Now on air
22:00
The Zoological museum of the Russian Academy of science
It was in 1714 in St. Petersburg that Emperor Peter the Great founded Kunstkamera - the “cabinet of curiosities.” In 1831 it was decided to divide up this strange collection among seven separate museums as Kunstkamera could no longer accommodate all of the many artifacts it had acquired over the years. A year later in 1832, in the very centre of St. Petersburg on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, The Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences opened its doors to visitors. Its impressive collection includes amazing animals that have been collected from almost all of the Earth’s continents and also includes traces of extinct, prehistoric fauna and animals shrouded in tales and legends. The museum’s collection serves as a record of what man knows about the environment. Here each artifact carries with it millions of years of evolution and the hard wor...
THE FOUNTAINS OF PETERHOF. PETER THE GREAT'S PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
Having seen the gardens of the French kings, Emperor Peter the Grat wanted to create his own “Versailles”, and to even surpass it. But, in choosing the site of his future residence, he set a key condition – the water in the fountains should be “self-propelled”, through a fall in height, rather than by using expensive pumps as were employed in Versailles. Peter had begun developing this idea for a grandiose park and palace ensemble on the shores of the Finnish Gulf when he first began to fight Sweden for an outlet onto the Baltic Sea. Many of Peterhof’s fountains are dedicated to the victories of the young Russian fleet over a more experienced and powerful opponent. The main jet of water, Samson, is dedicated to the decisive battle of Poltava. The concept for the new, sumptuous residence the drafts that reveal all of its main constructions – these were all the work of Peter the G...
Now on air
22:00
THE FOUNTAINS OF PETERHOF. PETER THE GREAT'S PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
Kizhi. Wooden Church Architecture
The first churches appeared in Russia in the 10th century, built by Byzantines. These constructions served as models for Russian architects. They were models in stone, however. In the forested northern parts, everything was built in wood – a material that was cheap, light and easy to work with. The Russian architects, like translators, had to interpret the Byzantine canon in wood. Gradually, the Russian masters developed their own style of construction. Wooden architecture reached its peak in the Russian north in the 15th to 18th century. Learn how unique churches arose on the island of Kizhi, and hear the legends that surrounded them in a film by RTG TV.
Now on air
22:00