Further to my last post on the matter, I spent this evening collating all the most interesting maps I have on Russia, which I just published on my website: https://akarlin.com/projects/ruriks-seed/
(Why not here? Because I want it to be a page that I can keep editing indefinitely – adding to, and occasionally, deleting. For instance, since I posted my first post, I discovered that this was a fake map).
If you have any good (high quality * novel/unusual) Russia maps, then feel free to post them here.
In my original post, I said I’d forego commentary, allowing my readers to look at the data through fresh eyes. But in this post, I will go ahead and spell out some basic observations. Just quick notes, nothing serious.
Population Genetics
- North Russians are Slavic/Finno-Ugric metis. Emphasis that not Finnic; according to the Balanovsky maps, the Finns are very distinct even from their Estonian linguistic cousins.
- Central & South Russians are “core Slavs”, like the Belorussians, Poles, Ukrainians, and Slovaks. Incidentally, I am amused to note that Czechs might be slightly more distant; but not surprised, given their personality differences relative to other Slavs (more phlegmatic, less religious).
Politics
- I discussed the patriotism map here.
- I have discussed Russia’s electoral patterns frequently on this blog, so I will forego doing that except to make the obvious point that the South/Center is more conservative – see the 1990s “Red Belt” (Communism = conservatism in Russia during the 1990s, slowly becoming less so as Soviet boomers die out), giving way to greater support for Putin from the 2000s. Meanwhile, the North consistently votes relatively more liberal (as well as supporting nationalists more than Communists in relative terms).
- While I have highlighted Latvian support for the Bolsheviks in 1917, Belorussia was also rather strongly red. Perhaps it was inevitable that they got Lukashenko.
Human Capital
- Northerners are brighter; southerners and Siberians are duller. That said, the differences between Russians are fairly modest – Italy is much more variegated, and there’s greater variance even within Germany.
- The major outliers are all non-Russian ethnic minority regions: DICh (Dagestan-Ingushetia-Chechnya) and Tyva, which are ~10 IQ points below the Russian mean (S.D.=15).
- As I have pointed, there are deep historical roots to this: See Regional Literacy in Late Tsarist Russia Predicts 21st Century Average IQ.
Society & Culture
- While the North is more K-selected in cerebral matters, they also drink a lot more so have more suicides, murders, lower life expectancy (especially male), etc. This greater propensity towards drink was evident even more than a century ago.
- In line with its much greater irreligiosity, the North has much higher illegitimacy rates; a pattern evident even more than a century ago.
- However, the Deep South (not the Black Earth region) and Siberia (esp. has much higher rates of teen pregnancy. This is strongly correlated with intelligence, and – surprise, surprise! – that perfectly tracks regional IQ patterns.
- Building ways in rural private homes: Northerners have banyas and saunas; southerners have baths or showers.
- Many more rural southerners own their own individual houses. This is, again, deep history.
- In the Deep South, private homes are more often made of brick; in much of the rest of the country, they are more often made of wood. This must presumably be account of the steppe/forest division.
- All of this also has deep historical roots. Traditional southern Russian farmsteads are more spread out, with separate buildings for different functions, while northern peasant dwellings are huge structures (the farther north, the bigger) that traditionally also sheltered livestock.
- Southerners are much more corrupt than the North. This is my personal impression – but all the worst cases of official corruption/impunity and criminality (Khakhaleva, Kushchevskaya) seem to be from that region. Statistics/polls seem to bear that out.
- There is much more electoral fraud in the South, in line with corruption. As I have argued before, this suggests that Russian electoral fraud is not “centrally planned” but something that local bureaucrats organize to suck up to the people above them.
- More debtors in the South, indicative of shorter term, low future orientation attitudes.
- ~50% cash use in the North, rising to almost 90% in the Deep South, peaking in DICh and… Crimea (legacy of Ukrainian backwardness).
- Cannabis dominates drug violations in the South and Center, while the more alcoholic North is unsurprisingly into harder stuff.
Other
- Map of migrant region donors to Russia’s two major cities is novel, and interesting; Moscow sources predominantly from the Center and South, while Saint-Petersburg sources from the North. I wonder how “deep historical” this pattern is. Personal observation – there do seem to be more blondes in SPB, and it has a reputation for being more polite. In terms of human capital, they are about equal. That said, while Moscow is a world-class city, SPB is more rundown; I’d say that it’s closer to being Russia’s biggest millionik than its second capital.
- Ukraine maps: Typical East/West maps which have been often discussed on this blog already.
- Moscow maps: Also often discussed.
Google Trend Maps
When searching on Google, these geographic patterns reproduce themselves:
- North & Center more interested in Navalny (interest in liberal politics)
- Western regions most interested in the “Russian Spring” (combination of nationalist sentiment plus proximity to Ukraine).
- Vera Brezhneva (pop singer) vs. Harry Potter comparison is almost an IQ map.
- Deep South and Far East more interested in sex, porn. Incidentally, it would be interesting to do a butts vs. boobs comparison for Russian regions, like Pornhub [SFW] did for the US and the world (boobs are more g loaded).
- Deep South most interested in football, followed by rest of European Russia; Siberia – not at all. This one I assume is just a function of climate.
- European Russia and Urals search for Egypt flights; east of the Urals, Russians search for Thailand flights.
- This is significant: European Russia searches for “TV”; Siberia searches for “Internet”. The latter is culturally more important in Siberia, because most Russian federal programs are orientated towards Moscow time. This is politically relevant, because this makes insurgent politicians likelier to succeed east of the Urals.
- European Russia and Far East coast search for “fishing”, North-East and Siberia search for “hunting.”
- Cats dominate most of European Russia and the Urals; dogs are more popular in some of the western border regions, as well as East Siberia and the Far East.
Just gotta mention, regarding the language distribution maps from 1897 (based on the Imperial census that year)…
One of the maps is titled “Ukrainian Language in the Russian Empire (1897)” and as you can see it’s nearly half in Kuban (modern-day Krasnodar and Stavropol krais).
This is not quite correct. The census in question does not actually mention “Ukrainian” at all, it just mentions “Little Russian” and that is what the map shows. There are loads of languages/dialects included in that rather loose definition, actually.
As far as Kuban goes, it’s actually all about Balachka, the Kuban Cossack dialect. They brought a kind of southern Little Russian/Steppe Ukrainian dialect there in the late 1700’s during the great relocation (1792, when they were moved by order of the Tsar all the way from what is now Moldova and thereabouts, to form the new “Black Sea Host” in Kuban), and they were snipped off from their origins and the language gradually became more and more “Great” Russian, although by the late 1800’s Balachka was still “Little” enough to qualify as such in that particular census.
Anyway, apart from that, Balachka wasn’t nearly as Polish-influenced as some of the Western “Little Russian” dialects either, i.e. what people would call Ukrainian today.
“Little Russian” was standardized in the 19th century and was about as loosely defined as Great Russian. The Little Russian speech of Poltava was probably no different from that of Kiev or Volyn as Volga Great Russian was from Siberian or northern Great Russian.
I knew someone from Kuban (a Kuban Cossack who fought for the Germans in World War II and left for America) He spoke normal eastern Ukrainian, like from Kharkiv. Kuban is probably rather Russified by now but it wasn’t in the 1930s, nor in the 1890s.
North Russians/ South Russians map
https://d.radikal.ru/d21/1901/05/bbc8575f62a3.jpg
“North Russians are Slavic/Finno-Ugric metis” – they are not mestizos, but the descendants of tribes who had a different (than the “core Slavs”) origin, who adopted Slavic language . “Finno-Ugric” a language group but not a genetic cluster.
I once moved to a new house where my neighbor accross the street was born in Novo Shakhtinsk, about as far east as you can go on a map of Ukraine, at least at that time. He too spoke to me in ‘normal Ukrainian’, and I was actually surprised, thinking that he would mix in some Russian words at times – he never did, not even the obligatory ‘da’.
Is your Kuban acquaintance still alive right now?
Also, it’s interesting that there hasn’t been a mass movement to re-identify as Ukrainian in the Kuban after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Anatoly, do you know if the Russians who moved to the Near Abroad during Tsarist and Soviet times were mostly from northern Russia or mostly from southern Russia?
Russification of the Ukrainian population of Kuban has been in full swing for a couple of centuries now. It’s the blueprint for how Russian nationalists would like to see all of Ukraine, but alas this is not ever to be. But the Kubantsi still have a strong sentimental attchment to mother Ukraine:
https://youtu.be/qDMDfJUnMBE
This really does make me wonder–let’s say that the Soviet government would have completely abolished the Ukrainian SSR and forced all of the Ukrainians there to identify as Russians (on their passports, et cetera). How much of Ukraine would have ended up like the Kuban by the present-day in such a scenario?
That’s hard to say. The historical developments between Ukraine proper and Kuban are quite a bit different. But there’s no doubt that the original Slavic settlers to Kuban were the descendants of Ukrainian Cossacks from the Black Sea, Zaporizhian and other areas of Ukraine (Kharkiv, Poltava etc). Except for a brief period in the 1920’s, the emphasis in education, the press, entertainment, the arts, the armed services government etc; etc; within Ukraine was on using the Russian language, not Ukrainian. The effects of this stringent policy of Russification can be felt to this day all over Ukraine. Fortunately, since Ukraine’s independence, the emphasis has shifted more to Ukrainian usage in everyday life, especially amongst the younger generation.
St. Petersburg is an old European city like Prague or Budapest (especially striking resemblance to Budapest, or rather Pest).
http://stat.estate-on-line.ru/cache/7d6917c91748b72bfea6d048d4634cf6/55cb552de5cd6.jpg
http://www.kitervezte.hu/images/epuletek/magyar-kepzomuveszeti-egyetem-budapest/galeria1/magyar-kepzomuveszeti-egyetem-budapest03.jpg
https://www.meteovesti.ru/pictures/63552415986_1.jpg
https://forum.awd.ru/gallery/images/upload/b42/382/b4238236d315662afddbc1a0767d39eb.jpg
Moscow is an ugly agglomeration completely different from the European city. I have never been to America, but I suspect that Moscow has similarities with American cities.
From any “millionik” city in Russia, St. Petersburg is very different. As far as I remember in all the years of my life Anatoly Karlin is the only man who combined in one cluster Petersburg with other “millionik” cities
Only an autistic drooling subhuman retard would be turned off by SPB architecture.
Are you kidding me? The populace of the Kuban absolutely hates the so-called “Ukraine”, first and foremost for raping the language and culture and infusing it with Polish, Catholic and Galician shit.
I’d guess it’s the most anti-Ukraine region in Russia.
Died when I was about 12. Friend of one of my grandparents, who was from central Ukraine and had lived in Kharkiv in the 1930s (in the diaspora Easterners tended to stick together). In language and mannerisms the guy from Kuban was a fairly typical eastern Ukrainian. He left in the early 1940s, it is much different now. I have friends who moved here from Sochi and have relatives in Kuban, they say there are still Ukrainian-speaking villages here and there but the Ukrainian-speakers are mostly old people.
Donbas, which was 50% Russian like Kuban. Not the rest of Ukraine.
Moscow is less European but is certainly not ugly. The area within the boulevard is old and very charming. I prefer Moscow, a real Russian city, over St. Petersburg, which is a secondhand Paris (still pretty of course).
Here is a place near my wife’s flat in Moscow, taken at the same time I was there (April 2018):
https://st3.depositphotos.com/6362134/19244/i/1600/depositphotos_192443372-stock-photo-moscow-russia-april-2018-street.jpg
Some do, I’m sure. Kuban choir was singing Ukrainian songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU6KwxtymYU
Ukrainian literary language, based on the Poltava dialect, is closer to Kuban speech up to 1940 than is the Galician dialect.
Of course in Moscow there are beautiful examples of architecture of different eras. But they are so mixed with modern buildings that Moscow has ceased to be a single architectural ensemble, and turned into an ugly hodgepodge of different styles. Undoubtedly Moscow has beautiful, very beautiful sites, but the General view of the city is not good.
…and what about the far-east of Russia, hugely populated with Ukrainians, in fact more “Ukrainian” names in power than “Russian”? Or that Russians and “Ukrainians” are the same people in Priednostrovie or the same people whether they are in a Baltic state or in Georgia
Remember, apart from the fact that Ukraine and Russia are the same people…..is that the vast majority of Ukrainians didn’t want the USSR to end and were begging for reintegration with Russia in the decade afterwards
A more valuable question would be what Ukraine would be like without American scumbag interference
Lumping “Ukraine” with Polish, Catholic, Galician and Austro-Hungarian shit is precisely why the Kuban wants nothing at all whatsoever to do with the so-called “Ukraine”. These songs aren’t “Ukrainian”, at least not in any conception of what it means to be “Ukrainian” for these last 30 years.
You would know the difference if you weren’t an American idiocracy creatura.
Not anymore. Where were you these last 30 years? (Not in the Ukraine, that’s for sure.)
Moscow was never a single architectural ensemble.
Unlike other large cities in Russia, Moscow does not have the look and feel of a capital city. In fact, Moscow doesn’t really have the look and feel of a city at all; hence the well-known Russian aphorism.
This is because Moscow was formed by linking ad-hoc settlements and villages with transport and business infrastructure. In that sense, yes, it’s closer to American ‘cities’ than to a real city.
All major cities were formed this way. In 1812, Napoleon (quite an impartial person in this case) assessed Moscow as the most beautiful city in Europe. But since then, the center of Moscow hopelessly disfigured.
Total nonsense, based on way too old stereotypes and useless memes. The Ukrainian language, used in print and the media is the same whether in Galicia or other areas in Western Ukraine, Central, Southern or even Eastern Ukraine (Kharkiv). You sound like a broken record straight out of a sovok troll school in the 90’s. 🙂
That is quite an interesting shot. I wonder when that bank was built.
The USSR had banks of course and I wonder what they look like. A traditional point of basic economics is that banks are built with better architecture, at greater expense, to demonstrate to potential depositors that their money will be safe. I presume that impulse was not active in Soviet times. But, I presume, if it was built before the revolution, most depositors were screwed anyway.
Perhaps, that should be a lesson to us all.
An utter idiotic comparison and lie ( more so because a freak as yourself speaks neither language)
Utter BS, and even with huge attempts at this fake “Ukrainization” this region remained utterly Russian & not buying is to this braindead maggot fake nation idea, which is as stupid as saying that if Gandhi was a Gujerat or a Tamil….then he can’t be an Indian.
HAHAHAHAH!…standardized by which morons? It was done in a manner that pretty much shows the “language” as entirely artificial, no language be it Hungarian, Latvian, Romanian was formed in such a way…one that ultimately proves it as a fraud you idiot
Given your history of being a fantasist fucktard…..all that is most likely in your imagination…..did the “imaginary” prick boast about eating his grandfather in the 1930’s – and it and this “Golodomor” being the foundation of his idea of the fake state?
Wow…you are a seriously disturbed cretin. Simply untrue
A present for you, much in the line of the Rivne and Yushchenko speaking Russian one…..
https://life.ru/t/%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8/1175922/lichnyi_prikaz_poroshienko_eks-priemiera_iatsieniuka_do_sikh_por_zashchishchaiet_ghosokhrana
Every single word in that small letter about ongoing state protection of the failure PM war criminal Yatsenyuk, is a Russian word and grammer , stylised in the svidomy ( well, more anti-USSR then “Ukrainian) text
…and here’s the funny thing, the main thing that proves Ukrainian as fake is all these Russian words, but the second biggest thing is all the Latin/English derived words, using the letter as a small example in millions. Every word there that is English/Latin derived is used in exactly the same way it would be in a Russian business correspondence you dipshit – so it’s not just the russian used here- it’s the russian style of using the latin and English-style words that show how contemptible the idea is of any “Ukrainian” language you idiot
There is no reason at all to expect present-day populations to form a genetic cluster since in the thousands of years of separation they’ve picked up different admixtures and even a tiny amount of exotic genes from different sources can break the clustering. It doesn’t mean that they don’t share an amount of ancestry and we could look for a common component among Finns, Estonians, Mordvins etc and then compare that to north Russians. However no one has done this work and we will probably wait a long time for it since Finno-Ugric studies aren’t exactly well funded.
And I’ve said this before but Karlin’s map is of the presence of various Y chromosome markers, not a map of genetic closeness, and the reason there is a sharp division between Finns and Russians is because Finns almost entirely lack a certain marker, the haplogroup R1a which is very common in Baltic and Slavic peoples, not because Russians would lack something that’s found in Finns (as north Russians indeed have N1c that matches Finland). In no way is this map indicative that the groups absorbed by northern Russians were not close to Finns, it only indicates that the Slavic migration and mixing did not influence Finns.
R1a is common in Estonians (unlike Finns) which may be due to admixture with Baltic speakers and if so, then the simple reason Estonians match north Russians in Y chromosome profile is because Estonians are a Balto-Slavic and Finnic admixture just like north Russians. Southwestern Finns and Estonians are close to identical in genetic studies that study more than just this one marker which is a good example of why you shouldn’t make sweeping conclusions from just one genetic marker – you can be close to 100 % identical in a million genes and still close to 100 % different in one marker.
If you took a million Finns and a million Poles and settled Alpha Centauri with them, after eventual admixing the resulting population would have the same coloring as Estonians and north Russians in this map. It comes from a very simple intersection:
Finns = high in N1c
Estonians = high in N1c and high in R1a
North Russians = high in N1c and high in R1a
Slavs = high in R1a
…and speaking of maps and the difference between north and south Russians, there’s one old pattern of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit%E2%80%93Comb_Ware_culture
For a long time when proto-Indo-European was presumably spoken in south Russia and Ukraine, the land directly to the north (what’s now northern Russia, Finland and Baltic states) used to be inhabited by a culture that was strikingly different from everything else in Europe based on the tools, artifacts and so on that archaeologists have dug up.
It used to be assumed that this culture was Finno-Ugric since the geographic pattern is a very close match to where we find place names and other evidence of past Finno-Ugric inhabitants but then it was found that Finno-Ugric languages have common Bronze Age vocabulary which means that they must have been a much more recent phenomenon.
Whatever the language, there’s another pattern where northern and southern Russia were already different back in the Stone Age and if these people were absorbed by later waves some of the difference in genes may be even that old. Ancient DNA studies on this culture are only now showing up since samples are hard to find – the culture is really old and corpses disappear fast in taiga soil.
My impression is that the regions with the greatest connection and proximity to Ukraine, including Kuban, are the most anti-Maiden/anti-Svidomy. It makes sense that people who took seriously the idea of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood would be most affected by Ukraine turning into a fundamentally anti-Russian entity.
I find modern Cossack identity to be larpy, but several thousand self-proclaimed Cossacks from Kuban and neighboring regions have joined the separatists. I don’t know how many have joined the Ukrainians, but it’s probably a few dozen or something.
I’d say Moscow is THE most underrated, belittled, and misunderstood city on the entire world. It truly is the premier city of Europe now especially after reconstructing the streets and installing English signs to prepare for the World Cup. Its definitely a world class metropolis that in terms of stature/grandiosity can be compared to London, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo, NYC, etc., and of course is much safer and perhaps even cleaner than London and Paris nowadays.
With a few fixes here and there and further relaxation of visa requirements, St. Petersburg can easily be a bigger, and better (more museums and sights) version of Budapest.
It’s nonsense. St. Petersburg is not an imitation of Paris (and was not planned as an imitation of Paris). St. Petersburg has about the same similarity with Paris as any other major European city.
Anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky
https://vk.com/wall-98395516_8516
“In southern Europe, up to 90% of the current population is the descendants of middle Eastern farmers who came there in the Neolithic and exterminated or drove all the local. And in Northern Europe, the opposite is true: 90% are descendants of former hunters and gatherers who have mastered agriculture…. Strictly speaking, there are two europid race: the South europid and the North europid. And transition zone.”
As I said, St. Petersburg is Budapest but 2-3 times the size, with an even higher concentration of museums, churches, and other sights.
It’s simply a natural city that developed over time, rather than one built out of nothing all at once so everything looks more or less the same.
You forgot that Khmelnytsky spoke Polish rather than Russian?
You are wrong as you almost always are.
Probably true.
There were some pro-Ukrainain stirrings around 1990 in Kuban, but since 1990 Russia has heavily and wisely worked hard to make sure Kuban Cossacks are loyal to Russia, and has mostly succeeded. However, historically, those lands were much more ambivalent. Ukrainian nationalist Petliura spent years in Kuban. After the collapse of the Russian Empire there was a Kuban Rada seeking alliance with Ukraine (it was crushed by the Whites). Russian wiki is detailed here:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0
And many Kuban Cossacks fought for the Germans during World War II. Many of those that successfully escaped to the West integrated with the Ukrainian diaspora, whose language they spoke.
More fought for the Red Army. Other than that, I agree with your comment.
If Ukraine has gone the way of Poland after 1990, and Russia remained a Yeltsinite mess all along, there might have been serious pro-Ukrainian separatism in Kuban.
Here’s an interesting cartoon created using the Ukrainian language. Nothing very difficult here to understand, even for sombody born and brought up in the ‘Galician’ West. Turks need to be careful around Orthodox kozaks:
https://youtu.be/xgV3lwN6iR8
When right in the center of the city ugly buildings of glass and concrete alternate with the preserved ancient buildings it’s not “natural city”, this is an example of how the city was mutilated..
http://rblogger.ru/img3/2017/park-zaryade/66MS0A8604.jpg
This replaced an ugly Sovok hotel and the grounds around it are delightful. Moreover, it’s near the Moscow River, not in the middle of some neighborhood so nothing is spoiled. In that way it is like Grant Park in Chicago, along Lake Michigan.
Here is another view:
https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeevUcKX9oXrrbvmrsQ84DKTX4mwazDpZzK24ftFi6Quo/og1.png
The glass bridge is stunning.
Ugly modernist building replaced ugly Sovok hotel – ugliness of Moscow has not changed
Directly on your photo-Kremlin walls
I assumed that Moscow looked like American cities. But American cities don’t have a medieval core
Not really ugly. Do you think Singapore is ugly?
Yes, and this newly developed park is on the edge of the old city, by the river, not in the middle of it. It doesn’t interrupt it in any way. Again, like the lakeside parks in Chicago.
http://mosurbanforum.com/static/archive/2018/bg-zaryadye_new.jpg
The old city from 16th or 17th century is on the right. The park functions as a large urban oasis (Aleksander’s Park on the other side of the Kremlin is small). IIRC St. Petersburg lacks something like this.
The neighborhood behind the park, on the other side of GUM from the park:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4745/25120970827_5809505ee4_b.jpg
Here is another Moscow street, walking distance to the new park, typical old Moscow:
https://previews.123rf.com/images/znm/znm1609/znm160900105/62798610-moscow-russia-jan-05-2016-moscow-winter-street-scene-christmas-decoration-on-the-street-rozhdestvenk.jpg
If Singapore’s modernist buildings are placed chaotically in the historic center of a European city, the result will be disgusting.
And Yes-Singapore (judging by the photos) is ugly in comparison with ancient European cities.
http://filippovm.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/0007-1.jpg
Here the project of reconstruction of Moscow in 1989. Approximately so it was necessary to rebuild Moscow (in particular instead of the ugly Cathedral of Christ the Saviour – normal neoclassical Cathedral shown in the drawing). And now Cathedral of Christ the Saviour expresses the architectural soul of Moscow – a huge ugly and disproportionate structure with beautiful individual details .
Leaving architecture aside, St. Pete when I visited it in 2015 really did look, although clean, somewhat more run-down and somewhat more-poorly-governed than Moscow, I assume largely because it gets less money and attention directed at it. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was there. It seemed about 4-5 years “behind”.
Also, although Moscow at its worst can be ugly, Moscow at its best is really wonderful (and there are several large regions that have been restored and redecorated to look fantastic in recent years). Moscow architecture at its best is more authentically Russian, and is like walking through a fairy tale.
The St. Petersburg architecture has always been too monolithic… not eclectic/organic enough… for my tastes. Its wide streets are built for horses, not pedestrians, the straight lines of buildings create wind tunnels that are horrible to walk through when it gets cold, and the climate still feels like what the city originally was – that of a cold, wet marshland. I much prefer the continental climate of Moscow, with its hot summers and cold winters.
Once you get beyond the city centers, the outer regions of both cities (with their Soviet-era apartment blocks) look identical.
Well, everyone has different tastes, but in Russian Reddit when asked which city is better to visit Moscow or St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg won in the ratio of 9/1.
This is a disadvantage and advantage of 50/50. The wind blows smog, and cools in the heat.
Ha not exactly right. Here kourortny district of St. Petersburg.
http://gidkarelia.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/schuch5.jpg in this respect, as far as I know, St. Petersburg beats any city in the world with a population of more than 5 million people.l
Because they nowadays drop enormous amounts of money in Moscow to improve its appearance.
For example, just putting the cables underground (which is only for aesthetics, maybe tourists even), I read unofficially costs hundreds of millions of dollars and only to cover certain areas.
On the other hand, Peter is one of the most elegant cities in Europe, in the historic areas – but no-one is funding to put much of its cables underground there.
Diasgree here Dmitry.Relative to it’s wealth and pulling power, I don’t think Moscow gets any disproportionate amount of money spent on it, compared to what has been spent in Kazan, Ufa, Vladivostok ) , Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, wealthy Tyumen,Krasnodar, Sochi , Grozny and some other places
Most of the tax comes from Moscow, 10% of the population lives there, Maybe 17% of the GDP is there, 50% of Russian airport traffic goes through there….I don’t think expenditure in Moscow comes anywhere close to any of those percentage figures mentioned.
Not just Putin but I’m pretty sure that more of the Russian elite comes from Peterburg than Moscow. The Zenit Arena alone probably cost more to build than the accumulated cost of building and refurbishment of Moscow’s 3 main stadiums ahead of the World Cup.
Not from you, but I think much of this backhanded-compliment “spent loads of money on Moscow to stop the kreakl going onto the streets” is just utter BS coming from dickhead liberasts. There has been some moaning about the nice pavements installed…but so what? Maybe Sobyanin is just a big fan ( or the numerous foreign architects who have been used on the majority of these projects in Moscow are) . Proportionately alot more money has been spent on other areas of the country than Moscow. Take dealing with inclement weather, compared to other big cities I don’t think it’s a case of all the expenditure is spent to keep the pavements and roads in Moscow clear of snow, whilst huge swathes of the main cities in the country are covered in snow…in fact I would say closer to the opposite would be more accurate.
SP is beautiful in any circumstances, but Moscow deals with having had the most extreme traffic and pedestrianisation challenges than any other city in the country and much of the world, that plus the foreign architect influence may explain things like the lowering of cables ( not that unusual all over the world). Incidentally whilst traffic is still a huge problem in Moscow it seems improved compared to 6 years ago.
Another thing is that Mayor Sobyanin is certainly not the only popular/succesful Mayor or Governor in the country.
Construction – I dont even think Moscow is in the top 5 regions for this, afew areas have had a boom in residential construction. It’s true that the renovation project of the Soviet housing projects is only organized in Moscow yet, but it’s the logical place to start
the High Speed line to Kazan is now at a standstill, citing costs, which is understandable…..but less reasonable is citing a lack of demand. The whole point of these types of big government projects is about creating a demand- I would go with the view that it would enhance Kazan rather than leading to a flood of people and money to Moscow
Regional airports and routes do need greater investment/availability…which I think is happening to some extent
LOL…..For a start a deranged fantasist Banderite retard freak as yourself has no right, given your pitiful position and disgusting failure sadist heritage ( that I’m sure even a freak like you is ashamed of) to use the term ‘Sovok” – it insults Ukraine and is part of the great culture that sent a man into space, saved the world from Nazi victory and without Poland wouldn’t exist
Secondly clear, its abundantly clear you don’t even know when to apply the so-called derogatory term ‘Sovok” you thick POS.
As for the architecture, Communist era architecture was extremely wonderful,beautiful, groundbreaking and heavily influencial on western public places, institutions ( such as universities), transport facilities and so on in post-war towns. It’s only the lack of cladding (i,e exposed concrete ) that make it look less enticing you stupid idiot, plenty of the prestressed concrete designs (i.e allowing thinner, continuous segments for a building) were and are extremely ahead of it’s time and widely celebrated aesthetically by most architects around the planet. The Sydney Opera House would also look like a Soviet building if it didn’t have those glossy panels, the fundamentals of it are the same though. Same with many other buildings, including steel buildings ( let’s associate Soviet as unclad concrete) Also those clown architects Forster and Piano are probably the biggest communists around.
and that’s just on the aesthetics. Layout and functionality were and are extremely good in plenty of these constructions. Going to an airport for a morning flight I much prefer the airport being in a unclad typical Soviet building then these freezing cold, sickly feeling , and even more souless steel with all-glass facades that dominate many modern airports.
That the classical style of architecture, more masonary based is superior in aesthetics is not disputed, but as modern architecture the Soviet era was extremely good you idiot
HAHAHAHA! …that’s an artists impression you dumb POS. Yes in real life the place is impressive ( though that site I have not visited in it’s current form but have heard only positive things about)…but how can you link an artists impression?
How hard is it to call it by it’s name you dumb prick?…Zaryadye…unless of course like the fantasist tramp you are- you’ve never been and haven’t a clue WTF you are talking about, as befits a nutjob troll ( hence the bizarre artists impression image presented as a real-life view)
Do you now want to link artists impressions of every ukrop proposed urban project that has never , ever took off ( except in misappropriating funds) …and then passing off these ghost projects as “success” in Ukropia…such in the deranged freak you are.
You are either a Sovok with the poor taste that is in your nature, or trolling and pretending to be a Sovok.
Either way, this is the Sovok monstrosity that was demolished to make room for the beautiful park in Moscow:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/HotelRossia.jpg/250px-HotelRossia.jpg
Looks just like the end result, whose image I also posted.
Another photo:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Zaryadye25.jpg
And another:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Zaryadye10.jpg
I was there when I visited Moscow in April; I met AK while in Moscow.
It’s an attractive place in a beautiful city, that happened to replace a Sovok eyesore.
but don’t know it’s name, can’t tell fake photos from real (normally a minor issue, but with a freak as yourself this is dodgy)
Once again a mentally sick retards a yourself with an undoubted shamed ( and ashamed family history from the 1940’s) has no right to use that term. Anyway the term “eyesore” is brainless tp the point I was making you thick twat.
Most people would just a park over an old hotel, just as they would choose a park over a brand new shopping mall when thinking about aesthetics
but once again, if you think of the Sydney Opera House, without any cladding, then you have the same type of aesthetics you idiot, the general design is still brilliant
Who gave you that idiotic idea?