Tag Archives: moscow

At the weekend, I visited the highly recommended ATOM Museum at the VDNKh exhibition complex in northern Moscow. And I can report that it’s an absolute delight! Simply must-visit for the whole family – if you find yourself in the Russian capital, that is…

In the entrance hall – straight down to business: a scale model of… can you guess which element?*

From the beginning of the nuclear arms race through to the modern-day achievements of Russia’s (peaceful) nuclear-energy industry – there’s a lot covered here (and in great detail). The main downside: no history of the early research (Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, and all that). But everything else is well-organized and informative.

In we go – and downward: to the minus-third floor…

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It’s been ages since the last time I wrote about outer space – too long; for space is cool far out!…

Exploration of extraterrestrial space in any form, manned or not – plus cosmonautics, astrophysics and telescopes at the top of volcanoes, it’s all extremely important for the whole of mankind – and fantastically interesting for the individual (for example, me). So when I was invited to the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, I immediately accepted…

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Hi folks!

I’m back home in Moscow – where it seems the fall has been cancelled! I flew out in summer – and flew back in winter! ->

The contrast was remarkable – from the tropics to this. And winter’s still a month away! All this talk of global warming? It doesn’t seem to apply to Moscow in November 2024!…

Right on cue to brighten-lighten my wintry mood, when I returned to my office for the first time in ages there was a surprise waiting for me in there…

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It hasn’t been a month since I was last in China – and here I am back again already! This time though it’s not on a business trip; far from it. It’s one of my traditional vacation tours of China’s lesser-known natural-and-meditative beauty offerings, followed by my inevitable tales-and-pics from PRC-side for all of my dear readers )…

Before I kick off though, a +1 to the long-neglected – but not forgotten – #dz-information tag. “What’s that?” you ask? It’s when my regular travel companion (since something like the year dot) – DZ – puts fingers to keyboard for, as the tag suggests, an important informational bulletin. All righty. Reins being duly passed over…

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Looking back over my travels during the month of May, I’m rather pleased: not bad at all for one calendar month. I visited three countries visited – Thailand, the Philippines (for the first time – country No. 105), and the Dominican Republic, and several cities therein-among: here’s my route in full:

Moscow > Thailand (Phuket) > the Philippines (El Nido, Mayon, Manila) > Moscow > Nizhny Novgorod > Moscow > the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana) > Moscow.

Fourteen flights, and 67 hours up in the air in planes and seven in a helicopter.

Along the way – four conferences/exhibitions of varying scale; talks at universities; interviews; and assorted other business. But the cherry on the cake for this super-busy May came on its last day back in Moscow – to see a ballet at the Bolshoi Theater…

Once a year, we get to bring together a small group of representatives of our dearest clients for a backstage buffet reception, followed by seeing a performance. And the seats we get come in different places – including in the Central Box! These photos were taken from there:

The ballet was La Bayadère:

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Hi folks!

Just recently, while I was busy at Mobile World Congress, I was informed that back here in Moscow the season of spring had finally arrived! Sure, there’s still plenty of snow around – but it’s falling less and less frequently, and less and less heavily. And what there also is now plenty of is… sun – and birdsong! Hurray! I had to see this for myself. And that’s exactly what I did at the first opportunity after flying back from Barcelona ->

It’s been a wonderful winter, with sooo much snow (there are still plenty of piles of it taller than me dotted all over) ->

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November just keeps on giving! The clement weather treated us with the possibility of visiting an outdoor (+ indoor) museum the other weekend; and the weekend just gone – yet more November outdoor fun: an evening cruise upon the Moskva river (Moskva = Moscow in Russian, just in case:). Sure, we could have stayed inside the restaurant on the boat should it have been rainy/snowy, but where’s the fun in that? (And there are plenty of much better restaurants ashore.) But that’s just the thing: the weather wasn’t bad at all – so we were able to stay up on the deck for the whole duration and take in the nocturnal sights and sounds of the capital from an undeniably unusual and refreshingly impressive perspective!

For example, over there – that white lit-up building in the pic is the White House (the seat of the government) ->

But I’m no tour guide. Sure, I know the big famous places, but that’s about it. I’ll mention a few, but mostly here today it’s just photos for you. But if anyone would like to add some commentary to what we see in the pics – please feel free to down in the comments…

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November in Moscow is normally a chilly affair – and mostly a rainy or snowy one too. So when, last weekend, someone suggested we take the kids to an open-air museum in the city (actually not far from the office), of course the first thing we did was check the weather forecast. Sure enough – rain was promised; however, nearing noon, there was still no sign of any, so we risked it: out we popped and over to the Podmoskovnaya Steam-Locomotive Depot Museum – here.

Here’s the view from the nearby elevated path we took to get there. And who’d have thought it was November?! ->

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// Pre-scriptum! Do you know what Bolshoi means in Russian? You do now: Big!

In the summer of this year we signed a partner agreement with none other than Moscow’s Bolshoi! At the signing ceremony, we were kindly invited for a personal excursion around the theater. And the other Sunday that’s just what we got – hurray! This post is all about that unforgettable excursion…

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Brief intermission in among the Tales from the Permafrost Side!…

Moscow for the tourist: there’s plenty to do and see. But after several days filled with Red Square, St. Basil’s, the Kremlin, the Arbat, Tverskaya, the Park of Victory, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum… what else is there? Well here’s one worthy suggestion, which I can now share with you after visiting the place myself for the first time the other day – the Mosfilm studio! ->

This legendary film studio complex was founded in 1923 – so in two years’ time it’ll be its 100^th jubilee!

Mosfilm today is also a museum dedicated to itself and the movies made there. In we popped…

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