A well eradicated habit in Russian culture is that of rubbing bronze statues. Those, which are not meant to be rubbed are cordoned-off, but sometimes even that is not enough to deter people from rubbing with their hands the feet of religious statues in churches. Besides a general "good luck" a lot of statues apparently... Continue Reading →
Steve Jobs, the Macintosh and the Moscow Metro
In 1972 Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed college in Portland, Oregon, but hung around campus for more than a year afterward; during that time, he audited Father Palladino’s calligraphy class. After helping to found Apple in 1976, he often credited the company’s elegant onscreen fonts — and his larger interest in the design of computers as physical... Continue Reading →
The underground architecture of Zaryadye Park in Moscow
Zaryadye Park, inaugurated on 9 September 2017, near the Red Square in Moscow, on the former Rossiya Hotel site, is the first public park built in Moscow in exactly 70 years, the last being the Soviet Friendship Park, built for the 1957 Festival of Youth and Students. The area of the park is around 78 thousand square meters, of... Continue Reading →
The KGB headquarters (and two photo tips!)
This large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick, illuminated by a still warm autumn sun would probably bring a smile to the lips of the unaware tourist. Its very sight or even the sound of its name, Lubyanka, used to instil terror in the soul of every Soviet citizen. It was originally built in 1898 as the... Continue Reading →
The Arktika Train: Moscow to Murmansk
Today I want to present you the Artika train (Artic train), that takes you from Moscow to Murmansk, above the Artic Circle, and/or back. Murmansk is by far the largest city north of the Arctic Circle (with a population of around 300.000 people) and is a major port on the Arctic Ocean. It is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, an inlet of the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, close to Russia's borders with Norway.