Publications

Svetlana Smetanina How do you rise to fame and become a popular blogger with 300,000 subscribers when you are a bit over 70? Arno Pavel, an Estonian pensioner, has found his recipe for success. At 72, he drove his UAZ from Tallinn to Vladivostok and back. Impressions from such a trip would have been enough for any person for a lifetime. But Arno did not stop there: over the past three years he has visited Petrozavodsk, Arkhangelsk, Syktyvkar, Orenburg, Astrakhan, Elista, Grozny and even the Kola Peninsula. He also wrote a book about his trips to Russia and plans to write another one. Dream does come true It all started with a...

Svetlana Smetanina This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Zworykin, outstanding Russian inventor and the pioneer of television technology. His name was unknown for a long time in Russia. But in the United States, where the inventor lived most of his life, at some point he was under supervision, as the FBI suspected him to be a Russian spy. On October 7-8, the International Scientific Conference on Scientific Worlds of the Russian Émigré Community was held at the House of Russian Émigré Community. One of the reports was dedicated to Vladimir Zworykin, an inventor. The report’s...

Svetlana Smetanina The Russian village of Aleksandrovka, an amazing corner of Russian history, has been preserved in one of the districts of Potsdam. The Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church, the oldest surviving Orthodox church in Germany, is located on a mountain nearby. The history behind this village is, first of all, the story of friendship between two royal persons - Frederick William III of Prussia and Alexander I of Russia. Andrei Chernodarov, a historian and cultural expert, told the Russkiy Mir on how this unusual monument came to existence and how it has been preserved. – How did this story appear in your life? How did...

Sergey Vinogradov  William Brumfield, a researcher of Russian architecture and Professor of the Tulane University (New Orleans), has travelled thousands of kilometers along passable and impassable roads of the Russian North. Architecture at the End of the Earth, his book published in the USA in 2015, became quite an event in the scientific community. Russian edition of Towards the White Sea has been published this year. While working on the book, the scientist was able to show his worth not only as an architecture researcher and photo artist, but also as an ethnographer and adventure writer to some extent. The...

Sergey Vinogradov International Puppet Theatre Festival “Ryazanskie Smotriny” (Showing-off in Ryazan), one of the largest and the most reputable festivals in Russia and whole Eastern Europe, will open in Sergei Yesenin’s home land on September 14th. Current “show” marks a milestone, not by its number, but by years: the Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary, and Petrushka, its symbol, shines out of posters like never before. According to the puppet masters, during years of the festival’s existence the genre of puppet show has experienced absolute slump and unbelievable upswing. And it is still on the rise. ...

Sergey Vinogradov The Shtandart, a historical frigate built based on drawings designed 300 years ago, celebrated its 20th anniversary. It is the replica of the first naval frigate built by Peter the Great in Baltics in 1703. The replica frigate was put afloat with all the honors and celebrations in September 1999. The ceremony was held on Orlovskaya embankment, St. Petersburg, in presence of more than 40 thousand people. Over the 20-year period the Shtandart has traveled 167 thousand nautical miles, visited 127 ports in 17 countries; it has been featured in a dozen films and dressed up in scarlet sails for the famous Alumni...