The 2025 badge contest ended in a tie. I was alternating the badge but I kept losing track. You’re free to use the combined badge or either Teagan’s or Ritva’s individual badge.
I am continuing our tour of the Cathedral of Learning Nationality Rooms this week, and we’re stepping virtually across the hall. The Russian room is directly across from the Syria-Lebanon room we visited last week. There’s also a bit of a personal connection. Many Russian immigrants, Orthodox Christians and Jews alike, came to Pittsburgh for the economic opportunities and, like my Syrian ancestors, to escape religious persecution. In fact, during the early 20th century before my grandfather and three other men built their community’s first church, they attended services at a Russian Orthodox church in a neighboring community. Immigrants to America were bonded by heritage, culture and religion. Pittsburgh, with its vast industrial base, attracted people with the best of these qualities.
Regarding today’s gallery, I have to confess, most of the photos are not mine. The day we toured the Nationality Rooms, the Russian Room was undergoing maintenance. We opened the door to the sight, sound and dust of a man sanding the floor. He let us look around and take a couple pictures, but the room was mostly empty. The photos in the gallery are a mix of images from the University’s description page for the room, and still images lifted from a video prepared by the University.
The Russian Room was designed by Dr. Andrey Avinoff, a longtime curator of the Carnegie Institute’s Natural History Museum. Avinoff gathered designs to show an old character to the region, with reproduced carvings from churches and creatures to illustrate regions or folktales. These collected designs point to a wide swath of area, including areas in Eastern Europe occupied with other ethnic groups, such as Rusyns, and in ancient times by such people as the Scythians. For example, the chair backs were copied from woodwork in a Russian Orthodox Church while the crest rails are patterned after the traditional folk designs.
The vastness of the area is hinted at in the rising sun above the door. The vishikva, or tapestry, was designed by Avinoff and shows St. George slaying a serpent. The reliefs in the corners of the ceiling represent the four seasons—a flower bud for spring, sunflowers for summer, grapes at harvest for autumn and a pine cone for winter.
University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Andrey Avinoff worked as a curator of butterfly and insect collections at the Carnegie Museum (which is located across the street from the Cathedral of Learning). His sister donated the icon in the corner on the right of the tapestry. Items, including a set of nesting dolls, in the small corner cabinet on the left were donated by Dmitry Medvedev the Russian head of state attending a G20 meeting in 2009. At the time, he was the only head of state to visit the room representing his country.
The pictures in the gallery are many different sizes and are cropped (by WordPress) to fit. To see them correctly, click on any one of them and view them in a slide show.
One more note: I have an appointment this morning that will keep me away from the Internet. I’ll catch up at some point before the challenge ends on Saturday.
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