In the history of Russian icons, one image is pre-eminent as the most copied, most decorated and most adored: “Our Lady of Kazan.” The image, so legend goes, was discovered by a 10-year-old girl named Matryona in the ruins of a house in the ...

When, in 1891, Tsarevich Nicholas reached the age of 23, his father Czar Alexander III sent him on a tour of the Far East to “round out his political development,” recalled Russian politician Count Sergei Witte some years later. The Emperor Meiji was doubtless ...

First of two parts At its height, in the middle of the 19th century, the Russian Empire ruled by the Romanovs covered more than one-sixth of the surface of the globe. It was a glorious era for a dynasty that had sprung from obscure ...

“It was,” my dining companion recalls with a sigh, “a diet with just one purpose: to get you to put on weight.” Surveying his impressive frame, it’s hard not to conclude that those who catered to him had indeed been boning up on force-feeding ...

It’s early afternoon on a hot spring Sunday in Tokyo, and in the tranquil neighborhood park of Kodaira a fight is shaping up. Children still hurtle round the playground in one corner of the park, but at the far end, three men, burly and ...

Once the home of a prince, the Teien Art Museum is now playing host to a king’s ransom in jewelry comprising a truly sparkling survey of the bijoutier’s art in the four centuries spanning 1540-1940. However, this exhibition in the Art Deco-style former Tokyo ...

We’re so used to Tokyo’s cramped streets that the endless parallel perspectives offered by the spacious grid of roads in central Ginza can make the head spin. And recently, they’ve become more dizzying still. Hanging from every lamppost along Chuo-dori is an eye-catching image: ...

When you think of Australian cuisine do you first think “oxymoron,” imagining barbecued kangaroo steak washed down with a swill of Foster’s lager? Well, if you’re still stuck with the Down Under stereotype, there’s few better than Cheong Liew to correct your preconceptions. From ...

Composed more than 2,000 years ago and first devised for performance in religious festivals, the dramas of Ancient Greece have never lost their powerful relevance. When, for example, a pair of New York-based actresses hit on the idea of a global theatrical protest against ...

Sex, nudity and violence — there’s a lot of it happening in Kobe. Bare-breasted women lie around drunkenly; a naked, handcuffed beauty struggles against her restraints; and a peeping Tom masturbates while peering from behind a curtain. No, the port city hasn’t become a ...

“Terror” is much on our minds these days. Whether we believe that terrorist activity has made the world a more dangerous place to live, or condemn the “war on terror” as a mere cover for U.S. President George W. Bush’s political ambition, the concept ...

With the opening of “The Romantic Tradition in British Painting, 1800-1950,” The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art seems set to take its place as an art institution of international standing. Opened just 10 months ago, the Hyogo museum’s 27,500 sq. meters of exhibition space ...