Suzdal is a small town 230 km east of Moscow that once served as capital of the medieval Rostov-Suzdal principality. Ten centuries of history are packed into a place you can walk across in an hour, and the concentration of churches, monasteries, and wooden architecture is extraordinary — the entire town is essentially an open-air museum.
Together with neighboring Vladimir, Suzdal forms the heart of Russia's Golden Ring. The Kremlin, the Monastery of Saint Euthymius, and the Museum of Wooden Architecture are the main draws, but much of the pleasure is simply wandering the unpaved lanes past painted wooden houses and onion-domed churches. The nearby settlement of Kideksha, once a summer residence of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky (the founder of Moscow), has the Church of Boris and Gleb — one of the oldest surviving monuments of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture.
Suzdal has no railway station. Most visitors arrive by bus from Vladimir (about 40 minutes) or on a day trip from Moscow.