Vladimir searched the web and found either that all set of brand Rubik's cubes (2x2x2 to 5x5x5) are today available again, or that Uwe Meffert produces now a new Pyraminx Crystal and Tony Fisher's Golden cube. Vladimir even discovered that Puzzles' fans community is active and its members use mass produced puzzles, but even modify existing ones or build new unique specimens. Vladimir generously provided a list of the existing one on the market in his QTVR, but it's up to you to solve the puzzle (but if you can't just check the end of the article for an asterisk).

In 1980s only classic 3x3x3 Rubik's cube and Moldavian pyramid (the Soviet analogue of Meffert's Pyraminx) were available in USSR, so he was glad to discover an opportunity to get acquainted with some other puzzles and, in few months, he managed to gather a small collection which suggested Vladimir the creation of Puzzle Parade QTVR. What he didn't tell us, is if he could solve them all...

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Photographer: Vladimir Popov.

Where: at Galina Balova and Ivan Khlopkov's flat.

When: March 19th, 2008 at evening.

Why: for the Beginnings WorldWide Panorama Event.

Technical Details: The image was taken by arranging the puzzles on the sofa, mounting fluorescent lamps, which were wrapped with foil to lighten the scene and darken the room. A pile of CD boxes served as tripod. Vladimir defined his equipment old style, but it is made of a Pentax MZ-5 with slide film and MC Zenitar-K 2.8/16 lens (Russian full-frame fish-eye). To stitch the image Vladimir used Panorama Tools. PSD file was processed in Photoshop CS and the final cylindrical image was transformed to QTVR using Pano2QTVR free version.

This is a really cool online Rubik's cube solver by Eric Dietz, try it out here.

Vladimir Popov is a 34 years old Russian avionics programmer, living in the Moscow region of Zhukovsky. His hobbies include skydiving, mountaineering, downhill skiing and QTVR photography. He run into panoramic photography in 2003, after having been impressed by the view of Mt. Elbrus and the surrounding mountains during a mountaineering trip to the Caucasus. In that circumstance, he noticed that a single shot could never retain all the beauty and all the information provided by a panoramic. Back home, he tried to stitch some intersected shots he had made with his LOMO Smena-8M camera and discovered it was impossible to stitch the images loading them to different Photoshop layers as they were. For a man capable of solving Rubik's, nothing is impossible and hence a solution to the phenomenon had to be found...Now, amongst Vladimir's hobbies there is also geocaching (I had to check what geocaching is, and I was appalled by the discovery: for those unaware, it is a treasure hunt made using GPS technology): that said - even though Vladimir wasn't using any GPS - while searching for the solution, he run into information about QTVR technique and found the...trove. Vladimir usually shoots either during his vacations or while geocaching during weekends, for that reason, his QTVR are always landscapes (and the puzzle's parade was the first one he ever did indoor). Some of his panoramic images can be found at here. (Mount Kazbek) and he is currently working on similar overviews from Mt. Elbrus.
Vladimir's can be contacted at geovold at gmail.com.