March 18th Today, I am...

...this incredibly carved old Russian window!

 

So, this is the wooden architecture typical for Russian North. It's one of the most remarkable forms of traditional Russian architecture. Wooden houses in Russia are adorned with decorative trim around the windows and on the roof, porches, and gates, which served to protect house from evil spirits, maintain well-being, attract positive energy, and ensure fertile soil for farming. The functional purpose of a traditional Russian window cover is to fill the gap between the actual window frame and the wall of a wooden house. In the 18^th century, window covers were an integral part of wooden architecture, and craftsmen employed a unique woodcarving technique, which has been preserved in regional traditions to this day. Almost every city in Russia has some fine examples of these covers, but, for some unknown reason, most people tend not to notice them. Unfortunately, wood eventually deteriorates if not properly cared for and combined with the availability of cheaper, modern construction materials like brick, stucco and concrete, these traditional wooden houses are disappearing on a daily basis.

other old Russian windows:

interesting Russian facts (a bit more than usual, sinc Russia is SO BIG!):

* Russians never shake hands over a door way, they believe it leads to arguments
* Russians celebrate New Year 2 times a year (01st of January and Orthodox Stule New Year 14th of January)
* Russia has borders with 15 countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Ukraine
* hospitality plays a significant role in the Russian mentality and  character, once you make friends with Russian people you will surely value this unique feature of the so-called «Wide Russian soul»
* Russia is bigger than Pluto
* Russia was the first to send dog Laika into space
* vodka was introduced in Russia in the period from 1448 to 1474
* Russians usually wear a wedding ring on the right hand
* in Russia men never give an even amount of flowers to a lady, it is a  bad luck and is associated with funerals
* when you have a visitor (friend or anyone else) you HAVE to offer them at least a coffee or tea with cookies, it's rude if you don't feed your guest
* in 1908 the Imperial Russian Olympic Team arrived to London 12 days too late for the games because they were not using the Gregorian calendar yet
* beer was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia until 2013
* foxes are domesticated like dogs by Russian scientists since 1959
* there was a "Beard Tax" in Russia, during Peter the Great's Reign, paid by anyone who had a beard
* there's a museum in Russia that hires cats to protect its artworks against rodents

(facts found at Fact Slides and  Tsar Events)

March 17th Today, I am...

...this golden antique telephone!

Such a beauty! I am actually as hard to get as you'd think, you can purchase me at AliExpress for a very reasonable price! With so many carefully shaped details full of flowers and gentle curves intertwined with leaves. Once again, we can relate this kind of type to the Victorian era (I can't help it, I think it's becoming my favourite period). The beginning of a phone goes a long way back to Alexander Graham Bell, an expert in sound, but not so much in electricity (hence the assistant Thomas Watson). The break-through, actually, happened by accident, while experimenting with two springs connected by a long piece of wire. Bell and Watson were in different rooms, each with a spring, thinking when one of them waggled their spring, the spring at the other end of the wire would waggle too. Instead, the sound of the spring twanging in one room travelled along the wire and could be heard at the spring in the other room. The Queen found the whole process ‘most extraordinary’ and wished to purchase a set of telephones.

other antique telephones:

interesting telephone facts:

* the original telephone greeting was 'Ahoy!', suggested by Alexander Graham Bell and later replaced with 'Hello!', suggested by Thomas Edison
* the very first phone call was: “Watson come here, I want you!" made between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas A. Watson in 1876 in Boston
* the memorable Nokia tone for receiving SMS text messages is Morse code for ‘SMS’
* Bell’s patent for the telephone was modestly titled ‘Improvement in Telegraphy’
* the Italian-American Antonio Meucci invented a telephone in 1871, which was five years before Bell, but was too poor to renew his patent for it
* in the early days, telephone wires were ranked according to how tasty they were to mice and rats
* as a tribute to Alexander Graham Bell when he died in 1922, all the telephones stopped ringing for one full minute (14 million telephones in US and canada were affected)
* Mark Twain was one of the first to have a phone in his home

(facts found at Knowlarity and Express)