Today, December 1st, is the first day of Winter in Russia. The Russian winter is known to be cold, very cold. So much so that the expressions General Winter, General Frost, or General Snow refer to the harsh winter climate as a contributing factor to the military failures of several invasions of Russia. This year, though, it could turn out... Continue Reading →
Today, the 1st of September, is the first day of Autumn in Russia. Contrary to North America and most of Western Europe, where the Fall season begins on the 21st of the month, in line with the with the September equinox (21 to 24 September), in Russia Autumn, like all four seasons, begins with the... Continue Reading →
In many cities with hundred or sometimes thousand years of history, modern skyscrapers have started mushrooming around historical buildings and monuments, often creating interesting and unexpected contrasts. In this case, though, Russia is once again a little "different" as looks can be very deceiving when trying to guess the age of what you are seeing.... Continue Reading →
I don't want to know what you were thinking about, but I am obviously referring to the erection (the action of erecting) of a monument, more specifically the The Alexander Column (Russian: Алекса́ндровская коло́нна) in Saint Petersburg, to erect which vodka played an indispensable role! The Alexsandrovskaya Kolonna (also the "Pillar of Alexandria" , according to Alexander Pushkin’s... Continue Reading →
Just a few hundred meters away from Murmansk's largest monument ( the Defenders of the Soviet Arctic during the Great Patriotic War) sits what is probably the city's smallest and undoubtedly the cutest. In 2013 the inhabitants of Murmansk were called to cast their preference for a new monument to be put on the shores... Continue Reading →
Ah, the irony! I stumbled by chance in this (at least to my eyes) very typical Russian scene. On the background you can see a large mural on the side of a house depicting the writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn with one of his famous quotes: “Live not by lies!” This is actually the... Continue Reading →
The Russian people have a lot of space. Not just because their country is the largest in the world, with almost 11% of the world's land mass, but also because the population density of 8.4 people per square Km (or 21.8 per square mile) is one of the lowest, by far the lowest of ant... Continue Reading →
In the last few weeks the world watched in amazement (with a potent mix of fascination and horror) HBO's new series Chernobyl, which tells the story of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion in Pripyat, Ukraine, at the time part of the Soviet Union. The series received almost universal acclaim, both because of the... Continue Reading →
Today, June 12, is Russia Day. The day when the nation celebrates its independence, the beginning of a new era after the dissolution of the USSR in 1990. An independence gained without firing a single shot, quite a remarkable achievement. Some shots were fired, but that actually happened a little over a year afterwards, in... Continue Reading →
Russia Through The Lens 