An ancient tradition holds it that the world was born of a tree. Its trunk became the axis of the universe, its roots pierced the earth, and its foliage scattered around the blue and turned into stars.

The soul of a tree is a mystery. Man tries to unravel it and thus understand himself better.

From times immemorial wood was the most accessible and favourite material for folk artistic creativity – wood and birch bark. However, there has never been non-artistic creativity in people. Whatever a peasant’s hands touched – a wooden plough, a distaff or a carved shutter – they endowed everything with beauty, an exquisite ornament, or simply with a smooth and pleasant shape.

Not only things as such, but also the ability to create them was transmitted from one generation to another. However, peasant life began changing rapidly over time. Not only wooden ploughs and distaffs were forgotten; even tuyesses, vessels made of birch-tree bark, began to seem unwanted. What’s more, beauty was gone under the pressure of rushing time and urban lifestyle. It seemed that the old craft was forgotten once and for all. Nevertheless, souls enchanted by wood still exist in Russia. Quite a few centres of wood and birch-bark craftsmanship appeared over the past decade. Today we will tell our readers about the creative group "Sonmische” from Prokopyevsk, a town of miners.

The estate Shakhmatovo in the Moscow Province was one of Blok's favourite places of his motherland. There the poet wrote his best verses about Russia.

Time did not spare the poet's old house, and the ruins of the estate have been grown with trees and bushes. Nevertheless, the unique local landscape breathes Blok's poetry. Today Shakhmatovo has become a place of pilgrimage for many lovers of poetry. Festivals of poetry are held there every year.

Остров Робинзона Крузо находится от Сантьяго, чилийской столи­цы, в 700 километрах. Понадобилось три часа полета на маленьком са­молетике и двухчасовая прогулка по Тихому океану на рыболовецком баркасе, — прежде чем путешественник Анатолий МЕДВЕДЕНКО оказался в поселке Сан-Хуан-Баутиста, един­ственном населенном пункте на архипелаге Хуан-Фернандес, в состав которого входит и остров, названный именем героя Даниеля Дефо.

Анатолий делится с нами впечатлениями от своего путешествия.

Развитие ребенка во многом зависит от приобщения его к декоративно-прикладному искусству. Наши фильмы помогут сформировать художественный вкус, чувство прекрасного у Ваших детишек...

«Милое мое Аксаково» — так неизменно начинает свои воспоминания о родном и любимом уголке Оренбуржья известный писатель, охотник и натуралист, певец природы родного края Сергей Тимофеевич Аксаков.