Category Archives: Art

Russian Video: Soviet Army – Dance of the Soldiers…


Soviet Army - dance of the soldiers


I just love this video. When I was younger I use to try to dance like this. I just loved Russian dancing. I guess I have been crazy about Russia since I was little tyke…

They make it look so easy and then there is me who can hardly walk any more… 🙂

I get wore out just watching this video…

Russian Video From Russia!

Russian Video: Frost City…

Ever wonder where Jack Frost might live? Join RT on a tour of Moscow’s icy kingdom.

Already known as a realm of ice and snow, Moscow now has a city within a city – and it too is frozen. It appeared in one of the capital’s parks almost overnight, turning it into a true winter wonderland.

Called Moroz (“Frost”) City, it is located in Sokolniki Park, north-east of the city center. Exhibitions of ice sculptures are a regular seasonal fixture in the Russian capital, but Moroz City is something the likes of which the city has never seen before. More than a display of frozen statues, this Frost City is very much alive – you can walk its streets and enter its buildings.

It is all the result of a competition inviting young architects from Russia and neighboring countries like Ukraine and Belarus to show off their talent. Those whose blueprints were selected had five days to complete their buildings, starting on January 5.

More than a thousand specially-made cubes of artificial snow and 500 chunks of ice, brought from outside Moscow, were used. A key condition for participation that houses must have a straightforward design – and be easy to construct. But the contestants did not settle for simple – and the result is more than impressive. Moroz City has a hotel, a cinema, a lighthouse and even a prison.

All in all, 20 different teams have created 16 different buildings – and that despite the unusually warm weather at the beginning of January. For a price of 250 rubles for adults and 150 for kids, you can see and enter them all.

The city is set to remain open for visitors until early March, and will play host to a number of festivals, concerts and exhibitions to give visitors a taste of a real winter fairytale.

Russian Video From Russia!

Russian Video: This Is Russia


Tochka opory (advertisement) - This is Russia

This is a great video that really explains Russia as it really is. Russia is a land of complex contrasts that will never cease to amaze you if you give it half a chance. Watch “This Is Russia” You will laugh and then you will think…

It is a animation video for a Russian lighting company called Tochka Opory, showing what Russia really is for foreign businessmen…

This is Russia…

Russian Video From Russia

Russian Video: Violin makers in Russia fight to save 500-year-old tradition…

Russia’s top violin-makers have given RT an insight into a beautiful but dying craft, recalling its history and pondering its future.

As the saying goes, many a good tune is played on an old fiddle. This is only possible thanks to a few talented individuals whose job it is to painstakingly restore classic violins.

Amiran Oganezov is one such individual. For the past 20 years, he has been restoring old violins and making new ones. It takes the master about four weeks to turn a piece of maple into a musical instrument. No machinery is used – everything is made by hand, from classic designs to something a little more experimental.

Oganezov’s works are sold widely in Russia and Europe. Yet the musician has no formal education in violin making, because Russia cannot boast a single official violin-making school.

“There are about 10 professional violin makers in Moscow,” Oganezov says. “Compare this to Europe – there’s an Italian town called Cremona, famous for its violin-making tradition. Some 70,000 people live there and 500 of them are violin makers. In Russia the craft is disappearing and I just hope it won’t die out completely.”

Although Russian violinists regularly snap up top prizes at international competitions, the world has hardly heard of Russian violin makers. The country, however, does have a long violin-making tradition.

It can be traced back to Moscow’s Glinka Museum of Musical Culture, named after the 19th-century composer Mikhail Glinka. The art of violin making has not changed much in almost 500 years, and a modern-day craftsman has to be a jack of all trades.

The craft entails much more than the mere construction of a violin. The violin maker has to be a carpenter, a varnish maker, an acoustician, and has to play the instrument well enough to be able to hear and make the subtle tonal adjustments.

Before turning to violin making, Amiran started out as a musician, as did his friend and colleague Mikhail Azoyan, whose workshop is next door. The violins he makes are snapped up at prices of up to $8,000, but his true love is making bows. He has a few tricks of the trade of his own.

“You’ve got to have the knowledge of how to turn a chunk of wood into something that will produce a sound,” violin and bow maker Mikhail Azoyan told RT. “Different types of wood are worked with differently. But intuition plays a big part too. Sometimes I take one look at a piece of wood and I feel what kind of sound I can get from it.”

It is really all about the sound, says violin sensation Gayk Kazazyan, winner of a number of competitions in Russia and abroad.

“I had the honor of playing a Stradivarius violin at New York’s Carnegie Hall – a very special experience,” Kazazyan told RT. “The older the violin, the richer its tone. And the better the instrument, the longer it takes to get the feel of it. A relationship between a musician and their instrument is like a very close friendship, or even a romance.”

He agrees that Russia’s home-grown musicians prefer instruments made abroad. Violin makers like Amiran and Mikhail blame the lack of state funding and support for the trade. However, as long as their work remains in demand, they hope the profession will live on, and the country’s violin makers will eventually stop playing second fiddle on the world stage.

Russian Videos From Russia!

Russian Video: Huge Map Of Russia on the Moscow Streets!


This is a great video made by RIA and it shows a huge map of Russia being drawn to scale on the streets of Moscow. It is according to the professors totally accurate and updated with all eight federal districts.

They say the best of the graffiti artists worked on this map…

Russian Video From Russia!
comments always welcome.