Archive · Society
On 20 January 1991 the first referendum in the history of the USSR was held in Crimea, with the following question put to the vote: "Are you in favour of the re-establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of the USSR and. The right
Art · New York
There is, in principle, no genuine Bosch on the open market: not a single fully attributed painting or drawing by him has come up at auction since 1985, everything moves through private channels, and the surviving works of the master number some two dozen and a half worldwide, all of
Archaeology · Faith · Observations · Society · Ethnography
In Lima, ahead of the presidential run-off, shamans gathered on Herradura beach and blessed portraits of both candidates, Fujimori and López Aliaga. The rite is repeated there every year and before every vote, and it is no exotica staged for the amusement of tourists but a living example of
NB! · Cinema · Saint Petersburg · Society Pages · Humour
Emir Kusturica has been spotted at SPIEF. As the saying goes, if nobody catches cold, then everything will most certainly come to pass.
Faith · Art · Society
The American bishops proclaimed her patroness of the country in May 1846, eight years before the Vatican made the Immaculate Conception a dogma. The Immaculate Conception is one of the most widely reproduced images in Western art: a maiden in white and blue, a crescent moon beneath her feet, twelve
Archaeology · Geography · Heritage · Science
In the Skagerrak off the coast of Norway, at a depth of some 600 metres, an eighteenth-century merchant ship has been found almost intact. Usually a shipwreck leaves behind little but potsherds, yet here whole stacks of well-preserved tableware lie on the seabed, and alongside the plates and
Books · Observations · Society
Ivan the Terrible and Kurbsky exchanged "letters" that were not a correspondence but a literary duel, staged for the public and meant for the judgement of posterity. Both understood that they would be read far beyond the Lithuanian border. The open letter is a genre with a catch.
Archaeology · Science · Humour
While some look for traces of extraterrestrials in ancient monuments, others are establishing what ordinary mortals were capable of. A new study deals with the Altar Stone of Stonehenge, a six-tonne sandstone slab at the centre of the circle. The stone hails from the north-east of Scotland, from
Coming Up · Art · London · Museums · New York · Paris
If your holiday happens to land you in one of the three art capitals, here are three exhibitions for each, worth carving out half a day for. London 🎨 Frida: The Making of an Icon. Tate Modern, from 22 June. More than 130 works by Frida Kahlo and a separate strand
Faith · People · Pop Culture · Rome
Pope Leo XIV makes time for tennis every week and explains it by the Augustinian tradition of caring for body and spirit: the Rule of Saint Augustine values good habits. Robert Prevost, while still a cardinal, admitted that he considered himself "quite the amateur" on the court, and
Archive · Faith · New York · People · Humour
Like this photo of John Paul II playing baseball during his visit to the US? John Paul II really was a sportsman, and a keen one, but he did not play baseball, and that is not him in the photo. The picture is genuine, but it shows Gene Greytak, an
Archive · Faith · Humour
Patriarch Kirill on skis in Switzerland in 1971 and Pope John Paul II on skis in northern Italy in 1984. The heads of the largest churches are bound together by snow. John Paul II skied all his life: first in Poland, in the Tatras, and then, having become pope, he