Starman? Cosmonaut? A relief sculpture in the Moscow Metro

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor

I don't know who created this bronze relief sculpture, or when it was created, but I love it.  It is about eight feet tall, on the wall of a Metro Station in Moscow.  I can't remember which station I was in when I took this photograph, but I *think* it was Shabolovskaya station.

 

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Dostoyevskaya Station and its controversial christening.

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor

This is a photo of a mosaic of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the new subway station named for him (Dostoevskaya Metro Station). Unlike the old stations, with amazing architecture and artwork everywhere, marble floors and walls, and statues in every corner, the new stations are bleak and utilitarian (after the breakup of the Soviet Union, money was in very short supply). But they decided to spend some Rubles on this one. And it did

n't work out so well. In the end, people were so concerned about the vibe in the new metro station that the authorities delayed the opening. Critics say Moscovites should steer clear of the station. It is gloomy and the scenes from his books (the Crime and Punishment mosaic shows Raskolnikov holding an axe over the head of his landlady) are depressing. If you're going to make murals based on his books, what choice do you have? 

Psychologists believe that the station and art will attract people who want to throw themselves under a train. "The deliberate dramatism will create a certain negative atmosphere and attract people with an unnatural psyche," a psychiatrist wrote in one paper. The artist responsible for the murals said "What did you want, scenes of dancing? Dostoevsky does not have them."

The opened the station in 2010 (it took 20 years to finish due to finance problems). They had to. The next station up the line couldn't be reached except by going through Dos. station. I couldn't find any reports of any suicides or mayhem happening since the opening.

I can't think of many/any? buildings in America dedicated to native writers. Well, maybe except Jack London Square in Oakland.

The Crime and Punishment mural in Dostoeyevskaya Station.

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Interactive video at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport

By Jack Brummet, Russia Travel Editor

This photo is from Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow. I only had a minute, but wanted to explore this interactive exhibit more. Of course, I couldn't read the instructions or details about this, but you stand on two footprint silhouettes in front of a giant monitor. After a minute, four furry creatures begin cavorting around you on screen. I only stayed for a few seconds, and don't know how far this goes. But I felt like we would be seeing a lot more of these sorts of interactive displays in the future.

I guess, eventually, it could show just how you would look in that suit or dress you were looking at, or show you in your fab new kitchen or on the deck of your new boat. Better yet, it will put you into a Zelig world, with you as the star of any number of scenes, imagined and historical. This was done better than what I've seen done online with faces on on the Wii or Kinect. This is still in its infancy, I'm sure, but it has a lot of interesting possibilities.

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What did Ann Coulter do this time?

By Jack Brummet, ATIT Editor-in-chief

I missed a lot of news in the last eight days while I was in Moscow, I think. I'm seeing all this vituperation & castigation of Ann Coulter (not that she doesn't deserve it in her normal course of business). I saw some news of her using the "R" word re: BHO. Is that the uproar, or did she say something else/worse?

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Russian billboard: they wait for you at home

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Some random and unexplained shots from my neighborhood in Moscow

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor

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Ring my bell: The Tsar Bell/Царь–колокол (and one more Russian "biggest ever)"

By Jack Brummet, Kremlin Editor

The Tsar/Czar's Bell is 20 feet tall and sits on a little stone pedestal on the Kremlin grounds.  It was commissioned by Peter the Great's niece,  Empress Anna Ivanovna.  It was broken while they casted the bronze, and has never been rung. It weighs nearly 200 tons.  That broken chunk you see resting on it weights eleven tons itself.

The bell was cracked when there was a fire with the superstructure (which was wooden) while it was being tempered and decorated.  After a year or so of cooling, the fire broke out in 1737.  The guards poured water onto the bell and structure in order to save it.   The water caused 11 cracks in the bell, and the chink you see broke off.

For some period of time, the bell actually served as a chapel; you walked in through the doorway created by the cracked section.  And it has sat in the same spot on the Kremlin grounds for 260 years.  Naturally, like with their world's largest cannon, it's the biggest and baddest ever.  But is it a bell if it is still unrung?

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"Heil honey, I'm home!"--a twisted TV pilot

By Jack Brummet, SitCom Editor

[Thanks to Jeff Clinton for passing this along]

Hitler stars in a very strange and twisted TV pilot from 1990.  Sort of "holocaust meets the Honeymooners."  It's hardly a wonder this show did not get past its pilot episode.

"The setup is both simple and totally insane. Adolf Hitler stands in for Ralph Kramden, with his trusty wife Eva Braun going bam-zoom right to Berlin. His day-to-day consists of being Chancellor of Germany's National Socialist party and hiding his plans for global domination from the Allied forces. Across the hall, two Jewish tenants, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein, Hitler’s the nosy, overbearing neighbors, make the Führer’s life a living hell." (From Splitsider.com).

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Photographs of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor

[click photos to enlarge]

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Shukhov Tower (Шуховская башня) in Moscow

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor





Just down the block from our office in Moscow is the Shukhov Tower (Шуховская башня), an awesome broadcast tower in Moscow designed by Vladimir Shukhov. It's 525 feet tall (Seattle's Space Needle is 605 feet) and seems especially big because there are no tall buildings in the vicinity.  It was built from 1920–1922, during the Russian Civil War.  The tower sections are "hyperbolic steel gridshell of single-cavity hyperboloids of rotation made of straight beams, the ends of which rest against circular foundations." [tech details via Wikipedia]



It's funny -- my Russian friend just kind of shrugged it off when I first saw it and raved about how cool it was.  When I looked it up, I found that it is old and historical, and even endangered. The tower is visible, but not accessible to tourists. 

Shukhov Tower is under threat of demolition, and is number one on UNESCO's "Endangered Buildings" list [UNESCO is also the keeper of the great World Heritage sites list].  There is now an international campaign underway to save it.

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Two members of Pussy Riot sent to brutal Russian prisons

By Mona Goldwater, Human Rights Editor

Jack sent this article from this morning's Moscow Times (he shot it with his camera from the actual paper).  One member of PR has been freed, and the other two sent off to the Gulag.  

Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, Siberia--as you know, a region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's most brutal prison camps. 

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons, not as notorious, but it sounds just as horrific.

click to enlarge

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Condoms disrupting oil pipeline

By Jack Brummet, Moscow Travel Editor


From The Moscow Times (an English paper in Moscow) this morning...one of the strangest stories I've read in a while. Must Fark this. "Condoms disrupting oil pipeline."

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