Archive · Faith · Ethnography

Ethiopian clergy sing and dance at Easter in the courtyard of the Russian hospital in Addis Ababa

Abyssinian Orthodox clergy at Easter in the courtyard of the Russian hospital in Addis Ababa, 1900s. In Ethiopia there is a tradition of going from house to house and singing religious chants on religious holidays. In the background are the fence and gates of the Russian compound. Psalmists and singers

A city street in warm light, with people walking on the pavement, cars on the road and a tall building with spires in the distance.

Archive · Architecture · Books · Moscow

Photograph from the second volume of the 1986 book “Moscow”

View of the Stalin skyscraper on Vosstaniya Square from Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, autumn 1980. From the book "Moscow", Volume II, 1986

Faith · Ethnography

The centaurs descend from the first of men to kill a kinsman, namely King Ixion, who did not wish to pay his father-in-law the bride-price for his beautiful daughter and pushed him into a fire pit covered over with planks

The centaurs descend from the first of men to kill a kinsman, namely King Ixion, who did not wish to pay his father-in-law the bride-price for his beautiful daughter and pushed him into a fire pit covered over with planks. For this dreadful crime Ixion was punished

Books · Monarchies · Observations · Paris · Nature

Old fish in the ponds of the Petit Trianon and Barbara Pym's remark about Marie Antoinette

The British novelist Barbara Pym, in her ironic novel Crampton Hodnet, written in the 1930s and 1940s, remarks that the fish in the ponds of the Petit Trianon are so old that they must surely have seen Marie Antoinette. In principle, some freshwater fish really do live for more than

Books · Observations · Mores

Men are, as a rule, more attentive to the breeding of their horses and dogs than to the upbringing of their offspring

Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims / Fruits of Retirement. William Penn, 1693

Observations · Science · People

A reminder from Carl Jung:

Life really begins only at 40; until then, you are merely conducting research

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

If you hurried through the Egyptian hall of the Louvre to get to the tiny Mona Lisa sooner, I advise you to correct the mistake and make the acquaintance, at the very least, of the figure of the Seated Scribe Kay

If you hurried through the Egyptian hall of the Louvre to get to the tiny Mona Lisa sooner, I advise you to correct the mistake and make the acquaintance, at the very least, of the figure of the Seated Scribe Kay. He is undeservedly neglected, although many historians and art

NB! · Mores · Humour

The Viewer's Armchair Was Invented Long Before the Television

NB! · Archive · Art · Paris

The Vitruvian Man dances on the cover of the programme for the 21st season of Sergei Diaghilev's Russian Ballets at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris, 1928

Archive · Mores · Nature

Tomatoes in Russia and Europe in the 18th century as love apples and an ornamental crop

As you can see, in the first half of the nineteenth century tomatoes were still a curiosity in Russia, and it had to be explained not only how they were cultivated, but how they were to be eaten. At that time tomatoes were called amorous or love apples, after the

Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg · Ethnography · Humour

1980s notice of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography refusing to show freaks and monsters

The essence of the Kunstkamera, Peter's legendary cabinet of curiosities, in a single sentence. Our museum is about the culture and way of life of the peoples of the world, and therefore it does not display the freaks, dwarfs, giants and other monsters who amused the grandees of

Archive · People

Yuri Gagarin signing autographs at an evening reception in Stockholm Town Hall, 1964

Photo by Valentin Cheredintsev

Alexandr Radayev