Karelia, the historical landscape in Northern Europe

15 August 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Kotkatjärvi village © MaSii

Kotkatjärvi village © MaSii

Karelia, the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland (the regions of South Karelia and North Karelia).   read more…

Theme Week Russia – Nizhny Novgorod, the economic and cultural center of the Volga-Vyatka economic region

1 August 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Pechersky Monastery © Bestalex

Pechersky Monastery © Bestalex

Nizhny Novgorod colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia. From 1932 to 1990, the city was known as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky who was born there.   read more…

Moscow International Business Center

9 June 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels Reading Time:  16 minutes

Moscow City © Dmitry A. Mottl

Moscow City © Dmitry A. Mottl

Moscow International Business Center is a commercial district of central Moscow. Located near the Third Ring Road in Presnensky District of western Moscow, the Moscow-City area is currently under development.   read more…

Die Stadt Wyborg in der historischen Region Karelien

7 June 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Embankment © Sergey Galchenkov

Embankment © Sergey Galchenkov

Vyborg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, situated on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Bay of Vyborg, 130 kilometers (81 mi) to the northwest of St. Petersburg and 38 kilometers (24 mi) south from Russia’s border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland. Population: 80,000. The Hanseatic city lies in the boundary zone between the East Slavic/Russian and Finnish/Scandinavian worlds and has changed hands several times in history, most recently in 1944 when it was taken by the Soviet Union from Finland during World War II.   read more…

Theme Week Moscow – The House on the Embankment

19 May 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  5 minutes

Moscow river with House on the Embankment and Kremlin in the background © flickr.com - longmandancer@btopenworld.com

Moscow river with House on the Embankment and Kremlin in the background © flickr.com – longmandancer@btopenworld.com


The House on the Embankment (Russian: Дом на набережной) is a block-wide apartment house in downtown Moscow, Russia. It faces Bersenevskaya Embankment on one side and Serafimovicha Street on the other side. It was completed in 1931 as the Government Building, a residence of Soviet elite. It was designed by Boris Iofan.   read more…

The Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo

14 January 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

North facade © Morburre

North facade © Morburre

The Catherine Palace was the Rococo summer residence of the Russian tsars, located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg, Russia. The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia engaged the German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure. In 1733, Empress Anna commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Catherine Palace. Empress Elizabeth, however, found her mother’s residence outdated and incommodious and in May 1752 asked her court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to demolish the old structure and replace it with a much grander edifice in a flamboyant Rococo style. Construction lasted for four years and on 30 July 1756 the architect presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers and stupefied foreign ambassadors.   read more…

Re-opening of the Bolshoi Theatre after the great renovation and restauration

29 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  7 minutes

Bolshoi Theatre 2011 © moscowjob.net - Alexey Vikhrov

Bolshoi Theatre 2011 © moscowjob.net – Alexey Vikhrov

The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by the architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and greatest ballet and opera companies of the world, respectively. The theatre is the parent company of The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, a world-leading school of ballet. The company was founded in 1776 by Prince Peter Urusov and Michael Maddox. Initially, it held performances in a private home, but in 1780, it acquired the Petrovka Theatre and began producing plays and operas. The current building was built on Theatre Square in 1824 to replace the Petrovka Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1805. It was designed by architect Andrei Mikhailov, who had built the nearby Maly Theatre in 1824.   read more…

Theme Week Russia – Yekaterinburg, the industrial and university city on the Ural Mountains

4 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Cathedral on the Blood - Built on the site of the Ipatiev House, where the Romanovs - the last Royal Family of Russia - were murdered © PetarM

Cathedral on the Blood – Built on the site of the Ipatiev House, where the Romanovs – the last Royal Family of Russia – were murdered © PetarM

Yekaterinburg is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,350,100, making it Russia’s fourth largest city. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was known as Sverdlovsk (Свердло́вск), after the Bolshevik party leader Yakov Sverdlov.   read more…

Theme Week Moscow, the third Rome

30 March 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, Kremlin in the background © Ikar.us

Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, Kremlin in the background © Ikar.us

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world. A global city, Moscow is the most populous city on the continent of Europe and the seventh largest city proper in the world. Its population, as of 1 January 2010, is 10,563,038. Based on Forbes 2011, Moscow had 79 billionaires as the city with greatest billionaires number displaced New York.   read more…

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