Selection of articles on the Northern Aral Sea, French restitution, Gucci and censorship

February reminds us that the coldest time of year is always followed by renewal, and we recall the key publications of the last winter month. A of the most interesting posts of the past 28 days:.

📌 A living sea. Kazakhstan has solved the environmental problem of the North Aral

📌 “Ministerial furniture” at a royal price in Versailles

📌 The French Senate has approved the restitution of cultural property, while the security services approve the liquidation of African political leaders

📌 The Russians have won! What the American newspapers wrote on 4 October 1957

📌 An Olympic village on prison grounds. Not America but a Siberian concentration camp

📌 Robert Maxwell: how Epstein is connected with the creator of academic capitalism

📌 Demna Gvasalia’s manifesto for Gucci: “Nothing intellectual”

📌 The Great Replacement: conspiracy theory or reality?

📌 “If you have no boundaries, you will talk nonsense”: the Czech director Jiří Menzel on censorship

📌 German-style justice: up to 5 years for a joke about Pinocchio

📌 Lopsided-bellied Ryazanites and Arkhangelsk walrus-eaters. A minute of ethnographic enlightenment