"For most people the appearance of books matters more than the beauties of science

"For most people the appearance of books matters more than the beauties of science. Some go so far as to extol and praise the bookbinders more than the authors. They boast that, thanks to their efforts, this craft has attained in the Academy the greatest perfection, while on the rights of science they are as silent as fish. This perversion has reached such a point that the bookbinder has been given a comfortable apartment in the academic building, whereas the most necessary branches of science, such as experimental physics, are treated, for shame, with contempt and are not given their due attention: for years now no place has been found for the instruments needed for scientific experiments and for teaching natural science to the young, not merely where they might be properly arranged and put to the greatest use, but even where they might simply be kept safe."

Mikhail Lomonosov, 1764

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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

"For most people the appearance of books matters more than the beauties of science

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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

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

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