The Conjuror, Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1515/20

The game of thimbles has been known since the most ancient times and over the millennia has scarcely changed, gathering around it even today people who seem positively glad to be deceived and parted from their money. Only the thimbles themselves change: in ancient India cups were used, in ancient Greece walnut shells, at various times ceramic and glass bowls, metal caps and bottle tops, until thimbles proper came into fashion in this species of fraud in England at the end of the eighteenth century.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of 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

The Conjuror, Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1515/20

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

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