Trees of the Chekhov era and the triple birdhouse at Melikhovo

Not many trees that witnessed the Chekhov era have survived at Melikhovo. There are, for example, two Berlin poplars planted by the keeper and organiser of the local household, the father of the family, the former serf Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov. The peace of the two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old limes deep in the garden, which grew here long before the Chekhovs, is also carefully guarded. On a large, spreading maple stands a triple birdhouse, devised as a joke by the Chekhov brothers: by the time the estate was bought, the village of Melikhovo had neither a medical station, nor a school, nor a fire-engine shed, but for forty impoverished cottages it had three taverns

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Trees of the Chekhov era and the triple birdhouse at Melikhovo

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s