rokia traore tour 2022

• Moscow concerts Moscow concerts Moscow concerts See all Moscow concerts ( Change location ) Today · Next 7 days · Next 30 days
• Most popular artists worldwide
• Trending artists worldwide

• Tourbox for artists

Search for events or artists

• Sign up Log in

• Get the app
• Moscow concerts
• Change location
• Popular Artists
• Live streams
• Deutsch Português
• Popular artists

Rokia Traoré

• On tour: no
• Upcoming 2024 concerts: none

27,981 fans get concert alerts for this artist.

Join Songkick to track Rokia Traoré and get concert alerts when they play near you.

Find your next concert

Join 27,981 fans getting concert alerts for this artist

Similar artists with upcoming concerts

Tours most with, past concerts.

Théâtres Romains de Fourvière

Théâtre du Châtelet

View all past concerts

Posters (16)

Find out more about Rokia Traoré tour dates & tickets 2024-2025

Want to see Rokia Traoré in concert? Find information on all of Rokia Traoré’s upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2024-2025.

Unfortunately there are no concert dates for Rokia Traoré scheduled in 2024.

Songkick is the first to know of new tour announcements and concert information, so if your favorite artists are not currently on tour, join Songkick to track Rokia Traoré and get concert alerts when they play near you, like 27981 other Rokia Traoré fans.

Last concert:

Concerts played in 2024:

Touring history

Most played:

• London (17)
• SF Bay Area (8)
• New York (NYC) (7)

Appears most with:

• Sweet Billy Pilgrim (9)
• Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (4)
• Two Door Cinema Club (4)
• Natacha Atlas (4)
• Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 (4)

Distance travelled:

Similar artists

• Most popular charts
• API information
• Brand guidelines
• Community guidelines
• Terms of use
• Privacy policy
• Cookies settings
• Cookies policy

Get your tour dates seen everywhere.

• But we really hope you love us.

ROKIA TRAORE Biography

> french version

“It’s clear that it’s inspired by rock music,” says Mali’s international star Rokia Traoré of her new album, Beautiful Africa. “But I didn’t want to make rock and roll in the Western tradition…I wanted something that’s rock and roll but still Malian and still me.”

The past year has been a quite extraordinarily productive period for Traoré. One of the most inventive female singer/songwriters in Africa today, she is remarkable not just for the range of her powerful and emotional voice but also for the sheer variety of her work. She has written three wildly different new sets of music: the acoustic Damou (Dream), the often bluesy Donguili (Sing), and the rock-influenced Donke (Dance), in which she set out to show “three different aspects of Malian culture and my own personality.” Produced by the UK’s prestigious Barbican, all three were performed at different London venues in one week last summer—a feat she repeated at this year’s Sydney Festival in Australia. She has toured Britain on the Africa Express train, stopping off around the country for concerts that included collaborations with Damon Albarn as well as Paul McCartney and John Paul Jones, who joined her backing band for the London finale. And she has continued acting as well, with British and European performances in Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars’ much-praised theatrical/musical re-working of the Shakespearian story of Desdemona, for which she wrote the music.

Now comes Beautiful Africa, an album of the powerful new songs, first heard in her Donke project, reminding listeners it was rock music that first inspired Traoré’s remarkable career. “I really like rock,” she said, “and it was because of rock that I wanted to play music.” When she was growing up, an older brother used to play her Dire Straits and Pink Floyd. “It wasn’t all I listened to—I discovered jazz and blues with my dad, and Malian and other African music, and French chanson, but it was rock music that made me want to learn guitar.”

There are three guitarists on the album, including Traoré herself, but though the record is constructed around rock riffs and sturdy bass work, it still has a distinctively West African feel, thanks to rousing performances from Mamah Diabaté on the n’goni, the ancient, harsh-edged African lute. It’s an instrument that Traoré has used in compositions throughout her career, and she argues, “You can put it with everything. I’ve used n’goni in classical music projects, and it goes with blues, or jazz, or rock and roll. It’s a great instrument!”

Traoré’s changes of musical direction usually start with “a sound that I imagine…a sound inside my head.” She didn’t want to imitate what other people had done “because I need to do what I imagine—that’s the reason I’m making music.” But she needed someone to help her create the sound that she imagined, and eventually decided on John Parish, the writer, guitarist, and producer who has worked with Tracy Chapman, Eels, and PJ Harvey.

“I chose to work with John,” she says, “because when I listened to PJ Harvey or his other work, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I could imagine what the man who made this sound could do with me if we collaborated on my music. I was curious about it, but not sure about getting what I was imagining.” During the recordings, she said “he just asked me to listen to things and make my choice, and sometimes when I didn’t like or understand something, he changed it.” And was she happy with the results? “This is what I wanted to make and I’m happy. It’s even more than I imagined.”

Traoré, Parish, and Stefano Pilia play guitars on the album, with Nicolai Munch-Hansen on bass, percussion from Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear), ‘human beatbox’ effects from Jason Singh, and n’goni playing and backing vocals by fellow Malian musicians Fatim Kouyaté and Bintou Soumounou, both members of the Foundation Passerelle that Traoré established in Bamako, the Malian capital, to help her fellow Malians prepare for careers in music and sustain the growth of Mali’s rich musical culture.. Traoré was awarded the inaugural Roskilde Festival World Music Award in 2009 for her work with the Foundation.

The songs are in the West African language of Bambara, as well as French and occasional bursts of English, and the often personal lyrics are concerned with Traoré’s thoughts on her own life, and on her tragically battered homeland.

Mali is a country that has become known around the world for its extraordinary musicians—from Traoré through to Amadou & Mariam, Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté, Fatoumata Diawara, Tinariwen, Bassekou Kouyaté, Oumou Sangaré, Afel Bocoum, Salif Keita, among others—and was once a great tourist destination, famous for the desert cities and for the Niger river, as well as the celebrated Festival in The Desert. But over the past year it has slipped into political chaos, with the President overthrown in a military coup in the capital, and rebel groups taking over large sections of the north of the country. The rebels then splintered into different factions, with those initially fighting for independence in the north usurped by extremist Islamist groups, some linked to al-Qaeda, and who went on to ban music in the areas they controlled. Military forces from France, Mali, and other African nations have fought to repel these advances.

The album’s title track, built around the sturdiest rock riff on the album, is very much a love song to “battered, wounded Africa,” and reflects Traoré’s despair and fury at what has happened to her country, while commenting on problems elsewhere in Africa, from Ivory Coast to Congo. “The flood of my tears is in full spate, ardent is my pain,” she sings, while arguing that, “Conflict is no solution…Lord, give us wisdom, give us foresight.”

Other songs on the album include the thoughtful ballad “Sarama,” a praise song to Malian women, partly sung in English, and the personal “Mélancolie,” a surprisingly upbeat song about loneliness and sadness that has already become a radio hit in France. Traoré says that she was lonely as a child, partly because her father was a diplomat and constantly on the move, and partly because she was the middle child in a family of seven.

Another, more upbeat song, “Sikey,” is also autobiographical, looking back at the criticism she received when she first set out to become a professional musician, and her determination to keep going. After all, she was not a griot, from a family of traditional musicians, but the daughter of a diplomat. And although she had no musical training, she gave up her studies in Brussels to return to Mali to create a new form of music, in which her songs would be backed by her acoustic guitar, along with n’goni and the xylophone-like balaba balafon, two instruments not normally played together in Africa.

Her breakthrough came when she was hailed as the ‘African Discovery’ of 1997 by Radio France Internationale after playing at the Angouleme Festival, in France, and since then she has continued to experiment and explore new ideas. In 2003, her album Bowmboï included a collaboration with Kronos Quartet and was awarded a prestigious BBC Radio 3 World Music Award. Her 2009 album Tchamantché reflected her new fascination with the Gretsch electric guitar, and won a Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of a Grammy, as well as a Songlines Artist of the Year Award for Traoré.

She has twice collaborated with the maverick director Peter Sellars, who in 2006 invited her to write and perform a work for his New Crowned Hope project, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birthday. Traoré replied by imagining Mozart as a griot in the time of the 13th-century African ruler Soundiata Keita, whose empire was centred in what is now Mali. She also recently collaborated with Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison and Sellars on the theatre piece Desdemona, bringing an African dimension to the story of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine. The piece premiered in Vienna in the summer of 2011 and received its New York premiere at Lincoln Center that fall; its UK premiere was at the Barbican in London in the summer of 2012. The Guardian called it “a remarkable, challenging and bravely original new work.”

It was the experience of acting in Desdemona, she says, that led her to create the Damou (Dream) project, performed in London last year, in which she showed her skills as a storyteller, as well as a singer, with her version of stories from The Epic of Soundiata, dealing with events leading to the birth of Africa’s legendary ruler. These are stories that would traditionally be told by Mali’s griots—indeed, Traoré said she could only create the show because she has been learning from one of Mali’s finest female griots, the singer Bako Dagnon.

Rokia Traoré is indeed a remarkable artist, and it is difficult to think of anyone else who can switch from ancient Malian culture to acting and then to African rock and roll. She will be touring Europe in May, performing in Desdemona in Amsterdam and Naples in June, then returning to Europe at the end of June for what promises to be a memorable treatment of the new songs from Beautiful Africa during a run of summer festivals, including Glastonbury and Roskilde.

Robin Denselow

Find anything you save across the site in your account

By Minna Zhou

February 16, 2016

“ Né So ” means “home” in Bambara, Mali’s primary lingua franca. The album, Rokia Traoré’s sixth in a career spanning almost two decades, hangs loosely around that same theme. The concept of home has long been fluid for the Malian singer/songwriter, who grew up traveling the world with her diplomat father and who today splits her time between Bamako, Brussels, and Marseille. Before that, not long after the Mali conflict erupted in 2012, she relocated temporarily to Paris but continued to grapple with personal difficulties that had pushed her to consider quitting music. As a result, on Né So , home encompasses the personal and the political, from refuge and nostalgia, to love and freedom.

Né So  opens with a benediction. On “Tu voles” (“You fly”),  Rokia Traoré  sings in French, “You fly/ From every hurt/ You release yourself/ And you swim through the air/ You fly…” Her raspy, quavering voice floats untethered over a spritely reggae guitar and lilting blues figures. By all accounts, she’s trying to sing you, and herself, to a freer place, where, “Body and soul are aligned” and “You glimpse your ideal.”

Working with producer/musician John Parish (PJ Harvey, Tracy Chapman, Eels), who also produced her last album Beautiful Africa , Rokia keeps Né So intimate and minimalistic. Her music is, as ever, mainly a mix of Mandingue and Western pop/rock influences. But this time around, she sounds tired, even as she doubles down on giving moral lessons throughout. On “Ile,” Rokia sings in Bambara over lithe Afrobeat guitars and a drum kit imitating calebasse rhythms: “You there/ Why inflict on others what would be woe for yourself?/ I don’t like violence.” And on “Kolokani,” she sings a soft lullaby reminiscing about her hometown of the same name while paying her respects: “Those who stayed at the source give meaning to our past.”

Most of the textural differences from song to song on Né So are slight, so they tend to bleed into one another. “Kenia” is the most dynamic track on the record vocally, as Rokia switches her airier singing style in for a more strident Wassoulou-esque sound à la Oumou Sangaré  or Fatoumata Diawara . The guitars buoying her alternate between Tuareg and American blues. But Traoré herself has pulled this off before to similarly charismatic effect, so while it’s a perfectly good song, it remains unremarkable outside the context of the album. It’s telling, actually, that the one standout track here is a cover. In Traoré’s rendition of “Strange Fruit,” made famous by Billie Holiday, a solitary bass lumbers beneath a guitar line that bends and wavers like heat over asphalt. Her voice aches and shudders, giving way in the end to a ngoni solo that hovers in the middle distance, like a ghostly reminder of ancestors past.

This is the album’s turning point; the remaining two tracks are less songs than they are speeches set to music. On the title track, Rokia says (in French), “In 2014 another five million five hundred thousand people fled their homes/ Forced to seek refuge in towns and countries far from home.” It’s an important message, to be sure. But the track comes perilously close to feeling like the soundtrack to a TV fundraiser special, of the kind where important people appear on screen reciting statistics and platitudes about the human condition over melodramatic background music.

It doesn’t help that label-mate Devendra Banhart joins in to represent the voice of the displaced, delivering lines like, “Where to place my dreams/ Where to hold a heart opened to joy/ Opened to hope.” It only gets worse on the album’s closer, “Se Dan,” which sits somewhere between TED Talk, overwrought spoken word poem, and a lecture from your mom (who loves you but is concerned and wants you to learn some respect). On it, Rokia is joined once more by Devendra to pontificate, this time in English, about how we all have, “One world/ One destiny/ One aim/ One thing to never forget: respect." The sentiment is heartfelt but it verges on the trite, which can be said of the album as a whole.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions ), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Pitchfork. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Rokia Traoré Verified

Similar artists on tour, bandsintown merch.

Live Photos of Rokia Traoré

Concerts and tour dates, fan reviews.

About Rokia Traoré

Rokia Traoré

Rokia Traore is an acclaimed singer/guitarist from Mali.

Read Full Biography

STREAM OR BUY:

Album Highlights

Related Artists

Discography, moods and themes.

World Music Central

Artist profiles: malian singer-songwriter rokia traore.

Rokia Traore was born in 1974 and comes from Bamako. Though-steeped in tradition, Rokia Traore’s music is thoroughly integrated into a contemporary sound, thanks to her upbringing in a multicultural environment. Unlike many other Malian singers she does not come from the jali caste, but rather from the class sponsoring them.

Her father was a diplomat, and so she lived in many different places away from Mali: Algeria, Saudi Arabia, France, and Belgium. As a result, Rokia Traore has managed to integrate the atmospheres of great many places into her recordings. She grew up listening to all types of music, Algerian and Malian music, jazz, blues, reggae and afropop, and her original career choice was social sciences. Yet once she decided to become an artist instead, the great guitarist, singer and sound engineer Ali Farka Toure, who encouraged and recorded many of the upcoming, independent, and innovative Malian performers, became her mentor.

Another big influence is Massembou Diallo. He used to play with Rokia’s father in an amateur band called Chiwa Band. He encouraged her to make music and composed Rokia’s first two pieces together with her.

Rokia was the winner of the African Discoveries award.

In 2013, Rokia Traoré released “Beautiful Africa.” the album’s songs are performed in Traoré’s native languages of French and Bambara, as well as some English. The musical ensemble comprised of Rokia Traoré as the vocalist and guitarist; Mamah Diabaté on the n’goni; Fatim Kouyaté providing backing vocals; Nicolaï Munch-Hansen playing the bass and double bass; John Parish contributing additional guitars; Stefano Pilia on guitars; Sebastian Rochford handling the drums; Jason Singh providing human beatbox’ and Bintou Soumbounou on backing vocals.

After her separation from a Belgian citizen in 2018, Rokia was involved in a child custody legal dispute. Her concerns about the fairness of the Belgian and French legal systems led her to stop performing in Europe.

Discography:

Mouneïssa (Indigo, 1998) Wanita (Indigo, 2000) Bowmboï (Indigo, 2003) Tchamantché (Indigo, 2008) Beautiful Africa (Nonesuch, 2013) Né So (Nonesuch, 2016)

Author: Angel Romero

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please enter an answer in digits: 3 × five =

Rokia Traoré

• News & Reviews
• Tours & Tickets

Rokia Traoré

• Mouneïssa · 1998
• Beautiful Africa · 2013
• Tchamantché · 2008
• Bowmboi · 2003
• Wanita · 1999
• Né So · 2016
• Kamoun Ke (Sylow Remix)
• Buddha Bar Summer of Chill (by Ravin) · 2020

Artist Playlists

The Malian singer-songwriter and guitarist pays tribute to her African roots and rock heroes.

Singles & EPs

Classica Orchestra Afrobeat

About Rokia Traoré

Rokia Traoré's father was a diplomat and she spent her childhood traveling to a number of countries, including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and France, and was exposed to a variety of styles of music, from classical, jazz, and pop to Indian traditional composition. Traoré's voice is smooth and gentle, and her arrangements, while somewhat minimalist, make use of traditional instruments like the balafon, n'goni, and kora as well as acoustic guitar and electric bass. That sound is evident on her debut release, Mouneïssa, from 1998, but most evident on her 2000 release, Wanita, a deeply personal and individual record that reflects both innovation and tradition. ~ Stacia Proefrock

Similar Artists

Boubacar traoré, ali farka touré, bassekou kouyate & ngoni ba, fatoumata diawara, toumani diabate, dobet gnahoré, the touré-raichel collective, oumou sangaré, ablaye cissoko, orchestra baobab, select a country or region, africa, middle east, and india.

• Côte d’Ivoire
• Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The
• Guinea-Bissau
• Niger (English)
• Congo, Republic of
• Saudi Arabia
• Sierra Leone
• South Africa
• Tanzania, United Republic Of
• Turkmenistan
• United Arab Emirates

Asia Pacific

• Indonesia (English)
• Lao People's Democratic Republic
• Malaysia (English)
• Micronesia, Federated States of
• New Zealand
• Papua New Guinea
• Philippines
• Solomon Islands
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• France (Français)
• Deutschland
• Luxembourg (English)
• Moldova, Republic Of
• North Macedonia
• Portugal (Português)
• Türkiye (English)
• United Kingdom

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina (Español)
• Bolivia (Español)
• Virgin Islands, British
• Cayman Islands
• Chile (Español)
• Colombia (Español)
• Costa Rica (Español)
• República Dominicana
• Ecuador (Español)
• El Salvador (Español)
• Guatemala (Español)
• Honduras (Español)
• Nicaragua (Español)
• Paraguay (Español)
• St. Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• St. Vincent and The Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks and Caicos
• Uruguay (English)
• Venezuela (Español)

The United States and Canada

• Canada (English)
• Canada (Français)
• United States
• Estados Unidos (Español México)
• الولايات المتحدة
• États-Unis (Français France)
• Estados Unidos (Português Brasil)
• 美國 (繁體中文台灣)

Sure would appreciate someone who has taken "Best of Moscow by high speed train" from St. Petersburg could please share their impressions of this shore excursion. From the description this sounds like a very long day.

Wondering how the 4 hour train trip was in terms of accommodations, etc. Also what time did you leave the ship and what time at night did you return? Were both legs of the trip on the high speed rail (I read that slower trains also travel the same tracks)?

My wife and I are considering this excursion. We thought that if we are making all the effort to go to Russia then how could we pass up going to Moscow, walking in Red Square, seeing St. Basil, etc.

Link to comment

Share on other sites.

If you are considering this on the 2015 June Baltic cruise on Voyager; my suggestion is don't. There is so much to do in St. Petersburg and although a train is one of my favorite ways to travel the time would be far better spent in St. P.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, this would be on the Voyager during the 2015 season but not yet sure exactly which cruise.

We did the Moscow excursion "on a different luxury line", but from your brief description it sounds very much like the same trip, so I will operate on that assumption. It is a VERY long day! We left the ship at 5:30 AM and returned at 12:30 AM. The highspeed train trip is comfortable, and while they call it "Business Class" it does not compare well to the equivalent class on say Rail Europe. When we did it in 2011, we did have highspeed both ways, and the trip back seemed much longer as the adrenaline and excitement had worn off!:D

Moscow itself is not that terribly different from any other big city in the world, but this Cold War kid never thought he would ever stand in Red Square, never mind walk the grounds of The Kremlin, or tour The Kremlin Palace, or see (but not visit) Lenin's Tomb, or visit The Armoury. But he did, and he loved every minute of it! Yes, it is a long day, and you barely scratch a scratch on the surface, but it is worth it. There is a tremendous amount to see in St. Petersburg, but every Baltic cruise goes to St. Petersburg, so you can go back if you choose to. Not every cruiseline offers you the chance to see Moscow.

I have not personally done this tour, but our last time in St Petersburg, the private guide that we hired for a day was leading the regent tour to Moscow on the high speed train the next day. He said it was way better than the previous alternative, which was flying to Moscow and back. He said that you actually got to Moscow faster because you didn't have to deal with airline checkin etc. it did seem like a very long day to me, and there is so much to see and do in st. Petersburg that I didn't consider doing it.

countflorida

We toured to Moscow from St. Petersburg via the hi-speed SAPSAN train last September, from a Baltic cruise on the Oceania Marina. You need to have a two-night, three day port call in St. Petersburg to take this tour because the tour typically leaves the ship around 5:00 - 5:30 AM and doesn't return until after midnight the next day. We didn't take the ship's tour; we made private arrangements with TravelAllRussia for three days of touring, the first and third days in St. Petersburg and the second day the tour to Moscow by train. Our cost for the private tour for three days was about the same as what the ship charged for the excursion to Moscow alone. There are a number of private tour agencies that operate in St. Petersburg and offer the Moscow train tours; we would strongly recommend them over the ship's tours.

All three days had private guides with car and driver. The second day, the driver picked us up at the ship and took us to the train, but we were alone on the train, and met in Moscow by the guide on the station platform. After our tour and dinner, we were brought back to the train and after the return train trip met by the driver and taken back to the ship. Because you are alone on the train you must have your own Russian visas.

If this is your first visit to St. Petersburg, I would agree there is much more to see there. We found Moscow somewhat a disappointment, particularly Red Square. The Kremlin and the cathedral in Red Square were also worth seeing. But the best thing we saw was the Moscow subway! I worked for the Washington Metro system back in the 1980s as it grew from 40 to 80 miles and although I was in the computer area, I learned a lot about the challenges of running a subway system. We used the Moscow system to get across the city from where we had dinner to the train station, and I was amazed at the cleanliness', speed of operation, the short headways maintained, and the courtesy of everyone involved. A very impressive experience!

We had been to St. Petersburg before, and so had the time to take a day and go to Moscow. Also, I really like trains, and the SAPSAN is a German train set running on Russian rails. Seats are like first class domestic air, spacious but not too plush or comfortable, but with enough room. Not too much recline, and almost 8 hours on the train in two shots is a lot for an old man. They come through and sell drinks, candy, etc. but the sellers don't speak English and no one around us helped, so we had just poor coffee once coming, and brought stuff with us for the trip back. Not too much to see from the train either, particularly on the return when it is night the whole way.

If you decide to go, take a private tour and avoid the overly expensive ship's tour. I'm glad we did it, but wouldn't bother to repeat the tour; we've seen Moscow.

Thanks so much to all of you for the thorough and thought insight. Yhe information you have provided is most helpful.

countflorida: Your detailed post is very helpful. We are not quite ready for a Baltic cruise but should do so within a year. Time enough to do our pre travel research, bookings and visa gathering.:) Thank you!

Emperor Norton

Sure would appreciate someone who has taken "Best of Moscow by high speed train" from St. Petersburg could please share their impressions of this shore excursion. From the description this sounds like a very long day.   Wondering how the 4 hour train trip was in terms of accommodations, etc. Also what time did you leave the ship and what time at night did you return? Were both legs of the trip on the high speed rail (I read that slower trains also travel the same tracks)?   My wife and I are considering this excursion. We thought that if we are making all the effort to go to Russia then how could we pass up going to Moscow, walking in Red Square, seeing St. Basil, etc.

I did this on Seabourn. IMO DONT. Take Aeroflop (er Aeroflot). The train has non folding seats where you are literally knee to knee with your fellow passenger (facing each other). Further they don't believe in air conditioning. It's also the worlds slowed bullet train. I think I would have found more enjoyment wandering around the St. Petersburg and Moscow airports.

Countflorida,

This is a little off topic,, however we had planned a river cruise in Russia but decided we would rather stay on land and have booked about two weeks with Travel-All-Russia using the private guide and driver. I'm curious as to how you found them as a tour company.

The guides they provided were fine. We had a different guide each of the days in St. Petersburg, but both were flexible, pleasant, knowledgeable and spoke English very well, as did the guide in Moscow, incidentally. She was a bit aloof, distant, not too friendly, but otherwise fine. In fact, she was the one who suggested taking the Metro, which unexpectedly became one of the highlights of the Moscow excursion. If I have a complaint with AllTravelRussia, it is with their plan and its execution (more later).

I had requested emphasis on World War II (in Russia, the Great Patriotic War) sites and info. In scheduling us, they weren't careful about dates and a couple of the sites we wanted to see were scheduled on the third day, after we'd been to Moscow. But both sites were closed that day of the week, and that info was readily available, right on web sites describing them. Also, the included meals (lunches in St. Pete, dinner in Moscow) were not what we asked for: light meals with some choices, so we could avoid things we didn't like and choose things we did like. My request was ignored; we were given full Russian meals with a fixed menu, no choice. On the first day, a fish dish was the entre, but I am allergic to fish. Fortunately, I had the e-mail I'd sent with me and showed it to the guide, and she was able to change my entre to chicken, which was very good actually. But we didn't want a 3-4 course lunches or dinner (in Moscow). We had the guide drop the lunch the third day, although we never got any credit or refund. But, particularly in contrast to the ship's tours, the prices were so reasonable we didn't worry too much about it.

The people who were on the ship's tour to Moscow saw us boarding the same train for which they were forced to queue up and wait on the way back, and asked us what we had done. I was candid and open so they were not happy when I explained what we had arranged and particularly what it had cost. Also, when we returned to the ship, we found they had laid on a late supper for those who had gone to Moscow, so up we went and had something. Well, it turns out the late supper was supposed to be just for those on the ship's tour, but we and others on 'independent' tours, there were a dozen or more of us, crashed the party, actually got there first, and they didn't realize it until the larger group arrived and there weren't enough tables/places set. By that time, the 'independents' had all gotten served and were eating; what could they do?

A couple from the larger group sat down with us and asked us about our tour, and they were the ones I told about our arrangement and its cost. They turned to others who’d been with them and announced the details, loudly enough so the whole room heard, which started a lot of bitching and complaining. I gathered they weren't very happy with the ship's tour to begin with, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. We finished up and beat it out of there, but overheard later that one of the excursion staff came to check on something and ran into a real mess. I caught a cold on the trip, which forced me to bed the second day following in Tallinn, so by the time we reappeared we heard about the contretemps' but apparently no one recalled who started it, thankfully.

Because of what happened to us, I would probably not use AllTravelRussia if I were to go again, or if I did, I would be sure to get confirmation of every detail of the tour. They do have good reviews generally, and we were certainly helped by their visa department and liked the guides and drivers. Their weakness, I say now with full 20:20 hindsight, is that once the sales person who plans the tour, sells it to you and collects your money, he (or she) transfers the plan to their Russia office for implementation; there is no follow-up to make sure it gets done right. And that is where our problems arose; we paid for a custom tour but got a standard package with a few destinations switched, and no one checked them out, even to see when they were open the day we were scheduled to go. If you check every detail that’s important to you, it should be OK, but that’s a hell of a way to have to do business, in my opinion.

Thank you for the 20/20 hindsight observation on your Russian tour operator, and better priced than the ship's excursion cost.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

We had the same experience as you so far as price. We originally booked a Viking Cruise but, hearing some things about the river cruises that made us unhappy, looked into other options. T-A-R cost the same or less than a cruise and had us in hotels for 11 days. We opted for the private tour. They have three tour levels, based on hotels. We originally opted for the four star as it did not cost much more than the three star hotels. Finally we decided to throw it all in and upgraded to five star. In Moscow we will be at the newly opened Kempinsky which is two blocks from Red Square. In St. Petersburg it is the Grand Hotel Europe, one of the most vaunted luxury hotels in Russia. Location is important for us as the tours use up only part of the day so being in the center of everything for our independent touring is important. As with many other cities, the less you pay, the farther out of the center of town you are.

We have been working with our salesman in D.C. and he seems to get back to us with the changes we want. He recently returned from Russia so is up on everything. When I asked they said they paid the full TA commission if I wanted so I got my usual TA on board so he is watching our back and giving us that extra level of comfort. He also set up our air, which I know pays him little or nothing, and got us business class for much less than T-A-R wanted for economy, though it took working for a while with a consolidator. He's happy to get his 10 percent on this trip without having booked it. He also took care of the trip insurance. We've been doing a lot of research on the CC sister site Trip Advisor and will write a report there. We will, I guess, become a source of info for CC members after having spent 5 days in Moscow and 6 in SP.

• 4 months later...

scubacruiserx2

Anybody considering a day trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg on the Sapsan may want to look at our travelogue filled with pictures.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1927687

Very informative. Thanks dor sharing. Jeff

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in

• Welcome to Cruise Critic
• ANNOUNCEMENT: Set Sail Beyond the Ordinary with Oceania Cruises
• ANNOUNCEMENT: The Widest View in the Whole Wide World
• New Cruisers
• Cruise Lines “A – O”
• Cruise Lines “P – Z”
• River Cruising
• Cruise Critic News & Features
• Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
• Special Interest Cruising
• Cruise Discussion Topics
• UK Cruising
• Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
• Canadian Cruisers
• North American Homeports
• Ports of Call
• Cruise Conversations

Announcements

• New to Cruise Critic? Join our Community!

Write Your Own Amazing Review !

Click this gorgeous photo by member SUPERstar777 to share your review!

Features & News

LauraS · Started Thursday at 10:20 PM

LauraS · Started Wednesday at 07:36 PM

LauraS · Started Wednesday at 12:53 AM

LauraS · Started Tuesday at 07:17 PM

LauraS · Started Monday at 10:08 PM

• Existing user? Sign in OR Create an Account
• Find Your Roll Call
• Meet & Mingle
• Community Help Center
• All Activity
• Member Photo Albums
• Meet & Mingle Photos
• Favorite Cruise Memories
• Cruise Food Photos
• Cruise Ship Photos
• Ports of Call Photos
• Towel Animal Photos
• Amazing, Funny & Totally Awesome Cruise Photos
• Write a Review
• Live Cruise Reports
• Member Cruise Reviews
• Create New...