Hotel Moskva

Hi!

Today I will tell you some interesting facts about Moscow. You know, it is very beautiful city, and every foreigner is primarily going to visit Red Square, GUM and other showplaces in the heart of the capital of Russia. 

I am a man who is not looking for easy ways to achieve the good result. So I want to show you favourite landmarks from unusual points such as I love watching them. As you may guess this, further we will talk about roofs. More precisely about the difference between views from the height and ordinary views we used to see everyday. 

I put pictures here taken from the Moscow-Hotel (Hotel Moskva) roof, located nearby Manezh and Revolution Square. The building was erected in 1935 and was staying even till 2004, when it was closed for reconstruction. Unfortunately, today it is not completed but summer 2014 the building will be handed over. It will content two presidential suites, the cheepest accommodation at the hotel will cost about 1'000 EUR per night. Therefore the Hotel Moskva will become the most expensive (even more than the National Hotel and Hotel Metropol). 

The number of storeys is 16 floors, and it is very high building, located in the city center. Therefore, the roof should definitely open up the most incredible views. While the hotel is under construction some climb lovers can wade to the top of this building. I've tried to do this and as I wanted my efforts were crowned with success, even for two times: in March 2012 and December 2013.

The roof is multilevel, overall, the structure of building is very complex and, therefore, very interesting.

The style of building is postkonstruktivizm, very popular in soviet Russia direction of architecture. Yes, it is very different from other beautiful neighbour houses but gives unique charm to the Moscow center nature.

Owing to high-rise character of this hotel it gives me opportunity to see very rich and replete panorama of the Grand Moscow Landmarks. You can see here Historical museum, towers of the Moscow Kremlin, GUM, Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square.

Watching more closer I see Rink on Red Square. This is a holiday project and lasts up to March 15th, if you come to Moscow, you necessarily have to visit this rink and get a lot of pleasure and good mood.

Here you can see Manezhnaya Square, very nice place to walk here in summer, when the fountains are working. Under the square is very big shopping mall 'Okhotny Ryad'. 

Behind this area is located Manezh, a great architectural monument of Moscow. It was erected in 1817, in the style of classicism. This is a traditional place for creative exposures, fashion shows and so forth.

Near the Kremlin you can see the Alexander Garden alleys and Kutafiya Tower standing alone (at right). In the far is cathedral of Christ the Savior and at the furthest the main building of the Russian Academy of Science.

Here is crossing of Mokhovaya and Twerskaya streets, hotel National foreground and Ritz Carlton right behind it. Skyline here also contains interesting architectural objects such as Stalin skyscrapers and Arbat.

Here you can even see Moscow International Business Center, in front of it – Radisson Hotel (the most beautiful Stalin skyscraper, imho), White House of Russian Federation Government (at right) and long series of famous houses at Arbat street.

This video I have shooted from the rooftop of Hotel Moskva:

I have considered here the most magnificent views of the Moscow Center streets and some interesting crosses the distance taken from the one point. The next time I plan to tell more closer about the main landmarks of Moscow. 

On my Flickr page you can find more views of this city taken by me. 

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Thanks for reading!

Roof Photo Event in Moscow

Moscow hosted a very interesting event on September, 7.

There is a big community of Moscow urban explorers and roof toppers to date, and one of them suggested to gather the best works and show everyone a collection in one place.

This is the first practice of holding such unusual events, but in future we plan to carry out such kind of exhibitions.

The idea creator, Damir Davlatov

Active 'roofing' season is over in Russia as summer ends. It was a great idea to sum up this wonderful time and organize meeting on the roof. 

The exhibition lasted during 10 hours and for the all time it attracted more than 450 interested people.

George Lanchevsky and others organizers is voicing introductory word

There was some difficulties with techical part of event because of windy weather, moisture and awkward materials, but it did not become a hindrance for this meeting.

In selection of works involved more than 50 people with 300 photographs taken from the roofs of different cities. In total, 24 people and only 87 best photographs were actual participants of the exhibition. 

The event had also attracted attention by representatives of the press from US and Russia.

Many thanks to the 'Madness' club administrator, who provided us this nice roof, George Lanchevsky, Damir Davlatov, Angela Nicolaou and other assistants. 

Moscow, Russia

SUMMER 2013

This summer brought me a lot of positive emotions and leaved some fond memories in my mind, but the most major achievement was purchasing my new DSLR. I was dreaming about Canon EOS 5D Mark III, this is truly outstanding camera, but just because I'm not too professional user, I resolved to put my mind to more amateur camera, like Canon EOS 6D. My first EF lens for this one was a 24-105mm f/4L IS USM.

Okay, I'll rather change this topic, even though I have a lot of thoughts about this wonderful DSLR, I'll move them in my next post maybe. I hope it will be very detailed overview.

So.

I want to tell you short story about last summer and how I have spent it. Unfortunately, I didn't go abroad for this season, I had a lot of work and some academic debts. Therefore, I had to stand in Moscow. My friends helped me not to give up and they made this summer very memorable. 

Climbing to the rooftops of high-rise buildings is the key part of all my urban exploration activity in this city. Once upon a time I've noticed how boring is a simple walking on streets or squares at the city center and since 2011 I look at the city from a bird's eye. When you finally reach the top of building you get an unusual look of street perspectives and breathtaking skylines above many roofs and then you cannot abandon this another time.

Let's start with the most interesting objects.

This is 'Picturesque Bridge' or like it sounds in Russian - 'Zhivopisny', the largest in Moscow cable-stayed bridge, built recently (7 years ago), it can become a new landmark of city. On the top of this opens a lot of beautiful views of Moscva-river and panorama of north-west Moscow districts.

Next picture called 'Heart of the bridge'. Red color of all bridge details and cables create the impression as if the vessels and capillaries of heart. 

My second summer achievement is the roof of Tower 2000 of the Moscow International Business Center (MIBC).

I was lucky enough to get illegaly into very big sophisticated conference hall on the top floor - 29th)  

I love to go to the roofs at night, it is more insensibly for security guards and people, moreover, I can watch illuminated city, more beautiful than it looks at daytime. Shining example are my two next works:

Night flames of the Moscow Kremlin, St.Basil's Cathedral and Historical Museum

Illuminated MIBC

So I think it's enough by the first time. Sure, I got more interesting shots from this summer and will post them more often. You can view more of my photos on Flickr and 500px. Some shots are available to buyers here.

Thanks for watching!

Hi there!

Recently I was posting my works with comments only in  Russian here – alimof.blogspot.ru. But it's time to wake up and start sharing my photos and tell stories in English. And now I want to share it with more people because of world wide interest in urban exploration, architecture photos and stories associated with them. 
My fresh posts are coming soon, stay tuned :)

Many thanks for visit my page!