Architecture · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Society
The Museum of Architecture has provided a venue for a debate on the demolition and construction of buildings in the historic zone of Ivanovskaya Gorka in Moscow. The background is as follows. On Kolpachny Lane, within a protected zone, a five-storey business centre is planned, complete with glazed attic,
Architecture · Faith · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society
I am simply horrified: under the guise of "restoration", the necropolis of the Novodevichy Convent has been literally destroyed. See for yourselves. Levelling hundreds of burials to the ground and dismantling monuments, gravestones and the remains of crypts is now what passes for restoring a cemetery. If any
NB! · Society · Humour
Andryukha, we have a falsification of history, possibly the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact! To horse!
Archive · Art · Observations · Society · Humour
Vladimir Semyonovich Semyonov's collection is customarily spoken of as outstanding, and the man himself is revered not only as a politician, diplomat and scholar but as a great Soviet patron of the arts. Only in its day his collection drew no small amount of reproach and displeasure from
Books · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Society
A campaign is under way on Planeta to raise funds for opening a museum of the Gumilev family in the town of Bezhetsk, in the Tver Region. The project is run by the Foundation for the Development of Small Historic Towns, and so far less than 250 thousand of the
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:
Faith · Society · Rome
Today Pope Francis held his first public audience in six months and spoke some very important words: that all of us need the immediacy of personal contact, which does our souls great good, and that we should pray that the pandemic does not become a pretext for dividing humanity but
Coming Up · Museums · Observations · Society
At the North Caucasus branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Vladikavkaz, the exhibition "One for All", devoted to the 75th anniversary of Victory, opens today, the first day of three days of mourning in Ossetia for the victims of Beslan. The organisers' idea
Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Society
The concert hall of the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic will sound anew: the building is to be renovated and given a new multifunctional, as is now the fashion, cultural space with new lightsoundvideo equipment and venues for lectures, masterclasses and other activities. Curiously, the reorientation of the Philharmonic's premises
Education · Society · Paris
"Let their impure blood water our furrows": shall it flood our fields and orchards in an instant? Some years ago a public debate flared up in France over the words of the republic's national symbol, the Marseillaise. Should children hear and sing words that preach cruelty,
Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · Society
This is how Chernikov's house on 2nd Neopalimovsky Lane looks now, although formally the demolition, the result of fraudulent dealings by a band of black-market developers, was not due to begin until the second half of September. The comrade swindlers are in a hurry to destroy an
Architecture · Heritage · Society · Rome
A trace of the brief days of the Roman Republic in 1849: a cannonball lodged in the staircase of the Great Salon of Cardinal Girolamo Colonna's Baroque palace. The shots were fired at random from the Janiculum Hill into the centre of Rome, which the republicans had held