Who invented the lightbulb? Here's a question that will certainly spark discussion! (pun intended). In addressing this question, historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Thomas Edison. They conclude that Edison's version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others... Continue Reading →
It should have all been ready for September 10th, 2017, Moscow's official Big Birthday, when the city turned 870 years old, but even throwing a huge amount of money and countless workers in innumerable job sites wasn't enough to make everything pretty! All joking aside, Moscow is really investing an enormous sum and making an... Continue Reading →
Ufa is one of the (many) Russian cities I really want to go back to. As I wrote in a previous post (The “evil” sun of Bashkortostan), when I visited the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan the incredibly warm welcome I received from the local people was matched only by the freezing cold temperature outside: -30 degrees and... Continue Reading →
What's better than a sunny autumn afternoon to walk around Moscow and take picture of unusual sites? The many boulevards of Russia's capital are an ideal place for a pleasant stroll, with their trees still green and lush. An easy choice is that of Tsvetnoy Boulevar (Russian: Цветно́й бульва́р), served by a metro station by the same name.... Continue Reading →
The town of Vyborg lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Vyborg Bay, 130 km (81 miles) to the northwest of St. Petersburg and 38 km (24 miles) south of Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland. The town has changed hands several times in history, most recently in 1944 when the Soviet Union captured it from Finland during World... Continue Reading →
I was walking around the ultramodern neighbourhood of “Moscow City” (or the Moscow International Business Center) and enjoying the blue autumn sky reflecting on the skyscrapers when I noticed something funny. When looking straight up from between the Imperia Tower and the spectacular Evolution Tower, they look like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, which are just about to... Continue Reading →
Inside the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin you can see a display (like an open-air museum) of WWII military vehicles. Amongst them, the famous Katyusha rocket launcher, a series of guns, trucks, tanks and even a Lavochkin La-7 fighter plane and the sail of Soviet submarine S-13. What struck me most are not the vehicles themselves, but rather the "photo mosaics"... Continue Reading →
After a 150-year-long history as a glass factory, in 2009 the complex of industrial buildings in Bolshaya Novodmitrovskaya Street in Moscow were repurposed to become a colourful urban space dedicated to the more creative ends of the business spectrum. One part of the former-factory area functions as office space for media groups, PR agencies, design bureaus, art... Continue Reading →
I have wanted to write about this for a while, but for a long time I didn't know whether finding caviar in a fast food was more of a culture shock (it certainly was!) or a travel tip (certainly worth following!). In the end I decided it was definitely both and so I put this... Continue Reading →
Russia Through The Lens 