Coming Up · Art · Saint Petersburg
From 8 to 22 August, the ninth international festival "Opera for All" is being held in Saint Petersburg. On 12 August, in the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Leisure on Yelagin Island, Alexander Dargomyzhsky's "Rusalka" will be presented in a production by Ilya
NB! · Art · Observations
Salvator Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht Dürer's Self-Portrait in a Fur-Trimmed Robe. Remarkably, the paintings are dated 1490-1500 and 1500, and are almost the same size, 66*45 and 67*49. Not that one could mistake the one for the other, but the Saviour
Books · Museums · Observations · Education
Podcasts once more. Not long ago I wrote about what various museums are recording. Today I shall tell you what else the world of podcasting has to offer by way of education. It seems that everyone has taken up podcasts of late, so finding good content is now fairly easy.
Architecture · Observations · Society
I know Varlamov wrote about this. Still, it is a handsome idea, if a rather ambiguous one. The administration of Rybinsk, in the Yaroslavl Region, has ordered that signboards in the historic part of the town be made in a "historical" style, and plastic is apparently banned as
Almaty · Art · Cinema · Observations · People
There is a film called “Sergei Kalmykov: A Man Visible from the Stars”. It is about an incredible Soviet artist and mystic who lived in Alma-Ata. Kalmykov moved to Kazakhstan in the late 1930s, when storm clouds began to gather over the circle of mystics, and in Alma-Ata
Aristocracy · Architecture · Humour
The Colleoni family coat of arms is adorned with three pairs of testicles. The family is said to owe its emblem to one of its founders, Gisalberto Colleoni, who had a distinctive physiological peculiarity, a third testicle, which may have been the result of an orchitis he had suffered. Indeed,
Observations · Society · Paris · Humour
Paris, oh, Paris! Faugh, what a backwater! My eyes are simply popping out of my head at the "improvements" in the La Chapelle quarter. What is that supposed to be called? Inclusivity with solar panels and flowers? In principle, it is hard to say who has done Europe
Architecture · Heritage · Society
Buzuluk wooden Art Nouveau: yes, such a thing exists. The people of Tom Sawyer Fest in the town of Buzuluk are preserving unique monuments of the wooden architecture of their region, and they need our help. Read the post (https://www.instagram.com/p/CDi6i7FjI-J/?igshid=150ddi3chlg2z); perhaps you
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Faith · Heritage · Ethnography
Darkened with age, brought back from the Crusades, they belong to a tradition of black female deities more than 4,000 years old in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Asia Minor. In general, no single theory exists to explain how the iconography of the dark-skinned Madonna and Child spread across Europe.
Art · Books · Museums · Rome
Pliny the Elder waxes enthusiastic about a dog licking its wound in the temple of Juno on the Capitol:. "This art attained a perfection incredible in a man, and with it a boldness to match. … Our generation saw on the Capitol, before it burned down so recently, … a dog
Archive · Books · People
"Innocent Speeches", "Peasant Women", "Dreams", "The Wife", "Three Sisters": these and other editions of Chekhov published in his lifetime have been made freely available by the National Electronic Library in honour of Anton Pavlovich's 160th birthday, as part