There is an old saying that goes: "amateur photographers talk about gear, professional photographers talk about composition, but great photographers talk about light." I don't consider myself a great photographer, but today I want to talk about light. There is a reason why Northern countries are increasingly popular with photographers (think Iceland, but also Norway,... Continue Reading →
Deep, deep under the Victory park (Park Pobedy in Russian) on Poklonnaya Hill, lays's Moscow Metro's deepest station. At 84 meters underground, according to the official figures, it is the deepest metro station in Moscow and and the third deepest in the world by mean depth, after Kiev Metro's Arsenalna and Saint Petersburg Metro's Admiralteyskaya, and the very deepest station by... Continue Reading →
I already wrote a few post about the hero city of Smolensk and its surroundings and even one dedicated specifically to its fortified walls. This time, however, I want to focus a bit more about an aspect of Russian culture, which I had only subconsciously noticed before a sunny day in the city of Smolensk.... Continue Reading →
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 Moscow Metro station of Krasnye Vorota actually has two entrances. The most famous one, and the one you see pictured above, is the South entrance, a subterranean vestibule with mezzanine stairwells and a distinctive shell-like pavilion designed by Nikolai Ladovsky, that stands on the south side of the Garden Ring (with an open Red Gates - Krasnye Vorota... Continue Reading →
Tsarskoye Selo (or "Tsar's Village") was the town containing a former Russian residence of the Romanov imperial family and visiting nobility. It is located 24 kilometers (15 mi) south from the center of Saint Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin ( which got its name in 1937 to to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Russian... Continue Reading →
On Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, a 5 minute walk from Chistye Prudy metro station, you can find of Moscow's most seemingly out of place buildings: a three-storey-high Chinese pagoda in the center of the Russian capital! Originally a high-renaissance style building typical of most of the others on this street, the building housed the offices and show... Continue Reading →
The Rozhdestvensky Convent, or the Convent of Nativity of Theotokos (Russian: Богородице-Рождественский монастырь) is commonly referred to just as the Nativity Convent and it is located inside the Boulevard Ring, on the left bank of the Neglinnaya River. Not only this is one of the oldest nunneries in Moscow (it was founded in the Moscow Kremlin in 1386, probably by Maria of Rostov, mother of Prince Vladimir the Bold and... Continue Reading →
Just a couple of hundred meters from the Tulskaya station of the Moscow Metro, basically where the Third Ring Road crosses the Moskva river, you can find a pretty unique place where to eat and do a little food shopping: Danilovsky market. In the past, this used to be one of Moscow's largest and most... Continue Reading →
Russia Through The Lens 