8 May 2016. Our Great Russian Motherland: Izmailovsky Kremlin (Izmailovo Raion. Eastern Administrative Okrug. Federal City of Moscow. Central Federal District)

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This isn’t ancient at all; it’s actually a quite-recent (built in the 1990s) cultural and entertainment complex. It’s in a pseudo-Byzantine style, based loosely on what Russian palaces looked like in pre-Petrine times, but more inspired by Russian fairy tales. Many use the complex for civil weddings as it has a wedding palace, a restaurant, and bars. However, it’s also an amusement park/open-air museum for children on the theme of “Old Russia”. There’s a replica pre-Revolutionary rural wooden Russian church, but people don’t use it for weddings. To wrap it up, it has a large shopping area that sells the usual sort of tchotchkes. All in all, a fun place to take the family on a weekend or to have one’s wedding (even if one has a church wedding, like most of Europe, one has to have a civil ceremony, too, or the marriage isn’t legit in the eyes of the state).

BMD

15 December 2014. A Multimedia Presentation. A Tiny Church on a Tiny Island on Lake Vuoksa in Kareliya in Leningrad Oblast… It AIN’T PhotoShop!

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Rafting on the Vuoksa River (which flows into and out of Lake Vuoksa)

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The Nature of Lake Vuoksa by Tatyana Lyubitina… photos with a musical background

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This is an actual little Orthodox chapel built on a tiny island on Lake Vuoksa. That’s in Priozersk Raion in Leningrad Oblast on the Kareliyan Isthmus. It’s on the Vuoksa River, which flows eventually into Lake Ladoga from its source in Lake Saimaa in Finland.

No sir, this AIN’T PhotoShop… this is the real deal. An architect built this little gem in the early 2000s… his name was Andrei, so, he dedicated it to Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called (Андрей Первозванный: Andrei Pervozvanny). The lake is 108 square kilometres (42 square miles) in area, with 18 square kilometres (7 square miles) being taken up by Olesny Island (it’s roughly 5 kilometres (3 miles) long by 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) wide). This little bit is one of the smaller islets, which take up 15 square kilometres (6 square miles) of area. So, the lake has 75 square kilometres (29 square miles) of water and 33 square kilometres (13 square miles) of islands within it.

BMD

15 April2014. The Art of the Pisanka in Moscow… A True Holy Rus Tradition

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We’ve all heard “Ukrainian” caterwauling about  pisanki. Well, it’s not true. All the Slavs do them… Poles do them (including Hutsuls and Gorali)… Czechs and Slovaks do them… Russians, Carpatho-Russians, and Belarusians do them… Slovenes, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Croats do them, as do the Sorbs and Kaszubs (the most westernmost Slavic peoples, who live in Eastern Germany and Northwestern Poland, respectively). Not only do Slavs do them, most Northern Europeans do them… Magyars do… Romanians do… Germans do… Lithuanians do… and the patterns used are very similar, considering the distances involved. That’s not all, kids! It cuts across confessional lines… Orthodox do them… Catholics do them… Evangelical Lutherans do them.

In short, pisanki are a treasured part of Easter for MANY peoples, spread out over a large part of Europe. Ergo, for any one group to “claim” them isn’t only ridiculous, it’s downright nasty. Pisanki are all-Slavic (and more)… that’s that.

BMD

RIA-Novosti Presents… Photos of the Week, 21-27 December 2013: Olympic Fire, Ded Moroz, Kobzon the Terrible, and Others…

A cop on duty during the Olympic torch relay in Ufa.

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Policeman salutes a driver dressed as Ded Moroz, who brought the New Year’s tree to the Moscow Kremlin.

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Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of YUKOS, at a press conference at the Museum of the Berlin Wall {the place is a crapitalist rip-off, the admission is 12.50 Euros (564 Roubles. 17 USD. 18 CAD. 19 AUD. 10.40 UK Pounds) per person! An appropriate venue for a scammer, isn’t it?: editor}.

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Demonstrator at pro-EU rally on the Maidan in Kiev from the Narodnoye Veche  group.

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Dynamo-Kazan goalkeeper Anders Svensson with Yevgeni Ivanushkin (Dynamo-Moscow) and Aleksei Bushuev (Dynamo Kazan) (left to right) in the Russian Super Cup for Bandy.

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Iosif Kobzon, First Deputy Chairman of the RF Gosduma Committee on Culture, and Valentina Tereshkova, Deputy Chairman of the RF Gosduma Committee for International Affairs, at a plenary meeting.

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Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova leaving the correctional colony after her amnesty.

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President Vladimir Putin, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (right to left) before the beginning of the session of the Supreme Council of the Eurasian Economic Community in the Kremlin.

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Yevgeni Plyushchenko competing in men’s single figure skating short programme at the Russian Cup figure skating championship in Sochi.

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The view from the top of the main New Year’s tree in Cathedral Square in the Moscow Kremlin.

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Opera singer Yelena Obraztsova and Vladimir Urin, the Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, at a press conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of Obraztsova’s début on the stage.

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A scene from Tchaikovsky‘s ballet The Nutcracker staged by Igor Zelensky on the stage of the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

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Ded Moroz made a lap around the Garden Ring.

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Actors wearing deer antlers play with children at the Moscow Zoopark during a presentation featuring Ded Moroz.

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Lying in state of the coffin of small arms designer Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov at the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael in Izhevsk.

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27 December 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/photolents/20131227/986810952_986799180.html