🇷🇺 The fishing "ghost" of the Arctic

At the very edge of Chukotka there is a place that now belongs almost entirely to the wind and the sea — the abandoned settlement of Finval.

Finval stands on the coast of Chukotka: a harsh Arctic shore, rocks, tundra, icy sea and very long winters. Once it was a full-fledged settlement, built for the "fishing feat" — fishermen and seafarers were based here, a port operated, fish was processed, northern voyages and shifts took place.

Life here depended entirely on the sea and the economy: while the fisheries worked, the settlement held on, but the severe climate, remoteness from the "mainland" and the decline of the industry gradually made it too expensive and difficult to maintain. People left, apartments emptied, and at some point Finval finally remained with a single inhabitant — the wind.

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❤️From Russia with love

🇷🇺 St Basil's Cathedral, officially called the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, was erected in 1555–1561 by order of Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the capture of Kazan. Its uniqueness lies in the ensemble of nine separate churches built on a single foundation: the central tented roof symbolises the Intercession of the Mother of God, while the eight onion domes around it represent the eight victories over the enemy. The vivid, almost gingerbread-like colour scheme and the whimsical shapes of the domes have no parallel in world architecture. The popular name took hold thanks to the Muscovite holy fool Vasily (Basil), who was buried by the cathedral walls.

🇷🇺 Legend has it that the Terrible Tsar ordered the architects Barma and Postnik to be blinded so they could never recreate this beauty; however, historians refute this myth, as Postnik later took part in building the Kazan Kremlin. Having survived wars, fires and the threat of demolition under the Bolsheviks, the cathedral is today the main symbol of Moscow.

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🤩 The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (MAMM) is one of the most progressive exhibition spaces in Moscow. It is a centre of contemporary photography and new media, where classical exhibitions coexist with video art, VR projects and performances.

➖ Today at MAMM one can see both works by world-famous photographers and projects by young artists. The museum's holdings contain over 80,000 original prints and negatives, and the core of the collection is Russian photography from the mid-19th century to the present day.

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🎨 Wassily Kandinsky — the founder of abstractionism, the man who overturned the perception of painting. Born in Moscow and steeped in Russian traditions, he created his first abstract watercolour in 1910 and later published the book Concerning the Spiritual in Art, in which he provided a theoretical justification for the new movement. The artist believed that painting should convey that which cannot be expressed in words, and that form and colour are capable of evoking "vibrations" of the soul.

🪄 Kandinsky's connection with Russia was deeply personal and creative; during his student years he was passionate about ethnography and folk art. He reflected his feelings for his homeland in his works. His system of painting encompasses three types of works: "impressions", "improvisations" and "compositions". Among his most famous canvases are The Blue Rider (1903), Black Frame (1922) and Several Circles (1926), while Composition VI and Composition VII are recognised as the pinnacle of his creative achievement.

#culture

❤️From Russia with love