In March, when winter wasn’t showing any sign of resignation, a joke circulated: “Those who survived 3 months of winter have got the fourth free of charge”. I think it can now be add...
Representation of Venus Anadyomene in painting and in Arthus Rimbaud's sonnet reveal two strikingly different viewpoints....
The song below was performed in 1981, and I listened to it on a vinyl disk throughout 1980s and early 1990s, for as long as my vynil disk player was OK. On my way back from Tallinn in 2002 I shared a ...
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature. – Samuel Butler, the English author (biography at Encyclopaedia Britannica)...
When I travelled to England in late February I was surprised and relieved at once that it did not rain a bit. It did not occur to me that something drastic may be coming, but now I hear in the news th...
This scene was captured on the bridge across the Yauza River near the Foreign Literature Library. You will see changing billboards, some traffic, water reflections, people walking, and ducks bathing....
In Russia, we celebrate Easter on April 15 this year; contrary to the UK, Easter is not marked by days-off, – unlike Christmas holidays. I have just had a conversation with my colleague a...
Thomas Kinkade, Venice. Back in December 2011, we gave my colleague (a Sag, like me) a calendar as a birthday present. It was a selection of paintings by the American artist Thomas Kinkade who unexpec...
It is a bad sign when people stop understanding humour, irony, or joke. – Fyodor Dostoevsky. This is a rare photographic portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky, made by his close friend Konstatin Shapiro...