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I saw an old post on this forum, telling that, in order to convey the idea "from... to...", we must use "из... в..." when the endpoints are towns or countries, whereas "с... на..." is used when the endpoints refer to natural geography, such as mountains, islands, etc.

So, the correct syntax is "из Москвы в Петербург", and "с Урала на Камчатку".

But, I have a few doubts.

  1. What if the endpoints refer to different types of geography? For example, "from Moscow to the Ural Mountains".

    "Из Москвы на Урал"?

  1. Nouns which take the preposition на in the locative case require "из... в..." to be replaced by "из... на..."?

    "Из Крыма на Стравопольский Край", "из Москвы на Кавказ", "из России на Украину"?

  1. Once I saw the sentence "от Москвы до Петербурга". Is this syntax correct?

  1. How to tell "from... to..." when referring to abstract concepts, instead of geography?

    For example, "from poverty to wealth": "с бедности до богатства"?

    "The weather went from very cold to very hot with no transition": "Погода превращалась с очень холодной на очень жаркую без перехода"?

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  • в/на Украину is a special case that got political.
    – Alexander
    Jun 19, 2018 at 17:09

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What if the endpoints refer to different types of geography? For example, "from Moscow to the Ural Mountains".

"Из Москвы на Урал"?

This is correct.

Nouns which take the preposition на in the locative case require "из... в..." to be replaced by "из... на..."?

"из Москвы на Кавказ", "из России на Украину"?

Most Russian grammars prescribe to use на Украину but some Russian speakers living in Ukraine prefer to use в Украину.

Assuming you would have used на Украине in locative, it would be consistent to use на Украину in accusative as well.

Край is rarely if ever used with на.

Once I saw the sentence "от Москвы до Петербурга". Is this syntax correct?

It is, but it means "from Moscow to St. Petersburg" in context of time or distance measurement: от Москвы до Петербурга час лёту means "it's one hour's flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg".

There are some other edge use cases for this syntax, but in general, when you're talking about going from somewhere to somewhere else, you use из/с and в/на, and when you're talking about distance from somewhere to somewhere else, you use от and до.

For example, "from poverty to wealth": "с бедности до богатства"?

See above. От бедности до богатства один шаг: "it's one step from poverty to wealth"

"The weather went from very cold to very hot with no transition"

Погода сменилась с очень холодной на очень жаркую без перехода

If you were to use превратилась (which is not stylistically justified here), you would have used из/в indeed.

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  • so... if a verb denoting transformation or transition is followed by the preposition на, then the starting point of that transition will be indicated by с, whereas verbs followed by в demand the original state to be indicated by из?
    – swrutra
    Jun 18, 2018 at 23:13
  • @swrutra that's right. На Кавказ / с Кавказа
    – Quassnoi ♦
    Jun 18, 2018 at 23:15
  • in context of time or distance measurement - IOW when Moscow is considered not some living place to be inside, but merely a geographical tag anchored in some place on map. You may say "from location of Moscow" or "from vicinity of Moscow" and in that very context it would mean exactly the same
    – Arioch
    Jun 19, 2018 at 7:34

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