"1918 in Petrograd" and "Our Lady of Tenderness Towards Evil Hearts", Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin

Beauty

These proud brows of Vincian Madonnas
I have met more than once on Russian peasant women,
On young Ryazan wives, bent double with toil,
Threshing sheaves on the threshing-floor at the crack of dawn.

On tousle-headed boys who snare rooks
And carry them in the sleeve of a father's sheepskin coat,
I have seen those blue stars of eyes
That look out from the inspired paintings of Vasnetsov.

From the high road they have passed onto a strip of canvas,
Those barefoot Repin barge-haulers...
Now I understand that all beauty
Is only a ray of that sun whose name is Russia!

Literal translation

Verses by Dmitry Kedrin, 5 September 1942

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

"1918 in Petrograd" and "Our Lady of Tenderness Towards Evil Hearts", Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

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Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s