Month: November 2025
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Alexandria
Standing as a crossroad between the Hellenistic world and the East, the city of Alexandria in Egypt is a testament to Alexander the Great as a visionary leader, who envisioned a unified world by establishing cities and transplanting populations between continents. It was recorded by the philosopher Plutarch that one night, Alexander recalled Menelaus’ words…
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The Ideal City
In the early 2000’s, I attended a guided tour of the city of Berlin in Germany. It had only been a little more than a decade since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the remnants of East Berlin then were still vivid. Our tour guide showed us the Eastern walls, which were still littered…
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Winter’s Bone
Considered the greatest Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin is to Russian letters what Leonardo da Vinci is to Western European art. He is regarded as the founder of modern Russian literature, the inventor of the modern Russian language, who bridged the gap between the literary Russian of the past and the vernacular. To the Russian people,…
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Jet Black
The color jet-black, the darkest of black, is derived from jet, which is a gemstone made of pure wood compressed and heated under extreme pressure, and fossilized over millions of years. The wood was of a conifer with banded spiky trunk, lower branches sweeping the ground, and cones the size of human head. Today this…
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