Architecture · Faith · The East · Heritage
On 26 September 1687, during the Venetian siege of the Athenian Acropolis, the Parthenon was blown up, the Turks having made it a powder magazine and a place of refuge. The Parthenon, which had by then served as a mosque for more than two hundred years, was bombarded without mercy:
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Observations
I propose a comparison of expensive footwear from two different eras: a pair of velvet men's shoes with gold trim from Italy in the 1730s, in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a woman's boot from a Scythian burial in the
Aristocracy · The East · Mores · People
The marital history of General Yermolov and his so-called kebin wives, that is, temporary wives, in effect concubines drawn from the local population of the Caucasian territories occupied by the Russian army, deserves a tale of its own. Yermolov's first-born was borne to him by a
The East · Art · Museums · Observations
I should like to draw attention to the portrait of General Yermolov in the secret hall. The work is of interest because it is from the brush of Pyotr Zakharov, carried off as a child from a village destroyed by the war, baptised and adopted by the general's
The East · Art · Books · Observations · Mores
Eighteen years ago, Miyoko Ihara, a graduate of the Nippon Institute of Photography, began photographing her grandmother Misao, who was grieving the death of her husband together with her extraordinary white cat named Fukumaru, and a whole photobook came out of it. The project ended 8 years ago, and what
Faith · The East · Society · Rome
Pope Francis's first public audience in six months was devoted not only to the challenges of the pandemic but also to words of sympathy for the victims of the tragedy in Beirut, with a special place in his address given to solidarity. The Pope recalled the Babel syndrome:
The East · Art · Museums · New York · Paris
The press office of Malmaison reports that Jacques-Louis David's Bonaparte Crossing the Great St Bernard Pass has at long last returned to the native walls of the residence of Napoleon Bonaparte and Joséphine de Beauharnais from the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Before that, the canvas was
The East · Geography · Maps · Observations · Nature
The map of Alexander the Great's empire caught my interest for its easternmost part. If one looks at the north-eastern frontier of Alexander's conquests, where they run up against the unsubdued Massagetae and Saka, one notices an amusing thing: the Central Asian lakes Issyk-Kul
NB! · The East · Monarchies · Observations · Mores
The East · Observations · Society
Uzbekistan offers foreign tourists $3,000 if they catch coronavirus during their stay in the sunny republic. Tourism occupies an important place in the country's economy, and the lockdown has had a serious effect not only on the well-being of enterprises in the sector but on a
The East · Books · Science · Mores · Ethnography
Modern medicine holds that birth inside the amniotic sac, or caul, occurs in roughly one case in eighty thousand, which is why such deliveries tend to become a significant news item for specialist journalists. In former times, children born in such a bubble, with the waters not yet broken, were
The East · Art · Museums · Observations · Mores
Do you remember the porcelain decanter in the shape of a fish, with little fish-shaped glasses, found in so many Soviet interiors? We have such a fish at home too, inherited from my grandmother, and in two colour variations at that; it was mass-produced at the porcelain factory