RU-3178486

Look what I've got a few days ago as an official from Russia!! A new UNESCO site from.... Armenia! How cool is this? It was a great surprise. 

The monastery of Geghard is located in the Kotayk province of Armenia, being partially carved out of the adjacent mountain. It is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

Photo by Tigran Mangasaryan 

RU-3178486, sent by Alevtina.

The Geghard complex is an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a medieval Armenian monastic foundation in a remote area of great natural beauty at the head of the Azat valley, surrounded by towering cliffs. It contains a number of churches and tombs, most of them cut into the rock, which illustrate the very peak of Armenian medieval architecture and decorative art, with many innovatory features that had a profound influence on subsequent developments in the region. It was founded in the 4th century, according to tradition by St Gregory the Illuminator. The first monastery was destroyed by Arabs in the 9th century, but it was flourishing again by the 13th century. The monastery was famous because of the relics that it housed, the most celebrated the spear that wounded Christ on the Cross. Relics of the Apostles Andrew and John were donated in the 12th century and pious visitors made numerous grants of land, money, manuscripts and so on over the succeeding centuries. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/960

RU-3150748

A lake from Russia. 

RU-3150748, sent by Lenka.

Kolyvan Lake is located at the Charysh valley in the Altai Mountains. The lake is small but deep and is surrounded by fantastic granites domes and towers.

St. Petersburg's Churches

These two churches, Smolny Cathedral and Chesme Church, were both in my PC favorites wall and is easy to understand why. They are so beautiful! I really love these cards, sent by Gennady. 

 Smolny Cathedral was originally intended to be the central church of a monastery, built to house the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, after she was disallowed to take the throne and opted instead to become a nun. However, as soon as her Imperial predecessor was overthrown during a coup, carried out by the royal guards, Elizabeth decided to forget the whole idea of a stern monastic life and happily accepted the offer of the Russian throne.

Smolny Cathedral’s stunning blue-and-white building is undoubtedly one of the architectural masterpieces of the Italian architect Rastrelli. It was built between 1748 and 1764.

When Elizabeth stepped down from the throne the funding that had supported the constructed of the convent rapidly ran out and Rastrelli was unable to build the huge bell-tower he had planned or finish the interior of the cathedral. The building was only finished 1835 with the addition of a neo-classical interior to suit the changed architectural tastes of the day.

Today Smolny Cathedral is used primarily as a concert hall and the surrounding convent houses various offices and government institutions. - in: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/smolny-cathedral/

This fairytale gothic church is one of St. Petersburg's most unusual and most delightful, although it is a little off the beaten track for most tourists. Located in the far south of the city, it was built under Catherine the Great as the house church for the Chesme Palace, a resting post between St. Petersburg and the Summer Palace in Tsarskoe Selo.

The Chesme Church was consecrated in 1780, on the tenth anniversary of Russia's naval victory over the Turkish fleet at Chesme Bay, which occurred on the birthday of John the Baptist, hence the church's name.

A wedding-cake structure with striped crenellated walls and five gothic turrets in place of traditional onion domes, this truly unique church has survived almost fully intact to this day, despite the fact that it was turned, along with the Chesme Palace, into part of a forced labour camp by the Soviet government - the cross on the central turret was replaced with a hammer, tongs and anvil to symbolize the toil of the proletariat. Just before the Second World War, the complex was given over to the Institute of Aviation Technology, which still occupies the palace to this day.

Used as a burial site for war heroes almost since its consecration, the area around the church became a graveyard for soldiers who died during the Siege of Leningrad. In the 1970s, the church became a Museum of the Battle of Chesme, and was eventually returned to the Orthodox Church in 1990. It is now an extremely popular church, with regular services and numerous visitors who come to pay their respects to the war dead. - in: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/churches/church-birth-saint-john-baptist-chesme.asp

UA-1182066

Victoria sent me not one but two cards. She said Ukraine has many beautiful churches and she wanted to show me St. Vladimir Cathedral in Sevastopol and another one that I'll show later. 

UA-1182066, sent by Victoria.

St. Vladimir's Cathedral is an Orthodox church in Sevastopol, Ukraine which was built in the aftermath of the Crimean War as a memorial to the heroes of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855).

It was the admiral Mikhail Lazarev who came up with the idea to build St. Vladimir's Cathedral in Sevastopol rather than in Chersonesus as was originally intended. The church contains the tombs of Lazarev and three of his disciples – Vladimir Kornilov, Vladimir Istomin and Pavel Nakhimov – who died during the siege.

The architecture of the church is Neo-Byzantine. The original design was submitted by Konstantin Thon for the Chersonesus Cathedral. It was reworked by a local architect, Aleksey Avdeyev. The lower church was consecrated in 1881, the upper church was finished 7 years later.

The building rises to a height of 32.5 meters. The marble-clad interior was decorated by a team of Swiss and Italian artists. The names of the heroes of the 1850s siege are inscribed on the walls. The tombs of the admirals were destroyed by the Soviets in 1931. The church sustained further damage in the Second World War. - in: wikipedia

RU-3158082 & UA-582016

These are officials from Russia and Ukraine but both cards are from Alupka in Crimea, showing the Vorontsov Palace. 

RU-3158082, sent by Liliya.

The Vorontsov Palace is one of the oldest and largest residential palaces in all of Crimea, and is one of the most popular tourist attractions on Crimea's southern coast.

The palace was built from 1828 through 1848 for Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov for use as his personal summer residence. It was designed in the Tudor style by English architect Edward Blore and his assistant William Hunt. 

Photo by Lev Boguslavsky

UA-582016, sent by Natalie.

The building incorporates elements of Scottish Baronial, Moorish Revival, and Gothic Revival architecture. Blore had designed many buildings in the United Kingdom, and was particularly well known there for completing the design of the Buckingham Palace in London.

Today, the Vorontsov Palace is a part of the "Alupka Palace-Park Complex," a national historical preserve. - in: wikipedia

UA-1183961

An official from Ukraine. 

 Photo by Vadim Tolbatov

UA-1183961, sent by Julia.

Khersonesskiy Light is an active historic lighthouse on the southwest corner of the Crimean peninsula. The original lighthouse was a conical stone tower. It was replaced in 1929 but it was almost completely destroyed during World War II and it was again replaced, this time by a wood tripod tower until a copy of the 1929 lighthouse could be built. The tower is greatly endangered by rising sea level, and a stone berm and semicircular sea wall have been built to protect it. The unusual flash pattern, the Morse code "SW" for Sevastopol', is the traditional welcome-home for Russian (and Ukrainian) sailors. 

In August 2008, a diplomatic spat arose after Ukrainian officials tried to seize equipment at the lighthouse and were instead detained by Russian Navy staff. - in: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/ukr2.htm

Tokaj Wine Region - Hungary

Some time ago I tagged Malgosia on a UNESCO tag and she sent me 3 cards, one of them was from the Tokaj Wine Region in Hungary, one of my missing sites. 

Tokaj wine region is a historical wine region located in northeastern Hungary and southeastern Slovakia. It is also one of the seven larger wine regions of Hungary. 

The region consists of 28 named villages and 11,149 hectares of classified vineyards, of which an estimated 5,500 are currently planted. Tokaj has been declared a World Heritage Site in 2002 under the name Tokaj Wine Region Historic Cultural Landscape. - in: wikipedia

Foto: Jacques Guillard

The cultural landscape of Tokaj graphically demonstrates the long tradition of wine production in this region of low hills and river valleys. The intricate pattern of vineyards, farms, villages and small towns, with their historic networks of deep wine cellars, illustrates every facet of the production of the famous Tokaj wines, the quality and management of which have been strictly regulated for nearly three centuries. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1063