Recipe for Gilding Bolshoi’s Ceiling: Gold, Vodka, Egg Whites

“To bring back the theatre’s imperial sheen, … [workers] are using a medieval recipe which relies on keeping egg whites in a warm room for 40 days before mixing it with clay. Finished off with vodka, it is then used to apply gold leaf measuring 0.1-mm thick onto the theatre’s curved ceilings and balconies.”