Maly Theatre actress Vera Shukhmina died in a railway accident on her way to Paris

Is It Wise to Swap Seats on Trains and Aeroplanes?

Neither especially celebrated nor especially popular, but nonetheless leaving her mark on the history of the theatre, Vera Alekseyevna Shukhmina, an actress of the Maly Theatre, received an unexpected dismissal in 1925. A woman not yet old, proud and good-natured, she took her discharge from the company calmly and set off on a journey to Paris. Shukhmina was allotted an upper berth, and a certain gentleman bestowed his lower one upon her, climbing up to the top himself. Not far from Moscow, near New Jerusalem, a terrible railway accident occurred: Shukhmina, in the lower berth, perished, while the obliging citizen, in her place, remained alive and well.

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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

Maly Theatre actress Vera Shukhmina died in a railway accident on her way to Paris

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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