Russia Beyond

How do Russians dress... DOGS?

Fancy dress races, professional dog shows or just a summer walk around the city are all reasons for dog owners to show off their four-legged friends’ new outfits.

📸 Sputnik, Moskva Agency

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These foreigners helped create the Russian Empire

At the beginning of the 18th century, Tsar Peter I defeated the mighty Sweden, proclaimed Russia an empire and brought it into the circle of leading European powers. Foreign specialists helped him a lot in this.

Jacob Bruce
The representative of an ancient family of Scottish kings was an able mathematician, diplomat, engineer and astronomer. During the Northern War against Sweden, he was engaged in the modernization of Russian artillery, raising it to a completely different quality level. Largely thanks to him, the Russian army managed to crush a formidable enemy.

Franz Lefort
The son of a Geneva merchant was one of the closest associates and friends of Peter the Great. Lefort found the best military and civilian specialists in Europe and lured them into Russian service. He stood at the origins of the Russian navy and reformed the army. Today, one of Moscow's districts bears the name of Lefort.

Patrick Gordon
This brilliant military expert from Scotland was engaged in training the Semyonovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments, formed on Western European models, which, at his suggestion, became known as ‘Guards regiments’. The “Godfather” of the Russian Guards died on the eve of the Northern War, never having seen how brilliantly his wards proved themselves in it.

Heinrich Johann Friedrich Ostermann
Born in Bochum, Ostermann was fluent in German, Dutch, Latin, French, Italian and Russian. In 1721, along with Bruce, he lead the Russian delegation at the peace negotiations in Nystad, which ended the war against the Swedes. After the death of Tsar Peter I in 1725, he determined the foreign policy of the state for over fifteen years.

Credit: Russia Beyond (Photo: Public Domain; Fyodor Alekseev/State Historical Museum)

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A new public art has appeared in the Malevich Park near Moscow

The new park route titled ‘Malevich in the Forest’, created in cooperation with the Tretyakov Gallery, combines the traditions of romantic parks and contemporary art. All the works are not very conspicuous, but rather seem to come through the foliage and greenery of the forest.

The art objects of the ‘MishMash’ group called ‘Subtitles’ resemble stage directions in some movies or plays: “The growing rumble of the crowd”, “Birds singing”, “Alarming music sounds”. Their ‘Central Forest Oracle’, reminiscent of a 1960s-style spaceship, offers hikers meetings, in order to ask questions that concern them. In order to get answers, one has to turn the drive handle.

Alla Urban’s ‘Round Dance’ instantly reminds one of both radio horns and the cone-shaped skirts of girls from Malevich's peasant cycle. ‘Aqueduct’ by Alexander Konstantinov looks like a portal to another dimension: you notice it only when you get very close.

Credit: Press photo

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How a conman and swindler became a Hero of the Soviet Union

“The most worthy of the worthy, an ardent patriot of our motherland, a true fighter-journalist,” is how ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’ newspaper described ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ Valentin Purgin in 1940.

According to the article, Purgin destroyed an enemy bunker and captured two Finnish soldiers during the Soviet-Finnish war. Except that none of this was true.

Vladimir Golubenko, as the fake hero was actually called, was a thief and a swindler; he was in jail, but managed to escape from imprisonment and got a passport under a new name using forged documents.

Golubenko-Purgin didn’t even finish school, but with a fake higher education diploma, he got a job as a correspondent for a newspaper in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) and then moved to Moscow to work for ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’.

There, he hinted in every possible way at his connections with state security agencies. He walked around with of the Orders of Lenin and Red Banner, stolen by his accomplices, on his chest and when asked what he did to deserve them, he’d cryptically answer: "In our country, we don’t award people in vain.”

During the war against Finland, Purgin forged a request from the People's Commissariat (Ministry) of Defense to send himself on a business trip to the front. Except that he did not go anywhere, but stayed in Moscow to drink away his travel allowance at the apartment of a friend.

Then, the swindler decided to become a ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’. He fabricated a request to the awards department on a stolen form with a description of his exploits and a list of awards. The employees did not conduct a proper check and, on April 22, 1940, Purgin was awarded the country’s highest award.

A month later, ‘Komsomolskaya Pravda’ published an article about the journalist's deeds recorded from his words. Based on the published photograph, the police identified him as Golubenko.

As a result, False-Purgin was arrested, stripped of the title of ‘Hero’ and shot and the system of verification of candidates for high honors was completely changed.

Credit: Semyon Fridlyand/Sputnik, Nekrasov Central Universal Scientific Library, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Evgeny Biyatov/Sputnik

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