It’s not every day you find yourself in the Orthodox church where Alexander Pushkin’s great-grandfather was baptised. There is something calming about these dark, ornate and often windowless churches. The great-grandfather of Pushkin – the man whom many regard as the epitome of Slavic genius – was from central Africa (modern day Cameroon), a fact that adds to Pushkin’s image as a romantic outsider. His great-grandfather, captured as a child by the Ottomans and gifted to the Russian emperor, rose to the position of general in Peter the Great’s all-conquering army and was baptised in an Orthodox church in the...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
