Voronezh



Voronezh

Name: Kristina Brazhnikova

Age: 28

Profession: Photographer

City: Voronezh

How long have you been doing photography? What style or genre most interests you? 

My first attempts at photography were when I was 16, when I tried to shoot landscapes on a compact film camera nicknamed a мыльница. When I was a student, I studied in a photo studio, and since 2010 I have been earning money from my photography. In 2013 I began to work as a photojournalist. This is the style I most enjoy, along with documentary photography.

Can you give us a short description of your city? Where is it located? What is it famous for?

Voronezh is a city of a million souls located about 500 km south of Moscow. It made its mark in history as the place where Peter the Great decided to build Russia's first regular naval fleet (in the year 1700) During World War II, Voronezh was about 90 percent decimated by the fighting, so very few old buildings remain. Today it is a very statistically average post-Soviet city, yet it would be untrue to call it depressing. In recent years, the city has had all sorts of festivals of art and culture, all organized at a rather high level. What is more, students from all over the country come to study in Voronezh, since there are many universities here.

What is something about your city that only locals would know?

Voronezh Reservoir is a rather dirty water source. Legend has it that some foreign company offered to clean it up for free, on the condition that anything found on its bottom would become their property. The powers that be refused, because there are treasures down there. 

There is another belief that Voronezh is home to Russia's most beautiful girls. According to that legend, Peter the Great had beautiful women brought here from all over Russia, in order that they would marry shipbuilders, so that the latter would settle in the city.

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

The reservoir is one of my favorite places in the city. It is very large, and it is nice to walk along its banks in the summer, or along the sandy beaches, or through the marshy thickets. And in the winter, when the frosts cover it with thick ice, you can stroll right out onto the reservoir, and you feel not as if you are in the middle of a city of a million people, but somewhere in the snowy netherlands.

There are many small monuments in the city: to The Cat from Lizyukov Street (a Soviet era animated film hero), to White Bim (a famous dog from Russian literature), to The Stranger, and to the first Soviet paratroopers. It's very nice to walk along the streets and courtyards of the historical center, through the restored Central Park (which connects to a forest), and the Scarlet Sails park.

Your website: kristinabrazhnikova.com

Your Instagram: @kristina.brazhnikova


International Platonov Arts Festival. The city hosts modern productions by European and Russian theaters, musicians, exhibitions and a parade of street performers.

Photo credit: Kristina Brazhnikova / @kristina.brazhnikova

'" data-speed="500" data-slideshow-speed="1000"> Parade

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

Some of Our Books

Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
At the Circus

At the Circus

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.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
Steppe / Степь

Steppe / Степь

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
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.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his 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.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

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
PO Box 567
Montpelier VT 05601-0567

802-223-4955