Publications

Svetlana Smetanina If you look at Europe from the standpoint of Russian cultural heritage, you can find a lot of interesting things in virtually every country. So why isn’t such material used in lessons of Russian? Initiators of the Living Languages/Living Heritage Project invented an unusual mixture of history and language lessons. Igor Zhukovsky, head of the Russia-Aquitaine Association (Bordeaux, France) tells us what has become of it. – You proposed an interesting initiative - to talk about Russian cultural heritage in the Russian as a foreign language classes. How...

Yulia Goryacheva In the days of the latest anniversary of Saint Petersburg, the Russian émigré community respectfully remembers another significant yet unfairly forgotten Russian name. It is the name of Pyotr Alexeyevitch Dementyev, who was born on May 1, 1849 in Saint Petersburg on the Neva River and founded another St. Petersburg (or St. Pete, as it is called shortly) on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Unfortunate Landlord Here is what the modern American historian Karl Grismer writes about him: “Peter A. Demens, who was born in Russia, should undoubtedly be...

Sergey Vinogradov Special Assignment Airmen, a book by Anna Belorusova, a Russian writer, will be the basis for the exhibition planned at the British town of Bournemouth on the shore of the English Channel. The book tells about the Soviet Airgroup of ace-pilots and the Soviet-British allied cooperation during World War II. Looking for information about her grandfather, the pilot Pyotr Kolesnikov, Anna Belorusova could not ignore the discovered facts and forgotten names which resulted in a book reminding about the Soviet-British allied brotherhood. The developments were...

Yulia Goryacheva 130 years ago Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, a legendary Russian aircraft designer, philosopher and visionary, was born. It was he who designed the very systems that are currently used, for example, in advanced helicopters of the presidents of the United States and Russia. Indeed, the legacy of the famous aircraft designer who created the world's first bomber, a four-engine aircraft and a single-rotor helicopter is our national pride. The Tsar’s Favourite In 1913, the Russkiy Vityaz (that became the forefather of all multi-engine heavy aircraft in the world),...

Anna Genova  The Artigianato e Palazzo Festival (Artisan crafts and Palace) was held in Florence over the weekend. The anniversary 25th edition has been devoted to charity fundraising for time-critical restoration and preservation of the great cultural and artistic legacy of Russian community that resided in Florence in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Festival was founded by Princess Giorgiana Corsini and Neri Torrigiani, the facilitator of Artigianato e Palazzo and owner of  Studio Torrigiani. The project aims to promote, preserve and hand over the unique knowledge possessed...

Sergey Vinogradov Tatiana Kazzi, a Russian artist, works on a project to combine paintings of Australian Aborigines with Gzhel and Khokhloma. A native of Kaliningrad has lived on the green continent for almost a quarter of a century; and she is one of a few foreign women who were granted the right to study art of the indigenous people of Australia by their descendants. Tatiana Kazzi plans to ornament Russian Matryoshka dolls with kangaroos, snakes, birds and other symbols of Australian aborigines. The artist told the Russkiy Mir that active work of the Russian community in...