Archive · Society · People
The paternal grandparents of Vladimir Vysotsky were named Wolf Shliomovich Vysotsky and Dora Ovseyevna Bronstein. Wolf was a schoolmate of Mikhoels and Babel. Dora Ovseyevna's stepfather, Lev Levin, physician in ordinary to members of the government and to Maxim Gorky, was shot in 1938 on a charge of
Architecture · Museums · Heritage · Society · Paris
A scandal where none was expected. For the first time in the history of Versailles, the floors have undergone such sweeping changes: in several rooms the parquet now bears a great many brass ventilation grilles. The administration explains that the old air-conditioning and heating system can no longer cope
Archive · Books · Society
“All the way there I was tormented by one and the same thought: why was I being taken to the NKVD of Georgia, what had I done, why did they need me? I was not yet nineteen, I held no post, and I had never held any dangerous conversations. I
Archive · The East · Books · Society · People
A few days ago, in her hundredth year, Adile Abbas-ogly, a victim of Stalin's repressions, historian and memoirist, passed away. In 1938 Adile Shahbasovna was declared an "enemy of the people" on account of her family ties to Nestor Lakoba, Chairman of the Central Executive
London · Society · People · Nature
On 10 November 2015 the British House of Commons heard, in my view, one of the loveliest political speeches in history. The clever and intellectual Rory Stewart rose in Parliament to speak in defence of hedgehogs. I invite you to watch this brilliant ten-minute address by a product of
Coming Up · Art · Observations · Society
On 11 February Sotheby's will once again offer David Hockney's "Splash". The painting is expected to fetch as much as $39 million. In 2006 "Splash" was sold for £2.9 million. One of the three splashes is going under the hammer: there
Books · Society · Paris · People
Théroigne de Méricourt opened schools for women, so that our silly girls might graduate from them as nihilists... There was in the nineteenth century a satirist by the name of Nikolay Shcherbina, by and large an interesting poet and, it seems, a decent man, though not without his rough edges
Books · Observations · Society
But. You see, "the trouble is not with the personality of the despot who oppresses his family and everyone around him. He is powerless and insignificant in himself; he can be deceived, removed, thrown into a pit at last... But the point is that with his destruction despotism does
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society
Sire, give freedom to the Russian word. Our intellect is cramped, our thought poisons our breast for want of space, it groans in the stocks of the censorship. Give us free speech... we have something to say to the world and to our own people. < > Wash from Russia
NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Society
1990: Sberbank of the USSR advertises cashless payment (the advertisement itself is on the back of an Ogonyok poetry collection, incidentally). As you can see, the automatic payment of utility bills was invented long before debit cards became ubiquitous and Sberbank Online was ever thought of.
The East · Mores · Society · Humour
There is a tale about Soviet diplomats in China in the 1950s: they refused to ride in rickshaws, since to them the rickshaw seemed the very embodiment of the exploitation of man by man, even though giving up this transport meant endless lateness. In those years China still suffered from
NB! · The East · Observations · Society · Humour
The end of 1891. The Governor-General of Turkestan, Vrevsky, is interested only in women and asparagus, while Annenkov makes the starving hack at the ice on the Volga by hand. Russia and her rulers do not change, even a hundred years on