Almaty · Archive · Art · Society · People
I have been fortunate to hear about Itkind from people who were his friends, who knew him and his family, and who could shed light on the misconceptions largely introduced into circulation by a popular sketch by the journalist Eduard Topol, who met Itkind. The brief biography of the truly
Almaty · Art · People
The Jew who died twice. The rabbi who became an artist. The eccentric old man, a half-wild sorcerer-elder who lived on roots and gathered old tree stumps, dwelling in a dugout on the outskirts of Alma-Ata. The best-known Soviet sculptor of the 1930s, who vanished into
NB! · Observations · Humour
Books · Observations · Education · Humour
The Kultura television channel. Former Minister of Culture Shvydkoy reminds viewers that the Decameron was written during the plague of the 14th century. Are you serious? That is the eighth-form school syllabus
Archive · Books · Museums · Society · People
In late 1933 Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, director of the State Literary Museum, acquired the archive of the poet Mikhail Kuzmin. The papers included the celebrated diary of the Leningrad poet. For the diary entries covering August 1905 to December 1931, Kuzmin received an enormous sum: 25 thousand roubles. Needless to
Art · Museums · Observations · People
Remembering Goethe today, 188 years since his death. I do like the way that, in the portrait by his friend Johann Tischbein, who won his fame precisely through his portraits of Goethe, he has settled himself in the pose of an ancient Roman upon a ruined Egyptian obelisk, beneath an
Archive · Science · Society
A standard metre reached Russia as early as the late eighteenth century, but the metric system began to be used there only after 1875, when Russia, together with 16 other countries, signed the international Metre Convention. The law permitting the use of the metric system of measures in Russia was
Heritage · Science · Society · Paris
One of the innovations of the French Revolution that almost all of humanity uses every day is the metre. It was a truly revolutionary decision to introduce a unified unit of length at a time when France alone had tens of thousands of different ones, and it was soon adopted
NB! · Humour
Architecture · Observations
A model of that very black house with an exoskeleton by Alexander Konstantinov, whose photographs once went the rounds of every architectural magazine. Quite possibly the most extraordinary dacha I have ever seen. One of these days I shall show a photograph of the house in the flesh; it really
NB! · Art · People
NB! · Art