A Girl with Berries (Nikolai Rachkov, 1879)
When I starting this site last November, I truly did not know where this was going. The shortage of crystal balls being what it is, that is not surprising. However, there is one thing that I have no illusions upon. This site is not successful because of me. It is successful because it fills a niche in YOUR life. I am humbled to be able to fill it for you.
My job is simply to take you by the hand to show you what I have discovered over my lifetime of our Russian art and culture. It is a blossom of the Orthodox culture, one which is not Western in the least, although many Russian artists have used Western techniques. We are the bridge between the Oriental, the Western, and the Islamic worlds. There are elements of all in our world-view and much indigenous to us alone, leading to a special culture that is unique in the world.
Orthodox culture has been centred in Moscow since the fall of Tsargrad to the Turks in 1453. That is to say, we Russians are the leaders of the Orthodox world because we are the largest, most developed, and most powerful section of world Orthodoxy. If we catch a cold, the rest of the Orthodox world suffers, as the era of the Bolshevik persecutions proved most abundantly.
This is our art, this is our culture. Thank you for stopping by. Don’t be a stranger, come again!
BOG BLAGOSLOVIT! MAY GOD BLESS!
Vara Drezhlo
Sunday 20 July 2008
Art and Faith 
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