Theme Week Moscow – GUM department store on the Red Square

2 July 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Shopping Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Otets/cc-by-sa-3.0-lu

© Otets/cc-by-sa-3.0-lu

GUM (an abbreviation of the Russian Glavnyi Universalnyi Magazin; literally “main universal store”) is the name of the main department store in many cities of the former Soviet Union, known as State Department Store during the Soviet times. Similarly named stores were found in some Soviet republics and post-Soviet states. The most famous GUM is the large store in the Kitay-gorod part of Moscow facing Red Square, opposite of the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin. It is currently a shopping mall. Prior to the 1920s, the location was known as the Upper Trading Rows. Nearby, also facing Red Square, is a building very similar to GUM, known formerly as the Middle Trading Rows. It is about the same size as a large North American shopping mall.   read more…

2014 Winter Olympics Sochi

7 February 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Sport Reading Time:  11 minutes

2014 Winter Olympics © sochi2014.ru

2014 Winter Olympics © sochi2014.ru

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event being held in Sochi. Officially scheduled for 7 February through 23 February 2014, opening rounds in figure skating, skiing, and snowboard competitions were held on the eve of the Opening Ceremony, 6 February 2014. Both the Olympics and 2014 Winter Paralympics are being organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOC). The Sochi Olympics are the first Olympics in the Russian Federation since the breakup of the USSR in 1991. The USSR was the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines will be held throughout the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of twelve accounting for gender—will be held during the Games, including biathlon mixed relay, women’s ski jumping, mixed-team figure skating, mixed-team luge, half-pipe skiing, ski and snowboard slopestyle, and snowboard parallel slalom. The events will be held around two clusters of new venues; an Olympic Park was constructed in Sochi’s Imeretinsky Valley on the coast of the Black Sea, with Fisht Olympic Stadium and the Games’ indoor venues located within walking distance, and snow events will be held in the resort settlement of Krasnaya Polyana.   read more…

Theme Week Russia – Vladivostok on the Golden Horn

29 November 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Center of Vladivostok and Golden Horn © Владимир КОБЗАРЬ/cc-by-sa-3.0

Center of Vladivostok and Golden Horn © Владимир КОБЗАРЬ/cc-by-sa-3.0

Vladivostok is a city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai located at the head of the Golden Horn Bay, not far from Russia’s borders with China and North Korea. The population of the city is 592,000. The city is the home port of the Russian Pacific Fleet and the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean.   read more…

The Russian warship Aurora

30 August 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Fisss/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Fisss/cc-by-sa-3.0

Aurora is a 1900 Russian protected cruiser, currently preserved as a museum ship in St. Petersburg. Aurora was one of three Pallada-class cruisers, built in St. Petersburg for service in the Pacific Far East. All three ships of this class served during the Russo-Japanese War. The second ship, Pallada, was sunk by the Japanese at Port Arthur in 1904. The third ship, Diana, was interned in Saigon after the Battle of the Yellow Sea.   read more…

The Moscow Kremlin

18 May 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  7 minutes

Moscow Kremlin © www.kremlin.ru/cc-by-3.0

Moscow Kremlin © www.kremlin.ru/cc-by-3.0

The Moscow Kremlin, sometimes referred to as simply the Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River (to the South), Saint Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square (to the East) and the Alexander Garden (to the West). It is the best known of kremlins (Russian citadels) and includes five palaces, four cathedrals and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. The complex serves as the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation.   read more…

The Alexander Palace in Pushkin

4 May 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  7 minutes

Painting 'Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo'. Series 'Views of St Petersburg and Moscow' by Alexey Maksimovich Gornostaev, produced as a gift to Queen Victoria on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her reign.

Painting ‘Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo’. Series ‘Views of St Petersburg and Moscow’ by Alexey Maksimovich Gornostaev, produced as a gift to Queen Victoria on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her reign.

The Alexander Palace (Russian: Александровский дворец) is a former imperial residence at Tsarskoye Selo, on a plateau around 30 minutes by train from St Petersburg. It is known as the favourite residence of the last Russian Emperor, Nicholas II, and his family and their initial place of imprisonment after the revolution that overthrew the Romanov dynasty in early 1917. The Alexander Palace is situated in the Alexander Park, not far from the larger Catherine Palace. Today it is undergoing renovation as a museum housing relics of the former imperial dynasty.   read more…

Theme Week Russia – Sochi on the Russian Riviera

6 April 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

View on Sochi from Black Sea © Ojj! 600

View on Sochi from Black Sea © Ojj! 600

Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, situated on the Black Sea coast near the border between Georgia and Russia. Greater Sochi sprawls for 145 kilometers (90 mi) along the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains. The city has a permanent population of 343,000; up from 329,000 recorded in the 2002, making it Russia’s largest resort city.   read more…

The Mercury City Tower in Moscow

1 December 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month Reading Time:  5 minutes

July 2012 © Dinozaurus/cc-by-sa-3.0

July 2012 © Dinozaurus/cc-by-sa-3.0

Mercury City Tower is the tallest skyscraper in Europe, currently under completion in the Moscow International Business Center of Moscow.   read more…

Theme Week Moscow – The Lubyanka Building

19 September 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

Lubyanka Building © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/GFDL

Lubyanka Building © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/GFDL

The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947.   read more…

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