Just back from a week in Moscow, I feel obliged to point out a few things about it.

• Most people there still love Americans.
• Many people there speak English.
• Learning basic Russian is not that hard.
• Moscow is the biggest city in Europe (and far bigger than any in the United States).
• Moscow has the charm, culture, architecture, history, activities, events, parks, museums, and entertainment to match any other city in Europe.
• It’s warm there now with flowers everywhere.
• Moscow is safer than U.S. cities. You can walk around alone at night with no worries.
• The Metro goes everywhere. A train comes every 2 minutes. The trains have free Wi-Fi. So do the parks.
• You can rent bicycles at lots of different spots and return them to any other.
• You can fly direct from New York to Moscow, and if you fly on the Russian airline Aeroflot you’ll get a nostalgic reminder of what it’s like to have airplane seats large enough to hold a human being.
• Everybody says that St. Petersburg and various other cities are even more beautiful than Moscow.
• Right now the sun is up from 4:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Moscow, and until 9:30 p.m. in St. Petersburg. The longest day of the year in St. Petersburg is 18-and-a-half hours.

Americans seem not to know about Russia. While four-and-a-half million Americans visit Italy in a year, and two-and-a-half million go to Germany as tourists, only 86 thousand go to Russia. More tourists go to Russia from several other countries than go there from the U.S.

If you want to visit Russia and really learn about it, go, as I did, with the Center for Citizen Initiatives.

If you want the best tour guide I’ve had in Moscow or anywhere else, contact MoscowMe.

Here are some reports on my trip: