preserved and are worth viewing, says the Russian tourism agency's head, Safonov Oleg Petrovich.

"Revolution and the people's fight for independence, and even the Great Patriotic War (World War II as fought by the Soviets from 1941), are important themes for the Chinese, just as they are for us," the AFP quotes Ulyanovsk's tourism department head, Sergei Lakovsky, as saying.