The note about Moscow’s image problem reminds me of how many people are still living in the cold war era of ignorance and paranoia.

A classic example occurred at the time of the computer crunch year, Y2K. Remember the millennium bug? It was widely believed that planes would fall out of the sky, VCRs would [...]

The apartment museums in St Petersburg are like time capsules. History comes out of the walls and you absorb it effortlessly just by walking through the rooms or gazing at an old photograph on top of a piano.

Such a museum is the Elizarov apartment in St Petersburg, preserved exactly as it was in the 1920s. [...]