Russian Travel Guide

The vertical world of the Nefyodov mountaineers

Brothers Sergey and Andrey Nefedrov, both from St. Petersburg, are well-known among the mountain-climbing crowd. Holders of the 2009 Russian Mountain-Climbing title, they have managed to make their hobby into a successful career and have accomplished quite a lot. They were the first people to transerf (climb without the use of any artificial footholds) Kyrgyzstan's 5,217-metre Mt. Aksu. They also hold the world rope jumping record with the longest free fall. Their authority in the mountain-climbing world has helped them to widen their scope into business: Sergey opened his own climbing school while Andrey travels around the world taking part in a variety of different extreme sporting events an.d projects.

Коллекция Russian Travel Guide. Города. Новогодняя Москва

New Jerusalem. The Past and Present of Russian Palestine

It is easy to go back in time here, back to the 17th century, when Nikon, then the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, dreamed of building a retreat that would bear witness to Holy Rus’ faithfulness and its role as the keeper of the law and word of the Lord – an earthly estate for the Heavenly King. The patriarch, known for his ecclesiastical reforms, succeeded in reconstructing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Neither before nor after Nikon has anyone been able to reproduce the ancient architectural miracle so perfectly. Nikon proved himself a true innovator, confirmed by the archeologists who carried out the church’s massive restoration. The scholars turned back the clock and managed to reveal new facts from the past. It turns out that the monastery near Moscow was once a hub of folk craft and ecclesiastical art. Those in the know claim they have never seen such amazing tile specimens...