Pereslavl Zalessky is a small provincial town of Yaroslavl region, located on the halfway from Moscow to Yaroslavl (around 130 km), next to Pleshcheevo Lake. The wall of the Pereslavl Kremlin is now a grassy ring around the central town. Inside, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, founded in 1152, is one of the oldest buildings in Russia. The cathedral was not only the main church of the town but also the tomb for Pereslavl Princes. The church is built of white limestone. The cathedral wall are made of two parallel rows, outer and inner, of accurately cut and fitted stone blocks, the slots between the blocks are filled with crushed stone and lime. Wooden reinforcement bars were introduced into the walls. During archaeological excavations the floor made of majolica plates was found out under the present floor.

The interior of the cathedral was painted. The ancient wall painting has not preserved except a small fragment of XII century frescoes kept now in Moscow museum of History. In the past a great number of first-class works of art were kept in the cathedral.

Not far from the Cathedral, there is a tent-roofed Church of Peter the Metropolitan, built in 1585. The building was constructed in honour of Metropolitan Peter, who had played a prominent role in strengthening of Moscow Principality during hard times of internecine war. The present brickwork church was erected in the site of the more ancient wooden church having the same name.

There are quite many monasteries in Pereslavl. On the left side of the road from Moscow to Yaroslavl there's Goritsky monastery, which was founded in the 12th century. The centerpiece is the baroque Assumption Cathedral with its beautiful carved iconostasis. Now there's the History, Architecture and Art museum on the territory of the monastery. It features an interesting collection of Russian paintings, art pieces, ancient crafts, archeological findings, old Russian hand-written books.

The Purification Church of Alexander Nevsky, built in 1785, and now a working church, may also be of great interest for those who adore Russian architecture and history. To the east is the Danilovsky Monastery, whose tent-roofed Trinity Cathedral was built in 1530s. Further on this road is the small Botik Museum with assorted nautical gear and the sailboat Fortuna, the only one of Peter the Great’s boats (except for one in the St. Petersburg’s Naval Museum) to survive and time. The museum features the original boat hand-made by Peter the Great in the end of the 17th century. There's an also an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Russian fleet.

The city is first of all known for the lake named Pleshcheevo (earlier known as Kleshchinoe Lake). With its 9.5 km in length and coastal line of 28 km it is one of the purest and largest reservoirs of Russia. It is assumed that earlier there was a sea on this place. It accounts for the existence of “the tsar’s herring” here – the cisco fish that lives exclusively only in that lake. The fish is even represented in the emblem of Pereslavl.

The town surprises with its quite unusual museums: the Museum of Irons, the Museum of Teapots and the Museum of Steam Locomotives.