Category: Architecture

Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino was “shocked” by the positive changes Moscow has undergone during his first visit to Russia’s capital in 15 years this week, the country’s culture minister said, while Tarantino himself said that he visited Russia “to see the people,” not its government. Tarantino was in Moscow for the Wednesday evening premiere of…

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan, flooding 1.6 million troops into Manchuria, an area of 600,000 square miles in the North-East of China. Despite a strong Japanese army comprised of a million men awaiting them, the Soviet force, under command of Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky, swept into China, Korea and…

Moscow has a new tourist attraction. Called In.Visible Moscow, it is described on the company’s website as “an authentic cinema-walk through the streets of Moscow.” As it turns out, In.Visible Moscow is a walking tour reimagined. The technology is like any guided walking tour: a pair of headphones and a guide. The difference is that…

Harry, a slight 20-year-old man dressed in a classic white shirt, black trousers and a baseball cap that hides his hair, passes through the turnstiles in the reception area of the high-rise housing The Moscow Times office with a deadpan expression. Harry is not his given name and he is using someone else’s documents to…

No object is as synonymous with Romanov Russia as a Fabergé imperial Easter egg. Each of the fifty eggs commissioned by the last Russian tsars is intricate, flawless, and unique. Gleaming and glittering behind bullet-proof glass in well-fortified museums, they are vibrant talismans of the lost sepia-colored world of the Romanovs. Of the fifty imperial…

The most well-known and renowned Russian artist of the 19th century, Ilya Repin’s influence and significance in art has been likened to Leo Tolstoy in literature – a writer who was one of his best and most famous subjects.    Repin was born in Kharkhov – now Ukraine – where his father traded horses and…

An icon of Soviet avant-garde, Konstantin Melnikov was born on August 3, 1890. He was the fourth child of a poor family who occupied a room in a state-owned working-class barrack in Moscow. Eventually his family managed to make a living in farming, after which they were able to own a small house. Still, Melnikov…

Saturation There is no doubt that many Soviet citizens venerated Stalin, but in political humour we can hear many others sharing critical opinions about him and his Cult on a day-to-day basis that rapidly presents us with a very different, more complex image. Let’s consider two  anekdoty which turned up numerous times in the archival…

After two seasons, fans of the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things” were used to things being pretty strange — whether it’s the threat of creatures from an alternate dimension or a young girl with psychokinetic powers.  But few expected that in the third season, released on July 4, a vast Russian conspiracy would descend upon…

On July 31, 1930, Oleg Popov was born in Moscow, where he would start work early as an apprentice typographer for Pravda newspaper at age 12. This led him to join Pravda’s athletics club, a move that would provide a useful foundation for his later career.  When Popov was 15, he applied to Moscow’s State…

On Saturday, Russia’s Navy Day was celebrated across the country, with the main events taking place in St. Petersburg. The first Navy Day was held in 1939. By 1980, Navy Day was traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday of July. In 2006, the day received status as an official Russian holiday, and the annual commemoration…

Moscow’s Red Square roared to life with vintage chic on Sunday as an extensive collection of unique Soviet cars cruised past the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral. The annual GUM AutoRally began in 2014 and is the most prestigious event of its kind in Russia. During the rally, 120 cars raced each other along a…

Mikhail Lermontov was born on Oct. 15, 1814 in Moscow to a noble military family. When he was three years old, his mother died of tuberculosis and Mikhail’s father sent him to live with his grandmother in Tarkhany in southwest Russia where he would spend most of his childhood. His grandmother provided a lavish lifestyle…

Alisa Ganieva first came to literary prominence in 2009 when her novella, “Salam, Dalgat!,” which she wrote under a male pseudonym, won the prestigious Debut Prize. The novella portrays a day on the streets of the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala, and the writer astonished audience members and jurors alike when she revealed her female identity…

Russian beauty pageants are dominated by skinny girls, but now some models are calling for a chance to show their curves on stage. Meet Eva Ross, a proud new model, who is part of the body positivity movement and who aims to conquer the global fashion scene from Russia.

On July 25, hundreds of retirees joined a 10-hour dance marathon in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park. Part of the Moscow Longevity project, where Moscow’s senior citizens are invited to continue to develop their skills in IT, sport and dance, 220 couples in their golden years twisted and tangoed for the contest’s main prize. Here’s a look…

The VDNKh park has had a long history as one of Moscow’s main exhibition spaces. Constructed in the 1930s, it was first known as the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition before it was renamed in 1959 as the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy, or Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva. Today, VDNKh is home to a number…

An unsuspecting tourist strolling down Volkhonka Street on a weekday afternoon may notice a curious phenomenon. A strand of people unfurls from the yard of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts onto the sidewalk for nearly a block down the otherwise empty street. Hundreds of people wait in line to see one of the most…

On this day in 1959, the Strugatsky brothers, Arkady and Boris, published their first sci-fi novel, “The Land of Crimson Clouds.” The tale of a dangerous trip in the 1990s to Venus, covered in crimson clouds, was the first work the brothers wrote and the only work they each wrote parts of separately. Legend has…

Soviet satirical writer Mikhail Zoshchenko was born in Poltava, Ukraine to a Russian mother and a father descended from Ukrainian nobility. From a young age, he enjoyed writing poetry and prose. In school he was not a good student and attempted suicide after failing a composition class. At the age of 17, Zoshchenko began studying…

 The world is just beginning to come to terms with the scale of the previous century’s cruelty and carnage.  Indeed, it is almost impossible to grasp the macabre tally of two devastating world wars, famine – both natural and manufactured — the disturbing rise of nationalism and fascism, the specter of atomic and nuclear weapons,…

On Saturday Muzeon is celebrating its 27th birthday. The park on the banks of the Moscow River has a short but fascinating history. It began as nothing more than a construction site where all the detritus from building the New Tretyakov Gallery and the (then) House of Artists’ structure was deposited. In the 1980s artists…

Arseniy, an artist from the Russian city of Samara, has recently made waves on social media with a series of photographs made against the backdrop of an abandoned five-story building. The project is called “1m²” and addresses social issues and experiences encountered by normal Russians. The performances include showing a simple factory worker’s dinner, dreams…

At the dacha, a traditional Russian summer house, home appliances are pretty basic. You can cook on the woodstove, draw water from a well or even cross the garden to go to the toilet… But the dacha is also a safe haven for Russians who live in cities — they rush here after work every…

Vladimir Mayakovsky was born on July 19, 1893 in Georgia to ethnically Russian and Ukrainian parents. By the age of 14, Mayakovsky was already engaged in socialist activism. He lived in Georgia until his father died in 1906 and the family moved to Moscow. There Mayakovsky became interested in Marxist literature and joined the Russian…

In July 1896, Russia presented its first car — the Yakovlev-Freze — to the world at an exhibition in Nizhniy Novgorod. Designed by Russian engineers Yevgeny Yakovlev and Pyotr Freze in St. Petersburg, the car looked like an elegant open carriage with large wooden wheels. It seated two and had a top speed of 21 kilometers…

Early in the morning on July 16, residents and guests of St. Petersburg observed the spectacle of warships passing under the bridges of the Neva River. It was the first of five rehearsals of the main naval parade to be held on the Day of the Russian Navy on July 28. This year, 43 warships,…

On July 17, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II, his family, and those who accompanied him in imprisonment were executed by Bolshevik agents with gunshots and bayonets at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. By then Nicholas was no longer a monarch. He had abdicated his throne in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, but his…

HOLLYWOOD—HBO’s runaway hit “Chernobyl” captured the nomination for the best television movie or limited series category in the 71st annual Emmy Awards. The series’ actor Jared Harris also scored a nomination in the lead actor category in a limited series or TV movie. Rounding up the total of four nominations for “Chernobyl” are Emily Watson…

HOLLYWOOD—HBO’s runaway hit “Chernobyl” captured 19 nominations in the 71st annual Emmy Awards, including for the best television movie or limited series category. The series’ actor Jared Harris also scored a nomination in the lead actor category in a limited series or TV movie. Rounding up the total of four nominations for “Chernobyl” actors are Emily…

Alexander Luria was born into a Jewish family in Kazan, Russia. His father was a professor of medicine at the University of Kazan. Luria began his student years at Kazan State University in language and literature, but he was fascinated by psychoanalysis. He founded the Kazan Psychoanalytic Society and corresponded with Sigmund Freud before graduating…

The Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, a gallery which occupies half of a small wooden cabin nestled into a shady corner of a park, is generally locked, but a sign on the door gives a number for the determined to call for access to the latest exhibition. Last month, this space was taken over by…

On January 29, 1860 in the Russian city of Taganrog on the coast of the Azov Sea, one of the world’s most famous playwrights and short story writers, was born.  Chekhov had a difficult childhood shaped by his physically abusive father and his family’s precarious financial situation. From his school days, Chekhov supported his family…

On this day in 1894, the writer, journalist and playwright Isaac Babel was born in Odessa, present-day Ukraine, to a middle-class Jewish family. Called “the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry” and considered one of the luminaries of 20th-century Soviet literature, Babel is best-known for the semi-autobiographical short story collections “Red Cavalry” and “Story of…

Set on the Kamchatka Peninsula, “Disappearing Earth” by Julia Phillips explores questions of gender and race ignited by the mysterious disappearance of two ethnically Slavic young girls, Alyona and Sophia. The novel follows different but interrelated female characters wrestling with these questions in their daily lives. A New Jersey native and graduate of Barnard College,…

Thousands of Buddhist pilgrims are travelling to Russia’s republic of Buryatia for the Kalachakra festival, celebrating world peace and harmony. An estimated 1 million Buddhists live in Russia, many in the republics of Kalmykia, Tuva and Buryatia — where the religion is traditionally practiced.

The weather isn’t ideal, but cultural life, broadly defined, is hot this weekend in and around the Russian capital. Here is a troika of truly wonderful, unusual, and fun events you could join on Saturday. For love and peace On Saturday the 18th-century Apothecary Garden will be rocking a multi-format festival or electronic music, performances,…

HOLLYWOOD—With awards season around the corner, the mini-series “Chernobyl” continues to gain momentum in the entertainment world. Distributor HBO, now a unit of the AT&T telecom giant, is putting its muscle behind the series, giving it a competitive edge in the Emmy competition. Nominations will be announced on July 16. Jared Harris, who plays scientist…

The history of the Mariinsky Theater began on July 12, 1783, when Empress Catherine II approved the establishment of an Imperial drama, opera, and ballet troupe in St. Petersburg. This decree led to the construction of the Bolshoi Stone Theater, the Mariinsky Theater’s predecessor, and placed the first stone in what would become St. Peterbsurg’s…

Russian poet and translator Yevgeny Baratynsky was born on March 2, 1800 and spent his childhood on his family’s estate in the Tambov region of southwest Russia. The son of a retired lieutenant general, Baratnysky attended the Page Corps, an elite military academy which prepared sons of noble families for military leadership. At age 15,…

Russian folklore performer Agrafena Matveevna Kryukova was born on July 10, 1855 in a small village northwestern Russian on the coast of the White Sea. Throughout childhood, her mother and uncle taught her Russian folktales known as byliny and stariny, which the storyteller chants to an audience already familiar with their plots. She stored the…

Seventeen unique buildings in the northwest Russian city of Pskov were among the latest cultural gems to join UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. Pskov is one of Russia’s oldest cities, first mentioned in ancient annals of the 9th century. In the Middle Ages, it was the bustling, wealthy capital of the Pskov Republic, acting…

Sabantui is a summer festival celebrated by Russia’s Bashkir and Tatar ethnic minorities. Dating back to the 7th century, Sabantui — which translates to “plough’s feast” in Turkic languages — began as a festival celebrated by rural farmers ahead of the sowing season.  As time went on, it evolved into a national festival for Tatars.…

Ralph Fiennes came to St. Petersburg to show the director’s cut of his film “Nureyev. The White Crow” to the local cast and crew. He spoke with The Moscow Times about talking on Russian trains, feeling like an outsider, and making internal shifts visible. An athletic young man walks along Ulitsa Rossi. Behind him at…

The Flacon Design Factory north of Moscow’s city center hosts some of Moscow’s most cutting-edge artists and exhibitions. This week one of the spaces is showing an exhibit that is sensational even by Flacon standards. Called “I’m Here. I’m With You,” it is a three-floor solo show of an artist who works in virtually every…

On July 5, 1943, the largest tank battle in history began near the southern city of Kursk. Over the course of the war, the Soviet lines had bulged into German-held territory near Kursk. This bulge or salient was 250 kilometers long from north to south and 160 kilometers wide. The Nazi army planned Operation Citadel…

The 16th International Tchaikovsky Competition ended this year with the largest pool of competitors, unquestionably brilliant performances, and one organizational error that a young pianist will never forget. This year’s Grand Prix winner was Alexandre Kantorow from France, a pianist of mesmerizing talent. He won the first prize and the gold medal in the piano…

Larisa Shepito was an actress, screenwriter and film director who was an integral part of the “new wave” of cinema in the Soviet “Thaw” period in the 1960s. A peer of Andrei Tarkovsky, her films were renowned for their strong naturalism, associative imagery, and their depth of meaning and emotion. She was a woman in…

Hundreds of people flocked to southern Siberia in late June to celebrate the ancient rituals and traditions of shamanism in one of Russia’s first shaman festivals. Some researchers consider Siberia to be the heartland of shamanism. Today, this ancient religious practice is still performed in Russia, with spiritual healing techniques and ceremonial rites passed on…

Each summer, Muscovites head to the city’s many parks to bask in the sun and enjoy the good weather with friends. The highlight of many of these outings is the cooking of shashlik, or meat kebab. Shashlik can be made with any kind of meat — or even tofu — either by itself or with…

You know him as Anton on “Killing Eve.” Or the Russian officer in “Red 2.” Or the murderous bodyguard in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.” A tall, bald Russian actor who specializes in mean and threatening. Wrong. The actor is actually Andrew Byron. He was born in Bath, England to a French mother and an English…

This summer the Anatoly Zverev Museum is celebrating the work of four geniuses — one literary and three artistic. In the exhibition entitled, “The Flying Troika and Its Passengers,” Nikolai Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls” is interpreted by Marc Chagall, Anatoly Zverev and Vadim Kosmatschof. The non-conformist artist Anatoly Zverev (1931-1986) loved Nikolai Gogol, and over…

Cultural life in the Russian capital usually begins to slow down a bit in the summer, as theater troupes head out on tour, museums start gearing up for the autumn openings, and movie theaters are filled with Hollywood blockbusters. You wouldn’t know it by the premieres and openings at the end of last week. On…

Bolshoi and Moscow ballet Cultural life in the Russian capital usually begins to slow down a bit in the summer, as theater troupes head out on tour, museums start gearing up for the autumn openings, and movie theaters are filled with Hollywood blockbusters. You wouldn’t know it by the premieres and openings at the end…

While the summer solstice is more commonly marked with parties, fireworks and picnics in today’s Russia, there’s plenty of history behind the rituals that preceded modern-day celebrations. Ancient tribes that inhabited this part of the world celebrated with fire, water, song, dance and rituals. Called the Night of Ivan Kupala (from the word “to bathe”),…

St. Petersburg is famous for its midsummer celebrations when the night skies never reach complete darkness due to the city’s northern location. The most spectacular celebration of them all took place this weekend: “Aliye Parusa,” or Scarlet Sails. Officially a celebration for high school graduates, the event has evolved into a celebration for the whole…

Anna Akhmatova is one of Russia’s most brilliant poets. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Akhmatova’s parents were both descended from Russian nobility. Her family moved to St. Petersburg before she was a year old, and she started writing poetry at age 11. Her father didn’t want any of her work published under his “respectable” name (Gorenko),…

Moscow transformed itself to host hundreds of thousands of fans for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. One year after, what’s the legacy of the event in Russia… and how did Russia change? We headed to two popular places for fans, Nikolskaya Street and Luzhniki Stadium to ask Muscovites about their memories of the World Cup.

Thomas Hammond, a professor at the University of Virginia and a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, made several trips to the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. During his travels, he visited many Soviet cities, taking more than 3,000 photos along the way. A newly presented series of his photographs taken from 1956…

The summer solstice is here! Get out your sleep masks and blackout curtains. In Moscow the sun rose on June 21 at 3:44 a.m. and will set at 9:18 p.m., giving the city 17 hours and 33 minutes of sunlight — a whopping 10 hours and 33 minutes longer than the amount of sunlight we…