“Love,” Leo Tolstoy once said, “is life.” And love, like life, is multifaceted – it can be both beautiful and tragic in its complexity and mysteriousness.

As we approach this Valentine’s Day, with New England buried in Siberia-like snow, we can’t help but turn to Russia – a country whose complexity and mystery is just as vast and profound as the intricacy of love.

Winston Churchill, in a 1939 radio address, described it best when he said: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…”

And Fyodor Tyutcheve (1803-1873), one of Russia’s greatest 19th century poets, said: “Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone…” Read more