title: Introduction
abstract: Abstract This introductory chapter outlines the book’s two main aims. Firstly, the book provides the first English-language account of the cultural politics of Russian tourism to the former Soviet states. Based on a comparison of three cities, the book examines the production and contestation of cultural memories in transnational tourism encounters between Russian tourists and their hosts. Secondly, the book uses the case of Russian tourism to make an intervention in the field of memory studies 
journal: Palgrave Macmillan memory studies