Lifelong Learning Records
-
Museum of Cosmonautics – VDNH Park
Moscow’s Cosmonautics Museum is aimed to showcase the important role that Russia played in the space race during the 20th century. The museum is located underneath a 350-foot tall titanium obelisk known as the Monument to the Conquerors of Space, built in 1964 to celebrate the launch of Sputnik. We learned while visiting it that the museum pays special…
-
State Historical Museum – Moscow, 🇷🇺
The State Historical is the largest national museum in Russia. It has priceless exhibits of archeology, numismatics, houseware, weapons and works of decorative and applied art. The Museum was built in 1875–1883, specifically for keeping the national treasury of Russia. We visited it by the end of June 2025, during our Summer vacations. We learned…
-
The Grand Egyptian Museum – Cairo, Egypt 🇪🇬
I had a chance to visit this museum as part of the last day of activities of UNICON’s director’s conference, which was hosted by the American University in Cairo in May 2025 and where I moderated a panel. The last day included a couple of sessions on topics like AI in executive development, but took…
-
Choco-Story Museum – Playa del Carmen, Mexico 🇲🇽
This museum, which we visited during a long weekend that we spent at Playa del Carmen in Mexico, presents a great opportunity to immerse yourself in a fascinating journey through the history and art of chocolate, from its origins to its arrival in Europe and its transformation into the world’s (or almost everyone’s) favorite sweet.…
-
Phoenix Art Museum – Phoenix, Arizona
We visited this museum in March 2025, during a weekend we stayed in town. The Phoenix Museum is considered the largest art museum in the southwestern United States and is home to a collection of more than 20,000 objects. As presented in its website, the museum engages more than 300,000 guests, lifelong learners, and art…
-
Taliesin West – Frank Loyd Wright’s Desert Laboratory in Arizona
As presented in its official website, Taliesin West is a World Heritage site and National Historic Landmark nestled in the desert foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Arizona. I took my wife Yuliya there in January 2025, as part of a “Saturday date celebration” of her birthday, followed by a nice dinner at a nice resort…
-
Lyman Museum – Hilo; Hawai’i
The Lyman Museum captured my attention since planning our trip to Hawai’i. As presented in its website, it began as the Lyman Mission House, originally built for New England missionaries David and Sarah Lyman in 1839. Nearly one hundred years later, in 1931, the Museum was established by their descendants. Nowadays, the restored Mission House…
-
Fort Santiago – Manila, Philippines 🇵🇭
Fort Santiago is one of the oldest fortifications in Manila built by the Spaniards in 1571 from what was once a palisaded structure of logs and earth built by Rajah Soliman on the native settlement called Maynila. The colonizers recognized that the tongue of land where the Pasig River flowed into the Manila Bay was a…
-
National Museum of the Republic of Karelia
The National Museum of the Republic of Karelia was founded in 1871 by Olonets Governor Grigory Grigoriev. The museum collection contains more than 230 thousand items and makes it possible to present the originality of the region in the context of the spiritual and material wealth of Karelia. The museum is located in the historical…
-
The State Russian Museum – Saint Petersburg
The State Russian Museum, formerly known as the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III, on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world’s largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in the world with a total area over 30 hectares. In 2022 it attracted 2,651,688 visitors, ranking twelfth on list…
-
Belarusian National Arts Museum 🇧🇾
We visited this museum during some days we spent working remotely while visiting my in laws. We spent a weekend in Minsk and took advantage to visit it. The Museum is considered to be the largest art museum in Belarus. It comprises more than thirty thousands works of art, which make up various collections organized in…
-
Hong Kong Museum of History 🇭🇰
The Hong Kong Museum of History has a remarkable collection, which is what motivated me to make a quick early morning visit to it while being in Hing Kong. I learned that this museum is considered as one of the best museums of the city, with visual appealing exhibitions and galleries which makes it fun to explore…
-
Hong Kong Science Museum 🇭🇰
The Hong Kong Science Museum aims to provide an enjoyable learning experience for people of all ages and walks of life. I had a chance to make a quick visit to if during a trip to Hong Kong, and was able to observe how it aims to inspire visitors with engaging interactive exhibits which allow…
-
Superstition Mountain Museum – Tonto National Forest, Arizona 🇺🇸
Superstition Mountain Museum is located in a rugged 160,000 acre Superstition Mountain range in the Tonto National Forest in Central Arizona. The museum’s focus, as presented in its official website, is on providing visitors with an experience of the Old West. The museum provides a historical context that includes the region’s Native American people, the…
-
Diego Rivera’s House Museum – Guanajuato, Mexico 🇲🇽
Diego Rivera’s birthplace is now an excellent museum honoring the famous artist, who was persona non grata here for years. Rivera and his twin brother were born in the house in 1886 (Carlos died at age two) and lived here until the family moved to Mexico City six years later. The museum’s ground floor is a re-creation…
-
Izamal Cultural Center – Izamal, Yucatán, Mexico 🇲🇽
We visited this cultural center located in Izamal, in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. We spent some vacation days and New Year’s Eve in Mérida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán, and took advantage of it to go to the town of Izamal, located around 40 minutes to the east of Merida. Just…
-
Book Review: Descubrí que estaba muerto – por João Paulo Cuenca
Este es un libro que compré durante nuestras vacaciones de Diciembre 2023 en México. Lo encontré en una librería en Mérida, Yucatán, ubicada sobre la avenida Paseo Montejo, emblemática de la ciudad. El título y descripción del libro me llamaron la atención en forma inmediata. Está escrito por João Paulo Cuenca, quien es un escritor…
-
Mayan World Museum of Mérida, Mexico 🇲🇽
We visited this museum while spending some vacation days and New Year’s Eve in Mérida, Mexico, in December 2023. The museum is aimed to celebrate the Maya culture and it houses a permanent collection of more than 1100 remarkably well-preserved artifacts, including a reclining chac-mool sculpture from Chichén Itzá and a cool underworld figure unearthed…
-
Book Review: Balancing Acts – Unleashing the Power of Creativity in Your Life and Work
The book is written by Daniel Lamar, Vice Chairman of the Cirque Du Soleil. I got this book as a present that was given to all participants that attended UNICON’s 2023 Team Development Conference 9TDC), hosted by HEC Montreal in Montreal, Canada. I serve as emeritus board member of UNICON, and Daniel was one of…
-
Batumi Botanical Garden – Batumi, Georgia 🇬🇪
After spending a couple of days in Batumi, Georgia, we initiated a road trip throughout this country and stopped in Batumi’s Botanical Garden on our way out of the city. The Garden is located 9 kilometers from the center of Batumi and is considered to be one of the oldest, biggest and more important plant…
-
Book Review: The Geek Way – The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results
The book is written byAndrew McAfee, who is is New York Times bestselling co-author of The Second Machine Age. He is the co-director of the IDE and a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. As presented in his bio, his research investigates how information technology changes the way companies perform, organize themselves, and compete.…
-
The National Library of Belarus – Minsk, Belarus 🇧🇾
After arriving to Belarus to spend a couple of weeks with my in-laws and work remotely from their place, we decided to spend a weekend in Minsk. In addition to visiting friends in this city, one of the reasons to spend the weekend there was to visit the National Library of Belarus. The National Library…
-
Book Review: Public Values Leadership – Striving to Achieve Democratic Ideals
This book is written by Barry Bozeman and Michael M. Crow. I received this book directly from President Crow’s office, as part of the books and references that he shares with ASU leadership quite often to communicate ASU’s vision, rationale and priorities. The twenty main takeaways that I got out of this book are presented…
-
Uplistsikhe Cave Town – Georgia 🇬🇪
Uplistsikhe Cave Town-Fortress is situated on a rocky massif about 15 km from Gori, Georgia. We stopped to visit this place prior to spending one night in Gori, while being on our way to the Caucasus Mountains during Summer 2023. This Cave Town is also located aside the river Mtkvari and, in addition to the…
-
Book Review: Experiential Intelligence – Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs
The main thesis of this book, written by Soren Kaplan, is that “Experiential Intelligence reveals how our past experiences impact our present success and future opportunities in ways we often don’t recognize.” The author claims that, while we cannot change what has happened to us or how we have responded to it, within our unique…
-
Juan Beckman Gallardo Cultural Center – Tequila, Jalisco. México 🇲🇽
We visited this Cultural Center during a one-day trip to Tequila, Jalisco. We arrived there through the charming “Tequila Cuervo Train” that departs from Guadalajara and which takes around two hours. The Juan Beckman Gallardo Cultural Center holds different exhibitions, including a series of 17th to 19th-century carriages. Inside the building, there is a collection…
-
Book Review: How the West Brought War to Ukraine – Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
This book is written by Benjamin Abelow, who has worked in Washington, DC, writing, lecturing, and lobbying Congress about nuclear arms policy. Abelow holds a B.A. in modern European history from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine. I went through this book to get a different perspective…
-
Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War – Minsk, Belarus 🇧🇾
After arriving to Belarus to spend a couple of weeks with my in-laws and work remotely from there, we decided to spend a weekend in Minsk. One of the reasons to come to the country’s capital was to visit the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War which, as presented in…
-
Book Review: El Conejo en la Cara de la Luna – Ensayos sobre la mitología de la tradición mesoamericana
Decidí comprar este libro durante una visita rápida a la librería del Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) en Toluca, mi ciudad natal. El título y descripción general del libro atrajeron mi atención, al ilustrar aspectos interesantes de tradiciones mesoamericanas. El libro está escrito por Alfredo López Austin, quien es considerado uno de los más destacados…
-
The Joseph Stalin Museum – Gori, Georgia 🇬🇪
After spending a couple of days in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, we continued our road trip throughout this country and drove towards the country’s capital, Tbilisi. We decided to stop for one night in the small city of Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, since it has a memorial museum devoted to him. This…
Marco Serrato 