One day a week of the academic program is set aside for travel to local sights of social, cultural, and historical significance each semester. All excursions are conducted in Russian. Due to the time commitments of internships, BRLI participants are not required to participate in weekly excursions, though they are encouraged when possible.
Resident directors arrange all excursions and accompany the group; Russian faculty, host families, and tutors also routinely join American students.
Moscow weekly excursions include the Bolshoy Theater, Kremlin, the Red October Chocolate Factory, Sergeyev Posad, Novodevichy Monastery, Tretyakov Museum, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Yasnaya Polyana, and the Museum of Russian History.
St. Petersburg weekly excursions include the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Dostoyevsky Museum, Mariinsky Theater, Piskarovskoye Cemetery, Pavlovsk, Petrodvorets, and Yusupovsky Palace.
At approximately mid-semester, resident directors arrange seven-to-ten-day trips outside the host city. Summer participants travel as a group at the end of their program. Groups have recently traveled to Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Rostov-na-Donu, Sochi, Suzdal, and Yaroslavl. Groups do not travel outside the Russian Federation.