Bryansk



Bryansk

Name: Ekaterina Razina

Age: 28

Profession: Photographer

City: Bryansk, Dyat'kovo (both in Bryansk region)

How long have you been doing photography? What style or genre most interests you? I am a professional wedding photographer, and started shooting while I was still in school. I prefer the genres: portrait, industrial landscape, and event atmospheric reportage.

Can you give us a short description of your city? Where is it located? What is it famous for? Bryansk is a city and the administrative center of Bryansk region, located 379 kilometers (235 mi) southwest of Moscow; it recently celebrated its 1031 anniversary. In ancient times, the Vyatichi – warlike tribes, lived on the banks of the Desna river. The legendary bogatyr Peresvet, who killed the Tatar warrior Chelubey in the Battle of Kulikovo, was born here. Our wild forests also preserve the history of the Bryansk Partisans in great Patriotic war.

Today's Bryansk is an important center for steel and machinery manufacturing, and is home to many large factories. The main industries are machine building, metalworking, chemical, electrical equipment, electronics, wood, textile and food industries, locomotives, diesel engines, freight cars, motor graders, pavers and other road equipment, agricultural equipment, construction materials, and garments. The population of Bryansk is about 430,000. The city has different shopping centres, theatres, cinemas and all sorts of modern entertainment.

What is something about your city that only locals would know? Places in Bryansk region have some unofficial names, like The Great Wall of China, Mexico, and even... Isengard and the Field of Miracles. Only in Bryansk can ask the bus driver to return you to 'The Motherland' ('Rodina'), or 'The Dream' ('Mechta') and actually get on the bus with the inscription 'THE JET' ('Samolyot').

People in Bryansk pronounced their g's like 'gh', just like Belarusians or Ukrainians.

Which places or sites are a must for someone to see if they visit your city? 

Bryansk: The Mound of Immortality like in Central Park Solovyi ('The nightingales'). This earthen embankment is 12 meters high and is topped with an 18-meter-high star. Bryansk citizens brought the earth here to build this colossal monument. A time capsule with a letter to people in the future is hidden beneath the Mound. It will be opened in 2017, 50 years from when it was placed there. 

Dyatkovo: Visit the Eighth Wonder of the World – the world's singular crystal iconostasis in the Church of The Burning Bush Icon. The iconostasis weighs seven tons and was made in Dyatkovo Crystal Factory, founded by the noblewoman Maria Maltsova in 1790.

Website: http://rozarock.ru/

Instagram: @rozarock



Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955