Russia, Today and Yesterday

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The “caloric bun” or kaloriinaya bulochka became a true hit in Soviet times. An 8 kopek bulochka and a bottle of kefir was a ubiquitous lunch combo for students and others who ate on the go. The bulochka was made of wheat flour, nuts and raisins, and was hardly more caloric than a piece of ordinary bread, but the name stuck and the product is now replicated by many companies — with little success, according to critics.

The cheap lunch replacement was actually created by a Moscow baker, Ivan Filippov, owner of the famous Filippov Bakery on Tverskaya Street, which was converted a few years ago into a Coffee Bean coffeehouse. By the 1850s, Filippov had already made a name for himself and received orders from people like Arseny Zakrevsky, the Moscow general governor who ruled the city with an iron fist. … more>>

Moscow is home to 74 billionaires with an average wealth of $5.9 billion each, placing it above New York, while Russia is second only to the US in the number of super rich according to Forbes Magazine’s latest annual rich list. …more>>

The funeral of Joseph “Iosif” Stalin in 1953. Here.

An exhibition of rare icons of the 15-20th cc from private collections opens today for general public in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.       

The exposition consists of icons that were exported from Russia in the 20th century. These rarities were then in various years bought back by Russian collectors and returned to their homeland. 
       
Altogether the exhibition presents more than 90 works of art created by Moscow, Novgorod, Rostov, Tver, Volga, and Stroganovs icon painters.  … more>>

On March 18 the Shusev Architecture Museum will open the exhibition Narkomfin House and its Importance that will tell in detail about this world treasure. 
       
A masterpiece of world architecture avante-garde of the early 20th century, the Narkomfin House built by architect M. Y. Ginzburg in 1920-1930 at present ranks among the first on the notorious List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. 
      
Architects take its decaying as a personal tragedy, while heedless passers-by just look away from the ruins. 
      
 The exhibition will run till April 18. (Russia IC)

Russian rock song  here.

Galina Benislavskaya came to the Vagankovskoye Cemetery one December day. She had a smoke by the grave of the poet Sergei Yesenin and then pulled out a pistol and tried to kill herself, taking notes on a pack of cigarettes: “First try misfired. Second try misfired. Third try misfired. Must I use the knife?” On the fourth try, the 29-year-old woman wounded herself. She was found the next morning by the cemetery guard still barely alive but passed away en route to Botkinskaya Hospital.

This was in 1926, one year after Yesenin hanged himself in the Hotel Angleterre.

Moscow’s cemeteries are sites where the fates of many different people converge, such as those of the poet and Benislavskaya, who worked for the secret police. Their graves sit side by side at Vagankovskoye Cemetery. Unlikely couples, eccentric lives and tragic deaths are documented in stone, surrounded by legends and landscapes that have not seen major changes for centuries. As Moscow is rapidly transforming with new development, its cemeteries keep a low profile. Last year, Ritual, the company that services Moscow’s cemeteries, decided to open a tourism office and take people around the city’s two most renowned burial sites, the Vagankovskoye and Novodevichy cemeteries.

“In Soviet times, you could be persecuted for doing this,” said Vladimir Kudinov, one of the guides at Ritual, as he showed a tour group from St. Petersburg around Vagankovskoye, the biggest cemetery in central Moscow. “Some graves of people “inconvenient” for the Soviet regime were dug up in the night, erased,” he added.

In the unofficial breakdown of cemeteries, Novodevichy is the necropolis for undisputed makers of Russian culture and history, from Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol to Mstislav Rostropovich and Boris Yeltsin, who were both buried there last year. It is a popular destination for foreign tourists. Vagankovskoye, on the other hand, is a place of burial for adored singers, actors and other iconic Russians like Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava. A few years ago, an urban legend began to circulate that Vagankovskoye was the resting place of Sonya Golden Hand, a legendary thief from the 1920s. After a monument was constructed, it became a mecca of sorts for the criminal world, who left messages at the grave pleading “Sonya, teach me how to live,” along with other wishes. In reality, Sonya, or Sofia Blyuvshtein, died in a Siberian prison camp. …more>>