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 →
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 →
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 →
Having being launched on 11 May 1900 and commissioned on 29 July 1903, the Russian Cruiser Aurora stands today as the oldest commissioned ship of the Russian Navy, still flying the naval ensign under which she was commissioned (even if today it's under the care of the Central Naval Museum). She is still manned by an active service crew commanded by a Captain of the 1st Rank.
Time flies, when you are having fun. That's how the old saying goes and I guess it also applies when you are posting your impressions on the largest country in the world: Russia. Since June 10th, when I published my first post with the first picture I ever took in Russia, another 99 have followed,... Continue Reading →
Coming from the warmer climate of Italy, my native country, I am still very much fascinated by the frozen rivers of Russia. Especially the large and very large ones, like the Volga, which turn completely white in winter once they are covered in snow. If you've been reading this blog, you also know I am deeply intrigued by the possibility of visiting Russian cities and regions that were once completely off-limits to foreigners (and to most Russians, as well) under Soviet Union law. The picture above combines both of this element and maybe that is why it means a lot to me.
It is not easy to determine the "birth day" of a city whose history is much longer than the recorded (written) history of mankind! The oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic (Schukinskaya site on the Moscow River). That means that people have been living here for longer than 5.000 years, maybe longer than 10.000 years. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered (the burial ground of the Fatyanovskaya culture, the site of the Iron Age settlement of the Dyakovo culture), on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, and others.
VDNKh is an acronym that stands for Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva (Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) and it is the largest exposition, museum and recreational complex in the world, one of the most popular public spaces of Moscow, visited each year by about 25 million people.
After yesterday's mega post on such a worrying matter, today I wanted something peaceful and serene! So I found this image I took this past winter in Tver. I wrote in another previous blog about the danger of walking on frozen rivers, but this is different. Ice fishing is a very strong tradition in Russia and the best places and times and modes to fish on the ice are generally passed from father to son. These guys know what they are doing, they know the river, they know the ice.
Russia Through The Lens 