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Russia blog Your Russia blog 2012-01-24T01:54:16-06:00 DotClear daily 1 2012-01-24T01:54:16-06:00 Ivan Bunin – Russia's First Nobel Laureate for Literature 2012-01-24T01:54:16-06:00 2012-01-24T01:54:16-06:00 http://www.russia-channel.com/blog/ivan-bunin-russias-first-nobel-laureate-for-literature Editor Features

Earning his place in history as the first Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953) was acclaimed among his peers for his ability to remain true to the literary tradition of the time, while being innovative in artistic expression and clarity. At the turn of the century, liberal Russian magazine, Vestnik Evropy noted that Bunin had no rivals among Russian poets when it came to artistic precision, calling him a true 'artist' with poetic language. Although the Nobel Prize in Literature was presented to Ivan Bunin in 1933 for his book The Life of Arseniev, it is widely agreed that this autobiographical novel is a small sample of this Russian writer's literary genius.

Covering an area of close to nineteen thousand square kilometers, the Yugyd Va National Park is the largest national park in both Russia and Europe. The park is located in the Komi Republic of Russia and incorporates the northern Ural Mountains and the surrounding foothills and plains, providing a range of natural habitats supporting diverse wildlife and vegetation. More than fifty percent of the park is covered in taiga boreal forest characterized by different species of conifers, and the rest of the terrain features alpine meadows, river valleys and high-elevation tundra.

Located between the Ural Mountains and the Volga River, close to the borders of both Europe and Asia, the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan is home to people from more than a hundred different nationalities. With Ufa as its capital city, Bashkortostan is known for its rich cultural heritage, with many academies and theaters promoting performing arts, including Russian, Bashkir and Tatar State Drama Theaters, the State Opera and Ballet Theater, National Symphony Orchestra, and Bashkir State Folk Dance Ensemble, as well as a film studio. World famous Russian ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, reportedly began his illustrious dancing career in the theaters of Ufa.

With a population of more than half a million people, the city of Kemerovo is the administrative center of Russia's Kemerovo Oblast in Western Siberia. Located at the confluence of the Tom and Iskitim Rivers northeast of Novosibirsk, Kemerovo is primarily an industrial city, and serves as the business and commercial center of the Kuznetsk Basin – one of the world's largest coal mining areas. Serviced by a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Kemerovo International Airport, the city is easy to access both for business and leisure.

As one of the six Solovetsky Islands located in Russia's White Sea, Bolshoi Zayatsky Island features a series of ancient stone labyrinths that are interesting to explore. Labyrinths are considered to be important archaeological monuments, with more than 300 examples found in various locations around the world. The fourteen stone labyrinths on Bolshoi Zayatsky are particularly well preserved and have been documented and speculated about, without any definite conclusions being reached - and so their purpose remains a mystery.

Located on the banks of the Ural River, close to the border of neighboring Kazakhstan, the Russian city of Orenburg is the administrative center of the Orenburg Oblast. The city was established in 1743 by Russian diplomat and administrator Ivan Ivanovich Neplyuyev, who had a prominent position in the service of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. A statue honoring the founder of the city is one of the attractions of Orenburg, along with a number of museums and the picturesque boulevard overlooking the Ural River.

Named in honor of Russian explorers Khariton Laptev and Dmitry Laptev, the Laptev Sea is located between the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya, the northern coast of Siberia and the New Siberian Islands, with the Arctic Ocean to the north. Known for their Arctic exploration, these two cousins mapped the coastline of the Laptev Sea between 1735 and 1740 – a time when intrepid adventurers explored new territories without the aid of modern navigational tools.

In an effort to break away from the restrictions imposed by Russia's Imperial Academy of Arts, in 1863 a group of fourteen art students decided to leave the Academy and form a society to independently promote art to ordinary people. Named Peredvizhniki, this society and group of artists were also referred to as The Itinerants or The Wanderers, and by 1870 the movement became the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, giving people far from the main cities of Russia the opportunity to view Russian art and learn to appreciate it. Between 1871 and 1923, Peredvizhniki staged up to 48 mobile exhibitions in the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg before taking the show on the road and visiting numerous other destinations including Kiev, Kazan, Kharkov, Riga, Oryol and Odessa.

Covering almost all of Northern Asia, Siberia is home to around 28 percent of Russia's population, although it makes up as much as 77 percent of the country's territory. The tumultuous history of this vast, mostly inhospitable area and Soviet era domination resulted in the displacement of people which remains evident in the diversity of minority ethnic groups living in Siberia today. One of these groups is the Buryats (Buryads) of the Buryatia Republic – a federal subject of Russia.

Located in the Aginsky Buryat Autonomous District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, the spectacular Alkhanay National Park was established in 1990, and is the youngest of the national parks of Russia. The park consists of a variety of terrain, from mountainous regions supporting coniferous and birch forests, to the broad steppes of the lower altitudes. The park is well watered by the Ilia River and its many tributaries, with its three main lakes being Krasnoyarovo, Balzino and Alkhanay.