Beyond Moscow

☦️Sharing your work: the New Jerusalem Monastery in Istra! Photo: @elena_krizhevskaya 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Moscow_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🥰Gorokhovets is love at first sight! The town stands out for its terrain and dramatic changes in elevation. To give you a sense of the scale, there is actually a ski slope right in the center of Gorokhovets. Of the twenty 17th-century stone chambers still preserved in Russia, seven are located in Gorokhovets. Add to that masterpieces of wooden Art Nouveau, countless houses with richly decorated window frames, three monasteries, and five churches — an impressive heritage for a town of just 12,000 people. ✨ Photo: @ted_ns 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Vladimir_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

👌🏻The lace-like house of flour industrialist Nikolai Bugrov in Volodarsk! Inside, there is a historical museum, while the grounds feature a charming courtyard with linden trees, larches, and flower beds. Photo: @ted_ns 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #NizhnyNovgorod_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🙏Bogolyubovo in the Vladimir Region In the 12th century, it was Bogolyubovo — not Vladimir — that served as the de facto center of northeastern Rus. Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky built here not merely an estate, but a powerful white-stone castle, modeled on Western European examples, in order to keep trade routes and the local boyars under control. The stair tower and covered passageway preserved as part of the monastery are the only surviving monument in Russia of pre-Mongol civil architecture — neither religious nor military. It was on these very steps, on the night of June 30, 1174, that conspirators murdered Prince Andrei. Photo: @nowandthenrussia 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Vladimir_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🧭Tikhaya Bay — the northernmost museum in the world On Hooker Island, one of the 192 islands of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, lies the former polar station Tikhaya Bay. During its years of operation, it was the northernmost polar station and the archipelago’s main scientific base. A great deal of research was carried out here in the brutal Arctic environment — and even during the Second World War, the station never stopped working. The station remained in operation for more than 30 years before closing in 1960. Today, its buildings are recognized as part of Russia’s cultural heritage. Tikhaya Bay is considered the northernmost museum on Earth and is part of the Russian Arctic National Park. It is also home to the planet’s northernmost post office. Nearby, on Rubini Rock, is one of the archipelago’s largest bird colonies. Tourists reach the site only a few times each season, usually during expeditions to the North Pole. ❄️ 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🚢The main port of Taimyr The town of Dudinka lies beyond the Arctic Circle. It is almost 2,000 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk, yet there is no overland connection to the regional capital. The nearest city, Norilsk, is located 77 kilometers away. Dudinka can be reached by air or via the Yenisei River. There is also maritime cargo service linking it with Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. ⚓ Dudinka is home to one of the most important ports on the Northern Sea Route. This is where Nornickel ships its cargo from. The port operates year-round — a uniquely rare case anywhere in the world given the conditions of the Far North. Dudinka stands on permafrost, which is why its buildings are constructed on piles. Most of the city’s development dates back to the Soviet era. Very few historic buildings have survived, even though the town itself was founded as far back as 1667. Photo: Gelio 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Krasnoyarsk_Krai 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🌞Early morning in Nizhny Novgorod The city is waking up, and with every passing minute, more and more people are stepping outside. Just a little longer, and the day will truly begin. ✨ Photo: @spasibonizhny 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #NizhnyNovgorod_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🎞The Church of the Sign in Dubrovitsy — a century apart! Photo: @nowandthenrussia 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Moscow_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

😱The whale graveyards of Chukotka Along the coast near settlements in Chukotka, you can come across so-called whale graveyards. The bones of these massive animals create a truly surreal landscape. It is striking to look at, but for many it is also deeply unsettling and raises uncomfortable questions. To understand it, you have to look back at the history of whaling. At first, whales were hunted for food. Everything changed in the 16th and 17th centuries, when whale oil began to be widely used in Europe for lighting, and later as a lubricant for machinery. With the growth of seafaring from the 17th to the 20th century, whaling turned into a mass industry. The scale was enormous. Around the Shantar Islands, for example, American ships could extract hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and thousands of tons of baleen in a single summer, killing up to 50 whales a day. ⚓ By the 20th century, it had become clear that whale populations were under threat. International regulation began in 1931, followed by the creation of the International Whaling Commission. But its decisions were often more advisory than binding. An attempt to introduce a moratorium in 1972 did not receive full support, and some countries later continued hunting anyway. 🐋 Today, whales are still hunted in a handful of countries, though the approaches differ. In Norway and Japan, commercial whaling remains in place. In Japan, the practice is seen as the harshest, with 600 to 1,000 whales a year taken, including endangered species. In Russia, by contrast, only indigenous subsistence whaling is permitted, and in Chukotka it is allowed only in strictly limited quantities. For local residents, this is not tradition for tradition’s sake — it is a means of survival. In a region where agriculture is barely possible, whales have remained an essential source of food. That became especially clear in the 1990s, when food supplies collapsed and people found themselves on the edge of hunger, forced to return to traditional hunting methods. Today, the situation is gradually changing: food is becoming more accessible, and the younger generation is less tied to this practice. The hunt is slowly fading away, but it will disappear completely only when progress in food production or logistics makes it truly unnecessary. Photo: @mazurovphoto 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Chukotka 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🌌Incredible views above the Vyatka land Life has changed so much that the northern lights over the Kirov region no longer come as a surprise. Photo: @e_karepanov 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #Kirov_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

🌿Spring always comes to Nizhny Novgorod gradually — and very beautifully. Photo: @spasibonizhny 📍Coordinates: Yandex Maps #NizhnyNovgorod_Region 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️

💙Above the Roofs of St. Petersburg 🎥 andrei_mikhailov 🏙️Beyond Moscow🏔️