Did you write to Dede Moroz yet?

This is an official photograph from the one-and-only true house of Dede Moroz (Grandpa Frost) in Veliki Ustiug in the Russian Federation. He can wear blue or red… ah, he has his red suit on today. As you see, he is quite busy… have YOU sent your letter yet? There are only 24 more days to prepare for Christmas (and only 11 for those of you on the Roman Calendar)! It is time to act smartly and get writing to Dede. You’ll feel so much better after you write that letter (I stole that line from the good people at Voice of Russia! It was the tag-line of the late great Joe Adamov.)! After all, don’t you want to hear the troika bells on Christmas Eve outside your house?

Good wishes to all of you during this hectic preparation for the Feast!

Pie Jesu. Mozart. Sarah Brightman (with Russian icons)

This is another “classic chestnut”. Most of the iconography is by the contemporary Russian iconographer Svetlana Rzhanitsyna, but, it is bookended by Yedinorodny Syne i Slove Bozhii (O Only Begotten Son and Word of God”) by Viktor Vasnetsov and St Andrei Rublyov’s famous icon of Christ the Saviour.

Russian Orthodox

This video is of Orthodox Churches in Moscow and St Petersburg and some paintings from the Hermitage in St Petersburg. The music is Bulgarian Orthodox Chants.

Ivan Pelevin. The First-Born. 1888

The First-Born (Ivan Pelevin, 1888)

This is one of my favourite paintings. It speaks for itself, does it not?