Danse Macabre

Sergei Yurevich Filin, a man of early middle age and improbable beauty, sat behind the wheel of his car on a winter night driving toward home. It was 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the center of Moscow, a light snow in the air, snow on the rooftops, snow piled up in the lanes. Traffic was thick but brisk. Nearby, spotlights illuminated the Kremlin towers. Laughing skaters sliced along a vast rink set up for the season on Red Square. An immense white inflatable dome encased Lenin’s Tomb, sealing it off for structural repairs. Muscovites joked that the eternal resting place of their discredited forefather now looked like Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4.

As One Renaissance Door Closes, Others Open

One of the most popular attractions of the Vatican Museums, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, will be closed to the public over the next few weeks, as cardinals gather there to elect the successor of Pope Benedict XVI. But visitors will be able to find some artistic consolation by lingering in the rooms that Raphael painted in the second-floor apartment of the Pontifical palace used by Pope Julius II (and his successors until the mid-16th century), their 30-year restoration now finally complete.