Today I bring you Black Sea with an attitude! :)

(c) argall

(c) shunk

(c) maximb68

And six more:  Read the rest of this entry »

An event organized by Cosmopolitan-Russia magazine has set new Guinness World Record on «Riviera» beach in Sochi! Around 2000 girls in bikini have formed huge “COSMO.RU” for Cosmopolitan commercial just yesterday, on July 19.

With this event, Cosmo-Russia took relay passed to them over by Cosmo-Australia, which set previous record of organizing 1010 women to spell out “COSMO” on one of the Austraila’s beaches, and creating a new category in the Guinness World Record book.

Some early reports last night talked about 1602 ladies and “ruCosmo” being spelled out. But the official CosmoRussia blog says that around 2000 ladies were registered (exact number will be announced after all lists are compared). All girls who participated in the event received gifts —  red bikini and bag with a letter they were part of during this event.

Here are a few photos from the event posted on the CosmoRussia.ru, and you can find a lot more in hi-res on their official blog.

Photos by CosmoRussia.ru
And if you here only for photos of girls in bikini, you can check out Austraila’s event photos here.

Tornadoes are actually quite common in Sochi, though are not as large as the ones destroying whole towns in USA. However, in Sochi they often cause havoc as well. Twisters in Sochi usually form over the Black Sea during stormy weather, then coming down crushing at the city. Two years ago in August, strong tornado came in destroying residential houses (our family friend’s house was almost completely destroyed — and these are brick houses!), part of «Youzhnye Kultury» park, and many buses on overnight bus parking, causing public transportation interruption in Adler for the next few weeks.

I Found these amazing photos at 50hz.ru by Alex A. Bel. , I’ve never seen one this big over there! They have more, check ’em out. These photos are from Adler district.

This is actually pretty cool – few days ago archeologists finished digging up Byzantine church from 10th Century in Lesnoe Village in Adler district of Sochi – that’s were my father was born! :)

Archeologists believe this church was build by Greeks who were trying to convert locals to Christianity. However, when Byzantine Empire got weaker, the church was abandoned. Looking at the video clip by local TV agency «Kuban» there appears not much left of it. However, archeologists, and students from Sochi colleges who are helping out, have found some remains and ancient objects which were turned over to specialists for study.

The locals were visiting this church (or whatever was left of it, anyways), which they call Church of Saints Constantine and Elena, for a long time, and on the big holidays priest comes over for church services – this is not surprising, as Lesnoe is all Greek village. Archeologists started working on this location a year ago.

New Sochi – Novorossiysk sea route has been recently lunched for summer season. It will operate daily, except Mondays, between June 15th and August 31st. The hydrofoil (called Kometa, or Comet, in Russian ) trip lasts approximately 3 hours, and the ticket prices are: adult ticket is around $60 (1365 rubbles); kids older than 5yrs old – around $45 (1023 rubles), and kids under five with parents ride for free.

Here’s scheduler for Sochi/Novorossiysk route:

From Novorossiysk to Sochi, daily except Mondays:
Leaving: 9:00 (9:00am)
Arriving: 12:15 (12:15pm)

From Sochi to Novorossiysk, daily except Mondays:
Leaving: 18:00 (6:00pm)
Arriving: 21:15 (9:15pm)

Phone numbers in Novorossiysk port (probably only in Russian):

Ticketing in Novorossiysk Sea Port: (8617)-60-22-84
General Information: (8617)-60-23-24
Information in Novorossiysk Sea Port: (8617)-60-23-47

Btw, there are also daily buses going from Novorossiysk to Sochi, two leaving in the morning (7:50 & 10:50), and one at night (21:50). Information phone number: (8617)-64-42-79.