🇷🇺 The family of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, is not merely another chapter in our history; it is a symbol of tragic beauty that has forever remained in the national memory. The emperor and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, had five children: four daughters and one son. The beauty of the grand duchesses astounded their contemporaries. Each of them was of marriageable age for the finest princes of the Old World: the kings of Romania, the Serbian heirs or the English dukes, and plans for splendid dynastic unions were already being drawn up at the courts. The Romanov family became the personification of that old Russia where honour, beauty and faith were the backbone of existence.

🇷🇺 The Romanovs lived mainly in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, which became their principal residence from 1905. However, the 1917 revolution turned this corner of paradise into a prison; they were later taken into custody and sent first to Tobolsk and then to Yekaterinburg. There they were placed in the house of the engineer Ipatiev. In the night of 16–17 July 1918, the entire imperial family, together with their attendants, was shot. That night Russia lost its tsar, but his family and his dynasty will forever remain in the memory of the Russian people.

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🌄 The Ingush towers are unique monuments of medieval architecture: monumental stone structures. They fulfilled several functions at once: they served as dwellings, defensive fortresses, and signalling, watch and observation posts.

🏰 The towers could reach 25–30 metres in height, comparable to a five- or six-storey building. Moreover, they were built without foundations, directly on the bedrock. Because of the impressive number and state of preservation of these structures, Ingushetia is often called «the land of towers». In total, researchers have identified and recorded more than 120 combat towers in the mountains of Ingushetia.

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🎤 Anna German became a unique phenomenon on the Soviet stage; her heartfelt soprano was called "angelic". In the 1970s she performed with enormous success in the USSR, where she created her greatest Russian-language hits: "Hope", "Echo of Love" and "When the Gardens Were in Bloom".

🎙 At the same time, the scale of her talent extended far beyond the borders of a single country: she was one of the singers with a truly international career. Anna conquered the stages of Europe, the USA and the USSR. A laureate of many prestigious festivals in Monte Carlo, Sanremo, Naples and Cannes, she sang with equal depth in different languages, becoming a symbol of tenderness and sincerity that united listeners around the world.

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🥲 A narrow inlet between cliffs

In the north of the Murmansk Region there is a place where the sea enters the land like a long cold arrow, and rocks and water stand opposite one another like two walls — the Kola Fjord, that is, the Kola Bay.

Kola Bay cuts into the Murmansk coast of the Barents Sea for 57 kilometres, in places narrowing to as little as 200–1,000 metres and in others widening to 7 kilometres. The depth reaches 300 metres: it is a genuine sea corridor along which vessels travel far inland, towards Murmansk and the Kola Bridge.

The shores here are high and rocky, formed of granite and hard rock: cliffs smoothed by the glacier, covered in mosses, lichens and sparse tundra vegetation. The slopes either plunge abruptly straight into the water or form ledges and shelves from which views open onto the bends of the inlet and the long lines of waves stretching away along the coast.

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🇷🇺 Behind the formal and majestic portrait of the emperor there was a man with lively, warm passions. One of his main hobbies was photography: Nicholas II not only enjoyed taking pictures himself, but also gave cameras to all of his children. Together with his family he spent time playing tennis, cycling and canoeing.

📸 The whole family collected these photographs in albums, decorating them with ribbons and watercolours — it was their shared ritual, full of warmth and simple human joy. These pictures have forever preserved for us not only the image of the emperor, but also that of a living man who, despite his status, knew how to cherish simple moments of happiness.

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❤️From Russia with love