Amelie Lanier, European Part
Beitræge

Contemporary Moscow

Part One
 
2005

When I first came to Moscow I was with a friend from Leningrad, Igor, who had offered to show me Moscow, and I had consented. That was a big mistake. The most inappropriate person to introduce you to Moscow is someone from ’Peter’, as Petersburg has always been called. We got out of the train and (...)


Contemporary Moscow

Part Two
 
2005

VDNKh – the exposition of Soviet progress VDNKh – Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnovo Khosyaistva = Exhibition of the Achievements of National Economy, is nowadays called officially VVTs – All-Russian Center for Exhibitions. It was renamed in 1992 by a decree by Boris Jelzin, and has been trying to (...)


Prerevolutionary Moscow

 
2005

Moscow has been called the Third Rome by a clergyman who with this name compared it to Rome and Constantinople, both as the centres of big empires and as strongholds of Christianity. This boast overlooks the fact that Christianity didn’t enter Russian soil through Moscow, but through Kiev, and (...)


Sortavala – the town where the Kalevala started

 
2005

Well. it wasn’t really made here, as the Kalevala – the book of legends of the Finn people – is the result of the collection of popular tales that were told/sung in the villages by the bards, who accompanied it with a kind of cithera, the kantele. But though Sortavala generally isn’t linked too (...)


The Moscow Underground

 
2005

The building of the underground lines started in the early 30-ies. The forced industrialization of the young Soviet power had led to a rapid growth of the cities, most of all Moscow, and in order to secure the availability of this huge workforce, still growing at this time, the infrastructure (...)


The Ring Line (Koltsovaya) – Part One

“Underground 2”
 
2005

The Ring Line is my great favorite. While on the Sokolnicheskaya and Zamoskvarechkaya Lines, at least those constructed before 1950, there seems to be an overall concept for the stations, with bigger or smaller variations, the Ring Line stations are unique and original. The Ring Line’s (...)


The Ring Line (Koltsovaya) – Part Two

The Diggers
 
2005

Paveletskaya Station (Ring Line) Starting already in the 80-ies there was a group of young Muscovites who undertook explorations of the underground system on their own account, just because of curiosity, and longing for adventures. They found many interconnections between underground tunnels (...)