Le Bourget is rarely mentioned in tourist guides to Paris. In fact, it is better known as a private airport receiving business passengers and chartered flights. This inconspicuous airport however has a rich history and a flight museum, which is fascinating for anyone who has ever had any curiosity about the history of flight and how man took to the…
It must have been with a sense of irony that Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg as a “Window to the West” on the banks of the Neva River, as nearly 500 years before, it was here that Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky had won a battle which signalled Russia’s turning away from Europe and looking to the east. Alexander Yaroslavich (1220-1263)…
On May 19, 1864, the well known journalist and propagandist Nikolai Chernyshevsky was led onto Mytninskaya Square in St. Petersburg, now Chernyshevskaya metro station, to the gallows. He had been found guilty of revolutionary activities and condemned to a “civil execution”. Chernyshevsky (1828-89) was born in Saratov and after studying at a seminary he moved to St. Petersburg in 1846…
St. Petersburg has always been a city of trade. Throughout the centuries royalty and nobility have attracted merchants who have grown rich importing fine goods to the best families and exporting raw materials throughout Europe. Among these merchant families there are few that better known or have had a more visible presence on the city than the Eliseev family. The…
Winding past the Cathedral on the Spilt Blood, Kazansky Cathedral, the Singer Building with Dom Knigi, towards Sennaya Ploschad and the Fontanka River is Griboedov Canal. Thanks to the magnificence of the buildings lining the canal, it is one of the most photographed waterways in St. Petersburg – and one of the least considered. The name however is a fitting…
One of the favourite stories told about Peter the Great is how he used to play soldiers and created his own “toy army” his poteshnye voiska. The story is often told to reveal Peter’s ambition and his ability to organise his peers but the creation of this toy army is firmly rooted in the political rivalry of the late 17th…
A quick tour to Russia’s oldest city revealed more than grand architecture and a good opportunity for a few photographs – it revealed some of the depth and horror buried in Russia’s past. Each year on February 23, Russia celebrates the Defender of the Fatherland Day. This February events in Ukraine were far from my mind – my thoughts were…
Heading west from Christchurch, Peter Campbell travels through some spectacular scenery to visit New Zealand’s glaciers, and discovers an imposing new landscape left by the retreating ice. It is one of my many regrets that I am not a geologist. The closest I come to geology is reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and as far as…
They say first impressions are important and my first view of Kazan was beautiful. Rising slowly from the haze of the Volga River, the Kremlin, cupolas of the Orthodox churches and the minarets of the mosques, shimmering in the afternoon heat was like a twisted fantasy from the 1001 Nights. This impression was enhanced by the greeting I was given…
An absorbing and skilful story, exploring the attitudes of a younger brother who has grown up overawed by the image of his elder brother, whose life is changed when he goes to Bosnia and Serbia to explore the land that took his brother’s life.
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