The greatest impression made on me in Yekaterinburg was by the Shigir Idol in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore

The greatest impression made on me in Yekaterinburg was by the Shigir Idol in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. This enormous wooden effigy, 3.4 metres tall, is the oldest wooden sculpture ever found.

What surprises me most is how little known this monument is, though it is evidently of world significance. Had I not looked into the Shigir Treasury, I cannot imagine when I should have learned of this marvel.

The idol, found in the 1880s some 80 km from Yekaterinburg, has a complicated history of dating: its probable age was established most precisely only quite recently, in the 2010s and 2020s, and the figure is astonishing, more than 12 thousand years!

It is supposed that the idol was originally more than 5 metres tall. The tall wooden post bears images of 8 figures, headed by a supreme one occupying the highest part.

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

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

The greatest impression made on me in Yekaterinburg was by the Shigir Idol in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

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