Archive · Art · Moscow · People
Room filled with paintings and sculptures in a 1974 photograph by Igor Palmin
The artist Vladimir Yankilevsky in his studio on Preobrazhenskaya Street. Photograph by Igor Palmin, 1974
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Observations · Society · Humour
Plehve on Russia as a cart pulled by officials and on critics of the authorities
Russia is a huge cart, dragged along a wretched road by scrawny nags: the officialdom. On the cart sit the common folk and public figures, cursing the authorities for all they are worth and blaming them for the bad road. It is these gentlemen who ought to be taken off
Cinema · Books · Observations · Society · Humour
Among the presidential instructions following the meeting of the Council for Culture there turned up a touching one:
The Government of the Russian Federation, jointly with the Ministry of Justice of Russia, is to consider the question of drafting regulatory legal acts aimed at granting cultural organisations the right to use works created by outstanding Russian authors in cases of unjustified refusal by rights holders to grant such
Coming Up · Art · Museums · Education · People · Saint Petersburg
The Hermitage has opened the exhibition "A Feat of Enlightened Philanthropy" for the 150th anniversary of the Central School of Technical Drawing, founded by Baron Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz (1814-1884), the greatest Russian banker of his age, who fi
The Hermitage has opened the exhibition "A Feat of Enlightened Philanthropy" for the 150th anniversary of the Central School of Technical Drawing, founded by Baron Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz (1814-1884), the greatest Russian banker of his age, who financed the state loans for the Crimean War and the
Faith · Art · Museums · Heritage · Rome
Vatican Museums announce five-year restoration of Raphael's Loggia
This is the first serious cleaning in more than 500 years of the frescoes of the glazed corridor on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace, overlooking the Cortile di San Damaso. The budget for the works is 5.5 million dollars. In addition to restoration, the paintings will be
Art · Society · Pop Culture · Humour
Artist Ray Simon of Ohio releases the print “Forged in Freedom” for the US 250th anniversary
In the small hours of Monday, Donald Trump posted an image of a very strange painting, captioned "Great painting!!" and without the artist's name. The canvas heaps together George Washington, the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, an astronaut on the Moon, the Statue of
Archaeology · Science · Nature
Archaeologist Susan deFrance of the University of Florida describes two naturally mummified dogs found in southern Peru
One dog is under a year old, a mottled female; the other is a puppy no more than three months old. The finds are about 1,100 years old. Mummification occurs of its own accord in the dry climate of the region, but what interested the scholars was the context
Archive · Books · Moscow · Observations · Society
At the St Petersburg International Legal Forum, Deputy Minister of Culture Zhanna Alexeyeva announced that a closed repository for literature of a "destructive nature" is being created at the Lenin Library, and called it a "spetskhran"
First of all, it must be explained at once that the spetskhran has existed in the Lenin Library all along; nobody abolished this department with the collapse of the USSR, it was merely the regime of access and the principle by which it is filled that changed. Pornographic and extremist
Archaeology · Architecture · Books · Rome
Vela, fabric awnings in Rome, from Caesar to the Colosseum and Pompeian game notices
Pliny the Elder writes that Caesar the Dictator stretched awnings over the whole Roman Forum and over the Sacred Way, from his own house up to the Capitol, and that the spectacle was judged more wondrous than the gladiatorial combats themselves. Fabric awnings against the sun, vela in Latin, were
Faith · Observations · Education · Society
Texas Board of Education adds Biblical texts to mandatory school reading list
The Texas Board of Education has added biblical texts to the compulsory school reading list. Pupils from the earliest grades through to the 12th will read the stories of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, and extracts from the New Testament. I consider it a splendid neighbourhood for Dickens'
NB! · Faith · Art
Saint Augustine in His Cell
Saint Augustine in his cell. Fresco in the church of Ognissanti in Florence, painted by Sandro Botticelli around 1480
NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Rome
Processional crucifix by an Umbrian painter of 1260–1270 in the Vatican Pinacoteca
Processional Crucifix painted by an Umbrian artist, 1260–1270. Vatican Pinacoteca