Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Jim Heintz and Natalia Vasilyeva report from Moscow Thousands of anti-government activists challenging President Vladimir Putin’s rule were protesting across Russia on Monday, with police arresting main opposition leader Alexei Navalny outside his Moscow home before he could reach the…
This 1989 painting (the one on the left, Falling Stones I) by Nikolai Vechtomov (1923-2007) resembles an older work of his, from the 1960s, shown at the Thaw exhibition that ended in Moscow yesterday. Unfortunately, I cannot find the earlier work online,…
Following up on my April 19, post. Three Duma deputies have submitted a bill that would require Russian internet providers to disable all services (such as anonymous proxies and VPNs) that refuse to prohibit access to websites and applications blocked by Russian courts…
From the website of the Hermitage museum, St. Petersburg: In 2016, Anselm Kiefer, inspired by his visit to St. Petersburg, created a new exhibition project specially for the Hermitage Museum. It is in the triadic space of the colossal Nikolaevsky…
Searching YouTube and Google images for snow in Moscow “June 2” (in Russian) and the Russian #weathergonemad tag on Instagram should turn up enough results to give one an idea of yesterday’s snowfall in Central Russia. A chance event is…
Storm warnings were duly issued, but no one expected the hurricane to inflict so much damage in so little time. The BBC reports: At least 11 people died when a severe thunderstorm hit the Russian capital Moscow, health officials say.…
As Interfax reports from Moscow, the Russian cabinet’s representative in the Duma has asked the chairman of its legislative committee if MPs could be replaced by robots: “I am very much interested in your view on this. I’ve been to a lecture…
More from Khodasevich’s 1924 memoir on Bryusov quoted in the previous post. Card players inadvertently reveal their deeper selves to discerning eyes: I have played cards a lot in my day; I have seen many players, both occasional and professional. I believe that…
Language Hat has a post on the card game played by Grandma Lausch and her Hungarian friend Mr. Kreindl in The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. It’s called klabyash in the book while clobyosh seems to be the…
Denys Krasnikov reports in KyivPost: Ukraine will block access to the Russian websites VKontakte, Yandex and Odnoklassniki — all hugely popular in the country — under new sanctions measures. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on May 16 blocking…
Henry Wallace was a man of great talent and achievement. As a politician, however, he was susceptible to selective blindness or conscience-soothing self-delusion. In May 1944, he visited the camps of the Kolyma basin – the vast, permafrost-covered northeasternmost island…
The name of the praetorian prefect Macro, who (according to Tacitus and Cassius Dio) was driven to suicide by Caligula in 38 AD, is rendered as Macron in French. Thus, it fully coincides with the name of the new president…