Architecture · Faith · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Mores
Visited the town of Volokolamsk, one of the oldest in the Moscow Region, with its ancient kremlin on a 17-metre rise on the left bank of the little River Gorodnya, where the year of foundation (in fact, of first mention) is laid out on the slope: 1136. Inside the
Museums · Observations · Mores
But you have surely seen, in one or other of the small museums of southern Italy or Greece, similar exhibits made in a simpler technique. The people of the eighteenth century, too, adored adorning their homes and were not strangers to design inventions. I remember a splendid specimen of a
Art · Moscow · Mores · Society Pages
Creative life is returning to Peredelkino with the revival of its place of pilgrimage, the House of Creativity, which for many has become the most beloved place this autumn and truly echoes the revival of dacha culture and an interest in authentically Russian leisure. Today, at the Shaltai Editions brunch
Architecture · Moscow · Mores
A 1950s stove door in the basement of the Leform shop on Povarskaya Street. The house, built in 1952, where Sergey Mikhalkov lived with Natalia Konchalovskaya, was, like thousands of other houses of the time, centrally heated, though from boiler houses of its own, unlike the thousands of houses that
Art · Observations · Mores · Society
A painting by the Soviet woman artist and front-line veteran Raisa Zenkova, called "Drones", 1949. I cannot decide on the tone: is this still passive aggression or already the active kind? But the artist is plainly ill disposed towards at least two of the three heroines of
Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Society
Albert II, King Emeritus of the Belgians, Queen Paola and Delphine of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Barely two weeks after her first-ever meeting with her brother, the reigning King Philippe of the Belgians, Delphine has been received in the house of the father who denied her existence for more than
Faith · Mores · Society · People
The most remarkable part of Benjamin Lay's biography is his literal adherence to his theoretical ideals: first he left Barbados, where he could not reconcile himself to the condition of the slaves, then he resolved to renounce the fruits of slavery's exploitation, ceasing entirely to acquire
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
When a woman you have never met gets a court to make your father adopt her, and then comes to tea. This photograph captures, quite literally, the first meeting of King Philippe of Belgium with his sister, Princess Delphine of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the illegitimate daughter of King Albert II
Cinema · Books · Observations · Mores
Can a couple be happy if she is reading Nureyev's autobiography and he is reading "Women of Japan"? To find a reading person at all is already happiness, of course. And then, if we turn to the plot of "Bed and Board" from François
Observations · Mores
It is worth noting that the wisdom with which Pythagoras helped the unpromising athlete Eurymenes would have provoked no small controversy, in his day and in ours alike. Eurymenes of Samos was short of stature, yet at the Olympic Games he overcame many a tall and mighty rival. Pythagoras had
Art · Books · Mores · People
Paul Cadmus's painting "Jerry" is probably the first painted image of Joyce's "Ulysses", which was at that time banned in the United States. The portrait of the artist Jared French (1905-1988), by his lover Paul Cadmus (1904-1999), was painted during
Art · Cinema · Mores · People
Hypertrophied sexuality, a homoeroticism that pervades every sphere of life, drunken revels, debauchery, primitive amusements, a satirical view of the vices of society, the new America in all its colours: all this found expression in the work of Paul Cadmus, who painted in egg tempera, inspired by the Italian Renaissance.