St. Petersburg has a long naval history which is difficult to miss when taking in the city. Take, for example, New Holland Island where visitors are greeted to the sight of recreated Dutch ships. New Holland Island reinforces the city’s historic mythology, since Peter The Great was a great enthusiast […]
Peeking out from modern day St. Petersburg and Kyiv are old-style markets which both have a distinctively ethnic flair. In Kyiv, the historic Bessarabsky market houses many local food vendors.
At Moscow’s All Russian Exhibition Center, the visitor is taken back to a time when many ethnic minorities formed part of a heavily idealized Soviet vision. Take, for example, a fountain with highly stylized statues. It’s doubtful that ethnic minorities living in Russia today share such a blissful vision, though […]
Though the Soviet Union no longer exists, various ethnic cuisines are still quite popular. Take, for example, Armenian food. Food from the Caucasus region is also popular, even an Ossetian restaurant. In St. Petersburg, Tatar-style “Chebureki” are ubiquitous. Throughout St. Petersburg and Moscow, Georgian food is also hugely popular. One […]
Perhaps, some may yearn to regain Russia’s former greatness when many more ethnic peoples were incorporated into first the Czarist Empire and later the Soviet Union. At St. Petersburg’s Ethnographic Museum, visitors may gaze at models of different ethnicities.
In Russia, religion has rushed in to the fill the gap in people’s lives after the fall of Communism. Meanwhile, Moscow’s Museum of Religious Icons has a well-funded exhibit space.
Despite the presence of art nouveau, what really predominates in St. Petersburg is over the top baroque architecture, suggesting more of an imperial flair reminiscent of Vienna. Take, for example, the Belosselsky Palace. Flamboyantly, many such buildings are painted pink.
Is St. Petersburg a great “Window to the West” as commonly thought? Architectural details within the city center underscore St. Petersburg’s fascination with the West, including several art nouveau buildings. Though such buildings tend to be scarce, they evoke a French or Parisian cosmopolitan mood. In Moscow too, one may […]
If you had asked me three years ago to assess Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region, I would have argued that the conflict had triggered a right-wing shift in the nation’s politics. If anything, military hostilities seemed to have eclipsed or overshadowed radical social change as called […]
Could Ukraine’s secessionist war actually encourage more gender equality? Following my first trip to Kyiv almost three years ago, I would have been skeptical of such views. During interviews, political activists on Ukraine’s independent left circuit expressed dismay over sexism during the Maidan revolution which toppled the unpopular, pro-Kremlin government […]
