History and Art Museum

Kirkorov clashes with TV crew

Pop singer Filipp Kirkorov found himself in the midst of a new scandal last week, when journalists of the national channel NTV filed a complaint accusing the singer of verbally insulting them and breaking a $25,000 video camera, Gazeta.ru reported. The incident took place when Kirkorov was approached by the NTV crew after a performance at the Roll-Hall entertainment centre in Moscow and was asked "provocative" questions, as he put it, regarding a pending lawsuit filed against Kirkorov by Yury Larionov, deputy general director of the Tatar State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Kazan. Larionov is pressing charges against Kirkorov for an alleged verbal assault during the singer's show at the theatre last March. Kirkorov's spokesperson said the TV journalists confronted the singer "in an aggressive way", provoking his reaction, while an anonymous witness quoted by Gazeta.ru said the reporters' behaviour was polite. A day later, Kirkorov's spokesperson said NTV's complaint had been withdrawn, while the TV station declined to comment, RIA Novosti reported.

Eurovision winner accused of plagiarism

Eurovision Song Contest winner Alexander Rybak is facing copycat accusations. A controversy involving Rybak, a Norwegian citizen born in Minsk, arose when TV host Vladimir Molchanov claimed there was a suspicious similarity between one of the songs performed by Rybak and one written by his father, Soviet composer Kirill Molchanov, shoowbiz.ru reported. According to the report, the song "Abandoned", which was not included in the Russian version of Rybak's debut album "Fairytales" but is on the album in some other countries, sounds very much like Kirill Molchanov's "Zhuravlinaya Pesnya" ("Crane Song") from the 1968 movie "Dozhivyom do Ponedelnika" ("We'll Live Till Monday"). Molchanov Jr. said he had been approached by someone interested in the rights to this song, but never granted rights to perform it to anyone.

Ancient towns and rural dreams (6,164)

Phoebe Taplin

An estimated quarter of a million visitors a year make their way to Leo Tolstoy's country estate at Yasnaya Polyana, 200 kilometres south of Moscow. Far fewer people stop off and enjoy the intervening towns and villages - and those who don't are missing out. There are art galleries, armouries and nature reserves waiting to be discovered in and around ancient Serpukhov, with its ruined Kremlin, and bustling Tula, home of the samovar and gingerbread factories.

The painter Vasily Polenov built his dream house - half studio, half abbey - on the banks of the wide river Oka and wrote to Ivan Tsvetayev (father of the poet Marina Tsvetayeva): "The light is wondrous; I've been dreaming of it all my life and now I can hardly believe this has come true."

Serpukhov

One hundred kilometres south of Moscow, the town of Serpukhov has stood on the Nara River since medieval times. Under Prince Vladimir the Bold, whose statue stands near the railway station, the people of Serpukhov helped to defeat the Golden Horde at the battle of Kulikovo in 1380. The streets are lined with wooden houses, stone mansions and picturesque churches. The Vysotsky Monastery at the south end of the old town gets its name from the tall bank above the river on which it was built. At the other end of town, the white walls of the kremlin were raided to provide stone for the Moscow metro. The kremlin is now a green hill, crowned and surrounded by churches.

History and Art Museum

In a rose pink mansion on Ulitsa Chekhova, Serpukhov's art gallery (open Tue.-Sun. 10 am-5 pm) is one of the finest in the Moscow area. The house belonged to Anna Marayeva, a textile merchant's widow, and the rooms are preserved in all their turn-of-the-century splendour. The architect was Roman Klein, who built the Pushkin Fine Art Museum in Moscow. Marayeva also commissioned the red brick Old Believer's church next door. The museum's collection includes dappled forests by Shishkin and lonely bogatyrs by Vasnetsov. Illarion Pryanishnikov's "Waiting for the Best Man" is a brilliantly composed conversation piece in which the plump, relaxed matchmaker in red silk contrasts with the nervous bride.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 880