Merry Christmas eve, dear friend, excellent reader of this post! A happy Sunday to you! How are you today, in this special occasion? I wish you the best! How is the weather? As for me, I am okay! I wished many friends a great Christmas, and shall wish more the same soon! I worked on a drawing to dear Coop, to celebrate his first stream in a month or so. Ah, the drawing did not get how I wanted it to be. But... ah, How I've missed him! It is a time of happiness, rejoicing because of the birth of the savior! And of forgiveness, and of giving once again, thanks. It has been a harsh year, so I am grateful to the people around me, online or not online, though most of them are online. It is a time for gifts, and I have received some already, which is wonderful. My aunt is here for Christmas,
What are your plans for today? As for me, I am really not sure what I will be doing. I may play a game, work on another drawing, this time for Charles, or maybe I will rework on my own to Coop? It is not the first time I don't feel satisfied with my fanart to him. It is hard to do him. He is such a handsome fellow... I always wish I could portray people better.
What games I will be playing? That is a good question. I have some options in mind, I definitely have a library of them. Will I read? Perhaps. I am happy to say I finished the book on Catherine II, yesterday! The first one I read, by Robert K. Massie, is better, but this one is also good, specially towards the end. What an adventure the life of Catherine has been. The court of Empress Elisabeta is indeed a court for movies and tv shows, and one wonder where are they! Also, the court of Catherine is not at all her inferior, though the antique style of neoclassicism is not favored by me, that prefer the Rococo of her predecessors. Still, Neoclassical architecture can produce wonders sucb as the Tauride Palace, residence of Prince Potemkin. Oh, the great Potemkim, that built cities in Novo Roussie! Cities such as Ekaterinoslav, Sevastopol, Kherson and Nikolaev. What an era on Russian history! Peter the First, brutal as he was, did lay the foundation to a great empire, that was further edified by Empress Elisabeta, her daughter, and Catherine started to make the edifice grow! Of course, not without pains, there were lots of wars with the Ottomans, those villains. There was excessive taxation due to the war, and a whole lot of strife. Many were killed during the revolt of Pugachev, that monster of a man, that foul vagabond assassin, that caused so much trouble. The empire would grow not without pains, but there were also many triumphs. Such as the cities built in the old Khanate of Crimea, that was annexed by Russia. Such as the beautiful palaces and porcelain chinese villages of Catherine. Such as the wonderful pieces of art that she brought to Russia. Such as the institutions of higher learning she introduced and expanded. Many underestimate how long it takes to build a lasting legacy, Catherine was not the most popular during most of her reign, at least not in the provinces. The capital at St Petersburg justly worshipped her, but Moscow was never impressed. Still, her seeds were planted and they spread like wildfire, in men such as Dostoyevsky, such as Tchaikovsky, that would not be without her efforts of bringing true european culture to a country that was for many centuries more eastern than western. Catherine believed in an European Russia. Even with bumps, there was a brief surge of liberal thinking in that country, one that even if never after gained much ground, had wonderful names such as Ivan Turgenev, Vladimir Nabokov and Rachmaninoff, even Stravinsky, in later eras, and Ayn Rand. The empire, when it embrace the modern economy, when it adhered to capitalism of the free market and land ownership, it boomed like any other country, besides America. It only declined when the forces of evil, unfortunately also influenced by some bad western thoughts, triumphed in that region. Woe communism, woe its 100 something million victims, its billion slaves and its yoke of cultural destruction and dissipation.
Takes time for tradition to take place, and it is more fragile than we'd like to admit. Christmas is to be even more cherished, then! Again, a very happy Christmas with wonderful food and friends and family. You deserve even more! And I see you again, hopefully, tomorrow, though I don't know yet what I'll write...
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