Friday, June 30, 2006

BACK IN MOSCOW - JUNE 1977

TO SEE MAYA PLISETSKAIA AT THE 6,000-SEATER AUDITORIUM OF THE PALACE OF CONGRESSES


"UNIVERSITY - this time with no rain"


"THE STADIUM - Lenin Stadium, inaugurated in 1956, was going to be the main venue for the 1980 Summer Olympics. Completely renovated between 1995 and 1997 (see photo at Blogtrotter), is now named Luzhniki Stadium"



"SUNNY RED SQUARE"


"ST.BASIL'S CATHEDRAL and KREMLIN'S TOWER - looking much better under the sun"


"HOTEL RUSSIA - La place Rouge était vide, Il avait des cheveux blonds, notre guide... Galia..."



"KALININA PROSPEKT - Before heading to the airport"

Thursday, June 29, 2006

MINSK & LENINGRAD - JUNE 1977

MEMORIES FROM AN OLD WORLD

MINSK (STILL THERE)


"MINSK, the capital of Belarus, was founded more than 900 years ago. Independence Square with its Government Building. Nice?"


"PIONNERS - In the USSR, all children aged 9-14 were Pioneers. There were 900,000 Pioneers in the days of Soviet Belarus..."


"KHATYN MEMORIAL – a vast WWII Memorial to commemorate the tragic fate of the villages burned by the German SS punishment operations against guerrilla. In March 22, 1943, 26 houses with their inhabitants (149 people, including 75 children) were burned in Belarusian village of Khatyn"


"GLORY HILL - A memorial complex including a majestic hill, topped with four rising bayonets, in honor of the victory in the War. It was built with soil brought from nine Hero-cities of the USSR and from the most fierce battlefields"


LENINGRAD (CHANGED BACK TO ST. PETERSBURG)

A BEAUTIFUL TOWN, HOME TO THE WHITE NIGHTS


"The CATHEDRAL OF SS PETER and PAUL, the oldest church in St. Petersburg, marked a radical departure from traditional Orthodox churches, being built in early Baroque style. It is home to the graves of nearly all the Tsars of Russia since Peter the Great"


"The CHURCH OF RESURRECTION, aka Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood - or even just the Church on the Blood - marks the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded in an assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. Designed in the style of 16th and 17th-century Russian churches, provides a stark contrast to its surroundings of Baroque, Classical and Modernist architecture"


"The historical ship AURORA, turned into a museum, is docked just a few hundred yards upstream from the Cabin of Peter the Great. The cruiser gave the signal to the attack of the Winter Palace, during the October Revolution of 1917"


"The SMOLNY CATHEDRAL was intended to be the church of a monastery, built to house the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, after she opted to become a nun. However, as soon as her Imperial predecessor was overthrown, Elizabeth decided to forget the whole idea of a monastic life and happily accepted the offer of the Russian throne. The cathedral is one of the masterpieces of Rastrelli, who also created the Winter Palace, the Grand Catherine Palace in Pushkin, and the Grand Palace in Petrodvorets"


"The SMOLNY building was created in 1806-1808 for the Smolny Institute for noble girls. After the October Revolution Smolny became the residence of the first Soviet Government, which worked in this building till the 10th of March, 1918, when the capital was moved to Moscow. The statue was from Lenin"


"NEVSKI PROSPECT was Leningrad's main avenue and one of the best-known streets in USSR. It runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and then to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery"


"From the 1760s onwards the WINTER PALACE, aka the HERMITAGE Museum, was the main residence of the Russian Tsars. Built for Empress Elizabeth, who however died before the palace's completion, only Catherine the Great and her successors enjoyed its sumptuous interiors. Located on the bank of the Neva River, the green-and-white three-storey palace is a marvel of Baroque architecture and boasts 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows and 1,057 elegantly and lavishly decorated halls and rooms. At 59º 57' N (roughly on the same latitude as Oslo, Norway, and Seward, Alaska), it looks great on the White Nights! "


"The Bronze Horseman, a monument to the founder of St Petersburg, Peter the Great, stands on Senatskaia Square, facing the Neva River. It depicts the reformer of the Russian State as a Roman hero. He also looks great during White Nights"


BEAUTIFUL TOWN WITH MAGNIFICENT SURROUNDINGS

PETRODVORETS (PETERHOF)

Petrodvorets (now Peterhof) is an immensely luxurious and beautifully preserved Imperial estate, founded in 1710 by Peter the Great on the shore of the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea). It combines several ornate palaces, a number of beautifully landscaped parks and a dazzling array of magnificent statues and fountains, lending it the epithet "The Russian Versailles"


"One of the many fountains in the park"




"Views of the magnificent GRAND PALACE (Bolshoi Dvorets) with the GRAND CASCADE (Bolshoi Kaskad ) in front of it. The original palace was built for Peter the Great between 1714 and 1725 and the Grand Cascade flows spectacularly from beneath the palace towards the Baltic Sea and is one of the largest fountain ensembles in the world"

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

FIRST TIME IN RUSSIA - JUNE 1977

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF IVAN, PETER, and CATHERINE...

MOSCOW



"Let's start this first day rainy tour of Moscow with the MOSCOW UNIVERSITY, established in 1755 by Decree of the Empress Petrovna. The Decree stated in its preamble that the university was to educate commoners; serfs however were not admitted. In 1940, it was named after Lomonosov (1711 – 1765). It's main building – the one on these bad photos - is 240 meter high, said to contain a total of 33 km of corridor, and is one of the city's Seven Sisters (the enormous gothic skyscrapers commissioned by Stalin in the 1950s)"


“Then, you may go to the BOLSHOI. Imagine you’re listening to the music of Borodin, Glinka, Khachaturian, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Prokofief, Shostakovich, or Tchaikovsky, just to name a few. Or, even better, remember the Ballets Russes - Diaghilev, Fokine, and dancers Nijinksy, and Anna Pavlova – or the theatre’s stars, among them Rudolf Nureyev and Maya Plisetskaya..."


"This huge outdoor SWIMMING POOL occupied, till the early 1990s, the site of the former Christ the Saviour cathedral, built between 1839 and 1881 to commemorate Russia's victory over Napoleon. The church was demolished in 1933, in order to free the land for the construction of a House of Soviets. The building was to be topped with a 100-meter-tall aluminium statue of Lenin. However, the building was never actually constructed!"


"The GREAT KREMLIN PALACE, commissioned in 1837 by Emperor Nicholas I. Successor of the first stone palace built on the site during the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1462-1505) and later rebuilt, restored and developed as repeated fires and enemy raids damaged the buildings. No tourists allowed"


"RED SQUARE earned its name not from the red walls of the Kremlin, but from the Russian word for «red», which centuries ago also meant «beautiful». The square, from the end of the 15th century, is located on the site of the city's old market place, and served as Moscow's equivalent of the ancient Rome’s Forum. The National Historical Museum can be seen at the western end of the Square, and charts the development of Russian civilization”


"RED SQUARE: The GUM, Moscow's «State Department Store», built between 1890 and 1893 by Alexander Pomerantse, the largest shopping mall in Moscow. The original hall contained some 1,200 separate shops. Theoretically, this was a shopper’s paradise for all these Saturday afternoon “just married” couples. The problem was when you saw the goods available for sale…"


"RED SQUARE in the afternoon, after the closure of Lenin’s mausoleum. The mausoleum, one of Moscow's most curious tourist attractions, is a step-pyramid of cubes, covered with red granite. You can read «Lenin» over its bronze doors, and see his embalmed body inside”



"ST.BASIL’S CATHEDRAL was built between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate Ivan's victorious campaign against the Tartar Mongols in 1552, in Kazan. Legend says that, the church once completed, the Tsar ordered the architect, Yakovlev, to be blinded to prevent him from ever creating anything to rival its beauty. The extravagant domes of the cathedral's exterior disguise a much less spectacular interior”



“KREMLIN - the citadel – founded by Prince Yury Dolgoruky, in 1147 AD, is the spiritual and political heart of Moscow and the city's most famous tourist attraction.
The Cathedral of the Annunciation, the private church of the Russian Grand Dukes and Tsars, is an incredible amalgamation of churches and chapels from the 14th to the 16th centuries and is the second oldest cathedral in the Kremlin. The Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, built between 1505 and 1508, completed the Cathedral Square ensemble"




"The VDNKh - Exhibition of Economic Achievement - began in 1939 as the Agricultural Exposition and became a permanent Expo of the accomplishments of the Soviet state. It offered informative displays on everything from agricultural products to space tools.
Among the most interesting sights were:
The Main Entrance monumental archway surmounted by the statues of a tractor driver and a farm girl;
The Fountain of Friendship;
The monumental Soviet realist sculpture "Worker and Woman Collective Farmer”

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

ANDALUCIA - DECEMBER 1976

NEW YEAR IN SEVILLA

According to the legend, SEVILLA was founded by Hercules. It was called Hispalis under the Romans and Isbiliya with the Moors.


"SEVILLA - The Alcazar"


"SEVILLA - The Giralda Tower"


"SEVILLA - Giralda Tower and the walls of the Alcazar"


"SEVILLA - The Puerta del Léon, entrance to the Alcazar"


"SEVILLA - Alcazar, Patio of the Orange trees, with a view of the Giralda tower"


SEVILLA - Alcazar, gardens and fountains"


"SEVILLA - Maria Luisa Park, with pigeons"


"CORDOBA - Narrow streets"


"CORDOBA - Mosque"

Sunday, June 25, 2006

EUROPE BY BUS - SEPTEMBER 1976

STRANGE COLOURS HAVE THESE PHOTOS...


"BURGOS - Cathedral"


"BILBAO - Before the Guggenheim, a gray town..."


"CHATEAUX DE LA LOIRE - Blois"


"PARIS - Madeleine - Guida's first visit"


"PARIS - Triumph Arch"


"PARIS - La Marseillaise"


PARIS - Group photo"


"PARIS - Flying over the Eiffel Tower"


"AMSTERDAM - Black and White"


"BADEN-BADEN - Black forest, September rain"


"BADEN-BADEN - Drop your money at the Casino"


"JURA - Cold in Summer"


"MONTPELLIER - Never went back..."


"ANDORRA LA VIEJA - The Street"


"LLEIDA, Before the Autonomies"


"ZARAGOZA - Baroque Architecture"


"MADRID - Don Quijote"


"MADRID - Plaza Mayor"