Author: Traveling Rockhopper

The Soviet Union (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR) existed (only?) for 69 years (1922-1991).
However, it was so intensive (and painful for many) period that it’s easy to have the impression it lasted much much longer.

I was planning to write a bit about the Soviet Union, but so many many (!!!) things happened during these 69 years, that I’m not able to make it short. There were lots of negative, horrible events, but there were also positive ones. And when you ask random 100 people from all countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, plus from e.g., Poland or Germany, you get so many different stories that it’s just not possible to make it short.
So, I’ll leave it without a comment…

From the history lessons, I well remember 3 names of Russian reigns:
-Ivan the Terrible (also known as Ivan IV Vasilyevich or Ivan the Fearsome)
-Peter the Great (Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich)
-Catherine II (Catherine the Great)

I believe, Peter I was the “greatest”, however all mentioned above changed “Russia” a lot, and made it much larger and stronger country (empire).

Matryoshka Doll is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another.

Matryoshka seems to be a traditional Russian doll. However, it was invented at the end of 19th. century, and later presented in Paris, as an old Russian toy. Anyway, the idea was apparently quite clever, because these days, Matryoshka Doll is one of the symbols of Russia.

Matryoshka Dolls follow different themes. They may consist of “Russian women”, as well as represent characters of Soviet leaders; everything is possible. 😉

Russia (or the Soviet Union) has worked intensively on space exploration.

The most known dates:
-In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1.
-Also in 1957, a dog Laika became one of the first animals in space (unfortunately died after a few hours from stress and overheating).
-And the most famous, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth.
-In 1966, Luna 9 was the first spacecraft that landed on the Moon (without people).
-In 1971 – the first space station (Salyut, and later Mir).

“Anna Karenina”, “War and Peace” or “Crime and Punishment” – which one is the most known?
The first two were written by Lev Tolstoy, the 3rd one by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
There are more famous Russian poets, e.g., Alexander Pushkin, but I’m not sure is his “Eugene Onegin” so well known worldwide.

What name comes to your mind, when you hear “Russian literature”?

Russia has always been famous for highly educated scientists.
I’m sure, everyone can give at least one name of Russian scientist (some of them may not always be considered as Russians, because they worked in other countries).
My (very subjective) list:
-Mendeleev
-Friedman
-Cherenkov
-Pavlov

The Cyrillic script is a writing system used for various alphabets from Asia or Europe, e.g., Russian, Bulgarian, Mongolian, Ukrainian, etc.

Cyrillic was derived from the Greek script, and named after Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Russian is of course the official language in Russia.
But there are actually about 100 languages spoken in Russia, used by many ethnic groups.

I believe, that almost everyone who lives in Russia, can speak Russian (or am I wrong?).

And in general, Russian language is quite useful.
I was learning Russian in high school (it’s not a typical case in Poland) and some years later, while traveling, I found it’s very useful to have some knowledge of Russian.

What people usually drink in Russia?
-Well, my answer would be black tea. But, I can imagine that many may say “vodka”. 😉

I’m from Poland, and Polish have similar reputation concerning drinking vodka as Russians. But in both countries, there are many people who don’t drink alcohol at all. However, there has to be some truth, that Russians (and also Polish) can drink much more vodka than other nationalities. 😉

Is “Russia” a synonym of “cold country”?
Well, I guess it may be.
In this huge country, you’ll find many places with extremely cold winters. However, the continental climate dominates in Russia, so in winter it can be very cold (even about -70°C), and very hot in summer (even +45°C). These numbers are quite extreme!

My first trip to Russia was in winter, and it wasn’t actually so cold. Well, it was quite mild period, with not so much snow, I was lucky. 😉

Russia spans eleven time zones (including Kaliningrad Oblast), ranging from UTC+02:00 to UTC+12:00! Isn’t it an impressive number?

For comparison, in the United States you can count up to 9 time zones, however it includes all territories.

Russia is located partly in Europe and partly in Asia.
About 25% of the total area of Russia is located in Europe, but this part is inhabited by almost 80% of Russian citizens.
So majority of Russians can say they are Europeans. I guess, not so many people say that they are from Eurasia – but that sounds much more unique than “I’m from Europe”. 😉

Russia is the largest country in the world.
Its area covers over 17 million square kilometers, it means Russia occupies one-tenth of all the land on Earth!

Russia shares land borders with many countries (in alphabetic order): Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Ukraine.

There are almost 150 million people living in Russia. That’s a lot! But taking into account its total area, Russia seems to be quite empty. There are huge cities with many citizens, but there are also many completely empty places in Russia.
So Russia is large, populous and empty.

Welcome to Russia!
October on my blog is going to be all about the Russian Federation.

Since many years, Russia has been a controversial country (because of different reasons). I know people who doesn’t want to go there because of political reasons. On the other hand, it’s still a very interesting country.
I’ll show you places that I’ve visited in Russia, and, as always, I will try to skip politics but will mention some historical facts.

Have you been to Russia? What’s your favorite place in Russia?

It’s already the end of September, so the series about Malta on my blog is almost over.
How did you like it?

As a summary, I’ll give a list of my favorite places from Malta:
-Megalithic Temples (all are great!)
-Marsaxlokk (lovely town)
-Ta’ Kola Windmill (Gozo Island)
-Mdina & Rabat
-Valletta
-and coast, especially with nice rock formations, e.g., nearby the Blue Grotto.

See you tomorrow! 🙂

Today, I want to show you something interesting from the Gozo Island. 🙂 It’s the Ta’ Kola Windmill in Xagħra, one of the few Maltese windmills dating back to the Knights’ period.
You’ll see inside a large collection of tools – quite interesting!

The Azure Window (Dwejra Bay) used to be the main attraction of the Gozo Island. Unfortunately, this limestone arch collapsed in 2017.
I visited Malta in 2015, so I still had a chance to see it.

The town of Rabat is located just outside Mdina.
St. Pauls’ church (today’s photo) is usually listed as the main attraction of Rabat. However, I was mostly impressed by the catacombs of St. Paul and St. Agatha. They are Early Christian underground cemeteries. I can highly recommend to visit them!

Malta has a few treasures and Mdina is definitely one of them!
The small city of Mdina dates back to 8th century BC, and it’s one of the main attractions in Malta.
It’s a very unique place! While being in Malta, you just must take a slow walk and explore this special town! 🙂

As a curio, Mdina is sometimes called Silent City; and only people who live there can drive inside the city.

Roman Catholicism is the main religion in Malta. So, it’s not a surprised, that there are so many churches in Malta. There are some similarities between them, but it’s still worth to see a few different churches in Malta Island or Gozo Island.