Time for reflection, hands in pockets, mulled wine and pleasant melancholy

8 reasons why the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens was far from being as pleasant an institution as is commonly believed

For a long time, the first women's educational institution in Russia was covered with an aura of romanticism. The Institute for Noble Maidens, created by the project of the President of the Academy of Arts Ivan Betsky and by order of Catherine II, was the beginning of reforms in the field of education. It was assumed that people of a new type would be brought up here, so the students had to adhere to certain and rather strict rules. Unfortunately, the graduates often retained far from the most pleasant memories of the years of study at Smolny

Why are brides fattening and other strange and not always pleasant wedding traditions from all over the world

It seems that a wedding is an extremely romantic and funny event, because it is not for nothing that in Russia they have always said that the wedding is “played”. Many different traditions are associated with the day of creating a new family all over the world. True, the fact that in some countries is a habitual norm may cause surprise among residents of other countries, and in some cases even shock. After all, not every bride is able to get pleasure from being doused with slops or from a whole month of crying

Two in one: pleasant and useful from Dodie Eisenhauer

We all know this picture: before major holidays, a huge flotilla of people storms supermarkets in search of worthwhile gifts for family and friends. Dodie Eisenhauer is one of the few artists who managed to combine business with pleasure: it's not a shame to donate her creations and they won't gather dust on the shelves like unnecessary trash, it's nice and useful! And most importantly - very beautiful

"Human clock", where the hands are the legs and the divisions are the hands

It is not so easy to create an interesting clock, because a lot of them have recently been invented, and this can be said about both wrist and floor clocks, and wall clocks, and any others. But the designers manage to make an art object out of watches too

How a false Rockefeller descendant emptied the pockets of Hollywood stars for 20 years: ingenious swindler Christophe Rocancourt

At one time, the writers Ilya Ilfov and Yevgeny Petrov created the literary image of the “great schemer” Ostap Bender, who knew how to “take” money “in four hundred comparative honest ways”. One of its modern prototypes is the swindler Christophe Rocancourt. The only difference is that Bender called himself the son of a Turkish citizen, and the modern "combinator" - a descendant of Rockefeller