Alexandra Fursova

The construction of the resort began long before the decision was made to hold the Winter Olympics in Sochi. In 2003, Interros created a company for the development of the Rosa Khutor ski resort in the area of the village of Estosadok. In April 2013, it became known that MMC Norilsk Nickel would invest $336 million in the ski resort and Olympic Village in exchange for a share in the projects[6][7].

In December 2010, 4 lifts were put into operation: "Olympia" (560m - 1150m above sea level), "Protected Forest" (1150-1340m), "Caucasian Express" (1340-2320m), six-chair lift "Wolf Rock" (940-1360 m above sea level). The total length of the ski slopes was 38 km, including the Olympic - 9 km. About 50 hectares of ski slopes were equipped with an artificial snowmaking system.[5]. In the future, the length of the Olympic ski slopes was 20 km[8], and the total length of all trails was 102 km.

The total volume of investments in Rosa Khutor amounted to 69 billion rubles, of which 55.7 billion was a credit line

First edition cover

Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works,[4] the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found.[5] The book's tagline explains the title as "the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns": the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.

he museum's art collection includes more than 350 thousand works, including works by Durer, Cranach, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo, works by French Impressionists.

The museum's art gallery opened in 1924, but the first original paintings were donated to the museum by the Russian consul in Trieste, M. S. Shchekin, back in 1910. After 1924, the systematic receipt of paintings from requisitioned private collections, previously owned by the noble families of the Yusupovs, Shuvalov, as well as major Moscow entrepreneurs, including Sergei Tretyakov, Gengih Brokar, Dmitry Shchukin, began. The works of Western European artists stored in the Rumyantsev Museum were transferred to the museum, the receipts from the State Hermitage Museum were of particular importance. The final composition of the art gallery was determined in 1948, when the Museum of New Western Art was liquidated, which housed a collection of French artists of the second half of the XIX - early XX century from the former private collections of Sergei

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Russian: Музей изобразительных искусств имени А. С. Пушкина, abbreviated as Russian: ГМИИ) is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Casa Batlló

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect who has become internationally recognised as one of the most prodigious experts in his discipline, as well as one of the top exponents of modernism. His exceptional ground-breaking genius made him the inventor of a unique, personal and incomparable architectural language that defies classification.

Childhood of Antoni Gaudí

Antoni Gaudí was born on the 25th of June 1852 in Reus, according to some biographers, although others claim that he was born in Riudoms, a small village near Reus where his family spent their summers. He came from a family of boilermakers, a fact that allowed the young Gaudí to acquire a special skill for working with space and volume as he helped his father and grandfather in the family workshop. His talent for designing spaces and transforming materials grew and prospered until it eventually metamorphosed into a veritable genius for three-dimensional creation.

As a child, Gaudí’s health was delicate, which meant that he was obliged to spend long periods of time resting at the summer house in Riudoms. There, he passed many an hour contemplating and storing up in his mind the secrets of nature, which he thought of as his supreme mistress and ultimate teacher of the highest knowledge, being the crowning achievement of the Creator.

As such, Antoni Gaudí found the essence and the meaning of architecture by following the very patterns of nature and by always respecting its laws.He did not copy it, but rather traced its course through a process of cooperation, and in that context he created the most beautiful, sustainable and effective work possible through his architecture. Gaudí himself once said: “originality consists of going back to the origins.”

Architectural studies

In 1870 he moved to Barcelona to pursue his academic career in architecture, at the same time working at various jobs to enable him to pay for his studies. He was an inconsistent student, but he was already showing some evidence of brilliance that opened doors for him, allowing him to collaborate with some of his professors. When he completed his studies at the School of Architecture in 1878 the Director, Elies Rogent, declared: “I do not know if we have awarded this degree to a madman or to a genius; only time will tell.” Undeniably, however, the young architect’s ideas were not a mere repetition of things that had already been done up to that time, nor could anybody receive them with indifference.

During his mature period, masterpieces followed one after another: the Bellesguard Tower, Park Güell, the restoration of Mallorca Cathedral, the church on the Güell Estate, Casa Batlló, La Pedrera, and lastly, the Church of the Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Família

Surprisingly, the magnificence of Antoni Gaudí’s architecture coincided, as the result of a personal decision by the architect, with a progressive withdrawal by the man himself. Gaudí, who in his youth had frequented theatres, concerts and tertulias (social gatherings), went from being a young dandy with gourmet tastes to neglecting his personal appearance, eating frugally and distancing himself from social life, while simultaneously devoting himself ever more fervently to a religious and mystical sentiment.

Gaudí died on the 10th of June 1926 after being knocked down by a tram while making his way, as he did every evening, to the Sagrada Família from the Church of Sant Felip Neri. After being struck he lost consciousness, and nobody suspected that this dishevelled old man who was not carrying any identity papers was the famous architect. He was taken to the Santa Cruz Hospital, where he was later recognised by the Priest of the Sagrada Família. He was buried two days later in that very church, following a funeral attended by throngs of people: most of the citizens of Barcelona came out to bid a final farewell to the most universal architect that the city had ever known

Pavel Tretyakov started collecting art in the middle of 1850. The founding year of the Tretyakov Gallery is considered to be 1856, when Tretyakov purchased two paintings of Russian artists: Temptation by Nikolay Shilder and Skirmish with Finnish Smugglers by Vasily Khudyakov, although earlier, in 1854–1855, he had bought 11 drawings and nine pictures by Dutch Old Masters. In 1867 the Moscow City Gallery of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov was opened. The gallery's collection consisted of 1,276 paintings, 471 sculptures and 10 drawings by Russian artists, as well as 84 paintings by foreign masters.

In August 1892 Tretyakov presented his art gallery to the city of Moscow as a gift.[5] In the collection at this time, there were 1,287 paintings and 518 graphic works of the Russian school, 75 paintings and eight drawings of European schools, 15 sculptures and a collection of icons. The official opening of the museum called the Moscow City Gallery of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov took place on 15 August 1893.

The gallery was located in a mansion that the Tretyakov family had purchased in 1851. As the Tretyakov collection of art grew, the residential part of the mansion filled with art and it became necessary to make additions to the mansion in order to store and display the works of art. Additions were made in 1873, 1882, 1885, 1892 and 1902–1904, when there was the famous façade, designed in 1900–1903 by architect V. Bashkirov from the drawings of the artist Viktor Vasnetsov. Construction of the façade was managed by the architect A. M. Kalmykov.

In early 1913, the Moscow City Duma elected Igor Grabar as a trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery.

On 3 June 1918 the Tretyakov Gallery was declared owned by the Russian Federated Soviet Republic and was named the State Tretyakov Gallery. Igor Grabar was again appointed director of the museum. With Grabar's active participation in the same year, the State Museum Fund was created, which up until 1927 remained one of the most important sources of replenishment of the gallery's collection.

In 1926 architect and academician Alexey Shchusev became the director of the gallery. In the following year the gallery acquired the neighboring house on Maly Tolmachevsky Lane (the house was the former home of the merchant Sokolikov). After restructuring in 1928, it housed the gallery's administration, academic departments, library, manuscripts department, and funds and graphics staffs. In 1985–1994, an administrative building was built from the design of architect A. L. Bernstein with two floors and height equal to that of the exposition halls.

In 1928 serious renovations were made to the gallery to provide heating and ventilation. In 1929 electricity was installed.

In 1929 the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi was closed, and in 1932 the building was given to the gallery and became a storage facility for paintings and sculptures. Later, the church was connected to the exposition halls and a top floor was built which was specially designed for exhibiting a painting by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov,The Appearance of Christ Before the People (1837–1857). A transition space was built between rooms located on either side of the main staircase. This ensured the continuity of the view of exposure. The gallery began to develop a new concept of accommodating exhibits.

In 1936, a new two floor building was constructed which is located on the north side of the main building – it is known as the Schusevsky building. These halls were first used for exhibitions, and since 1940 have been included in the main route of exposure.

From the first days of the Great War, the gallery's personnel began dismantling the exhibition, as well as those of other museums in Moscow, in preparation for evacuating during wartime. Paintings were rolled on wooden shafts, covered with tissue paper, placed in boxes, and sheathed with waterproof material. In the middle of the summer of 1941 a train of 17 wagons traveled from Moscow and brought the collection to Novosibirsk. The gallery was not reopened in Moscow until 17 May 1945, upon the conclusion of the Great War.

In 1956, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Alexander Ivanov Hall was completed.

From 1980 to 1992, the director of the Tretyakov Gallery was Y. K. Korolev. Because of the increased number of visitors, Korolev was actively engaged in expanding the area of exposition. In 1983, construction work began to expand the gallery. In 1985 the Depository, a repository of works of art and restoration workshops, was commissioned. In 1986 renovations began on the main building of the Tretyakov Gallery. The architects I. M. Vinogradsky, G. V. Astafev, B. A. Klimov and others were retained to perform this project. In 1989, on the south side of the main building, a new building was designed and constructed to house a conference hall, a computer and information center, children's studio and exhibition halls. The building was named the "Corps of Engineers", because it housed engineering systems and services.

From 1986 to 1995, the Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane was closed to visitors to accommodate a major renovation project to the building. At the time, the only museum in the exhibition area of this decade was the building on the Crimean Val, 10, which in 1985 was merged with the Tretyakov Gallery.