Black-and-white photo of a man in a suit and a clergyman in vestments and mitre on a balcony with a wrought-iron railing, a photographer behind them.

Faith · Observations · Society

Patriarch Alexy II on bitter words spoken to rulers and to the people

There were times when the Patriarch's duty was to speak bitter words to the ruler's face. Now, it seems, there are coming times when still more bitter words must be spoken to the face of one's own people. Patriarch Alexy II

NB! · Archive · Museums · Saint Petersburg

The Hermitage in Photographs by Lev Borodulin, 1966

NB!

Has Every Right

Archive · Nature · Humour

Monkey at sea mistaken for a person, rescued by boat, swims away again

In 1950 a solitary male proboscis monkey was spotted far out in the South China Sea. The passengers of a cruise liner mistook the animal for a human being, and a boat was lowered to go to its assistance. The monkey clambered aboard, rested for a while, but then leapt

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

Knights Don't Want to Leave Their Beds Either, but a New Working Week Lies Ahead

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Heritage

The House with the Unicorn in Nashchokinsky Lane was built by the architect Shchekotov in 1897 with Gothic motifs, but the unicorn appeared considerably later, as did the gargoyles: these decorative elements arrived on the façade after the building's reno

Black-and-white photograph of an elderly man in white papal vestments with a pectoral cross, raising his hands in greeting.

Faith · Observations · Society

Pope Benedict XVI and his view of the modern ideology of the West

We are building a dictatorship of relativism that recognises nothing as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. Pope Benedict XVI, it turns out, on the modern ideology of the West

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture

Advertisement with Poussin's painting from the Louvre and its subject of death in Arcadia

Nicolas Poussin's "The Shepherds of Arcadia" (1637–38) in an advertisement for Lolita Lempicka's men's fragrance. The first thought on seeing this dreadful advertisement: did the collaboration bring the Louvre, which houses Poussin's immortal canvas, enough money to acquire for

Art · Books

Batyushkov's poem on a shepherdess's grave and Poussin's painting “The Arcadian Shepherds”

Подруги милые! в беспечности игривой Под плясовой напев вы резвитесь в лугах. И я, как вы, жила в Аркадии счастливой, И я, на утре дней, в сих рощах и лугах Минутны радости вкусила: Любовь в мечтах златых мне счастие сулила: Но что ж досталось мне в сих радостных местах? — Могила!

Close-up of an eye with several irises, with the Festival de Cannes emblem and name in the upper left corner.

Art

“The Emergence of Substance” by Andrey Borisovich Grositsky, 1997

The Substance of Coralie Fargeat, 2024. and The emergence of the substance of Andrey Borisovich Grositsky, 1997.

Art · Observations · Saint Petersburg · Humour

I know nothing about this magazine, except that its cover shows a Leningrad Porcelain Factory figurine, "Fire Horse", with its legs chipped off in exactly the same way as on an identical statuette I threw away a couple of years ago

I know nothing about this magazine, except that its cover shows a Leningrad Porcelain Factory figurine, "Fire Horse", with its legs chipped off in exactly the same way as on an identical statuette I threw away a couple of years ago. Can such coincidences happen, or has the

Art · Moscow · Museums

Boris Turetsky, 1958

and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, 1984 GES-2, exhibition “Square and Space”

Alexandr Radayev