Religious tourism in Samara: the past and the present

Article is devoted to the religious tourism development in Samara, currently the most widespread type of tourism not only in Samara, but also around the world. The authors reveal theoretical bases of religious tourism. Religious tourism is an independent type of tourism, implying travel with the religious purposes. The authors define and describe type of religious tourism: cultural and informative, pilgrim, event, and cruise. The article shows the main development stages of religious tourism in Russia and gives its capacious and accurate description. The authors characterize resources of religious tourism in Samara, namely architectural monuments, the museums, monasteries, monuments to Saint and outstanding persons, devotees of belief, not only now, but also in the past. Influence of the Samara merchants on formation of resource base of religious and pilgrim tourism in the past is designated. Vigorous activity of the Samara merchants promoted formation of cultural religious space of the city. Thanks to their philanthropic activity, at the beginning of the XX century the city gained masterpieces of confessional architecture. Today these buildings are the pride of Samara. The authors show possibilities of using cultural heritage for development of religious and pilgrim tourism in Samara as an important factor of tourist attraction and tourist image of the territory.