Ruin Tower

Ропшинский дворец / Ropsha Palace - 1899-1912

Россия на дореволюционных фотографиях
Ропшинский дворец
1899-1912

Russia in pre-revolutionary photographs
Ropsha Palace
1899-1912

Музыка;
Большой вальс из балета 'Анюта' - Валерий Александрович Гаврилин

Music:
Grand Waltz from the ballet 'Anyuta' by Valery Aleksandrovich Gavrilin

Ropsha Palace is located in Lomonosovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, , about 20 km ( 12 mi) south of Peterhof.
The settlement was first mentioned in the documents of the Novgorod Republic in the 15th century, when its name was spelled as Khrapsha. It passed to Sweden following the Treaty of Stolbovo but was recaptured by Peter the Great during the Great Northern War. Upon hearing about the curative properties of Ropsha's mineral springs, the tsar planned to make it his summer retreat; a timber palace and small church were built there. Subsequently, when he discovered a more favourable location of Strelna he abandoned his previous plans for Ropsha and made a present of it to his senior associate, Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky...
Later, under Tsar Paul I, Ropsha palace was rebuilt in a Neoclassical style to a design by Georg von Veldten. A large paper factory was built nearby and the English gardener Thomas Gray laid out an English park with a mosaic of ponds full of fish....Paul apparently planned to rename Ropsha, in commemoration of the dramatic events of 1762, but was assassinated himself before this came to pass.
Emperor Nicholas II turned Ropsha Palace and parks into his favorite hunting and fishing retreat. Ropsha also had a military garrison and an Imperial cavalry division was stationed here until 1918.
During the Russian Civil War Ropsha saw some heavy fighting, as General Yudenich wrested it from the Bolsheviks on two occasions and later the Soviet Government nationalised the estate...
From September 1941 to January 1944, during the Siege of Leningrad, Ropsha was occupied by the troops of Nazi Germany. At the end of hostilities, the palace was restored and used to house a military unit, who kept the place in good order... In 1977-1978, the military vacated the building, the parquet flooring and wooden doors were removed and the windows were boarded up...
During the 1980 and early 1990s a series of fires swept through the building, causing the roof to collapse and weakening the external walls. In early 2010, the facade collapsed completely...

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1965) movie

One of the most mysterious novels by the genre’s classic Alexei Tolstoy. The year is 1925. Professor Mantsev invents a weapon of a formidable destructive force never seen before – a hyperboloid that strikes dead with a beam… Engineer Garin steals this prototype of the modern laser gun, with the aim to use it for the realization of his insane idea of become the ruler of the world, with no inkling of the consequences that would be dangerous for him, too. A hunt for Garin and Mantsev’s dangerous invention begins…

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1965) movie

Genres: Sci-Fi
Production company: Gorky Film Studio

Directed by Aleksandr Gintsburg
Produced by Moisey Vainberg
Written by Isoif Manevich, Alexander Gintsburg
Music by Moisey Vainberg
Cinematography by Alexander Rybin

Cast:
Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev as Pyotr Petrovich Garin (Engineer Garin)
Vsevolod Safonov as Vasily Shelga
Mikhail Astangov as Mr. Rolling
Natalya Klimova as Zoya Montrose
Vladimir Druzhnikov as Arthur Levy / Volshin
Mikhail Kuznetsov as Hlynov
Yuri Sarantsev as Tarashkin
Nikolai Bubnov as Nikolai Mantsev
Viktor Chekmaryov as Four-fingered
Pavel Shpringfeld as Gaston / Duck Nose
Bruno O'Ya as Captain Yansen
Alyosha Ushakov as Vanya Gusev
Anatoli Romashin as Dr. Wolf
Valentin Bryleyev as Victor Lenoir
Artyom Karapetyan as secretary
Vyacheslav Gostinsky as comandant of the Golden Island
Stepan Krylov as telegraph worker
Vladimir Balashov as scientist (episode)
Konstantin Karelsky

Awards:
IFF of Fantasy Films in Trieste (Italy) – Top Prize Golden Seal of the City of Trieste, 1966.

Church of the Savior on Blood , beautiful morning

Manor house

A manor house is a large country house, which was historically the capital residence or messuage within a manor, the basic unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe, in which dwelled the lord of the manor. It formed the administrative centre of a manor and within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely applied to smaller country houses, frequently dating from the late medieval era, which formerly housed the gentry. They were often fortified, but this was frequently intended more for show than for defense. Manor houses existed in most European countries where feudalism existed, where they were sometimes known as castles, palaces, and so on. Many buildings, such as schools, are named Manor; the reason behind this is because the building was or is close to a manor house.


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Creative Commons image source in video

Three years Audiobook by Anton Chekhov | Audiobook with subtitles

Laptev, the rich but unattractive scion of a merchant, renounces his independent-minded, intelligent, devoted, but equally unattractive mistress Polina in order to marry the beautiful young gold-digger Yulia. Their life together quickly deteriorates into a loveless agony, Laptev seeking some sort of meaning in his life while Yulia whiles away her youth with the sparkling young Moscow social scene. The compelling question of the story is whether or not Laptev and Yulia can redeem something of lasting value from what seems to be a hopelessly empty relationship. Here Chekhov again explores the subtle dilemmas of modern conventional marriage and its effects, both positive and negative, on the hapless humans caught up in it. (summary by Expatriate)
Genre(s): Literary Fiction

Three Years
Anton CHEKHOV , translated by Constance GARNETT

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