Circassia, home of the world’s most beautiful women

I first heard of Circassia when working in Jordan, which has a small Circassian population. The Circassians I met there were Muslims and some of them wore the hijab, so I was intrigued by their light hair, blue-grey eyes and extremely pale skin. I decided to look them up, and found that Circassians are an …

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Russia’s dumping grounds for Soviet sculpture

At the collapse of the USSR, all the public paraphernalia of Soviet rule - statues, mosaics, frescoes - still lay scattered across Russia and beyond. Marxism-Leninism may have been kicked out of office, but what were people supposed to do with the public propaganda artworks which, for many Soviet citizens, were an unwelcome symbol of …

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