Ilya Burlak Profile

Ilya Burlak
Ilya Burlak.

I only started prioritizing visiting World Heritage sites a few years ago and with my limited US-based corporate-warrior time-off allocation and family obligations I can only add a handful to a dozen in any given year. Looking forward to visiting them all after I am able to retire...

USA Last Update 18.03.23 166 WHS Visited 98 Reviews 166 WHS Rated 35 TWHS Visited

Visited Sites Ilya Burlak

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Legend

  • ●● Cultural
  • ●● Natural
  • ●● Mixed

Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Edinburgh

Ilya Burlak USA - 21-Apr-23

Edinburgh

A well-reviewed city such as Edinburgh hardly needs additional adverts, so I will primarily add my voice to the general admiration that it produces from everyone who visits. I've been to Edinburgh several times over the last decade, most recently in March 2023, and my affection for it grows with each visit.

Despite its hilly topology, Edinburgh is a very walkable town, and major [...]

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Neolithic Orkney

Ilya Burlak USA - 06-Apr-23

Neolithic Orkney

I visited all four components of this WHS in March 2023. With an asterisk, more on which later.

The two freely-accessible parts, the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness both sit fairly close to each other on the major road that runs towards the western coastline of the Mainland Orkney and are impossible to miss. Each of them can be explored relatively quickly (although the parking lot for the Ring is a few hundred yards down the road from it). For my money, the Stones are more picturesque, while the Ring feels more spiritually charged. If you have extra time, walking around the Stones towards the shore will bring you after a couple of hundred yards to a relatively recently (1980s) discovered Barnhouse Settlement - not part of the WHS as it is, but worth a look for some.

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Panamá

Ilya Burlak USA - 13-Jan-23

Panamá

I visited both components of the site in December 2022 while on a layover in Panama City. I will agree with the previous reviewers that Casco Viejo (or Casco Antiguo - both names apparently can be used) is not exactly exceptional in the absolute sense, and probably lacking in OUV, but being a visual person, I liked it more than I liked the Panama Viejo archaeological component. On the negative side, some streets remain clogged with cars and a non-trivial percentage of buildings is in a less-than-perfect state. On the positive side, fine details abound, and the overall ensemble of architectural styles is pleasing to the eye. That is in no small part due to the various balconies that adorn upper floors - Casco Viejo is sometimes rightly called "the city of a thousand balconies".

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Nice

Ilya Burlak USA - 18-Nov-22

Nice

In September of 2022, I had a chance to reacquaint myself with Nice, having explored it first over twenty years earlier. As with any reasonably large city, it has quite a lot to offer to every visitor: museums, churches, palaces, public spaces, elevated viewpoints, and a certainly colorful historic old town. And yet, it is not exceptional in any sense of the world. As others noted before me, Nice's recognition as a WH property is quite a stretch of the concept of the OUV; as you move around town, you will be hard-pressed to put your finger on what exactly made this large seaside town a foremost leader in well-to-do winter tourism. Everybody takes a stroll along the Promenade des Anglais when they are in Nice - that can't be enough of a reason by itself, can it?

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Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin

Ilya Burlak USA - 19-Sep-22

Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin

I am giving Bet Guvrin the same rating as the community average, but I probably would have rated it higher if not for the abbreviated nature of my visit. A large part of that was my own faulty planning, but the park closure practices contributed to that significantly. 

In August of 2022, I was in Israel with the family on a Bat Mitzvah trip

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Profile Data

Name
Ilya Burlak
Country
USA
Website
website

Recently Visited WHS

Update 18.03.23
  • Neolithic Orkney
    • Rating Stats
    Amsterdam Canal Ring 5
    Brugge 5
    Budapest 5
    Cordoba 5
    Costiera Amalfitana 5
    Florence 5
    Granada 5
    Kremlin and Red Square 5
    Loire Valley 5
    Palau de la Musica Catalana & Hospital de Sant Pau 5
    Paris, Banks of the Seine 5
    Petra 5
    Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands 5
    Prague 5
    Ravenna 5
    Rome 5
    Segovia 5
    Siena 5
    St. Petersburg 5
    Venice and its Lagoon 5
    Vienna 5
    Wadi Rum 5
    West Norwegian Fjords 5
    Works of Antoni Gaudí 5
    Acropolis 4.5
    Assisi 4.5
    Bryggen 4.5
    Grand Place, Brussels 4.5
    Istanbul 4.5
    Kraków 4.5
    Oporto 4.5
    Piazza del Duomo (Pisa) 4.5
    Pompei 4.5
    Potsdam 4.5
    San Gimignano 4.5
    Seville 4.5
    Sintra 4.5
    Stonehenge 4.5
    Toledo 4.5
    Vatican City 4.5
    Versailles 4.5
    Villa Romana del Casale 4.5
    Albi 4
    Alto Douro 4
    Avignon 4
    Botanical Garden, Padua 4
    Brú na Bóinne 4
    Chartres Cathedral 4
    Chichen-Itza 4
    Cologne Cathedral 4
    Convent of Christ in Tomar 4
    Delos 4
    Drottningholm 4
    Dubrovnik 4
    Edinburgh 4
    Giant's Causeway 4
    Gwynedd Castles 4
    Kinderdijk 4
    Kyiv 4
    L'viv 4
    Monastery of Alcobaça 4
    Monastery of Batalha 4
    Mostar 4
    Mount Etna 4
    Old City of Jerusalem 4
    Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles 4
    Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro 4
    Rietveld Schröderhuis 4
    Roskilde Cathedral 4
    Schönbrunn 4
    Split 4
    Tower of London 4
    Upper Middle Rhine Valley 4
    Urbino 4
    Verona 4
    Vicenza and the Palladian Villas 4
    Westminster 4
    Arab-Norman Palermo 3.5
    Archaeological Site of Delphi 3.5
    Arles 3.5
    Bom Jesus do Monte 3.5
    City of Bath 3.5
    Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios 3.5
    El Escurial 3.5
    Ferrara 3.5
    Fortified City of Carcassonne 3.5
    Graz 3.5
    Guimarães 3.5
    Kotor 3.5
    Kronborg Castle 3.5
    La Fortaleza 3.5
    Mycenae and Tiryns 3.5
    Old City of Berne 3.5
    Pienza 3.5
    Pont du Gard 3.5
    Québec 3.5
    Tarraco 3.5
    Trinity Sergius Lavra 3.5
    Val di Noto 3.5
    Villa d'Este 3.5
    Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines 3.5
    Agrigento 3
    Alcala de Henares 3
    Belem 3
    Belfries 3
    Canterbury 3
    Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin 3
    Evora 3
    Fortifications of Vauban 3
    Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings 3
    Great Spa Towns of Europe 3
    Incense Route of the Negev 3
    Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal 3
    Kew Gardens 3
    Mantua and Sabbioneta 3
    Maritime Greenwich 3
    Masada 3
    Medici Villas and Gardens 3
    Modena 3
    Odesa 3
    Reims 3
    San Marino and Mount Titano 3
    Statue of Liberty 3
    Strasbourg 3
    Syracuse 3
    The Porticoes of Bologna 3
    Trogir 3
    University of Coimbra 3
    Val d'Orcia 3
    Vézère Valley 3
    Beemster Polder 2.5
    Bethlehem 2.5
    Biblical Tells 2.5
    Cathedral of St. James in Sibenik 2.5
    Forth Bridge 2.5
    Independence Hall 2.5
    Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley 2.5
    Major Town Houses 2.5
    Necropolis of Bet She'arim 2.5
    Neolithic Orkney 2.5
    New Lanark 2.5
    Novodevichy Convent 2.5
    Old City of Acre 2.5
    Panamá 2.5
    Poblet Monastery 2.5
    Residences of the Royal House of Savoy 2.5
    Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France 2.5
    Santa Maria delle Grazie 2.5
    Schokland 2.5
    Semmering Railway 2.5
    Skogskyrkogarden 2.5
    The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier 2.5
    Venetian Works of Defence 2.5
    Wadden Sea 2.5
    Canal du Midi 2
    Dutch Water Defence Lines 2
    Frontiers of the Roman Empire 2
    Nice 2
    Stećci 2
    The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales 2
    White City of Tel-Aviv 2
    Bahá’i Holy Places 1.5
    Van Nellefabriek 1.5
    Mount Carmel Caves 1
    Rock-Art of the Mediterranean Basin 1
    Stoclet House 1

    Reviewed TWHS