Tag Archives: russia

Still sticking around St. Petersburg, we saw it was time for a scene change. So we chose the forts of Kronstadt, since – to my shame – I’d never been and didn’t even know much about them, including their history. Thus, it was time for some Kronstadt forts history catch-up…

Kronstadt is a port city on the tiny Kotlin Island in Neva Bay in the Gulf of Finland some 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg – here. But the name Kronstadt is also given to the collection of historic forts in Neva Bay, including the few in Kronstadt. Most of the forts were constructed in the early to mid-1700s, and there were 22 at one point (some were later demolished). The first forts appeared during the Great Northern War. The reason why they were built was simple: to protect the northern capital from enemy navies.

I mentioned some were demolished; alas – others were simply abandoned and left to decay, not before they were looted. Today plenty of ruins remain – in among the shrubbery and trees that have grown up in the intervening centuries. But “ruins” doesn’t mean uninteresting; quite the contrary in fact. Accordingly, off we popped toward the forts of Kronstadt…

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Our guided walking-tour of St. Pete started out great. But things were about to be taken to the next level – literally! Rooftops, here we come. But first – a surprise: turns out most of the roofs are wooden (on the inside, under some tin sheeting)! ->

I have to say I wasn’t expecting this; from afar things like a lot more modern. Never mind. The main thing – the views from the roofs, not the (inner) roofs themselves.

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And now – for one of my favorite tourisms: a city walkabout! Even better – the city is St. Petersburg! Better still – with a wonderfully entertaining tour guide! Even better yet – the itinerary of sights and sounds around the city was interestingly unusual!…

All righty; off we pop!…

So what can I say? Well, I’ll start off by saying that Saint Petersburg in the summer is simply… sainted! Perhaps the most convincing imperial “capital” (it was the capital of the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire) of Europe, if not the world.

But, as often happens, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning – of our guided stroll. First place of interest: the Rimsky-Korsakov Monument ->

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Hi folks!

We’ve never been busier, and that goes for the whole of the fateful 2022 and also the first half of this year. Busy as bees we are. And it’s the same for me personally as well as the Kompany: business trips almost back-to-back, with “breathers” in-between back home turning into busy workdays too. But it is what it is, and who am I to complain?…

As per the eternal tradition at K though – in addition to working hard we also play hard. Last Friday we had the annual Kiddies Day at HQ, and soon – in July – we’ll be having our annual K-Birthday all-dayer, back after last year’s omission. While the other day there was some more “play” for me, though I’d hardly call it hard. Still just as fun…

I was in Nizhny Novgorod – on business, of course, but I managed to fit in the mandatory walkabout downtown – specifically, along the city’s famed pedestrianized Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street – the perfect spot stretch for strolling, eating, drinking, chilling, and assorted other (legal) pastiming…

It seems angels are a thing of late, not only in Belarus but here too!

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Curiously, in the comments at the bottom of my Instagram post about my visit to Orenburg, a dear reader suggested we visit her nearby hometown of Gui (pronounced Guy; not Gay). Another commenter stated something along the lines of, “What? That hole?!” To which the original commenter retorted, ~”actually, yes – it is a hole, kinda, since it has the deepest hole mine in the whole of Europe!” This interaction was all the more amusing to me since I was reading it… in Gui!…

We flew to Gui (incidentally, a +1 to my list of cities in the world visited) by helicopter. Perfect. In the car we would have missed the fantastic aerial-panoramic views of the vast steppe, and it’d have taken us four hours…

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Hi folks!

Sorry I’ve been quiet of late, but I was away on a business trip in the Orenburg oblast (region) and it was non-stop intense work, so I didn’t have time to write up my impressions. So here, today, is me catching up…

Orenburg-region highlight? There were three actually…

The first – a personal record: the furthest I’ve been underground (1310 meters below the surface!) ->

The second – the lecture I gave at Orenburg State University organized by the progressive folks at the Orenburg branch of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media ->

And the third: a small dose of tourism, naturally. This included a pleasant stroll along Orenburg’s main pedestrianized street ->

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Finally, another dream of mine has come true. I got to see… THIS! ->

This That, of course, being Aurora Borealis, aka the Northern Lights. Actually, I shouldn’t have written “of course” just there, because photos like these could have been taken in the southern hemisphere. Indeed, there are auroras down there too, but they’re referred to as Aurora Australis; and as Michael Caine once famously uttered – “Not a lot of people know that”! Record duly set straight, onward with this post )…

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My recent tales from the Putorana side wouldn’t be quite complete without a mention of the hotel camp/hostel we stayed at while there, so here’s a quick post about just that…

It’s called Derevnya Neralakh (Neralakh Village) (named after the river it sits beside).

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Having had a Putorana warm-up, then gone over the history of how the Putorana Plateau came about, it’s now time for a closer look!…

The weather was excellent, the chopper was all set, and the day ahead promised to be a busy one. Into the helicopter we pile, and off we fly!…

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The Putorana Plateau is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places in the world, that’s for sure. That is… in good weather (just like Kamchatka and the Kurils). I keep writing that – “in good weather” – all the time of late. I should abbreviate it: GW. So yes – in GW, the landscapes here are simply mind-blowing:

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