Word: russian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this case the time was the years just before and after the start of the First World War, in 1914. That was when the multidirectional Czech painter Frantisek Kupka and the austere Russian Kazimir Malevich were in their different ways achieving escape velocity on canvas. And so was Kandinsky, who would become the most tireless apostle of an art that answered to nothing in the merely material world. Born in 1866 to a prosperous Moscow family, Kandinsky spent his 20s studying law and economics, all the while bending toward another calling. He was the sort of young man who could...
...Blue signified spirituality to him.) And by that year, with his succinctly titled Picture with a Circle, Kandinsky was galloping full speed in the direction of complete abstraction. But for him, abstract images were also representations of a kind, correlatives of spiritual realities. He was an admirer of the Russian mystic Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, a stew of beliefs about a spiritual realm that would someday replace the material world. Though Kandinsky's dedication to Theosophy is a familiar part of his biography, the Guggenheim show, which continues through Jan. 13, is largely silent on the matter...
...Novasti, a Russian state-run news agency, reported that a Russian criminal group was just arrested for selling forged degrees from Harvard and other colleges. The going rate for a fake Harvard diploma ($40,000) was just a little less than the the official cost of one year's tuition, room, and board ($48,868 for 2009-10, according to FAS). But Alexander Khazin, deputy chief of a Russian Interior Ministry investigative department, told RIA Novasti that “a large group of fraudsters are involved in the [diploma forgery] business, and much time is required to discover them...
Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian air force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won't need to constantly clear the streets, and the traffic - and quality of life - will undoubtedly improve...
...know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?" Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. "Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then, outside Moscow, there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won't snow as much. It will make financial sense." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...