SOME COUNTRIES (LIKE EGYPT OR CHINA) ASTOUND YOU WITH THEIR AGE. Russia, on the other hand, staggers you with its size. It is the biggest country in the world, stretching from Scandinavia to the Bering Strait. European but not really European, Asian but not really Asian... you could say it is a continent unto itself, just like India. It embraces a multitude of peoples, languages and religions.
The country is so vast, in fact, it would take multiple lifetimes to explore it all. Where to start: St Petersburg with its gorgeous canals, bridges glowing in the Midnight Sun? Moscow and its monuments, art treasures in the metro, ice-skating in Gorky Park.
The permafrozen north, those endless taiga wastelands. Mirny, with its diamond mine visible from space.
The steppes, dachas in the summer sun.
Some Russians describe the map of their nation as a rearing bull, with Karelia as the tail, and Kaliningrad as its sh!t.
Despite its huge size, it remains an isolated nation for travelers. Closed cities continue to this day, along with industrial ruins.
Russian Cuisine
THEY LIKE to eat salo (pork fat), especially in Ukraine. Sausages are popular, too, sometimes made from horse meat (perhaps that is a Kazakh influence?) Soups and porridge (kasha) are eaten at any hour. Dill (ukrop) is sprinkled on everything, including sushi.
In autumn, Russians like picking mushrooms (гриб), which they pickle for winter. In fact, Russians love pickled food in general. Fermented products are wide and varied, including condensed milk, smetana (sour cream) and cottage cheese. Holodets is one of the weirdest dishes in the world: a huge pile of jellied fish.
Russian History
TO COPE with their past and the often bitter weather, Russians have developed a dark sense of humor -- and a love of hard liquor.
According to Generational Dynamics, Russia inherited the true (or "Orthodox") Christian Church following the Fall of Constantinople.
Tension with the Turkic world persists in conflicts such as that between Armenia and Azerbaijan... (For more details on Russian history, )
Да (Da) .......... Yes.
Нет (Net) .......... No.
Kak Дeлa? (Kak dela?) .......... How do you do?
это Горбачев .......... That's Gorbahev.
это Да .......... That's true.
Украине .......... Ukraine.
голова (Golova) .......... Head, brain.
Наш президент (Nash prezident).......... Our President.
наша голова (Nasha Golova) .......... Our heads.
Юрий (Yurii) .......... Yuri (boy's name).
Юрка (Yurka) .......... Little Yuri (diminutive)
машина (Mashina) .......... Car.
у́рка (Urka) .......... Career criminal.
Ikra .......... Caviar.
Russian Girls
The faltering economy has pushed many Russian women abroad, where they work as models, hostesses, or even ladies of the night...
Here is a video of street seduction Moscow style!
AS A CHILD perusing the atlas, I was always perplexed by the preponderance of republics in the Soviet Union. There seemed to be republics within republics, and I could never understand why. In the latter Soviet era there were 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs), as well as smaller autonomous republics such as Chechnya. Supposedly, each ethnicity was promised its own republic, or at least an autonomous region (oblast). The Tatars, as one of the largest minorities in Russia, were awarded a republic while the Jews got only an oblast (on the border of Mongolia, for that matter!) Strangely Koreans never won their own autonomy even though they were a minority of the Soviet Union.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the SSRs became independent countries in their own like (such as Ukraine and Belarus, for example.)
Karelia is like an alternative Scandinavia, with its own coloured Cross for a flag. Murmansk is an ice-free port on the Arctic Ocean. Warmed by the Gulf Stream, it is spared the icy doom afforded to cities like Novy Urengoi, further east.
Crimea (Крым)
The Crimean peninsula separates the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov. Formerly a part of Ukraine, it was seized by Russia in 2014 and formally annexed, becoming an autonomous republic. Its largest city, Sevastopol, is the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
See the old Greek colony of Chersonesos. West of Crimea is Ukraine; east, the coast stretches all the way to the mountains of Georgia. Anapa is a charming city on the coast, with a preponderance of Cossacks.
Krasnodar
Tver.
Yekaterinburg is the gateway to the Ural Mountains. Perm is another city in the vicinity. Chelyabinsk is the fifth largest city in Russia.
» Caucasus » Crimea (Крым) » Far East Karelia » Moscow » Siberia
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