I visited Russia for the first time in the mid seventies and several times in the last few years. On one recent visit, which was to Moscow in April 1998, I wrote a journal. It was a time of great upheaval, the seasons were changing rapidly from winter to summer and a new young Prime Minister had just been appointed by Boris Yeltsin in an attempt to instigate major economic reforms. It was springtime and a golden opportunity to explore the Russian capital in this climate of fresh hope. The following articles were the outcome: Moscow Journey (part 1) and Moscow Journey (part 2). A photographic essay on Moscow can be found in Seeker Magazine: Images of Moscow.
Four months earlier, in late November-December 1997 I was in both St. Petersburg and Moscow at the start of the Russian winter. Photographs that I took on this occasion can be found in Russian Winter (under construction!).
In July 1975 I first spent time in Leningrad, now renamed St. Petersburg, while attending an International Botanical Congress and I took many photographs. It was the time of the famous White Nights where people stay awake into the early hours and celebrate the short ecstatic summer. En route, I also had a fleeting visit to Moscow. Photographs of that time are to be found in Leningrad and Moscow: 25 Years Ago (under construction!).
Finally, my recent visits to Russia have brought me in to touch with their great art. Perhaps, nowhere else can you capture the true feeling for a nation and its people than in their art and literature. The impressionist period in Russia was a time of phenomenal creativity, paralleling that occurring in France. Emerging from this period of artistic sophistication, and coinciding with the dramatic social and political upheavals taking place during the Revolution, new experimental art forms arose. In fact in the early part of the 20th century, Russian painting became among the most avant-garde in the world. It produced artists such as Chagall, Malevich and Kandinsky. Here is my Gallery of Russian Art .