The artist began by laying cool green brushstrokes onto the canvas. Then carefully added pinkish and peach tones over them.…
Why did American classic writer Theodore Dreiser go to the USSR?
It turns out, a better observer of the communist experiment could hardly have been found. The young Soviet state also…
The Word and Deed of Musa Jalil
For his exceptional fortitude and courage, Musa Jalil (born Musa Mustafovich Zalilov) was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of…
Out of the Underworld
Dostoevsky was perhaps the first true tragedian in Russian literature. The first writer to be so comprehensively unhappy, the first…
How Tchaikovsky’s ‘mistake’ became a great opera
Today, ‘Eugene Onegin’ is performed on the stages of theaters across all continents. In the second half of the 1870s,…
How a peasant from Karelia became the greatest master of Fabergé eggs
Mikhail Perkhin was an amazing employee at Carl Fabergé’s firm – and the only Orthodox and Russian-born jeweler. And, at…
How did Leo Tolstoy look for his love?
The writer’s wife occupies a special place in the history of Russian culture. As Gorky wrote, she was given a…
Why did Leo Tolstoy run away from home?
Deep in the night of November 10, 1910, the then 82-year-old writer secretly packed up and left his home and…
