The Golden Ring of Russia unites old Russian cities of five Oblasts – usually excluding Moscow – as a well-known theme-route. The grouping is centred northeast of the capital in what was the north-eastern part of ancient Rus'. The ring formerly comprised the region known as Zalesye. The idea of the route and the term was created in 1967 by Soviet historian and essayist Yuri Bychkov, who published in Sovetskaya Kultura in November–December 1967 a series of essays on the cities under the heading: "Golden Ring". Bychkov was one of the founders of ВООПИК: the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture (these letters in Romanized form are VOOPIK). These ancient towns were heavily formative to the centrality of the Russian Orthodox Church in society. They preserve the memory of key events in medieval and Imperial Russian history. The towns have been called "open-air museums" and feature unique monuments of Russian architecture of the 12th–18th centuries, including kremlins, monasteries, cathedrals, and churches. These towns are among the most picturesque in Russia and prominently feature Russia's onion domes. The Golden Ring of Russia includes: Vladimir-Suzdal-Ivanovo-Kostroma-Yaroslavl-Rostov the Great-Pereslavl-Zalessky-Sergiev Posad

Cities included

For years, tourists and locals debated about which cities were "officially" part of the Golden Ring. There is no official list of which cities make up part of the Golden Ring with the exception of the eight principal cities of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Suzdal, Vladimir, Sergiev Posad, Pereslavl-Zalessky and Rostov Veliky. In addition, other old cities in the Ivanovo, Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions also considered themselves as part of the ring, including Palekh, Plyos, and Shuya in Ivanovo Oblast; Gorokhovets, Gus-Khrustalny, Murom, and Yuriev-Polsky in Vladimir Oblast; and Rybinsk, Tutaev, and Uglich in Yaroslavl Oblast. Many cities are to be found along the M8 highway or can be reached from Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. Some of the churches, kremlins and monasteries are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In Russia, the area of the Golden Ring is one of the regions that has strongly preserved many traditions and culture of ancient Russia to this day.

Branding

Now the main and most popular tourist route around provincial cities of central European Russia, the promotion of the Golden Ring was a new challenge after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. From a sustainability standpoint, there were new goals that needed to be achieved: the preservation of ancient architectural monuments, modernising the tourism industry within new capitalist system, building new types of infrastructures such as hotels, theme parks, museums and malls that encouraged economic growth. As the result cities of the Golden Ring were the first one that saw the outcome out of investments from new forms of entrepreneurship like privately owned businesses and startups.