08:00 Pick up from your centrally located Moscow hotel. Transfer from Moscow to Sergiev Posad

10:00 Sergiev Posad and Trinity Lavra Monastery exploration - one of main and closest to Moscow Golden Ring town, being the oldest and most important centre of Russian Orthodox Church.

• Trinity Cathedral (1422) – a masterpiece of Russian architecture and the oldest surviving building inside the monastery. It is here that the relics of St Sergius are held. The cathedral’s ancient iconostasis also holds icons with were painted by Andrey Rublev and his pupils.
• Dormition Cathedral (1559-1585) – built on the orders and using the donations of Ivan the Terrible taking the Moscow Kremlin’s Dormition Cathedral as an example.
• St.Sergius’ Church and Refectory (1686-1692) - here you will see the stunning Moscow-baroque style interior which is considered to have one of the most beautiful carved iconostases in Russia. 

Climb up to the Bell Tower of the Monastery to see the oldest working bell in Russia, 2 tonnes weight.

Sergiev Posad grew in the 15th century around one of the greatest of Russian monasteries, the Trinity Lavra established by St. Sergius of Radonezh, which continues to be one of the largest monasteries in Russia. You will have a guided tour throughout the territory of the monastery with visiting some of its temples, the sacristy and, of course, its main church - the Trinity Sergius Cathedral, one of the most beautiful Russian monasteries, a huge Orthodox town in a town, UNESCO World Heritage object. You will admire the picturesque complex of buildings of the Trinity-St Sergius Laura, which has organically blended with the lovely surrounding scenery, has been shaped in the course of several centuries. 
Sergiev Posad is one of Russia's most important religious and historic landmarks, a place of pilgrimage of the Russian Orthodox Church and one of the most interesting museums, where one may find the icons of Andrei Rublev and other famous masters of the 15th-18th centuries. It has an interesting history and unforgettable monuments. Sergiev Posad is a town of painters, wood-carvers, toy-makers developed from the villages. The town of Sergiev Posad is also famous in its own right as being the birthplace of the Russian doll (matryoshka).  Local artists from the region who lived under the patronage of the influential entrepreneur Savva Mamontov became enamoured of the round painted wooden dolls popular in Japan in the late 19th Century. They decided to create their own Russian version of the dolls and over the following decades, the Sergiev Posad region became the centre of matryoshka production in Russia. To this day Sergiev Posad still has its own doll factory and is one of the best places to buy authentic high-quality matryoshka

12:30 Lunch

13:40 Matryoshka doll painting master-class

16:00 Transfer to Abramtsevo

16:30 Abramtsevo Colony exploration

Abramtsevo was originally owned by author Sergei Aksakov, famous Slavophile, who called for the rejection of European influences on Russian life and letters. Among his friends and supporters were Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Gogol, both of whom were frequent guests at Abramtsevo. In 1870 the estate was bought by Savva Mamontov, one of the most significant figures in the development of Russian national art. Mamontov had shown a keen interest in and considerable talent for the dramatic and visual arts. The group that gathered around Mamontov included Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, Mikhail Vrubel, and the Vasnetsov brothers, Viktor and Apollinarius. All these artists have large bodies of work displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery, and Abramtsevo is the ideal destination for those intrigued by the world of 19th Century Russian art. This extraordinary concentration of talent led to the transformation of Abramtsevo. Not only did these celebrated artists work here, producing a number of images of the estate and its buildings, they also left their permanent mark by collaborating on a number of building projects in traditional Russian styles.

Working together in a cooperative spirit, the artists Vasily Polenov and Viktor Vasnetsov designed a plain but picturesque church, with murals painted by Polenov, Vasnetsov and his brother, a gilded iconostasis by Ilya Repin and Mikhail Nesterov, and folklore-inspired sculptures by Viktor Hartmann and Mark Antokolsky. Towards the turn of the 20th century, drama and opera on Russian folklore themes (e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden) were produced in Abramtsevo by the likes of Konstantin Stanislavsky, with sets contributed by Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, and other distinguished artists.

Abramtsevo is now open to the public and tourists can wander along the many paths through the surrounding forest and cross the wooden bridges that served as an inspiration for the artists at the Abramtsevo Colony. They can also visit many of the buildings to see works produced by the artists at the colony, e.g., a wooden bathhouse in the shape of a traditional dwelling of Ancient Rus, designed by Ivan Ropet, and the House on Chicken Legs, a fairy-tale abode of an evil witch, Baba Yaga, designed by Vasnetsov. One building, the main "manor," is said to have been the model for the estate in which Anton Chekhov set The Cherry Orchard.

18:00 Transfer back to Moscow