Word: bolshaya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Russians perennially fear that Russia will fall apart. The country is so big and so unwieldy that it seems always on the verge of implosion - like a bolshaya deryevna, or big village, riddled with ethnic fissures and political upheavals, always teetering between calm and chaos. Hence the appeal of the strongman - say, Josef Stalin. Someone to keep everyone else in check...
...River - from the Kremlin, that is. It's a slightly rundown district of old churches, 18th century noble residences and the odd basement "intellectual bookstore," but it can be full of fascinating little finds, like a lovely white stone church with a dark green cupola, behind a wall on Bolshaya Ordynka (No. 38). It looks medieval but was built in 1912 by Alexei Shchusev, one of the most prolific architects of his time. He later designed Lenin's mausoleum and the hideous Moskva Hotel near Red Square, with its asymmetrical façade. Shchusev's career embodies the compromises that...
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