3456 RUSSIA (Moskow Oblast) - Gorki Leninskiye

3456 Gorki Leninskiye

Located 10 kilometers south of Moscow city limits, Gorki Leninskiye (meaning "Lenin's Gorki") is placed on a high bank of the River Turovka close to where it flows into the River Pakhra. The estate of Gorki belonged to various Muscovite noblemen from the 18th century. Zinaida Morozova, the widow of the magnat Savva Morozov, purchased it in 1909, and engaged the most fashionable Russian architect, Fyodor Schechtel, to remodel the mansion in the then current Neoclassical style, complete with a six-column Ionic portico.

3446 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Postcrossing Meetup, Saint Petersburg, 19 February 2020

This postcard was made on the occasion of the postcrossing meeting that took place on February 19, 2020 in Saint Petersburg. The organizers chose as image the Water Supply Tower, one of the oldest constructions on the SPbPU (Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University), built in 1905, three years after the opening of Polytechnic Institute. Its bizarre architectural look with fragmented forms and lines clearly contrasts with the other buildings on the campus; it is a kind of a hi-rise dominant of the entire complex of the two- and four-storey buildings.

0671, 3235 RUSSIA (Moscow) - The towers of Moscow Kremlin - part of Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow (UNESCO WHS)

0671 Spasskaya Tower

Posted on 07.06.2013, 06.01.2018
The Spasskaya Tower is the main tower with a through-passage on the eastern wall of the Moscow Kremlin, which overlooks the Red Square. It was built in 1491 under the supervision of the architect Pietro Antonio Solari (Pyotr Fryazin), and was initial named Frolovskaya, later being renamed the Spasskaya (Savior's), in honor of the Icon of the Savoir Not Made by Hands, which crowned the gateway. Originally it had half of its present height (71m with the star mounted in 1935), in 1624-1625 being built a multi-tiered top with a stone tent roof.

3235 Towers Konstantino-Eleninskaya,
Nabatnaya and Spasskaya

 

It was the first one to be crowned with the hipped roof in 1624-1625 by architects Bazhen Ogurtsov and Christopher Galloway (a Scottish architect and clockmaker). The first clock was mounted in 1491, and the present Kremlin chimes were installed in 1851-1852 by the Butenop brothers. The tower gate was once the main entrance into the Kremlin. In tsarist times, anyone passing through the gates had to remove their headgear and dismount their horses. This tradition was broken in the Soviet era. In 1935, the Soviet government installed a red star instead of a two-headed eagle on top of the tower.

3197 RUSSIA (Arkhangelsk Oblast) - Hooker Island (Franz Josef Land)

Located within the Arctic Ocean, 360km north of Novaya Zemlya and 260km east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Franz Josef Land constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's  Arkhangelsk Oblast. These 191 islands are 900km from the North Pole and 750km from the Yamal Peninsula, the closest point of the Eurasian mainland. At 81° north the archipelago experiences 141 annual days of midnight sun, from 12 April to 30 August.

1041, 2867, 3063 RUSSIA - Russian traditional clothes

1041 A Russian family in traditional clothes

Posted on 02.04.2014, 14.11.2016, 24.05.2017
The area now called Russia has always been multicultural. Russian culture started from that of the East Slavs, with their pagan beliefs and specific way of life in the wooded areas of Eastern Europe. It was influenced first by neighbouring Finno-Ugric tribes and by nomadic, mainly Turkic, peoples of the Pontic steppe, then by the Varangians. Kievan Rus' had accepted Orthodox Christianity in 988, and this largely defined the Russian culture of next millennium as the synthesis of Slavic and Byzantine cultures.

2867 A Russian girl wearing clothes
inspired by the traditional costume (1)

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Russia remained the largest Orthodox nation in the world and claimed succession to the Byzantine legacy in the form of the Third Rome idea. A process of the melding of pre-Christian practices with those of Orthodoxy consolidated the population which occupied present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus under one political and cultural system. Even today, the Russian language retains a large degree of mutual intelligibility with Belarusian and Ukrainian.

3063 A Russian girl wearing clothes
inspired by the traditional costume (2)

The traditional Russian costume started taking its shape in the 12th-13th centuries. Up to the 18th century it fitted well all layers of Russian society. The costume that was common among peasants from the last third of the 18th century to the first quarter of the 20th century is what is considered to be the authentic Russian national costume. By the early 20th century the most widespread women's costumes were of two types: the South Russian one with poneva, and the Mid-Russian one with a sarafan.

3052 RUSSIA (Primorsky Krai) - Zolotoy Bridge in Vladivostok

The 24th annual gathering of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders was held on Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok, Russia on September 9-10, 2012. Two giant cable-stayed bridges were built in preparation for the summit, namely the Zolotoy Bridge over the Zolotoy Rog (Golden Horn) bay in the downtown, and Russky Bridge from mainland to Russky Island (which is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world right now).

0879, 0897, 0898, 3046 RUSSIA (Republic of Karelia) - Kizhi Pogost (UNESCO WHS)

0897 Kizhi Pogost in the springtime

Posted on 26.11.2013, 11.12.2013, 11.05.2017
The term pogost has several meanings in the Russian language, but initial appoint a coaching inn for princes and ecclesiastics. It is assumed that originally pogosts were rural communities on the periphery of the Russian state, as well as trading centers, but at the end of the 10th century pogosts transformed into administrative districts, and when Christianity spread, churches were built there. In 1775 the last pogosts that served as administrative districts were destroyed. In the central uyezds of 15th-16th centuries pogosts were small settlements with a church and a graveyard, like Kizhi Pogost.

0879 Kizhi Pogost in the summertime (1)

Kizhi Pogost is located on the southern part of the island with the same name, on Lake Onega, the second largest lake in Europe (after Lake Ladoga), and was built in the 17th century. It is a narrow strip of land inside a fence which includes two large wooden churches, the 22-dome Transfiguration Church (the big one) and the 9-dome Intercession of the Virgin Church (the little one), and a belfry (with conical tip). The structures were built exclusively of wood, without using a single nail, around a log of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) about 30 cm in diameter and 3 to 5 meters long. 

3046 Kizhi Pogost in the summertime (2)

It is regarded an "outstanding example of an architectural ensemble typical of medieval and post-medieval orthodox settlements in sparsely populated regions", and for this reason was included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in 1990. These amazing structures, in which the science of carpentry created a bold visionary architecture, perpetuate a very ancient model of parish space. Chronicles from the 16th century are the first to explicitly mention the existence of two wooden churches there. Destroyed by lightning in 1693, they were rebuilt on the same site. The Church of the Intercession is a heated (winter) church, where services are held from October 1 until Easter.

0898 Kizhi Pogost in the falltime

As Max say, there is two legends about the building of the Church of the Transfiguration.
Legend 1 (for tourists): The church was built by master Nestor, only with a hatchet and without nails. When he had finished the construction work, he threw the hatchet into Onega Lake, saying: "There was nothing like this before and will never be again!”
Legend 2 (probably true): The architects were Peter Nevzorov and a peasant named Buniak, both elders, each of them being 80 years old. The church construction involving 63 men and 12 women.

3043 RUSSIA (Moscow) - Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow (UNESCO WHS)

3043 Moscow Kremlin seen from the Moscow River

Inextricably linked to all the most important historical and political events in Russia since the 13th century, the Kremlin (built between the 14th and 17th centuries by outstanding Russian and foreign architects) was the place where the Russian state was formed, where the issue of succession to the throne was decided, in medieval times, where the Boyar Duma held its sessions, where the Church held its councils and where were crowned the tsars, even when the capital had been shifted to St. Petersburg.

3038 RUSSIA (Moscow) - Tsar Cannon - part of Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow (UNESCO WHS)

The Tsar Cannon is a large medieval artillery piece on display on the grounds of the Moscow Kremlin, just past the Kremlin Armory. It is a monument of Russian artillery casting art, cast in bronze in 1586 in Moscow, by the Russian master bronze caster Andrey Chokhov. Mostly of symbolic impact, it was never used in a war. Per the Guinness Book of Records it is the largest bombard by caliber in the world. The very low ratio of the length of its barrel to its caliber makes it technically not a cannon, but a stylized mortar.

3017 RUSSIA (Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) - Churches of the Smolensk and Vladimir icons of the Mother of God in Gordeyevka

3017 Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother
Of God (in front) and Church of Our Lady of
 Smolensk (in back) in Nizhny Novgorod

The Stroganovs (the richest businessmen in the Tsardom of Russia from the reign of Ivan the Terrible, elevated into the nobility as Barons of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great, and later as Counts) built a number of remarkable Baroque churches throughout Russia in the late 1600s-early 1700s. Only four survived until today, and two of them are in Nizhny Novgorod: the Virgin's Nativity Church and the Church of Our Lady of Smolensk. The last one is located in the former village of Gordeyevka (now, part of the city's Kanavinsky District), where the Stroganov palace once stood.

3012 RUSSIA (Karachay-Cherkess Republic) - Festival of the peoples of the North Caucasus in Dombay

The Karachay-Cherkess Republic is a landlocked republic of Russia located at the slopes of northwestern Caucasus. Mountains cover 80% of its territory. The Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth, and Karachay-Cherkessia isn't an exception. Even if it has only 14,100 km2 and less than 500,000 inhabitants, the government recognizes five official languages, spoken by the five main ethnic groups: Karachays (41%), Russians (32%), Cherkes (12%), Abazins (8%) and Nogais (3%).

2998 RUSSIA (Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) - Nizhny Novgorod

2998 The view of the Nizhny Novgorod Main Trade Fair building
from the belfry of Nizhny Novgorod Seminar

Located about 400 km east of Moscow, where the Oka empties into the Volga, Nizhny Novgorod (known from 1932 to 1990 as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, who was born there) was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. Originally the name was just Novgorod (Newtown), but to distinguish it from the other, older and well-known Novgorod to the west, the city was commonly called "Novgorod of the Lower lands". Later it was transformed into the contemporary name of the city that literally means "Lower Newtown".

0191, 2975 RUSSIA - The map and the flag of the country

0191 Russia map and flag (1)

Posted on 01.05.2012, 08.03.2017
After it crushed  the army of the Golden Horde in the battle of Kulikovo in 1380, Grand Duchy of Moskow needed only 150 years to finally push aside the Tartar yoke and to gather under his leadership, by persuasion or with the sword, all the Russian provinces. Afterwards, Ivan the Terrible, the first Tsar, conquered Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Sibir, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state. In the 17th century it continued its territorial growth, with the Cossacks as spearhead, enclosing part of the Ukraine and Eastern Siberia, until the Pacific coast.

2975 Russia map and flag (2)

Peter the Great proclaimed Russia empire in 1721, and achieved the much desired "Window on the West" on the Baltic, assuring also outlet to the Black Sea and to the Caspian Sea. After the fall of Constantinople (1453), Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire, as the Holy Roman Empire was considered the continuation of the Western Roman Empire. The Tsars coveted Constantinople, on which they called it Tsargrad, but the Ottoman Empire managed to impede Russian expansion in the Balkans over the next two centuries, ceding instead an important part of the northern shore of the Black Sea.

2947 RUSSIA (Moscow) - The Palace of Kuskovo

Kuskovo was the summer country house and estate of the Sheremetev family, one of the wealthiest and most influential noble families of Russia. Built in the mid-18th century, it was originally situated several miles to the east of Moscow but now is part of the East District of the city. It was one of the first great summer country estates of the Russian nobility, and one of the few near Moscow still preserved. Today the estate is the home of the Russian State Museum of Ceramics, and the park is a favourite place of recreation for Muscovites.

2925 RUSSIA (Pskov Oblast) - The Old Mill in Mikhailovskoye

Located in the heart of the Pskov Oblast, on the spurs of the Valdai Hills, not far from Pskov and the border of Latvia, the State museum-reserve of Alexander Pushkin «Mikhailovskoye» is a unique monument of Russian culture of national significance. In Russian history Mikhailovskoye, Trigorskoye, Petrovskoye, Pushkinskie Gory (or Holy Hills) are connected with life and creative activity of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837), probably the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.

0570, 0571, 2913 RUSSIA (Saint Petersburg) - Saint Isaac's Square - part of Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments (UNESCO WHS)

0570 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg

Posted on 23.03.2013, 21.12.2016
The Saint Isaac's Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who had been born on the feast day of that saint, is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Ordered by Tsar Alexander I and build between 1818 and 1858, it's the fourth consecutive church standing at this place. Although the project of French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand was criticised for the dry and allegedly boring rhythm, the emperor, who favoured the ponderous Empire style of architecture, insisted to be elected.

0570 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg by night
seen from the roof of the Winter Palace

The neoclassical exterior, plated with gray and pink stone, expresses the traditional Russian-Byzantine formula of a Greek-cross ground plan with a large central dome and four subsidiary domes. It features a total of 112 red granite columns with Corinthian capitals. The rotunda is encircled by a walkway accessible to tourists. 24 statues stand on the roof, and another 24 on top of the rotunda. The cathedral's main dome is plated with pure gold, and is decorated with twelve statues of angels by Josef Hermann.

2913 Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg
at the beginning of the 20th century

In 1931, the building was turned into the Antireligious Museum, and in 1937 became the museum of the Cathedral. With the fall of communism, regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral. The Cathedral separates Saint Isaac's Square and Senate Square. The photo from the postcard 0570 was taken from Saint Isaac's Square. On the left can be seen the Monument to Nicholas I, unveiled in 1859 (the first equestrian statue in Europe with only two support points), and on the right the Hotel Astoria (the red brick building), designed by Fyodor Lidval (one of the most luxurious hotels in the Russian Empire).

Saint Isaac's Square is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments, about which I wrote here.