I went to the Moscow Tourism Week in October 2011. You may have heard about it, or maybe even attended one. Tourism Weeks take place globally several times a year, not dissimilar to Book Fairs. They are normally international and provide a meeting space for tour and transportation operators from all corners of the globe. Moscow Tourism Week takes places twice a year, and the one in October was my first one. Thanks to it, I finally went to the Crocus City Hall exhibition centre in the North West of Moscow.
And there I met this lovely man who is a professional reindeer breeder. His stall was quite popular thanks to how he decorated it. In the photo he is wearing a traditional male costume from the Kola Peninsula, while I jumped into the super-comfy and hot (in every sense of the word) deerskin boots. Leonid owns 20 reindeers, and the kolkhoz to which he belongs has around 50,000 cattle. The figure, enormous as it seems, is actually critical: this is the point below which reindeers are driven to extinction. Unfortunately, pothunters hardly care.
My generous exhibitor offered me to taste reindeer cooked meat and servelad prepared from it. The meat is dry, with salty taste, and it was a very timely tea break.
Apparently, it costs 30K RUB for a week holiday that includes a reindeer sledge ride. As the winter season in this part of Russia lasts longer than in Moscow, I may be able to travel to Russian North West.