Books
Louis-Ferdinand Céline and his book “Journey to the End of the Night”
I knew only poor people, that is, people whose death interests no one. Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Alexandr Radayev
Archive · Moscow · Society · Nature
Moscow flood in which the water rose to 9 metres and inundated Zamoskvorechye
On 11 April 1908, Good Friday, the most famous Moscow flood began, inundating a quarter of the city, an area of 16 square kilometres. A sharp thaw after the snowiest winter in 18 years filled the Moskva River and its tributaries, and in just twenty-four hours the water level
Books · Museums · Heritage · Society · Paris
Every Month Brings New Alarming Incidents at the Louvre
At the end of November, a serious accident occurred in the library of the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities: at about 21:00 on 27 November, old pipes in the suspended ceiling burst. Dirty water flooded the rooms, damaging some 400 rare books, including their antique bindings. The
NB! · Faith · Cinema · People
Actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who has departed to the Lord at the age of 75, bore the name Panteleimon in Orthodox baptism
Faith · Observations · Education · Society
Irish teacher Enoch Burke goes to prison for being a practising Christian and refusing to use the preferred pronouns and new name of a transgender pupil
Irish teacher Enoch Burke goes to prison for being a practising Christian and refusing to use the preferred pronouns and new name of a transgender pupil. He has been sentenced, for refusing to renounce his faith, his common sense and his clear conscience, to indefinite confinement until he complies with
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society · Humour
Russia Threatened with Isolation from European Civilisation
In short, nothing new. A piece on Russo-German relations, a sort of Telegram-channel analytics of 1872. They keep mulling over the future after the death of Alexander II, although he has another nine years allotted to him, and, as usual, they threaten to cut our dear little Russia
Aristocracy · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Mores
Dmitry Sheremetev's guardians refused to rent the House of Solitude at Kuskovo to actress Sandunova
With the death of Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev, Dmitry Nikolayevich, his seven-year-old son by the former serf actress Praskovya Gorbunova-Zhemchugova, who died soon after the birth, was left a complete orphan. The boy's upbringing was taken on by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, while as
NB! · Archive · Architecture · Observations · Paris
The grounds around the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 World's Fair and the pavilions demolished afterwards
The grounds around the Eiffel Tower during the 1889 Exposition Universelle. It is strange to reflect that all these buildings were temporary pavilions, and were simply pulled down once the exhibition was over
NB! · Archive · The East · Heritage
Stone statues at Ming-era tombs in China in a photograph of 1869
Tombs of the Ming era in China, that is, of the 14th to 17th centuries. Photograph of 1869
Faith · Art · Observations · Humour
And now let us take a look at Judith by the Italian painter Fede Galizia
Good heavens, what is the matter with this woman? Why is her face so serene, with the faintest smile? She has, after all, just cut off a man's head. Yet nothing in her appearance betrays the murder so recently committed. True, painters always give Judith this blissful tranquillity
Art · Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour
Marquise de Montespan as Judith in Gabriel Revel's painting of 1688
The Marquise de Montespan as Judith, Thriftily Holding the Severed Head of Holofernes. Once more, then: the Marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV and mother of seven of his children, in the guise of the Old Testament heroine Judith, the young widow who saved besieged Judea by cutting off
Books · Moscow · Observations · Reportage · Humour
The intellectual literature fair at Gostiny Dvor and buying books with no intention of reading them
Shall I tell you what a fair of intellectual literature is? City dwellers, worn out by bustle, obligations and a dusk that begins at four in the afternoon, come to Gostiny Dvor to sigh a little in the queue at the entrance, jostle by the cloakroom and, at last, plunge