Russia

Moscow’s foodie revolution

Huge and prone to architectural gigantism, full of energy, both positive and dark, refined and tasteless at the same time, Moscow is overwhelming in every way. After a major spruce-up it has undergone in recent years, the mind-bogglingly eclectic Russian capital may look like hipster-ridden parts of Brooklyn at one point and a thoroughly glossed-over version of North Korea at another.

Russia’s recent political adventures may have generated an avalanche of negative headlines, but they’ve also had an adverse effect on tourism. Once a forbiddingly expensive place, Moscow is now totally affordable thanks to the Russian rouble losing half its value. It’s also a safe and orderly place, where efforts to make the urban environment more liveable and enjoyable are bearing very visible fruit. Ten years ago it would have been shocking to hear someone declaring Moscow’s food culture as the city’s main draw, yet here we are stating just that. The local culinary scene has undergone a revolution Gargantua would have approved of, though Lenin probably wouldn’t.

Leonid Ragozin

Lonely Planet Writer

Nikola-Lenivets: contemporary art in the Russian countryside

Contemporary art is not usually prone to hiding in the remote countryside, but here is an exception. Taken over by a group of architects and land artists more than 20 years ago, the once abandoned village of Nikola-Lenivets, 220km southwest of Moscow, is now a huge open-air exhibition space dotted with gigantic installations made largely of wood.

You could call it abstract architecture. Towering over the canopy, the structures make the whole place look like an abandoned arboreal city of Ewoks – those bear-like creatures in the original Star Wars who help Luke Skywalker fight the Empire. If you don’t mind creaky planks and steep ladders, you can climb most of them – an easy way to boost adrenalin and get a few heroic selfies. If the structures (most of which are made without a single nail) feel slightly unstable, console yourself with the fact that they’ve been designed by some of the most sought-out contemporary architects in the country.

Leonid Ragozin

Lonely Planet Writer

Discovering East Prussian legacy in Kaliningrad

With wide avenues lined with propaganda posters, plenty of military uniforms in sight and its Stalinist-era name, Kaliningrad at first comes across as unmistakably Russian, or rather – Soviet. But its Gothic cathedral, cobbled streets and remains of Jugendstil architecture lurking behind communist-period concrete slabs tell a different story.

One of the newer political oddities on the map of Europe, Kaliningrad emerged as a little chunk of Russia inside the EU as a result of the Soviet victory in WWII and the collapse of the USSR 45 years later. For many centuries before that, it was the German province of East Prussia, colonised in the 12th century by Teutonic Knights; they built the city they named Königsberg (King’s Rock), after Bohemian King Ottokar II who sponsored the conquest. The indigenous Baltic inhabitants – the Old Prussians – were Germanised over centuries, leaving few traces apart from the region’s now obsolete name. It was renamed after one of Stalin’s henchmen, Mikhail Kalinin, in 1946.

Leonid Ragozin

Lonely Planet Writer