Making of the Moscow Metro map
A lovely visual look at redesigning the map for the Moscow Metro. (thx, matt)
Soviet commercial advertising posters
There are some tsarist Russia posters in the collection as well. (via do)
Wooden skyscraper
Nikolai Sutyagin decided to build himself a home befitting the owner of a lumber and construction company. This resident of Archanglesk, Russia, built a regular Izba, or wooden country dwelling, that was the standard two stories, because anything higher is considered a fire hazard by law. Once complete, he began to add to the roof bit by bit, using leftover lumber from his company. Eventually his home teetered at an unbelievable 12-15 stories, tall enough to view the White Sea from the top. Though Nikolai ran into some trouble with an embezzling employee and jail time for beating up said employee, he and his family are rumored to still dwell in the timber tower, which looks like something out of an Edward Gorey etching.
Face control
To sort out the uncultured, ill-tempered, and just plain ugly, Moscow clubs use a process called face control (or feis kontrol), a particularly picky version of the typical velvet rope system employed at clubs around the world.
Not that Pasha doesn't take his role seriously. As he sees it, his job, or that of any face control expert, is necessary because Russia is filled with "people who have just made their first million and think they deserve to be in the club, that they should get everything they want." This, of course, is a problem. "But in fact they're just a bunch of miners and day laborers," Pasha said. "They don't have respect or culture."
Early color photography
The color photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who plied his trade in Russia in the early 1900s, is making the rounds online again. It's always worth a look. Prokudin-Gorskii made color photographs using a clever filtering system years before color photography would be widely available. As a result, his work goes on the list of things that seem contemporary but really aren't.
As Mike notes, I first linked to Prokudin-Gorskii's work more than 8 years ago (!!).
Update: Clayton James Cubitt reminded me that Prokudin-Gorskii took a color portrait of Leo Tolstoy in 1908. (thx, clayton)
Synchronized bridge jumping
Synchonized jumping from bridges is a thing in Russia now.
It's new fun in some Russian cities, to jump from the bridge with the rope in a big group, when there is no water under the bridge but raw firm ice, also they use to jump at that same moment when the train is going thru the bridge -- just imagine what the machinist could think when he sees a bunch of people standing on the rails just before the moving train, so he probably starts slowing down and then all those people jump out of the bridge...
Illegal toilet seats
As a companion to an offline article about illegal logging, the New Yorker has a video that traces illegally cut wood in Russia to distribution and manufacturing centers in China and eventually a finished toilet seat is shipped to Wal-Mart in the US.
The truth about Russia
Chip Kidd's copy of the New York Times reveals the truth behind Russia's new President: Trickery. (via book design review)
Alexey Titarenko
Wonderful timelapse photos by Alexey Titarenko of "shadow" people in St. Petersburg just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This one is stunning. (via heading east)
David Remnick on the current state of
In recent years, Putin has insured that nearly all power in Russia is Presidential. The legislature, the State Duma, is only marginally more independent than the Supreme Soviet was under Leonid Brezhnev. The governors of Russia's more than eighty regions are no longer elected, as they were under Yeltsin; since a Presidential decree in 2004, they have all been appointed by the Kremlin. Putin even appoints the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The federal television networks, by far the main instrument of news and information in Russia, are neo-Soviet in their absolute obeisance to Kremlin power.
There's also an audio interview of Kasparov by Remnick.
Kremlin Inc. is from the New Yorker
Kremlin Inc. is from the New Yorker a few weeks ago, but it's still very worth reading. The article details the current political situation in Russia and how in many ways, the press, business, and the political process are less free and open than under the Soviet regime. "'I don't know of a single case in the past six years when the Duma voted against any Presidential initiative,' Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the last liberal legislators willing to speak critically and publicly, told me. 'I also don't know of any case where the Duma adopted an initiative that came from the regions. One man makes all the rules in Russia now, and the Duma has become like a new Supreme Soviet.'"
Some interesting photos taken in the Moscow subway. (thx, malatron)
Some interesting photos taken in the Moscow subway. (thx, malatron)
A collection of almost 1500 Soviet and Russian
A collection of almost 1500 Soviet and Russian propaganda and advertising posters. (thx, mark)
Powerful photo essay on Chernobyl, 20 years after
Powerful photo essay on Chernobyl, 20 years after the accident. Photographer Paul Fusco says the damage was so great that he thought he was looking at "a different race of people". (thx, lisa)
Russia plans to drive a golf ball
Russia plans to drive a golf ball off of the ISS with a gold-plated, scandium alloy six-iron into a four-year, low-earth orbit....which may actually damage the space station if the ball is not "hit out of the station's orbital plane". I understand this event will be debuting at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.