Books Moscow Observations Society Humour

A flame war is raging around the Mayakovsky Library's post for Yesenin's birthday

A flame war is raging around the Mayakovsky Library's post for Yesenin's birthday. I see a great many angry comments about the supposedly blasphemous treatment of the poet's legacy. What chiefly outraged the public, as I understand it, was the disclaimer "do not offer poetry readings to prostitutes". I do not know about you, but I see nothing outrageous in it: the lads simply have a cheerful social media manager.

I remind you that "reading poems to prostitutes" is a quotation from one of Yesenin's best-known poems:

Din and uproar in this dreadful den,
But all night long, until the dawn,
I read poems to prostitutes
And knock back neat spirit with the thugs.

The heart beats faster and faster,
And now I speak at random:
"I am just like you, a lost soul,
For me there is no way back now."

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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

A flame war is raging around the Mayakovsky Library's post for Yesenin's birthday

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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