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| | Dancing Through Russia's Cultural History |
 | | Her portrait, by Sheremetev’s famous serf artist Nikolai Argunov, is one of the many splendid color plates in the book. |
 | | Sheremetev’s famous Petersburg residence Fountain House, where Praskovya, "the finest singer in the Russia of her day, literate and conversant with several languages," lived in hiding, bore her son, and died, reappears in the section on the Soviet era, sadly run down and jammed full of desperate inhabitants, as the home of poet Anna Akhmatova. |
 | | It survives the World War II siege of Leningrad, and when Akhmatova’s funeral cortege of thousands moves in 1966 toward the cemetery, it stops at Fountain House for Anna to say one last goodbye to her beloved home. |
| springharborpress.com /dancing_through_russia's_cultural_history.htm (2054 words) |
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