At least one scene in my novel, Small Acts of Kindness, a tale of the first Russian revolution, takes place in the offices of the Russian American Company. One of the principle characters, the radical Kondraty Ryleev, was office manager at the company in the months before the Decembrist uprising in 1825. The large building, […]
The Russian army is rightly preoccupying people at present. When preparing for the first live talk I have given for quite a long time, I was trying to find a better image to illustrate Peter the Great’s ‘play regiments’. I came across this bright 17th century woodcut, the illustration from a book. I think the figure […]
I often marvel at how many buildings in the past were constructed without the help of machinery, and the same applies to moving large rocks across the countryside. We recently watched a programme about how the great bluestones that form part of the stone circles at Stonehenge actually came from a quarry in Wales some […]
Portrait of Peter the Great of Russia by Sir Godfrey Kneller. 1698. This picture of Peter the Great is one of many interesting works that can be seen at the exhibition Russia, Royalty and the Romanovs, currently running at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. The picture features in my talk ‘The Bronze Horseman‘ which tells […]