Group photograph of the guests at the court masked ball held in the Hermitage on 13 February 1903 to mark the 290th anniversary of the House of Romanov, at which the whole nobility of the Russian Empire appeared in costumes of the pre-Petrine era

The hall, filled with ancient Russian folk, looked very beautiful indeed.

So Nicholas II described in his diary his impressions of the celebrated ball in the Winter Palace.

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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

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

Analyst Arvind Kumar and Him Lal Gautam, Chief Surveyor of Nepal's Department of Survey, have published an article on the Himalayan flood of 26 August 2026

Analyst Arvind Kumar and Him Lal Gautam, Chief Surveyor of Nepal's Department of Survey, have published an article on the Himalayan flood of 26 August 2026. A rock-and-ice avalanche broke away that day from the northern slope of Langtang Lirung and turned into a debris flow,

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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

Analyst Arvind Kumar and Him Lal Gautam, Chief Surveyor of Nepal's Department of Survey, have published an article on the Himalayan flood of 26 August 2026