Away from keyboard #2. A nine-ray star as the beginning of Rostov-on-Don’ story

Hello my Steemit friends!

Let me guess, you enjoyed my story about the River Don and have decided to read the second part which is about the great city of Rostov that stays on the River Don? Well, you are very welcome here again!
If you didn’t read the first part and you just accidentally opened this one, don’t walk away, stay with me for a minute and I will show you the surroundings :)

So, a several days ago we had a nice boat trip along the River Don but now it’s time to get back to the shore.
As a big city with more than a million people living here it is also a center of Rostov region and the Southern Federal District… not like you need to know all this complicated system of territorial names around… I am just trying to say that Rostov is important place and it has lots of beautiful buildings, sculptures, fountains and places to rest, have fun and get smarter or more cultural.

There are many ways of a city’s founding. They can be the small villages at first and then grow to the big populous places because people like living here and keep coming for settling. City can appear from the castle or ford that has been build for protection of surrounding territory. Rostov-on-Don is a city that has started its life… as a custom house. In 1749, December 15 Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, singed an edict for establishing the Temernik custom house. Here you can see a monument dedicated to this event.

During the next few months a pier, warehouse, quarantine and garrison barracks have been build here as well. The main traders were coming from Greece, Turkey and Armenia. They delivered silk and paper fabrics, metal products, incense and fruits. They were taking iron, linen, animal skins and furs, butter, caviar, bread back in their own countries.
Ten years later, in order to protect growing trading place a building of a fortress has started. On the next picture you can see a monument that shows the planning discussion and me – helping with advice :)

As you can see, they have decided to build this fortress in a very interesting form of a nine-ray star. It has a circumference of 3.5 km.

I think it could be bigger and to have less rays… or no rays at all but they didn’t listen to me. Do you see my face? I am disappointed!

People who were building Rostov-on-Done over this all years gave been using different architectural designs. There are many buildings that have lots of details on the walls, such as Masalitina’s house…

…or City Council building. According to Wikipedia, this style is called eclecticism. It is a nineteenth and twentieth-century architectural style in which a single piece of work incorporates a mixture of elements from previous historical styles to create something that is new and original. In architecture and interior design, these elements may include structural features, furniture, decorative motives, distinct historical ornament, traditional cultural motifs or styles from other countries, with the mixture usually chosen based on its suitability to the project and overall aesthetic value.

This is a building of the Rostov State Pedagogical University. It is made in a modern style which is based upon newer technologies of building, there are lots of glass, steel and reinforced concrete used.

And there are also buildings made in a style of soviet constructivism. It is the avant-garde direction in the visual arts, architecture, photography and arts and crafts, which originated in the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s in the USSR. Architecture of this style is characterized by rigor, geometrism, laconic forms and monolithic appearance. The example of such style is Rostov State Drama Theater.

There is also a bonus on this picture – a piece of work of the Russian machine-building industry – Lada Samara (I believe it’s the right name for this model… if I am wrong then it’s a Russian car that looks a lot like Lada Samara) :)
This place behind me is the Rostov State Musical Theater. It is one of the biggest musical theaters in Southern Russia.

This piece of building is a Rostov State Philharmonic and a monument in front of it.

I was trying to find some information about this player. It could be Orpheus playing his harp. And I could remind you a beautiful but tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice’s love… But among the all information about the Philharmonic which includes names of the leaders for the last hundreds of years (ok, not that long but from 1935 when it was established), names and numbers of music collectives, how many concerts they had, the amount of seats for visitors and even the exact size of the building (6414,7 square meters) I could not find anything about this guy on the monument… I quees, we, Russians, are just not very romantic people… At least those of us who work in a theater’s mass media offices.
Well, I pretended that I am a listener of his music.
After all, if there is a player there always should be a listener.

There are also two more monuments I wanted to show to you. Both of them dedicated to people who have been liberating Rostov-on-Don. The first of them is a symbol of Civil war heroes.

As you might heard Russia had very big Civil war in the beginning of the last century. It was a result of the big crisis in this country that became even worse because of the First World War.

We call sides of this Civil war ‘red’ and ‘white’. Red once supported the Bolsheviks, white ones – the king (or the tsar). Red ones won and have created USSR. So this monument is dedicated to the red army who moved white ones from the city.

The second monument is dedicated to the liberation of Rostov-on-Don from the fascist invaders during the Second World War.

This Stela has been created in 1983. It is 72 meters tall and it has a 100(!)-tons construction on the very top, that symbolize the nose of the ship.

One side of this ship has a goddess of victory – Nike on it.

The opposite side is decorated with a copy of the Order of the Patriotic War (it is the name Russians use for that part of the Second World War when USSR joined the fights).

I don't know that is this building but its wall looks very cool!

I also found a nice fountain with a lion sculpture next to it.

Have you get tired from walking around the Rostov-on Don? I am a little :)

Well, I guess we can have a pause for a bit but I will be back with some more pictures and stories about this (and other) places, so follow me if you don’t want to miss them :)
Have a nice day!

You can find the first part of this trip story here!