Nothing changes.

What on earth can one make of Russia? For centuries it has stumbled from one brutal murderous dictator to another seemingly yet more heinous. Democracy, simply stated, is a concept they are incapable of embracing, preferring the cold clutches of the state and cheap booze. The current Russian poll to seek out the greatest Russian has Stalin in a healthy lead. Runner-up? Tzar Nicholas II. This from a nation that has given us Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Horowitz, Nureyev and on and on. You figure it out. I cannot.

So how is it that so cruel a system has given us much of what we think of as great art today, whether in music, painting, ballet, opera, architecture, you name it? Maybe it’s simply that the Slav creative gene only works well when depressed.

Click the picture for a beautiful monochrome photo essay by James Hill on the remains of agrarian Russia, appropriately published in that most socialist of US papers, The New York Times: