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My world - 5

RUSSIA

SIMO JELACA, Ph.D.

(Curiosity about Russia and the Russian people)

Russia (Russian: Россия), officially the Russian Federation, is a federal state that stretches across vast expanses of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia.

The name Russia comes from the ancient Russian people, a group of Varangians (possibly Swedish Vikings), who founded Kievan Rus. In 2010, Russia had 141.9 million inhabitants, and compared to 1993, the population decreased by 6.6 million. Russia is a multinational country, according to the 2002 census, 180 nationalities were identified in Russia. The Russian language is extremely dominant, and is spoken by 98% of the population. The Russian language is one of the 5 most spoken languages in the world. With an area of 17,075,400 km2, Russia is the largest country in the world. The area of Siberia is 9.7 million square kilometers, which is 9% of the total land area. The surface of Russia is slightly larger than the dwarf planet Pluto. The territory of Russia is washed by the waters of 13 seas. These are: Baltic Sea, White Sea, Barents Sea, Kar Sea, Sea of the Laptev Brothers, East Siberian Sea, Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea, Okhotsk Sea, Japanese Sea, Caspian Sea, Azov Sea and Black Sea. (Russians call Caspian Lake the Caspian Sea). Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth.

There is a strait on earth that connects two seas and two oceans, and separates two countries, two continents and two peninsulas. It's the Bering Strait. It connects the Chukchi and Bering Seas, as well as the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, simultaneously separating Russia and the USA, Asia and America, the Chukotka Peninsula and Alaska. The shortest distance between Russia and America is 4 kilometers. The Ural mountain range, which separates Russia into European and Asian parts, is the oldest mountain range in the world. The lowest temperature in Russia was measured in the Ojmjakon-Verkhoyansk basin (Yakutia, Siberia), around -70°N. 25% of the world's forests are in Siberia. Russia has the longest border in the world, bordering 14 countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Ukraine. 75% of Russian territory is in Asia. The Volga is the longest river in Europe, 3,534 kilometers long. The West Siberian Plain is the largest plain on earth.

The Russian state library is the largest in Europe and the second in the world, after the Library of Congress in the USA. It is located in Moscow and was founded in 1862. There are about 600 universities in Russia. In May 1990, the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda sold the largest number of copies in the world, as many as 22 million.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist, known as one of the two scientists who created the Periodic Table of Elements.

The father of modern television was the Russian electronic engineer and inventor Vladimir Zvorykin, who emigrated to the USA in 1919.

Russian scientists invented the TV, electron microscope, helicopter, bomber, video recorder, color photography, gasoline engine, harvester, gun, synthetic rubber, radio, drill, projector, electric submarine, detergent, and many other things.

Yuri Gagarin is the first cosmonaut to enter Earth's orbit.

Russian astronaut Sergey Krikalev set a world record for staying in space - he spent 803 days up there continuously.

In 2012, UNESCO included the city of Yekaterinburg in the list of twelve ideal cities for life.

According to legend, the Russians chose Christianity over Islam because they did not want to give up alcohol. Russia holds half of the global stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which amounts to 695 tons. The second in line is the USA, which has 604 tons. Russian gas, oil and other pipelines have a total length of 259,913 kilometers, which means they can circle the Earth six times. Russia's natural gas reserves are equivalent to the size of 13.2 billion Olympic swimming pools. Russia is the second largest oil exporter in the world. The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world and is 9,288.2 km long.

Ivan the Terrible was not a tyrant, for his time he ruled quite gently - compared to his European colleagues, he killed far fewer people. Each ruler from the Romanov dynasty left his successor a larger state than the one he received during his reign. Russia never had slaves. The feudal period in Russia lasted shorter than in England, so they did not have time to develop that habit. Extra-rich Moscow residents sometimes ride in ambulances to avoid peer crowds. One of the most popular computer games, Tetris, was created by the Russian programmer Alexey Pazhitnov.

MOSCOW

Moscow is the capital of Russia and one of the largest cities in Europe, with about 12 million inhabitants, a cultural center and the largest center of the Russian economy and education. The city was named after the river of the same name on which it is located. The number of sights in Moscow is huge.

Moscow is the port of the five seas. She became that thanks to the channels. The canal is named after Moscow, built in 1933-1937. (connects the Moscow River with the Volga), turned the Russian capital into a port of three seas: the White, the Baltic, and the Caspian. The Volgo-Don Canal connects Moscow with two more seas - the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Up to nine million people travel on the Moscow subway every day. The waiting period for two trains in an underground station in Moscow is shorter than anywhere else in the world. During rush hour, the wait for the next train is a maximum of 90 seconds. The Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior with a height of 105 m is the highest Orthodox church in the world. Although Christians make up a large part of the population, the New Year is a much bigger deal than Orthodox Christmas.

The Kremlin is a beautiful complex in the heart of Moscow, surrounded by a wall and towers. It is the official residence of the President of Russia, as well as the seat of the Assembly or Parliament (Duma) and the Federation Council. The city is adorned with buildings of beautiful architecture, first of all the church of Basil the Blessed, with multi-colored domes, then the cathedral of Christ the Savior and several skyscrapers of Stalin, and the Kremlin itself is certainly the most beautiful. The Moscow Metro is of unsurpassed beauty, which has no equal in the world, both in terms of the beauty of its stations, as well as in terms of transportation accuracy and cleanliness. The most beautiful stations are: Mayakovskaya, Kievskaya, Prospekt mira, Novoslobodskaya, Komsomolskaya, Arbatskaya. Their walls are painted with mosaics, stained glass, and decorated with luxurious chandeliers. The metro has 173 stations, 12 lines, is over 300 km long and is impeccably clean, and Muscovites are used to not littering and transport prices are cheap. The city of Moscow has several airports, among which Sheremetyevo is the largest and busiest, as well as nine railway terminals.

In 1156, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky ordered the construction of an ancient wall around the then city of Moscow. However, the Mongols burned it to the ground in 1237. It was only in 1330 that Moscow managed to recover, and in 1480 Ivan III freed Russia from the Tatars and Moscow then became the capital of the government. The Crimean Tatars again burned Moscow, all but the Kremlin. From 1713 to 1905, the capital of Russia became the city of Saint Petersburg. From 1905, Moscow again became the capital of Russia and the Soviet Union. In 1812, Moscow was attacked by Napoleon, it was partly burned again, but Napoleon had to withdraw from Russia due to famine and harsh winter. In 1941, sixteen divisions and thirty battalions of Russian volunteers stopped and repulsed the German army in the battle for Moscow. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, but Moscow still remained the capital of Russia.

The Tretyakov Gallery, according to experts, is the best gallery in the world, which exhibits works of art by Russian artists. Certainly in Moscow there is a famous picture of the Borodino battle, displayed in a special hall, in a circular shape, 118 m long, on which you can see the armies of Napoleon, as the conqueror, and General Kutuzov, whose army defended Moscow at the cost of survival. In the picture, burnt wooden beams are placed in the foreground, in front of the painted houses and the burning grain, which evoke real scenes, and there is even perfume that smells of burning, which all together gives visitors the impression that they are on a real battlefield. No one in the world has painted and harmoniously presented such a picture. The Battle of Borodino is an unsurpassed work of Russian masters.

The Bolshoi Theater, the famous Russian theater, whose ballet and opera performances are without competition the best in the world.

Red Square is the most popular tourist meeting point in Moscow, where the Church of Basil the Blessed and the State Historical Museum are located. Millions of world tourists visit Red Square every year. There is also Lenin's mausoleum, in a beautiful building, where Lenin's embalmed body is displayed.

The Ostankino TV Tower from 1966 is 550 m high, only 3 m lower than the CN Tower in Toronto, with a botanical garden and a small lake in the area, which adds to its charms of beauty, where the poet Yevtushenko used to bring his cousin Natasha to show her charms of nature.

The monument to the conquerors of space is part of the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, erected in 1964 in honor of the conquerors of space.

Tverskaya Street is a fashionable part of the capital, it is considered a fashionable street of Russia, where there are modern and expensive boutiques and restaurants.

The Peter and Paul Fortress is the resting place of the Russian emperors and the Romanov dynasty. Gorki Park is a famous Moscow park with a variety of contents, which has a public ice rink in winter. Stari Arbat is a promenade, with souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes. And Novy Arbat is the part of the city where the main shopping is, also with a lot of restaurants. It has a very active nightlife.

The city of Moscow has several museums, among which the most prominent are: Military Museum, Ostankino Palace, Pushkin Museum, Russian State Museum. All of them are under the protection of UNESCO. The largest is the Pushkin Museum, which houses the works of fine artists Picasso, Chagall, Monet and other famous painters.

There are also 93 theaters, 132 cinemas, 88 centers of culture and 434 libraries.

The famous Lomonosov University in Moscow, founded in 1755. The university building has 30 km of corridors and 5000 rooms. The building has a concert hall, a theater, a museum, a library, a swimming pool, a hair salon, a bank, shops, cafes and a bomb shelter, etc. In addition to numerous parks and botanical gardens, Moscow also has a zoo with over 1,000 species of animals.

The main department store in Moscow is GUM, officially one of the most famous stores in the world with 1200 stores. It is located on Red Square in the center of Moscow.

Moscow is the capital of imperial and modern Russia, a great scientific, cultural, political, economic and technical center of a part of the world (it is an understatement to say only Russia).

The author stayed in Moscow eight times, between 1971 and 1980, officially as a designer, managing to visit many sights of Moscow and to fall in love with its people. He was most delighted by the painting of the Battle of Borodino, which he visited three times, as well as the poet with his niece Natasha, a friend of Yevtushenko.

SANKT PETERBURG

Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia, located on the Neva River, which flows into the Baltic Sea in Finland. The city got its name in 1703. In 1914 it was renamed to Petrograd, and in 1924 to Leningrad. Since 1991, his name has been returned to St. Petersburg. Emperor Peter the Great founded the city on May 27, 1703. From 1713-1728 and 1732-1918. St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia. Since 1918, the capital of Russia has been Moscow. City of St. Petersburg now has a little over 5 million inhabitants and is the northernmost city of a million. City of St. Petersburg is a cultural center, the central part of which with historical monuments and the Hermitage is the largest complex under the protection of UNESCO. A large number of foreign consulates, companies, banks and business representatives are in St. Petersburg.

In Saint Petersburg alone, there are 221 museums, 2,000 libraries, more than 80 theaters, over 100 concert halls and a large number of cultural institutions. Saint Petersburg is located on 101 islands. Those islands are connected, in the narrower area of the city, by 363 bridges, and if the suburbs are also taken into account, there are 578 of them. This number does not include bridges on company territory and railway bridges, as well as wooden bridges in parks and over canals. If they were also counted, the number of bridges in St. Petersburg would exceed 1000.

City of St. Many people in the world call St. Petersburg the Venice of the North, because of the narrowness of the Neva River and numerous bridges. The city has beautiful castles and impressive monuments, tree-lined avenues, all of which make the city extremely beautiful and pleasant to live in and visit. The city recently turned 300 years old and you can enjoy White Nights here. Of the famous buildings of St. Petersburg we list the following:

The Peter and Paul Fortress was built during the reign of Peter the Great, for defense against the Swedes, and today it is an object of special beauty, where the Russian emperors rest. The house of Peter the Great has been well preserved throughout the past 300 years. Today it is a museum for visitors. The summer palace of Peter the Great was built at the beginning of the 18th century, according to the project of the Italian architect Domenico Trezzini.

St. Petersburg State University is a red and white building, with 12 colleges, built in 1740. Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin were educated there. The Hermitage is the world's most impressive and largest collection of about 3 million art exhibits of all art disciplines. It was built in the 18th century, in the Baroque style, during the reign of Catherine the Great. It was within and under the control of the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian emperors. It is located along the Neva River and is the most important attraction of St. Petersburg. The building has 1,786 doors and 1,945 windows, as well as 1,057 elegant halls and rooms, most of which are open to visitors.

The winter castle was built in 1754-1762. year for Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died before its completion, and only Catherine the Great and her heir were able to enjoy Elizabeth's interiors. In 1837, the castle experienced a fire, in which many rooms were damaged, but they were later renovated. Today, the Winter Palace and four other surrounding buildings house the collections of the Hermitage. The Hermitage Museum is the largest in the world, founded in 1764, when Catherine the Great bought a collection of 255 paintings from Berlin. The Hermitage houses the works of world-famous artists Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Renoir, Cézanne, Monet, Pessary, Van Gogh, Matisse, Guguen and Rodin. It was calculated that if we stayed in front of each exhibit for just one minute, it would take us 11 years to see them all.

The bronze horseman is a monument to the horseman erected by Empress Catherine the Great to the founder of the city. Pushkin immortalized him in his works.

St. Isaac's Church was built in the first half of the 19th century, according to the project of the French architect Auguste Montferrand, and is an impressive building, with extraordinary mosaics and icons, with a huge dome, over 100 m high, which can be seen from great distances.

St. Petersburg has many more buildings worth visiting and remembering. These are: Blue Bridge, Mariinsky Palace, Mariinsky Opera House, Nevsky Prospekt, Kazan Cathedral, Guest House, Art Square and the Russian Museum. The Mikhailovsky Castle, Smolny Cathedral, Aurora, Pushkin Park and Palace and many others are certainly worth mentioning.

The author stayed in St. Petersburg only once in 1971 and managed to visit many of the mentioned sights and record much of the information he learned from the guides and hosts. He was truly enchanted by the beauty of the city with so many beautiful buildings, worth a lifetime memory.

COPENHAGEN – DENMARK

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with a population of about 1.3 million, a narrower area, and a wider area of about 1.8 million. The city is located on the east coast of the island of Zeeland. In the tenth century, the city was formed by the Vikings, and it became the capital of Denmark in the 15th century. During the reign of Christian IV, it was the capital of Denmark and Norway. Numerous buildings in Copenhagen are architecturally very beautiful and attractive to tourists. These are: the Stock Exchange building, the Round Tower and Rosenborg Castle. After a great plague and a fire in the 18th century, the city underwent reconstruction. Then the Royal Theater and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences were built. The city experienced another renewal, after Nelson's attack in the 19th century, and this renewal was called the Danish Golden Era, which brought the Neoclassical style to Copenhagen's architecture. After the Second World War, suburban settlements and a railway with five directions from the city center were built. And at the beginning of the 21st century, infrastructures of various institutions are being developed in the city.

The city of Copenhagen is the cultural, economic and political center of the country. There are many bridges and parks in the city, and the most famous park is Tivoli Gardens, with a statue of the Little Mermaid. Important buildings include Amaliborg and Kristianborg castles, Rosenberg Gardens, Frederic Church, many museums, restaurants and nightclubs.

Copenhagen hosts the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark and the Danish Business School. The University of Copenhagen was founded in 1479 and is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is considered the best cycling city in the world. The city also has a Metro, which serves about 2 million passengers per month, and Kastrup Airport is the largest among the Scandinavian countries.

Copenhagen is also the largest city in the Scandinavian countries and is treated as a cultural and artistic center, with excellent shopping and the longest walking streets in the world. The area of the city is about 1980 km², the total number of inhabitants is about 2.2 million, the currency is the Danish krone.

The National Gallery is a collection of national treasures, which mainly includes works by Picasso, Braque, Rubens and Nolde. The Little Mermaid is known to almost all children of the world from the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (Andersen's Fairy Tales).

Tivoli is the most famous park in Europe, as a mixture of natural and man-made. It was designed by George Kartensen. Amalienborg Palace has been the residence of the Danish royal family since 1794. The National Museum, which is the main attraction and cultural institution of Denmark, is located in that palace. The Royal Museum of Kunst is a museum of fine art, which includes paintings by Rembrandt, Bruegel, Rubens, Titan, Picasso and Matisse.

Denmark is a relatively small European country, with a high standard of living, a well-developed industry, mainly for the needs of agriculture.

The author stayed in Denmark ten times, each time officially and had the opportunity to meet the Danes as good business partners. He mostly cooperated with the company ABC Hansen International, and when he stayed at the Kongskilde company, fishing was organized for them along the coast of Norway.

AMSTERDAM – NETHERLANDS

Amsterdam is the largest, but not the main administrative city of the Netherlands. It was founded at the end of the 12th century as a fishing village at the mouth of the Amstel river. The narrower part of the city has close to one million inhabitants, and the wider area has 2.7 million inhabitants. The Kingdom of the Netherlands has almost 17 million. Amsterdam is the center of Dutch culture and finance, and The Hague is the capital and administrative city. The old town center of The Hague is one of the largest in Europe, built in the 17th century. The city has the famous Zemaljski, Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums.

Among the sights in Amsterdam, we will mention a few of the most important ones, which are visited by many tourists from around the world. These are, first of all:

The house of Anne Frank, who most clearly described in her diary what and how the Jews survived during the Holocaust in the Second World War.

The Van Gogh Museum preserves and exhibits more than 200 paintings, sketches and drawings by their favorite painter. This museum occasionally organizes traveling exhibitions of respected contemporaries.

The Rijksmuseum is the most important museum in the Netherlands that houses the works of Rembrandt. It was designed by the Dutch architect Jozef Hubertus Cypers in 1885.

Albert Cape Market has been attracting curious visitors for over 100 years, mostly because of the colorful stalls. Everything fresh is sold there: meat, vegetables and fruits, flowers, as well as clothes of all religions and nations.

The inner city center of Amsterdam is the most interesting meeting place for tourists, a pleasant promenade. It is the Old Town, which was considered the commercial capital of Europe until the 17th century. Far from the center is Dam Square, a pleasant promenade surrounded by royal palaces. There are some newer churches and the Madame Tussauds museum. Nightlife in Amsterdam is liveliest on Leidseplein square, where there are many restaurants, cafes, theaters and cinemas. During the summer, tourists enjoy strolling through Amsterdam's squares and enjoying their beer. Street musicians, jugglers, fire eaters and other entertainers are present on the streets.

Canals in Amsterdam are a trademark of the city and the Netherlands, so many call Amsterdam the Venice of the North. It is common for almost all tourists to take a boat ride along those canals. In Amsterdam there is a Red Zone, with countless shops selling various sex equipment, video cassettes, magazines, toys, and sex itself. Photography is prohibited in those streets. It made Amsterdam famous in a way, as well as Copenhagen in Denmark. There is a zoo in Amsterdam, which is almost in the very center of the city. There is also a planetarium, a botanical garden and a geological museum. The Mageve bridge is interesting, which opens every twenty minutes for the passage of ships. It was built way back in 1670. The coastal areas of the Netherlands are lower than sea level, so they are protected by dams. The Netherlands is characterized by an Atlantic climate, with fairly uniform temperatures and plenty of rainfall.

The author stayed briefly in Amsterdam during his trip to the Netherlands Antilles and during his return. He had time to walk through the central part of the city and feel its spirit. He collected some of the aforementioned information, which he recorded in his travelogs

CURACAO – NETHERLANDS ANTILLES

The Netherlands Antilles are a constituent part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They consist of six islands (Boner, St. Martin, Curacao, Soba, St. Eustatius and Aruba), of which Curacao is the largest. Since 1954, the Netherlands Antilles are no longer a colony of the Netherlands, and since 2010 they have had complete independence, as a parliamentary monarchy, although they are part of the kingdom, and only Aruba is completely independent. The Netherlands Antilles have a total area of 448 km² and a population of about 150,000, fifteen nationalities, and the island of Curaçao has an area of 180,000 km² and a population of 140,000. Due to belonging to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles enjoy a lot of privileges from the European Union. The Netherlands Antilles are in the Caribbean Sea, and the island of Curacao is only about 50 km away from the South American continent, and Venezuela can be seen with the naked eye in clear weather. The island has an ideal climate, the average temperature is 27°C, with 360 sunny days a year. For the island of Curaçao, it can rightly be said that it is Paradise on earth.

The capital of the Netherlands Antilles is Willemstad, with almost the entire population of the island. The population is mixed, Afro-European and Afro-Caribbean, with a few Latin Americans, Danes, Portuguese, English and French. The majority are of Afro-Caribbean origin. Religiously, the majority are Catholics (80%). Willemstad is a very well-preserved, beautiful-looking city, under the protection of UNESCO with Amsterdam fortress from the 17th century, its two parts of Puna and Ostraband are connected to each other by the Queen Emma pontoon steel bridge, from the 17th century, which is the oldest in the world. It is 495 m long and 14.5 m wide.

The island was discovered by Lieutenant Alonso de Odeja from Columbus' sailors in 1499. Since then it belonged to Spain, and in 1634 the island was conquered by the Dutchman Peter Stuyvesant. The language on the island is Papiamento, but English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish are also spoken.

There is no reliable information about the origin of the name of the island of Curacao (Curacao), but the closest origin is from the Portuguese word (coracao), which means heart and which really fits it perfectly. On the island of Curaçao is the international airport Dr. Albert Plesman Lichthaven, with a large traffic, which is visited by many tourists from all over the world. The island has wonderful beaches and a wonderful climate, as said before it is heaven on earth. The Dutch Antilles live largely from tourism, and produce the southern fruits of mango and papaya, and aloe cacti. They build and repair ships and are largely engaged in financial services. Their money is the Antillean Gulden, approximately worth 0.75 Canadian dollars (ss 60 dinars).

The author stayed in Willemstad in 1976 on his way to Peru. He learned several expressions of the Papiamento language: Bon dia – Good morning; Bon tardi – Good day; Bon noci - Good evening; Kon ta bai - How are you? Bon danki – Thank you, I'm fine; Masha danki - Thank you very much; And I - Goodbye; Te avaro - See you later.

It wii be continued

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