Heroes of the Backyard

Posted by Irina.
www.irinapaints.com

Leo Tolstoy and a Girl with Dog

Posted by Irina.
www.irinapaints.com

Lenin in Museon Park.

The growth of Moscow Daily Photo subscribers at Facebook after 8 months of blog's silence intrigued and surprised me. So I decided to post a complement to our new subscribers.
And, maybe, return to blogging from time to time. 

The photo is made today in Museon museum-park. Grandpa Lenin lives there. "USSR is the stronghold of peace" is written behind him.

Ivan Fedorov

The monument of Ivan Fedorov, print making pioneer of 16th century, near Nikolskaya street (I mentioned him in my previous post).

Posted by Irina.
www.irinapictures.blogspot.com

On Guard

Mmmm, excuse me, where is the metro station? 

Posted by Irina.
www.irinapictures.blogspot.com

More Love, Chained

Following my post of previous week, more wedding locks on the wedding tree.
Example of constructivism style in uilding, cinema "Udarnik" is in the background (Udarnik -record-setter in work productivity - Google kindly offers the translation )

 
Posted by Irina.

Lovestory

Google map.

Posted by Irina.

And Quiet Flows the Don

Statue of equestrian Cossack near the Mikhail Sholokhov's monument.

Posted by Artem.

Dostoevsky in the City

The monument to Dostoevsky near "Leninka" (to the right) the largest library in the country.
Christmas tree will be here till mid January, when we celebrate New Year on 14th January (Russian old calendar).
Not much snow here and temperature dances around zero.

When preparing this post, I read that this monument was ordered by Russian nouveau-riche as his country house decoration(!). But the customer did not like the design and presented the monument to the city. And it was decided to place Fedor Michailovich near the library.

In December I went to Georgia, my father's birthplace. Here, in my other blog, I posted several photos and few facts about the country. Maybe the post will be interesting for you.

And Merry Christmas to Orthodox Christians today!

Orchestra in Archangelskoe

My Georgian brother arrived to Moscow and I decided to show him my favorite estate and green place 20 km from the city, Archangelskoe. The mansion (beginning of 18century) belonged to dynasty of prince Galitzine.

The orchestra was playing marches, bringing us back to the old times and inspiring for small dance. You see the reflection of the main prince's building in the windows of the temporary construction behind the musicians.

And a bit of march music today for you, too.


Wiki about Archangelskoe.

Google map.

Posted by Irina.

Monument

I saw this installation when driving back to Moscow along the Minskoe road.
The bottle is full with parts of the cars which were damaged in the accidents committed by drunken drivers. Impressing.

Yard of Moscow Modern Art Museum

The yard of Moscow Modern Art Museum is decorated by Z.Tsereteli, Georgian painter and sculptor's, iron people. A piece of Eastern market, where they sell, buy and exchange news is presented by almost two dozens of individual figures.

They are live, special, interesting, made with love and, believe me, they very well represent Georgian character.
Mr. Tzereteli worked in Moscow during the previous city major, they were close friends, and the city was very often (sometimes too much) decorated with works of this artist..

Now, when major changed, they discuss the possibility to remove all Tsereteli's works from the remarkable places in the city, he gets huge amount of negative critique. I hope no art work would be destroyed as we already had the destruction precedent in revolutionary 1917 and it taught us strong lesson.
I feel sorry for Mr. Tsereteli. He is very good artists and talented sculptor. His story has moral for any artist - try to stay independent, friends with authorities can be very self-destroying.

Posted by Irina.

I do not want to sound too serious today, so if you are crazy about cats as I am, I will be glad to share the link I received from my friend with you (link).

Summer Mood

 Andrei Rublev is watching the girls who are blowing bubbles in the park near Andronikov monastery.

Andrei Rublev was famous Russian icon painter and served in Andronikov's monastery where he died and was buried. The monument dates from 1985.

If you are interested in Russian history and Russian mentality, I highly recommend you to watch "Andrei Rublev" by Andrei Tarkovsky, I consider it one of the strongest films about Russians (besides other topics raised in this film).


Google map.

Posted by Irina.

Summer in the City

The sunset above the fence of Andronikov monastery.

Google map.

Andronikov monastery (Wiki in English).

Posted by Irina

Don Quixote and Sancho

Don Quixote and Sancho by Zurab Tseriteli in the yard of Moscow Modern Art museum.

Zurab Tseriteli .

Google map.

Posted by Irina.

Decoration

Scared? When I saw these two kids at the entrance to the subway station "Rimskaya" (Roman), I was scared too.  

But there is no reason to fear.  The info from Wiki explains it all:

It is new station and was constructed in 1995. Italian architects J.P. Imbrigi and A. Quatrocci were in charge of the station decoration. The theme was "Roman attractions". The sculpture portrays infants Romulus and Remus - the founders of Rome.

 Posted by Irina.

Steam Locomotive

I have detected this curiosity behind a fence of the abandoned brewery "Babaevsky". Here that I have learned about it from the Internet:
It was born in 1938. It is the prisoner of the place, as the rails of the cargo line to the brewery were dismantled during the construction of the district in the middle of 50ies of 20th century. Then it worked as monument at "Sakko and Vantsetti" pencil factory, till the factory was ruined in 2007 for the construction of expensive apartment blocks.
Then it was moved through the remains of the rails to the neighbor brewery where the locomotive was planned to be part of restaurant, but the crisis changed these plans.


Let's listen to very revolutionary song now:
Our locomotive, move forward!
We will stop in the commune!
We do not have any other way,
The rifle is in our hand!

Posted by Irina.

Football Legend

The monument of famous Russian football (soccer) player, Lev Yashin, who was the goalkeeper of "Dinamo" Moscow football club (during 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1963 , when Dinamo became the champion of Russia).

In 1956 Russian football team with Yashin as goalkeeper won the gold medals in Melbourne, during Olympic Games.

Lev Yashin was the national hero of  the country and  one of the proudest moments in his career was when he won the “European Player of the Year” award in 1963. He still remains the only goalkeeper to have won that prize.

Wiki about Yashin.
Lev Yashin at Biographybase.com 
Lev Yashin at TalkFootball.co.uk

When I was planning this post, the idea was to make funny text about iron man in winter. And I still think that the sculptor has to take into consideration the weather conditions as the background of his creature.
But then I changed my mind as Lev Yashin was true football legend and it felt right to write about him instead of his cold feet in the snow)).

Posted by Irina

The Shukhov Tower

The Shukhov's Tower is a broadcasting tower in Moscow designed by Vladimir Shukhov. The 160m high free-standing steel structure was built in the period of 1920–1922, during the Russian Civil War. It is a hyperboloid structure (hyperbolic steel gridshell).

Due to its lattice structure, the steel shell of the Shukhov  radio-tower experiences minimum wind load (the main hazard for high-rising buildings). The tower sections are single-cavity hyperboloids of rotation made of straight beams, the ends of which rest against circular foundations.

The tower is located a few kilometers south of the Moscow Kremlin, but is not accessible to tourists.

It is interesting that during the installation there was a breakdown when lifting the section of the tower. Shukhov was sentenced to death (with stay of execution till the fulfillment of all construction works) for this breakdown. At that time Shukhov was 68 years old and among his genius projects were the first Russian oil pipeline, the first Russian tankers-barges, buildings with the supports in the form of lattice shells). They did not shoot him, they gave him the medal.

Shukhov tower now recognized by international experts as one of the highest achievements of engineering, it is 88 years old and was never restored..



Site about Shukhov and his works, in English.
Google map.
Posted by Irina.

The monuments

Karl Marx and church.
Interesting geometrical proportions.

Google map.

Posted by Irina