Cover of Life magazine with a headline about the Hermitage and a photo of a clergyman and several men in suits with a wreath of pink and white flowers.

Archive · Faith · Society · People

The Hermitage Announced on the Cover of Life Magazine, 26 March 1965

Martin Luther King and Archbishop Iakovos, the only clergyman not of African descent to take part in the march against racial discrimination. Cover pull-quote: Russia'a Fabulous Art Museum The Hermitage

Archive · Moscow · Society

The 1996 Address of the President of Russia Was Called "The Russia for Which We Are Responsible"

It contained the following words: "Tsarist Russia, burdened with the weight of its own historical problems, was unable...", while "the communist project failed the test".

Faith · London · Observations · New York · Society

Growing number of conversions to Orthodoxy among Americans and the English

Not only America but England too is turning its gaze to Orthodoxy, which means the programme to destroy the Christian religion in the Anglo-Saxon world has misfired. Remember the episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer and Bart become Catholics, and Marge frets that they will make

Archive · Monarchies · Society

The Evolution of the Russian Flag, 1668 to 1991

1668 A white-blue-red flag is raised on the first Russian warship, the Oryol (“Eagle”), by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. It served as a naval flag, but did not yet have the status of a state flag. 1693 Peter I raises the white-blue-red tricolour for the

Archive · Geography · Society

Years of the introduction of women's suffrage from New Zealand to Saudi Arabia

A 102-Year-Old Lady at the Polls in New Zealand in 1916. New Zealand was the first country in the world where women won the right to vote, in 1893. In Europe, the first country where women gained the right to vote and to sit in parliament, in 1906,

NB! · Books · Observations · Education · Society

A new list of patriotic works by contemporary writers, recommended by the Ministry of Education for extracurricular reading: Zakhar Prilepin is on it, naturally

Faith · Observations · Heritage · Mores · Society · Pop Culture · Rome

Vatican police escort a blogger out of St Peter's Basilica and attempt to arrest her for dancing inside the church and filming it

Vatican police escorted out of St Peter's Basilica, and attempted to arrest, a blogger who had been dancing inside the church and filming it. The silly girl, naturally, at once raised a howl about it online. Each time I see activities of this sort, I want to ask:

NB! · Archive · Faith · Books · Society · People

Of the 80,200 roubles required in 1898-1899 to resettle 7,300 Doukhobor peasants in Canada, Leo Tolstoy contributed 34,200 roubles, taken from the publication of his novel "Resurrection"

NB! · Archive · Society · Humour

As a history graduate, Mark Rutte could not simply walk past a stack of documents left lying about in a White House corridor

Observations · Society

It is odd that the President of Finland, sitting before Trump, recalls that the Finns found a solution in 1944

It is odd that the President of Finland, sitting before Trump, recalls that the Finns found a solution in 1944. After all, in the autumn of 1944 Finland, which had fought on the side of Nazi Germany and had been defeated by the USSR, first entered into negotiations on a

Faith · Madrid · Observations · Society · Paris

Removal of crosses from posters, emblems and images of churches in Europe and Russia

Crosses vanish from Montmartre on Paris Olympics posters, crosses are removed from the badges of European football clubs, and in Spain a proposal has been made to pull down the monumental cross above the Valley of the Fallen. In Western Europe the wave of “de-crossing”, fuelled by embittered anticlericalism,

The East · Monarchies · Society · Humour

A Turkish proverb about a clown who moves into a palace

When a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king. The palace turns into a circus Turkish proverb