The scene I saw today at the Moscow State University brings to mind Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, if only in a very generic sense, though. When I was a student graduating 10 years ago we d...
When I returned to Moscow after living in England where smoking in public places has been prohibited for a number of years I found it hard at first to cope with smokers in cafes. Granted already in 20...
Moskvich car at the 1971 car exhibition This is a photo from 1971 car exhibition featuring Moskvich (“Muscovite”, literally). By 1970s this Soviet automobile had broken records in c...
One of the father-founders of Licedei, a pantomime theatre, Felix Agadzhanyan died unexpectedly in St. Petersburg. He was 56. Together with Vyacheslav Polunin, Agadzhanyan was one the first five membe...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...