Bateman’s is a 17th-century house located in Burwash, East Sussex. It was a home of Rudyard Kipling from 1902 until his death in 1936.
Etchingham is a village in East Sussex and located on the way to Burwash and Bateman’s.
A bronze statue of Rudyard Kipling is unveiled in Burwash. It shows him seated on a bench with a book called “Just so”. This statue celebrates the work of Kipling and also encourages more visitors of Bateman’s to come into the wonderful village of Burwash itself.
Bateman’s is a beautiful old sandstone house surrounded by Sussex countryside. It was bought by Rudyard Kipling and his wife who fell in love with the house at first sight, it became a family home.
The rooms are much as he left them: artifacts from his Eastern adventures, a book lined study, his Nobel prize certificate for literature, a phonograph playing music.
An amazing garden with an orchard, herb garden, pond and wildflower meadow surrounds the house.
Hastings is a town in East Sussex, England, most famous for the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This town is home to the largest beach-launched fleet in Europe, the ruins of the first castle in England to be built by Willian the Conqueror.
Hastings beach Rock-a-Nore.
Hastings Old Town is a charming mix of beautiful houses, narrow streets, museums, fish market.
Hastings Castle located on a cliff top of the West Hill is a great part of English history from 1066 of modern days. The savage storms of the 13th century brought chaos to Hastings, so the large parts of the castle fell into the sea.
Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve.
Hastings Beach.
Rye
Rye, in East Sussex, is one of England’s most beautiful medieval towns, each street of it has a unique style. If you wander along the Mermaid, Watchbell streets and Church Square you will come across houses declaring they were rebuilt and refurbished in 1450.
Rye Harbour is an amazing place for nature lovers and has a rare coastal landscape. This red roofed hut, also known as Gran’s Hut, is one of the most photographed things. It looks simple but eye-catching. The date it was first built is unknown, but was in use from the early 1900’s to store fishing and shrimping equipment.
Battle
The town of Battle is located in the south east of England, best known for being the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Each street of this town or even a small corner or a shop has its own unique style and beauty.
Battle museum of local history is set in walled gardens of Battle’s Almonry. This charity-based and independent museum is solely run by volunteers. The museum has a collection covering 125 million years of history in Battle.
Battle Abbey is a partially ruined abbey which was built on the site of the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror and Normans as a penance of killing so many people during their conquest of England. The Abbey is dedicated to St.Martin. Its church was finished in about 1094.
Battlefield is now a peaceful place with the beautiful nature and sheep everywhere.
Bexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill is an ancient seaside town located in the East Sussex.
“And tell me grey seal How does it feel To be so wise To see through eyes That only see what’s real Tell me grey seal” (c) Elton John, Bernie Taupin
Maslenitsa, also known as a Pancake week, is an ancient sun-festival. After a long winter people are in a festive mood and happy to celebrate the end of the cold season. The celebration has been getting more popular in recent years and now there is a Maslenitsa event on practically every street in Moscow. More than 50 pancake stalls appeared in the city center. Public spaces are decorated with straw, ice sculptures, Russian toythemed carousels. There are also many traditional Russian performances everywhere in the streets!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in London. Beautiful sparkling lights have been switched almost on every street.
Christmas is officially begun in Leicester square as city’s festive and cozy market offering everything from gifts to tasty treats. It’s easy to feel Christmas and New Year mood while visiting this nice market. By the way, William Shakespeare is celebrating Christmas with everyone else there!
Carnaby street looks like exotic tropical garden this year!
Covent Garden market.
House of MinaLima celebrates Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima graphic works for Harry Potter franchise as well as their own creations. It is a combination of a beautiful and interesting gallery and store which looks so cozy and Christmassy nowadays.
Skating rink at the Tower of London looks very impressive. It is located exactly where a moat used to be centuries ago!
Tower Bridge.
Another great and unusual place for a skating rink! This is Sommerset House, a large and magnificent Neoclassical building which is home for arts and learning and a popular film location.
Beautiful streets of London.
Doors of London.
Colorful and crowded Portobello market with a great amount of vintage shops. The most famous one is Alice’s or Mr.Gruber’s if you like Paddington Bear movies. 😊
Cute Paddington Bear is sitting on the railway platform under the large station clock where Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met him! 🐻😊
There are also many P.B. installations around the city, which are dedicated to the new movie out in November! For example, in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
And in front of the O2 arena.
The final picture shows true London classics: Trafalgar square which is surrounded by a lot of red buses.
Welcome to the traditional Moscow festival called Golden Autumn! The main event of the festival was a huge gastronomic fair which took place in the different parts of the city. The main venues of the festival included Manege, Revolution Square and Kuznetskiy Most street.
Beautiful and colorful installations from pumpkins, other vegetables and hay appeared on Manege Square. It was very unusual to see a combination of vegetables and historical buildings, museums near Red Square and by the Kremlin Walls. About 25’000 pumpkins were used to decorate Moscow!
But the most surprising part was to see an installation “Artificial wave” for flowboarding which was built just in front of Kremlin Walls.
A very cozy market took place on the Revolution square. Farms from 40 Russian regions presented their products, including meat, cheese, fish, fruits and vegetables. A market was decorated nicely too.
Even gloomy and rainy weather could not ruin the impressions. Especially when you see a piano just in the middle of the square 😊
Kuznetskiy Most street was decorated as a fish market with lighthouses.
Autumn is a beautiful season itself but when the whole city is full of pumpkins it becomes even more spectacular!
Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. I think it is necessary to leave all famous tourist places and see different ethnic and cultural corners of the city. The architecture, restaurants, museums of every neighborhood are different. I was lucky to explore the city with my friend and my photography mentor Paul Natkin who knows all the greatest places in Chicago! Many thanks to Paul for all the amazing moments and for making that trip unforgettable!
Chicago is known as a home of the blues. So many places here are connected with the blues history. For example, you can visit Muddy Waters house where he lived and played blues from 1954 to 1974. Actually it is only possible to see the house from outside not entering the building. That Red X on the house means that building is unsafe to enter. It is really sad and disappointing that the house of an international music icon was just left to deteriorate. But hopefully someone can buy this historical house and turn it to a museum dedicated to Muddy Waters great heritage.
Pilsen neighborhood is one of the most recognizable and well known places in the city of Chicago. It is easy to find a piece of public art adorning a façade in nearly every block. The neighborhood looks very colorful but what is more important, every piece of art has its own deep meaning mostly connected with serious political or ethnic problems.
Here is mural which impressed me the most. It is honoring an aspiring musician and an artist Jeff Macdonaldo Jr. who was killed at the age of 19 as a victim of mistaken identity. He had never been in a gang, he was just getting back from his barber and someone opened a fire. The mural was his friends’ idea, he was an inspiration for them and did many good things so they wanted to give back to his family, helping his parents to get through the worst times. The mural dedicated to peace and tolerance, and called Safe places. It looks really beautiful. World could be a much better place if people have more opportunities to develop their art skills instead of hating each other for some unknown reasons.
There is also a great museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen neighborhood. It is responsible for presenting exhibitions of artistic, cultural and educational value, which demonstrates the unique depth of Mexican art and history. It was really amazing to see many kids visiting museum with their parents. Art is a bridge between communities and it helps to expand minds, which is really necessary for the world we are living in nowadays.
The DuSable Museum of African American history is dedicated to study and conversation of African American history and culture. It is one of the oldest museums dedicated to this topic in the United States. It was founded in 1961 and has been expanding ever since. The museum has a collection of more than15’000 artifacts, books, photographs, paintings, art objects and memorabilia. DuSable museum became a large part of black social activism, hosting festivals, political and community events.
The exhibitions there are really great and very informative. Actually some parts of exhibitions dedicated to slavery and further segregation horrified me. Of course, everyone knows those terrible moments and events in the American history but seeing all those pictures and artefacts was still very difficult. I can never understand how it is possible to divide people by the color of their skin or their nationality. The saddest part of all this is to realize that we still face the same problems nowadays. The technologies are developing every day, but seems that some people’s minds just stuck with their stereotypes forever.
Paul Natkin enjoying some art while I’m working as paparazzi 🙂
The museum is surrounded by very beautiful park where we met a group of nice kids who were just running around and enjoying nice summer day. We also met some of their parents and a teacher who told us that those kids were studying history and other subjects by exploring art objects, paintings etc which made the studying process much more interesting. It is great that some organizations are volunteering to help kids to get better future, enter good colleges etc. And it was really heartwarming to see black and white kids playing together not knowing anything about those stupid stereotypes. Hope they will be smart enough to overcome all stereotypes in the future.
I also tried Southern-style soul food for the first time which was really delicious! Pearl’s Place is located in Bronzeville and offers a unique experience combining tasty home-style food with the great service. With photographs of African American jazz legends covering the walls inside and outside the restaurant, you are reminded of Bronzeville’s complex and powerful history.
The Museum of Science and Industry was another great and interesting experience! The main mission of the museum is to build public understanding of science, show how science impacts our society and inspire everyone to think critically about world around us. Exhibitions that cover many important topics are very spectacular and interesting for adults and kids.
Chicago is a great city and it is easy to find something that you enjoy there. If you are interested in photography, “The Photographer’s Curator: Hugh Edwards at the Art Institute of Chicago” exhibition is a must see. It is really an amazing experience which makes you understand what the real outstanding photography is. The exhibition is bringing together nearly 200 photographs by more than 70 artists whose works are held in the permanent collection. Some pictures from the collection are available here: http://media.artic.edu/edwards/.
Here are some more pictures (http://robertnatkin.net/) which are really mind blowing and should be presented on any exhibition dedicated to photography and history. It is easy to spend all day looking at those pictures, which are different from each other, but all of them are really beautiful, meaningful and very inspiring!
London is an amazingly beautiful city with so many historical sights! It can’t be boring to come back there again and again and explore new hidden places or cozy streets or even the most famous sights.
Jimi Hendrix lived at this flat on the upper floors of 23 Brook Street while he was staying in London in 1968-69. Now it is opened as a museum. The bedroom was decorated by Jimi in his own style including curtains, ornaments and many other things. It took me quite a lot of time to notice all the small details that make this flat look really specific. Another room at the museum has a wall of album covers, and an index of the music played on the Bang & Olufsen turntable.
