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This past Saturday we, along with half the city of Moscow it seemed, took in the fall colours at Tsaritsino Park. It’s usually a nice quiet place where one can escape the hustle and bustle of fast-paced, metropolitan life. After mentioning our visits to a few friends and colleagues, I was surprised by how many of them haven’t been to the park and museum since its renovation. It’s well worth the visit, particularly this time of year.

Here are a few photos to spark your curiosity:

Yellow leaves.

More fiery autumn leaves.

Historically speaking, the area is home to the former Bogorodskoye Estate, which belonged to Tsarina Irina (sister of Boris Gudonov) in the 16th century. The estate was acquired by Catherine the Great in 1775 and renamed in her honour. For the next 20 years, architects built and rebuilt a palace for the tsarina, but it was never completed.

In 2001, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov signed a bill that would provide a great deal of money for the restoration and completion of the Tsaritsino Palace. It was finished a few years ago and it looks spectacular. There’s a history museum on the premises and one can frequently catch concerts on the ‘bread house’.

If museums aren’t your thing, you can enjoy the fresh air by walking around the forest and ponds.

A couple relaxes near the ponds.

Two elderly men playing chess on a park bench.

The sign reads: ‘No walking on the grass or archaeological monuments’, but the families were treating it like a playground.

To get there, go to metro station Tsaritsino on the southern end of the green line. For more info about the park, see this unofficial website (in Russian).

UPDATE: Here’s a video of the new musical fountain which was installed this summer.

The schedule lately has not allowed for much more than sporadic ‘link-blogging’ and Flickr photos, despite an ever-growing backlog of ideas in the blog.txt file on my desktop. To be honest, if the desire were there I’d find the time; looking back at the history of this site, I think the most interesting articles have been scribed during my busiest periods of multiple employment, student exams, and sleep deprivation.

We have an extra day off here for a Russian national holiday, so I’ll be playing catch up on the MGU project I’m working on. Katya and I are also planning the first rollerblading outing of the year; hopefully we won’t see any rain.

For now, here’s another recent picture from my Flickr stream:

On that note, I’ll mention that I’m participating in 24 Hours of Flickr, an upcoming global community event with the purpose of chronicling May 5th in photographs and posting them to Flickr with the stories behind the pictures. That day promises to be interesting as there’s a Cinco de mayo party on the agenda.

Users will also submit their best photo from that day to the 24 Hours of Flickr group. The creme of the crop will be published in a book later this year and featured at various Yahoo/Flickr events.

Far too busy to post anything meaningful, but isn’t that the story of this blog as of the last year? Still, better to be very occupied than to be bored to death.

Here’s a photo to tide us over for now:

That’s one of the B trolley-buses that circles the Moscow Garden Ring Road. It was such a beautiful, sunny Saturday that the colours turned out just right.

We were shopping downtown on Sunday evening and happened to catch a beautiful sunset. The sky was a brilliant gradient of pinks, oranges, and blues. This picture doesn’t do it fair justice, but at least you get the idea.

The past year has been a decent one for me with respect to my skills as a photographer. I’m confident that I have made strides forward and improved my techniques. Much of that would not have been possible without Katya’s creative collaboration and encouragement; at the risk of sounding cliche, she’s opened my world to see things from all sorts of new perspectives.

I’m thrilled to say that in 2006 I was contacted by several publishers seeking to buy rights to publish some of my photos. This was both a first and a surprise for me, as I’ve never sought that. Keep your eyes peeled for the following:

- A photo I took of Vladimir Lenin’s souped-up Rolls Royce Silver Ghost with snow treads was featured in an article in Russian AvtoMir (CarWorld) Magazine (January 6, 2007 issue).

- The Russian Orthodox Easter Procession (Krestny Khod) photograph that I took from my balcony last April will be published by BullFinch Press in a book on holiday traditions around the world. It will go to press in October, more details to come.

One of my goals for 2007 is to sell a few more photos. Since these photo editors came knocking at my door, I figure that if I set such a goal before me, do some research, and get my photos circulated, I should at least be able to sell more stock photos than in 2006.

Anyone out there have experience or helpful articles on getting started in stock photography as a hobby?

Global Voices asked to use my perekhod photo in their article, (In)Accessibility in Moscow. Read the article.

In case you haven’t been following along thus far, Katya and I have set out on a mission to photograph the numbers 0-100. It’s proved to be a lot of fun and somewhat of a challenge. Here are the criteria:

• The number must be prominent in the photo.
• It must stand alone and not be surrounded by other numbers or letters, unless they are significantly smaller or less noticeable.
• Each photograph must be unique; No multiple denominations of speed limits, etc.
• Numbers needn’t be collected in sequence.

Head over to the Flickr set to catch up on our progress. Right now we’re at 36 photos; we still have a ways to go. Have you ever done any similar fun photo collections? We’re thinking of starting the Russian alphabet because we saw an awesomely unique ? yesterday while walking around Smolenskaya Ploschad.