Happy Birthday Moscow

This past weekend was Moscow’s 864th birthday. One of the ways the city celebrated was with a unique 4D light show that may even enter the Guinness Book of World Records. Moscow State University was turned into a huge 25,500-square-meter screen onto which a grand light and video show was projected.

David Atkins, who masterminded the opening ceremonies for the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000 and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Games last year. He and his team spent six months on preparations.

Two hundred trucks brought all the necessary equipment from Russia and several other countries. Forty giant light projectors that can illuminate the sky for more than one kilometer were also brought in, as were 81 hi-tech projection units.

With the show, all Muscovites got the opportunity to complete an imaginary journey from the capital to different worlds – real and imagined. In seconds, the university building was covered with ice, turned into a giant aquarium, a spaceport, completely disappeared and was built over again. And even turned into the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben momentarily.

All that became more amazing when the man known as “the French Spider Man,” the world’s most famous urban free climber, Alain Robert, climbed the university building during the event. To the audience’s eyes, he climbed the building and destroyed the university with a hammer. Imaginary boulders scattered in all directions.

According to media reports, approximately 100,000 people attended the show.

*info taken from this website.

Here is a YouTube video to see the light show for yourself. This is only part one of three videos. They are really cool, but if you don’t want to watch them all, one cool spot is at the 10.30 minute mark on this video to see the building “covered in ice” come falling down.

I was able to watch some of it on TV while it was happening. At the end of the show there were lots of fireworks, which I had a better view of by just looking out our living room window, since we can see the top of the MSU building from our apartment.