“I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
Alexander I, King of Poland, Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias Just a reminder of Russia's borders before 1918: in 1815 the greater part of the Duchy of Warsaw became part of the Russian Empire as the Kingdom of Poland, or the Vistula Land, until everything fell
A photograph of 1930 showing the deportation of a kulak and his family The number of victims of dekulakisation has still not been established and can hardly be stated unambiguously, since the figure includes both those directly repressed (stripped of their property, evicted, exiled, arrested) and, on occasion, the victims
From a guidebook to Syria. Photographs by Félix Bonfils (1831-1885)
On the evening of 1 October the Miller mansion at 3 Isaakievskaya Square in Saint Petersburg burned down. The house dates from the second half of the 18th century; in 1879-1880 it was rebuilt in eclectic forms by the architect Ferdinand Miller, and in 2021 it received the status