A lady walks down a well worn path over the frozen Iset River in Yekaterinburg. The sign reads “Walking across the ice is FORBIDDEN”. Photo via Russia Blog.

Moscow-City (aka Moscow International Business Center) is a huge construction project in downtown Moscow. The goal of the project is to create a city within a city where with space for living, working, and entertainment. It is one of the most ambitious construction projects in recent European history.

While the project is far from complete, Moscow-City is starting to look more like a city every month. Here are some interesting photos that show the progress made so far.

Link: Wikipedia article about Moscow-City

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The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is one of the most important churches in Moscow. This cathedral has an amazing history. It was constructed to commemorate the victory over Napoleon, blown up by Stalin to make room for the Palace of Soviets, was the site of the world’s largest swimming pool, and was reconstructed again after the fall of the Soviet Union. The cathedral’s official website documents this history with a huge collection of photos, audio and video. The video archive is especially interesting and features video from 1912 to the present.

Link: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior

St. Petersburg, Russia is known for its great architecture and many interesting bridges. Here’s a page that has photos and a short history of all the major bridges in St. Petersburg.

Link: Bridges in St. Petersburg
Photo by: lisso

WikiMapia has an annotated view of Red Square and downtown Moscow. The photos, provided by Google, are clear enough to see individual buildings. Different users have annotated the map to tell what each building is. Very cool!

Link: WikiMapia

Moscow’s skyline is changing quickly these days. Many new skyscrapers are being built, some of them stretching even further into the sky than the famous Stalin-era buildings of the 1950s. Here’s a link to a interesting diagram showing many of Moscow’s skyscrapers and info about each one.

Link: Moscow Skyscrapers

There’s a new project on the horizon in St. Petersburg, Russia. Energy giant Gazprom is planning to build Petersburg’s first skyscraper. Here’s a picture of the winning design and an article about the project from the St. Petersburg Times.

St. Petersburg Times – “Gazprom Winner is ‘Corn on the Cob’”

Some highlights from the article:
“A 300-meter-tall twisting glass tower dubbed ‘the corn on the cob’ beat out five international rivals to win the contentious competition to build a new Gazprom headquarters in St. Petersburg.”

“The tower, if constructed, would be 2.5 times higher than the Peter and Paul Fortress, the city’s highest building, and more than 3 times higher than Smolny Cathedral or St. Isaac’s Cathedral.”