Alexandrinsky Theater / Александринский театр Alexandrinsky.ru Ticket Office: 9:00 – 18:00 Monday through Friday ~1500 rubles per person (for good seats) Swan Lake was not the first ballet I had been to, but it was definitely the best. Before I came to Russia, one of the things that I absolutely had to do was to go […]
Much as the romantic ideology attached to the “Wild West” captivated the imagination of the United States in the second half of the 19th century, the primal beauty, proud warriors, and wild culture of the Caucasus regions fascinated Russian writers and heavily influenced Russian literature for centuries. However, this fascination was accompanied by years of […]
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov opens with a particularly unsatisfying note. The fictional narrator declares in his “From the Author” that the hero of the book is Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov. Quickly following this declaration is a confession: “To me he is noteworthy, but I decidedly doubt that I shall succeed in proving it to the reader” (Dostoevsky 3). […]
The function of violent death is complex in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: it serves as the driving focus of the work, calls into question the many characters’ agency and morality, and provides a forceful resolution. At the forefront of the novel is the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich by one of his sons. Parricide is the […]
House on the Embankment Museum / Mузей дом на набережной ул. Серафимовича д.2 As part of my Russian language course at Moscow State University, my professor took us to the House on the Embankment Museum. The museum sits on the Bersenevskaya Embankment (Берсеневская набережна), which is along the Moscow River directly across from the Cathedral of […]
Apart from the Golden Bridge (Золотой мост) and Russian Bridge (Русский мост), the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theater in Vladivostok is without a doubt one of the more impressive structures built in preparation for the 2012 APEC summit in Vladivostok. Crossing the Golden Bridge going away from the city center, the theater comes into […]
Like any good traveler, after booking my flight to Vladivostok, I set off to the library to do a little bit of research on the city in which I was about to spend the next nine months. Not expecting to find much, I was yet still underwhelmed. My university’s library database turned up a small […]
In late September, as one of the SRAS Cultural Excursions, our group went to see the ballet “Snow Maiden” (“Снегурочка”) at the Kremlin Ballet (Театр “Кремлёвский балет”). This ballet is performed in two acts to a music score by 19th-century composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Пётр Ильич Чайковский). Andrei Petrov, Kremlin Ballet founder and Artistic Director, […]
Lenin’s Mausoleum/Мавзолей В.И. Ленина Красная площадь, Moscow Open Daily 10:00 am-1:00pm Closed Fridays and Holidays Admission is Free Lenin.ru Vladimir Illyich Lenin is a giant of recent Russian History. Outsiders attempt to describe his meaning among Russians using spiritual leaders, historical figures, and mythology, and always these comparisons seem insufficient. Father of the revolution, champion […]
