Wednesday 17 July 2013

The Russia Moscow



                                                    The Russia Moscow:




Population: 11.98 million (2013)
Area: 2,510 km²
Weather: 12°C, Wind W at 6 km/h, 82% Humidity
Local time: Thursday 7:40 am
Awards: Hero City

Moscow is the capital city and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural and scientific center in Russia and in Eurasia.


   Thus Moscow is the heart of Russian culture and filming on its streets is much more than merely using the city as the background, it never fails to become a character and often a lead. Be it the Academy Award winning "Moscow doesn't believe tears" by Menshov or "Bondarchuk's "War and Peace", Mikhalkov's "The Barber of Siberia"or less internationally known ones by Govorukhin or Todorovski - Moscow is undeniably a star.
NYFA in Moscow representative office is located downtown, in the heart of the city, housed by Higher School of Journalism at Hitrovski sidestreet, 2/8 building 5, within a 5 minute walk from the Red Square.


Many great filmmakers contributed to the glory of Russian cinema. Among them: Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, Dsiga Vertov, Alexander Dovzhenko, Sergei Gerasimov, Grigogi Kozintsev, Mikhail Romm, Mikhail Kalatozov, Leonid Guydie, Sergei Bondartchuk, Marlen Hootsyev, Eldar Ryazanov, Georgi Daneliya, Pyotr Todorovski, Andrei Tarkovski, Vasili Shukshin, Andron Konchalovski, Gleb Panfilov, Kira Muratova, Elem Klimov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Alexander Sokurov, Aleksei German Sen., and many others. During the years crucial to the newly born post-soviet movie industry - in the 90s - a new breed of talented filmmakers appeared with the even more daring following in the 2000s. They are now making history of new Russian cinema. We can name Aleksei Uchitel, Dmitrii Meskhiev, Valeri Todorovski, Aleksei Balabanov, Aleksei German Jr., Andrei Zvyagintsev, Yegor Konchalovski, Fyodor Bondartchuk, Kirill Serebryannikov, Timur Bekmambetov and others.

Moscow is one of the world's theater capitals with over a 100 professional theater companies, most of which are historic ones and played a great role in making of what is called modern theater. Anyone who is at least a little familiar with theater and acting will have to catch one's breath seeing a performance in Stanislavski-founded Moscow Chekhov Art Theater, Vakhtangov Theater, Pushkin Theater, Maly Theater, Lenkom, Sovremennik, Taganka Theater, Satirikon etc.


Its architecture is paradoxical and diverse. One neighborhood can host ghost-like ancient side streets with nothing and no one but stray cats patrolling the sidewalks, as well as over-the-top ever-awake fashion avenues. Historical temples and chapels are facing business centers and malls, XIX century mansions are now located right next to sky-scraping towers.
Founded in the golden days of yore on seven hills, Moscow has turned into what may be called Russian New York. Just like its American twin it never sleeps indeed. Still imperial and spacious, the Moscow of the new millennium has changed its face since the USSR breakup in the early 1990s and turned into a glamorous, eventful cosmopolitan city – multinational, multicultural and sparkling with neon lights and ambitions of some 10 million people inhabiting it.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Minare Pakistan


 Minare Pakistan:





Height: 62 m
Opened: October 31, 1968
Address: Circular Rd, Ravi Town, Lahore, Punjab







Minar-e-Pakistan (Urdu: literally "Tower of Pakistan") is a public monument located in Iqbal Park in Lahore, Pakistan. The tower was constructed during the 1960s on the site where, on 23 March 1940, the All-India Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution, the first official call for a separate homeland for the Muslims living in the South Asia, in accordance with the two nation theory.

The tower reflects a blend of Mughal, Islamic and modern architecture.









Moon Line




                  The Moon Has Lined By Muhammad Saw:

Some Pics Of Moon:





                                           Rocky Belt :






Monday 15 July 2013

Burj Khalifa




Burj Khalifa:




Height: 830 m
Floors: 163
Construction started: September 21, 2004
Opened: January 4, 2010
Address: Emaar Blvd - Dubai - United Arab Emirates


Burj Khalifa, known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m.While it is superlative in every respect, it is the unique design of Burj Khalifa that truly sets it apart. The centrepiece of this new world capital attracted the world's most esteemed designers to an invited design competition.
Ultimately, the honour of designing the world's tallest tower was awarded to the global leader in creating ultra-tall structures, the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) with Adrian Smith FAIA, RIBA, consulting design Partner. The selected design was subject to an extensive peer review program to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the structural systems.


Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep. Burj Khalifa's construction will have used 330,000 m3 (431,600 cu yd) of concrete and 39,000 tonnes (43,000 ST; 38,000 LT) of steel rebar, and construction will have taken 22 million man-hours.
Exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa began in May 2007 and was completed in September 2009. The vast project involved more than 380 skilled engineers and on-site technicians. At the initial stage of installation, the team progressed at the rate of about 20 to 30 panels per day and eventually achieved as many as 175 panels per day.

The tower accomplished a world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade, at a height of 512 metres. The total weight of aluminium used on Burj Khalifa is equivalent to that of five A380 aircraft and the total length of stainless steel bull nose fins is 293 times the height of Eiffel Tower in Paris.
In November, 2007, the highest reinforced concrete corewalls were pumped using 80 MPa concrete from ground level; a vertical height of 601 metres. Smashing the previous pumping record on a building of 470m on the Taipei 101; the world’s second tallest tower and the previous world record for vertical pumping of 532 metres for an extension to the Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant in 1994. The concrete pressure during pumping to this level was nearly 200 bars.
The amount of rebar used for the tower is 31,400 metric tons - laid end to end this would extend over a quarter of the way around the world.
 El Burj Khalifa, conocido durante su construcción como Burj Dubai, es un rascacielos que se encuentra situado en el distrito Downtown Burj Khalifa de la ciudad de Dubái, en Emiratos Árabes Unidos, y es la estructura más alta construida por el ser humano con 828 metros de altura. La construcción comenzó el 21 de septiembre de 2004, y su inauguración oficial fue el 4 de enero de 2010.
El Burj Khalifa es la parte central del desarrollo conocido con el nombre de Downtown Burj Khalifa, un complejo de 2 km2 situado junto a la avenida Jeque Zayed, que atraviesa la ciudad de forma transversal. El arquitecto redactor principal del proyecto es Adrian Smith, que trabajó junto a la firma Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) hasta 2006. La construcción del Burj Khalifa contó con un presupuesto estimado de más de 4.000 millones de dólares, que se incrementó hasta los 20.000 millones para el desarrollo completo del Burj Khalifa.

 In addition to its aesthetic and functional advantages, the spiraling “Y” shaped plan was utilized to shape the structural core of Burj Khalifa.  This design helps to reduce the wind forces on the tower, as well as to keep the structure simple and foster constructability. The structural system can be described as a “buttressed core”, and consists of high performance concrete wall construction. Each of the wings buttress the others via a six-sided central core, or hexagonal hub. This central core provides the torsional resistance of the structure, similar to a closed pipe or axle. Corridor walls extend from the central core to near the end of each wing, terminating in thickened hammer head walls. These corridor walls and hammerhead walls behave similar to the webs and flanges of a beam to resist the wind shears and moments. Perimeter columns and flat plate floor construction complete the system. At mechanical floors, outrigger walls are provided to link the perimeter columns to the interior wall system, allowing the perimeter columns to participate in the lateral load resistance of the structure; hence, all of the vertical concrete is utilized to support both gravity and lateral loads. The result is a tower that is extremely stiff laterally and torsionally. It is also a very efficient structure in that the gravity load resisting system has been utilized so as to maximize its use in resisting lateral loads.



Wednesday 10 July 2013

Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge

Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge
CarriesRail
LocaleChina’s Jiangsu province
Total length164.8 kilometres (102.4 mi)
Construction beginca. 2006
Construction end2010
OpenedJune 30, 2011
Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge.png


The bridge is located on the rail line between Shanghai and Nanjing in East China’s Jiangsu province. It is in the Yangtze River Delta where the geography is characterized by lowland rice paddies, canals, rivers and lakes. The bridge runs roughly parallel to the Yangtze River, about 5 to 50 miles to its south. It passes through the northern edges of population centers (from west to east) beginning in Danyang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and ending in Kunshan. There is a 9-kilometre long (5.6 mi) section over open water across Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou.It was completed in 2010 and opened in 2011. Employing 10,000 people, construction took four years and cost about $8.5 billion.Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge currently holds the Guinness World Record for the longest bridge in the world in any category as of June 2011.






Ko Tapu Island




                            Ko  Tapu  Island  In  Thailand:



They lie in the north-western part of the Phang Nga Bay, some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the main land, amidst a group of a dozen of other islands. Its western part is about 130 metres (430 ft) in diameter whereas the eastern part is about 240 metres (790 ft) long and 140 metres (460 ft) wide and is elongated northwards. The island has a few caves and two sandy beaches, on the south western part and between the twin islands.
Ko Tapu is a limestone rock about 20 metres (66 ft) tall with the diameter increasing from about 4 metres (13 ft) near the water level to about 8 metres (26 ft) at the top. It lies about 40 metres (130 ft) to the west from the northern part of Khao Phing Kan.




The area has a tropical marine climate, which is characterized by frequent rains and stable temperature. According to the data collected between 1961 and 1990, average number of rainy days is 189 per year bringing 3,560.5 millimeters (140.18 in) of precipitation, mostly between May and October. The temperature varies between 23 °C (73 °F) and 32 °C (90 °F) and the average relative humidity is 83%.[13]





Ko Tapu (or Khao Tapu) is a tall islet (peaks at 20 meters above sea level) it is a part of Ao Phang Nga National Park and located off  the shores of Khao Phing Kan (west part of Thailand). In 1974 Ko Tapu was shown in the James Bond movie – “The Man with the Golden Gun”, since it is also known as “James Bond Island“. There is a popular Photoshopped photo going around on the web of Lichtenstein Castle (Germany) on top of  Ko Tapu, (sometimes the photo is claimed to be shot in Ireland and sometime other parts of Europe). scroll all the way down for the image.


Azadi Monument Iran


                                Azadi Monument Iran:


Standing guard like a sentry at the gates of Tehran, Iran, is the impressive Azadi Tower (Freedom Tower), built in 1971 and comprised of eight thousand white marble blocks. A combination of both Islamic and Sassanid architectural styles, the fifty-foot high tower commemorates the formation of the Persian Empire and is an interesting combination of both modern and ancient cultures.

The tower is part of the Azadi cultural complex, located in Tehran's 50,000-square-meter Azadi square, which is made up of a museum and several fountains.



The arch rises from Azadi Square mirroring the Elburz (Alborz) mountain range just north of the city. Though not as wondrous as the snowy peaks of Mount Damavand, it is a 148 foot tall masterpiece of cut marble that marks the entrance to this historic city.

The audio - video hall of the complex which has been designed based on Iran`s geographical map displays the regional characteristics of Iran in so far as cultural, life style, religious and historical monuments are concerned. A mechanical conveyer allows the visitors to visit the hall in total comfort. Some art galleries and halls have been allocated to temporary fairs and exhibitions.


The architect, Hossein Amanat, won a competition to design the monument, which combines elements of Sassanid and Islamic architecture. It is part of the Azadi cultural complex, located in Tehran's Azadi Square in an area of some 50,000 m². There are several fountains around the base of the tower and a museum underground. The iconic Monument des Martyrs in Algiers (built, 1982) shows a strong influence by this monument, in its general design as well as its details.

Built with white marble stone from the Esfahan region, there are eight thousand blocks of stone. The stones were all located and supplied by Ghanbar Rahimi, whose knowledge of the quarries was second to none and who was known as "Soltan-e-Sang-e-Iran". The shape of each of the blocks was calculated by a computer, and programmed to include all the instructions for the building's work. The actual construction of the tower was carried out, and supervised by Iran's finest master stonemason, Ghaffar Davarpanah Varnosfaderani. The main financing was provided by a group of five hundred Iranian industrialists. The inauguration took place on October 16, 1971.

The entrance of the tower is directly underneath the main vault and leads into the Azadi Museum on the basement floor. The black walls, the pure, sober lines, and the proportions of the whole building create an intentionally austere atmosphere. Heavy doors open onto a kind of crypt where lighting is subdued. The shock is immediate. The lighting there seems to issue from the showcases placed here and there, each containing a unique object. Gold and enamel pieces, painted pottery, marble, the warm shades of the miniatures and of the varnished paintings glitter like stars among the black marble walls and in the semi-darkness of the concrete mesh which forms the ceiling of this cave of marvels. There are about fifty pieces selected from among the finest and most precious in Iran. They are in excellent condition and each represents a particular period in the country's history.

The place of honor is occupied by a copy of the Cyrus Cylinder (the original is in the British Museum). A translation of the cuneiform inscription on the cylinder is inscribed in golden letters on the wall of one of the galleries leading to the museum's audio-visual department; opposite, a similar plaque lists the Twelve Points of the White Revolution. Next to the Cyrus Cylinder, a magnificent gold plaque commemorates the presentation of the museum to the Shah by the Mayor of Tehran.

Among the earliest testimonies of Iran's history on display here are square flagstones, gold sheeting, and terra cotta tablets from Susa, covered with cuneiform characters of astonishingly rigorous geometry. Potteries, ceramics, varnished porcelains (such as the beautiful seventh-century blue and gold dish from Gorgan), an illuminated Koran, and a few exceptional miniatures highlight milestones in the country's annals up to the nineteenth century, which is itself represented by two magnificent painted panels from Farah Pahlavi's collection.




The original show, devised in 1971, was replaced in 1975 by a new one which invited visitors to discover Iran's geographic and natural diversity along with its fundamental historical elements. The landscapes and works of art, the faces and achievements, calligraphic poems and technical undertakings, the life and hopes of a population were shown through its ancient miniatures as well as through the smiling studiousness of Iran's new generation of children. This creative "Sound and Light" performance, devised by a Czechoslovakian firm, required 12,000 meters of film, 20,000 color slides, 20 movie projectors, and 120 slide projectors. Five computers operated the entire system.


Monday 8 July 2013

Badshahi, Lahore



                                                           Badshahi, Lahore



The Badshahi Mosque or the ‘Emperor’s Mosque’, in Lahore is the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world. Epitomizing the beauty, passion and grandeur of the Mughal era, it is Lahore’s most famous landmark and a major tourist attraction.







Capable of accommodating 10,000 worshipers in its main prayer hall and a further 100,000 in its courtyard and porticoes, it remained the largest mosque in the world from 1673 to 1986 (a period of 313 years), when overtaken in size by the completion of the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. Today, it remains the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world after the Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque) of Mecca, the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (Prophet’s Mosque) in Medina, the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca and the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.







Badshahi Mosque was damaged and misused during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh Ruler of the Punjab. The four domes on top of its four minarets were used by the Sikhs for cannon practice and destroyed. The Mosque was converted into a stable for the horses of Ranjit Singh’s army and also used as a gun powder magazine for military stores.



From 1852 onwards, piecemeal repairs were carried out under the supervision of the Badshahi Mosque Authority. Extensive repairs were carried out from 1939 to 1960 at a cost of about 4.8 million rupees, which brought the mosque to its original shape and condition. The blueprint for the repairs was prepared by the late architect Nawab Zen Yar Jang Bahadur.




On the occasion of the second Islamic Summit held at Lahore on February 22, 1974, thirty-nine heads of Muslim states offered their Friday prayers in the Badshahi Masjid, led by Mawlana Abdul Qadir Azad, the Khatib of the mosque.




A small museum is also attached to the mosque complex. It contains relics of the Prophet Muhammad, his cousin Ali, and his daughter, Fatimah.



































































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Taj Mehal




                                            Taj Mehal:



Height: 171 m

Opened: 1648

Address: Agra, UP 282001, India

Architectural style: Mughal architecture

Architect: Ustad Ahmad Lahouri

Function: Monument, Mausoleum


Taj Mahal simply means 'Crown Palace'.



 According to legend, Shah Jahan planned to build a mirror image black marble Taj Mahal on the other side of the river, but a war with his sons interrupted plans.




According to another legend, after the Taj Mahal was built, Shah Jahan ordered amputation of the hands of all the workers. Supposedly, he wanted to make sure that no person could recreate its magic.



The Taj Mahal may be tilting and sinking. "Dangerous tilts in its minarets, first noticed in 1942 and mentioned in various reports, have continued to increase over the years," Ram Nath, a former head of history at Rajasthan University, told the Hindustan Times. The drying up of the river Yamuna may well be to blame.