Skotinin: However much my neighbours have wronged me, whatever losses they have caused me, I have never petitioned against anyone; I make good any loss, rather than go chasing after it, by flaying my own peasants, and so the matter is buried and forgotten

Prostakov: Quite true, brother: the whole neighbourhood says that you collect your quitrent like a master.

Mrs Prostakova: If only you would give us some lessons, dear brother; for we simply do not know how. Ever since we took away everything the peasants had, we cannot fleece anything out of them at all.

Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin, “The Minor”

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of 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

Skotinin: However much my neighbours have wronged me, whatever losses they have caused me, I have never petitioned against anyone; I make good any loss, rather than go chasing after it, by flaying my own peasants, and so the matter is buried and forgotten

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

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