When I was still at the academia, I did a bit of research into the speeches from the scaffold. I studied 16th century, as you know, and it registered only few examples thereof. The interest was sparke...
I think I first read about Diane Arbus (1923-1971), when already in England. As Frank van Riper indicates in his article, she indeed is often introduced as someone who documented “the lives of t...
I‘ve said before that, when I came to England, the thing that stood out the most was the absence of books anywhere on display in the house. The majority of houses I visited had books shelved som...
A friend of mine told me recently that this photo of a fountain in the Manege Square looks like it was taken somewhere in Paris. I trust that he knows better; as for me, I’m glad that I was able...
A self-payment terminal in Moscow This is one area where Moscow is positively ahead of most of the UK (and I’ve been pretty much everywhere, except Scotland and Northern Ireland). You no longer ...
Back in 2006, on October 1 I was listening to Polnareff’s Kama Sutra. The final verse is poignant: when the dust covered the traces of people that once were, they no longer can answer questions ...
An application of the dog-rubbing luck charm A couple of years ago I read in someone’s Russian LiveJournal about the custom among the Muscovites: to touch, rub and sometimes even kiss a sculptur...
There’s another reason for me to be proud of studying at the First Humanities Building. Near the entrance there now stands a monument to Walt Whitman who has always been greatly admired by the R...
First Humanities Building, Lomonosov Moscow State University This is a true story. Around September 1996 I had a dream in which I saw a modern-looking building decorated with a plaque with carv...
I don’t always go back and republish the posts but now and again I simply have to draw the reader’s attention. I have just discovered Mina’s cover of Love Me Please Love Me that we m...