Spotlight

Fall 2024 Timeline

Barbara Radziwiłł

The Medieval beauty etalon of Lithuania and Poland — Barbara Radziwiłł (Lithuanian: Barbora Radvilaite). As as Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania, she challenged the Medieval noms surrounding womanhood. 

Image Source: Flickr

Faculty Profile: Kevin Platt

Kevin M. F. Platt is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Platt received his B.A. from Amherst College (1989) and his Ph.D.

Faculty Profile: Maria Alley

Dr. Maria Alley is the Russian Language Program Director at the Department of Russian and East European Studies. She was born and raised in Ukhta, a small town in the Komi Republic in Northern Russia. Maria received her Ph.D.

Monument to Grigory Kotovsky in front of the "Cosmos" hotel in Chișinău, Moldova

The Stalin-era monument of Grigory Kotovsky, who underwent a transformation from a Russian gangster and bank robber to a renowned Red Army general.

Image Source: Unsplash

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Perperikon, Bulgaria

Perperikon was once an ancient Thracian city located in the Eastern Rhodopes in the South of Bulgaria. Human activity in the area dates back to 5000 B.C. and is thought to be the location of the famous Temple of Dionysius, the ancient Greek god of wine, celebration and fun.

Anna German, a Soviet Popstar

Anna German was probably the most famous singer in the Soviet Union in the 1960s–1970s. Born in Poland, Anna German was not only known for her remarkable songs and beauty but also for her love for simple Slavic foods, such as boiled potatoes with herring, pickles, and black tea with lemon. 

Astronaut Mosaic in St. Petersburg

The Soviet mosaic paying tribute to Yuri Gagarin’s legendary flight into space in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Image Source: Unsplash

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Street Art in Tallinn

Image Source: Eyes on the Streets

License: Permission granted by the author. The proof of the author's consent can be provided upon request.

Nokhur Cemetery, Turkmenistan

The cemetery of Nokhur, a village amidst stranded mountains in southern Tukrmenistan, contains tombstones decorated with mountain goat horns.

Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia

Our Logo Explained: Saint Basil's Cathedral

The Seven Bulls of Jeti-Oguz, Kyrgyzstan

Jeti-Oguz Canyon (Seven Bulls Rocks) is one of the most famous landmarks of Kyrgyzstan, made up of several impressive natural sandstone formations. It is featured in many poems and paintings, as well as music videos.

Ships Graveyard, Moynaq, Uzbekistan

Moynaq used to be a bustling fishing community in Uzbekistan made up of tens of thousands of residents, but with the Aral Sea having dried up, the city has become a ghost town, also known as the ships graveyard.

Najmeddin Kubra Mausoleum, Uzbekistan

The Najmeddin Kubra Mausoleum is considered the holiest spot in Kunya-Urgench. Najmeddin Kubra was a famous Khorezm Muslim teacher and poet, as well as the founder of the Sufic Kubra order, from the 12-13th century.

Yzmykşir Fort, Turkmenistan

Remains of the Yzmykşir Galasy adobe-walled fort in the desert near Tashauz, Turkmenistan. 
These days this fort is known more for the fact that in 1075 a Turkmen scientist, Mutazili theologian, Arabic philologist, and Quran exegete.
 
Photo credit: ©Annette Johnson 2018

Harangház Bell House, Hungary

In the 1980s, a Hungarian artist Edit Oborzil and her husband Tibor Jeney filed a patent for a bell with a distinct sound that they had been perfecting for decades. 
 

Froggyland, Split, Croatia

ABOUT THE COLLECTION 
 

Chess City, Elista, Kalmykiya, Russia

Elista is the largest Buddhist city in all of Europe and lies in the steppes of southwestern Russia. The town is home to giant monasteries and Buddhist sculptures, as well as kings and queens - but not in the traditional sense.

A Soviet Dacha Home Museum, Moscow, Russia

Russian Tsars in the 17th century started to reward loyal landholders with small estates named “dachas” in the country, a word that translates from old Russian to "something given".

The Crooked Forest, Poland

Blending science fiction and ecological abnormality, a group of 400 trees in Poland’s Krzywy Las or “Crooked Forest,” are mysteriously bent. The trees strangely buckle out at 90 degrees and form an odd J-shape with a potbelly hovering just above the ground.

Independence Monument, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

The Independence Monument is located in the center of Tashkent city, on the Independence Square. During the Soviet time, the square was named Lenin Square and a monument of Lenin was erected in the middle of it.

Spotlight: Russian Monuments: The Other Kremlin

The "Kremlin in Izmailovo" is a cultural complex founded by Aleksandre Fedorovich Ushakov and Marina Viktorovna Alekseeva in 2003. It was established as a cultural center and marketplace mad in the image of traditional Russian architecture and fairytale depictions of Old Russia. 

Velka Amerika, Czechia

Velka Amerika quarry is located outside the village of Mořina, Czech Republic. Formerly a center for calcium mining, what was once the refuse land of industry has now blossomed into a beautiful natural scenery.

Hotel Ještěd, Liberec, Czechia

Rising over 300 ft above the majestic Ještěd mountain, the Hotel Ještěd dominates the skyline of the Liberec region in the northern Czech Republic.

'Zubr' stamp

The Soviet Union stamp from 1969 featuring European bison or 'Zubr' in Białowieża Forest. In the 20s of the 20th century, the bison was endangered. Now, thanks to conservation efforts, there are 8,461 bison in the world, most in Poland (2269), Belarus (2101) and Russia (1588).

The Tzar's Hunt

The Tzar's hunt in Białowieża Forest in 1894. Białowieża Forest is a vast woodland area located on the border between Poland and Belarus. In 1888, the Białowieża Forest was acquired by the royal family in return for lands in the Orel and Simbirsk provinces.

Ded Moroz

The estate of the Belarusian 'Ded Moroz' [Grandpa Frost] is located in the Białowieża Forest National Park in Belarus. Approximately 150,000 tourists visit the residence of the Belarusian Grandpa Frost each year.

Vyshyvanka

Ukrainian embroidery have long been considered one of the strongest amulets. In different parts of the country, the patterns were different - they were unique and meant belonging to a certain region.

Tatlin's Tower

Our Logo Explained: Tatlin's Tower

Ukrainian Khata

Ukrainian Khata, 1880 by Ilya Yefimovich Repin Ukrainian-born Russian painter.

The St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv

Ukrainian Baroque, also referred to as Cossack Baroque, is an architectural style that was prevalent in Ukrainian regions during the 17th and 18th centuries. The St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv is a prime example of Ukrainian Baroque architecture.

The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque

Our Logo Explained: The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque
 

Kamianets-Podilsky Fortress

Kamianets-Podilsky Fortress is a fortress in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi. Due to the castle's distinctive position on a peninsula, the castle bridge is the sole connection to the city's Old Town area. It is regarded as a significant achievement in medieval engineering.

Baikal

Baikal is a lake of tectonic origin in the southern part of Eastern Siberia, Russia with an area of ​​31,722 km²(12247miles²), the deepest lake on the planet, the largest natural reservoir of fresh water and the largest freshwater lake in Eurasia by area.

Temple of All Religions, Kazan', Tatarstan, Russia

Located in the Russian city of Kazan, the colorful Temple of All Religions, or Universal Temple is a mish-mash of architectural flourishes culled from most of the major world religions to create an uber-complex where all religions can come together in harmony. 

Klyuchevskaya Sopka

Klyuchevskaya Sopka is an active stratovolcano in the east of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. The highest active volcano in Eurasia. It is approximately 7,000 years old. Its height varies from 4,688 to 4,750 meters and higher above sea level.

The Lena Pillars National Park

The Lena Pillars National Park is a geological formation and a national park of the same name in Yakutia on the banks of the Lena River.

Wrangel Island Stamp

Wrangel Island is located in the Arctic Ocean at a distance of about 150 miles from the mainland. Crossed by the 180th meridian, it is located in both the western and eastern hemispheres at the same time.

Onekotan Island

Onekotan is a large volcanic island in the northern group of the Greater Kuril Islands. (Anakutan; from Ainu. Onne kotan: onne — "old, honorable, valuable, large", kotan — "village, estate, dwelling; city, town, small town")

The Laboratory Mouse Monument

The Laboratory Mouse Monument is a monument in the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, located in the park near the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk is a Polish writer and poet. Winner of the Man Booker International Prize (2018) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (2018, awarded in 2019). Tokarczuk was born in Sulechów. One of her grandmothers was Ukrainian.

Wisława Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska was a Polish poet; winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. She lived in Kraków from 1931. From 1943 she worked on the railway, and managed to avoid being sent to forced labor by the Nazis.

Pysanky

Pysanka is a Ukrainian variety of Easter eggs; an egg decorated with traditional symbols written using wax and dyes.

Dargavs Village: City of the Dead, North Ossetia

Reaching this mystifying destination requires a three-hour drive, taking you down a dangerous and hidden road befitting a journey to the City of the Dead.

Svetlana Alexievich

Svetlana Aleksandrovna Alexievich is a Belarusian writer, journalist, and documentary screenwriter. The first Belarusian and sixth Russian-language laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2015).

Seven Rila Lakes, Bulgaria

The Seven Rila Lakes are a group of glacial lakes in the northwestern Rila Mountains in the Southwest of Bulgaria. The lakes are situated between 2,100 and 2,500 metres elevation above sea level. Each lake carries a name associated with its most characteristic feature.

Lama Itigilov, Ivolgin Datsan, Buryatiya, Russia

A New York Times article by By STEVEN LEE MYERSOCT. 1, 2002 (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/01/world/ivolginsk-journal-a-russian-lama...)
 

Charyn Canyon

Charyn Canyon is a 154 km long canyon along the Charyn River in Kazakhstan. The canyon is located 195 km east of Almaty. It is located on the territory of three districts of Almaty region: Uyghur, Raiymbek, Enbekshikazakh.

Lake Kaindy

Kaindy is a landslide lake in the Almaty region of Kazakhstan, a popular tourist destination in one of the gorges of the Kungey Alatau. The main attraction of the lake is the spruce trees rising straight out of the water.

Castle of Childhood, Moscow, Russia

For a hundred and fifty fortunate preschoolers in Moscow, Russia, every working day is a fairy tale.

Altyn-Emel National Park

The most famous attractions of Altyn-Emel National Park are the Singing Dune, 1.5 km long and up to 130 m high; clay mountains cut by canyons - Aktau (translated as white mountains); Katutau - mountains made up of volcanic rocks; the Chokan Valikhanov spring in the Kokbastau tract.

Tuhala Witch's Well, Estonia

Located in the tiny village of Tuhala, the Witch’s Well is a naturally occurring geyser that has been known to flood the entire area after heavy rains. Clearly the work of witches. 

Tilla-Kori Madrassah, Uzbekistan

The Tilla Kori was built on the north side of the Registan Square in Samarkand, between 1646 and 1660. Yalangtush Bakhadur, the ruler of Samarkand at that time, ordered the Tilla Kori's construction but died before it was completed.

Krujë, Albania

A beautiful stormy landscape of Krujë, Albania
 
 
Photography by Graham Pritchard
https://www.flickr.com/photos/155719183@N05/
 

A Soviet Era Mosaic Mural, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

A beautiful, Soviet-era mosaic in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Photography: Graham Pritchard
https://www.flickr.com/people/155719183@N05/

The Last Wild Apple Forests, Kazakhstan

It might seem strange to think that the common apple was not originally a universal fruit, but in fact it has its roots in one specific region of the world. The ancestor of the domestic apple is the Malus sieversii, which grows wild in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan.
 

Freedom Monument in Riga, Latvia

The monument commemorates the Latvian War of Independence of 1918-1920. Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina was responsible for saving this sculpture from demolition during the Stalinist era. 

Image source: Wikimedia

License: Creative Commons 0

Yard Gallery in Kaunas, Lithuania

The Yard Gallery turned the exterior of the neglected apartment building into a space for art and history to unite. The open-air gallery houses contemporary art installations and murals commemorating the Jewish residents who lived in the house before the Holocaust. 

Tash Rabat, Kyrgyzstan

Today, we picture the caravans traveling along the Silk Road from China to the Middle East as a rather romantic image.

Kaindy Lake, Kazakhstan

Kaindy Lake is an idyllic mountain lake in Kazakhstan’s portion of the Tian Shan Mountains, close to the country’s largest city, Almaty. The lake was formed after an earthquake in 1911, which caused a major landslide, effectively creating a natural dam.

Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland

The grand Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, was  built in 1955 as a “gift of the Soviet people for the Poles” by Joseph Stalin. 

Image source: Unsplash

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Salina Turda Theme Park, Romania

With over 2,000 years of history, highly preserved galleries, and a futuristic underground attraction, Salina Turda is the largest salt mine museum in the world, and easily the most incredible.
 

Manas, Kyrgyz epic poem

The Epic of Manas is a heroic epic of the Kyrgyz people. The main content of the epic is the exploits of the hero Manas.

Kyrgyz som

Som is the currency of the Kyrgyz Republic. Kyrgyzstan was one of the first countries of the former USSR (and the first in post-Soviet Central Asia) to approve its own national currency.

Kyrgyz yurt

Yurt (also obsolete "kibitka") is a portable frame dwelling with a felt covering among Turkic and Mongolian nomads.

Ala-kiyiz in making

Ala kiyiz, or tekemet, is a decorative style used for textile floor or wall coverings created by pressing together wet, soaped wool in various colors to form felt.

Motherland Monument in Kyiv

The Motheland Monument in Kyiv, locally known as "Brezhnev's daughter"

Image Source: Unsplash

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Puszcza Białowieska

The Soviet Union stamp from 1969 featuring European bison or 'Zubr' in Białowieża Forest. In the 20s of the 20th century, the bison was endangered. Now, thanks to conservation efforts, there are 8,461 bison in the world, most in Poland (2269), Belarus (2101) and Russia (1588).

Tian Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan

Tian Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan
 

Faculty Profile: Julia Verkholantsev

Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair 
FOUNDING DIRECTOR, PROGRAM IN GLOBAL MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES 
Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, Slavic Languages and Literatures
M.A. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, (Indo-European) Linguistics

Buzludzha Monument

Our Logo Explained: Buzludzha Monument

Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia

There are few places in the world that can enthrall quite like Kamchatka, easily Russia's most scenically dramatic region. A vast volcanic peninsula that is almost entirely wilderness, Kamchatka is a place of extraordinary primal beauty, rushing rivers, hot springs and snow-capped peaks.

Bahouddin Naqshband Memorial, Uzbekistan

The architectural ensemble of Bahouddin, located kilometers north-east of Bukhara, in the old village Qasr-i Arifan arose from the mazar of this sufi. He had been forming for five hundred years, but it is known very little about its early history.?

Korcula Island, Croatia

The sixth largest island in Croatia, Korcula is 20 miles long and rather narrow, between 4 and 5 miles wide on average. This island is known for its dense forest and the ancient Greeks called the island Black Korcula (Kerkyra melaina) for this reason.

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second-largest city and has been recognized as one of the oldest settlements in Europe, with evidence of habitation reaching as far back as the 6th millennium BC.

Faculty Profile: Maria Bourlatskaya

MARIA BOURLATSKAYA has been with the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures since 1992.

Faculty Profile: Mila Nazyrova

Mila Nazyrova has been teaching Russian language and culture courses since 2001. She teaches a broad variety of Russian language courses as well as courses for heritage speakers and intensive language courses.

Faculty Profile: Molly Peeney

Dr. Peeney earned her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2010. Her dissertation analyzes Vladimir Nabokov’s Russian novels as polemical responses to Soviet literary trends of the twenties and thirties.

Spotlight: Kristen Ghodsee

Kristen Ghodsee earned her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include the gendered effects of post-Cold War transformations and the ethnographic study of memory and nostalgia in Eastern Europe.

Alex Vekker, a Specialist on Soviet and Post-Soviet Economy

Alex Vekker is a specialist in Soviet economics and economic consulting. He has his own business, Vekker Consulting, which provides expert witness and economic and statistical consulting services.

Moscow Kremlin

The Kremlin is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River to the south, Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square to the east, and the Alexander Garden to the west.

Danube River

The Danube is Europe's second longest river, after the Volga. It is located in Central and Eastern Europe, flowing through 10 countries.

Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Pushkin(1799-1837) is considered by most to be Russia's greatest poet. Pushkin, the Russian national poet, is famously descended from an African slave.

Nur Astana Mosque, Astana, Kazakhstan

The Nur-Astana Mosque (Kazakh: Нұр-Астана мешіті, Nur-Astana meşiti), is a mosque located in the city of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. It is third largest mosque in Central Asia.

Grand Theatre, Warsaw, Poland

The Grand Theatre was originally inaugurated in 1833, after eight years of construction led by architect Antonio Corazzi.

Baikal Lake, Russia

Lake Baikal is the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake, situated in the mountainous region of Siberia north of the Mongolian border. It trails for nearly 400 miles and its average depth is 744.4m (2,442 ft), while its maximum depth is 1,741m (5,712 ft).