Pray, consider the modern appetite for spectacle, which knows no boundary—not even the ceiling of a flying machine. It has come to my attention that two gentlemen of the musical persuasion, Mr. Leonid Agutin and Mr. Vladimir Presnyakov, saw fit to transform a journey from Moscow to Sochi into a veritable concert hall.

One must admire the audacity, though a certain touch of bourgeois restlessness lingers in the air. There they were, amidst the clouds, serenading their fellow travellers with such vigour that even the crew—those stoic guardians of the skies—could not resist joining the chorus. It was a scene of most exquisite absurdity: a captive audience, bound by belts and altitude, indulging in the fleeting fashion of an impromptu performance.

This aerial divertissement, as it happens, served as a mere prelude to the 'Aguteens' festival, currently occupying the leisure of the Sochi coast. One imagines the ladies adjusting their bonnets in anticipation of such melodic disruptions.

Indeed, the spirit of the age seems obsessed with these sudden bursts of public artistry. I recall with a slight, melancholic smile a previous occurrence, wherein a tourist of modest means, armed with nothing but a bayan, provided a concert for those wretched souls stranded at the Sochi airport. Whether fleeing the threat of unmanned aerial contraptions or simply waiting for a delayed carriage, the passengers found solace in music.

How quaint it is, this insistence on turning every inconvenience—and every voyage—into a social event. One wonders if the gentlemen of today can endure a single hour of silence without the urge to perform for the gallery.