Today I continue digging my folders to participate a nice 
I really enjoyed and appreciated this idea. So here is my take two.
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2007 - Ladoga skerries, Karelia, Russia
One more image from my annual Karelia sail travels. Ladoga lake and Karelia initially were the land of the ancient Karela tribes, which successfully repelled the "people of the sea" - the Vikings -- and once, during a campaign of 1187, even defeated the Swedish city of Sigtun!
This one was my second time travelling across the Ladoga skerries. We managed to team up with a decent amount of our friends and rented two big sail boats with captains and all touring equipment. Two boats on the picture are aint viking's drakkars... but something close (from my point of view). It was fantastic travel, one of the best I ever experienced (and I found some morels during it, the 1st and the last time in my life!). Ladoga has fantastic sunsets, this is one of them, pretty unusual: combined with a Rainbow!
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2015 - Izborsk, Russia
Located on the north-west of Russia, Izborsk is one of the oldest Russian cities, mentioned in the chronicles of the 9th century along with Smolensk and Polotsk. (Moscow, for your notice, was founded 300+ years later, only in 1147!). It was not until 1510 that it became a part of the Moskovia kingdom (if you consider Moskow is a synonim to Russia... you are wrong, there were many other Russian lands... which were eventually "united" under the Moscow principality (read it as: conquered and swallowed). The thousand years passed were filled with frequent sieges, fires, all that historical-cultural bullshit and of course, nothing remained of the original fortress... but much has been restored. Tourists can impress themselves by the sight how stern and powerful the fortresses of the ancient Slavs looked (as well as simple, white, and small-size temples: not so pompous and no architectural follies, like all what came later). Here one may look at the very ancient stone crosses, they are delightful! (Sorry, I have to limit myself to 3 frames... I will make a separate post one day, I swear!)
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2013 - Abramzevo village, Russia
Abramtsevo village is not a famouse place of intrest on the international scale, tho there are great intresting locations all over the neighbourhood. What you see on the pic, is my personal 1st time getting so close to the horses, hyppodrome, jockeys and all stuff like that. I was truly enchanted!
By chance, on that day I was equipped with wide-angle Sigma 12-24mm lens and my everyday Canon 50-mm 1.4 lens... it gave me a very intresting photo experience, shooting the moving horse objects in such a cool environment. The paddock (or was it arena?) was big, empty, and quite dark, with a solid contrast from the windows... 95% of my pictures went to the trash.... but I was left happy with a few nice ones.
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images taken with Canon 350D +50mm 1.4
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