Archive · Art · Monarchies · Saint Petersburg

Participants in the murder of Peter III carried the regalia at his second funeral in 1796

The second funeral of Peter III, 2 December 1796. Unknown artist (in all likelihood Italian). The image takes the form of a scroll 15.8 m long and 0.75 m wide. Against the background of the procession there stand out the tsar's rod and sceptre and the

NB! · Art · Nature

Natalia Goncharova, "Autumn

Natalia Goncharova, "Autumn. Park", 1909

Architecture · Faith · Cinema · Moscow · Observations

Kofemania founder Igor Zhuravlev and the Church of St Blaise in Old Konyushennaya Sloboda

From a new film about Kofemania I learned that its founder, Igor Zhuravlev, who attended the Church of the Hieromartyr Blaise in the Old Stable Settlement, considers the rector of that church, Archpriest Alexei Novikov, the man who determined his fate. Hence the actual icons that hang in all of

Art · Books · Nature

A 1899 poem by Konstantin Balmont on the coming of autumn

The cowberries are ripening, The days have turned colder, And the cry of the birds Only saddens the heart. Flocks of birds are flying Away, beyond the blue sea. All the trees are glittering In their many-coloured attire. The sun laughs more rarely, The flowers have no fragrance. Soon

NB! · People · Pop Culture

Maya Plisetskaya 🖤

Archive · Art · Books · Observations · Humour

Raise your hand if you, too, can account for your early-morning awakening only by an assault of demonic swine hordes

Illustration from the 1463 book Speculum Historiale [The Mirror of History] by the medieval French chronicler Vincent of Beauvais

Archive · London · Society

After the first aerial bombardment of Britain, which Yarmouth suffered in January 1915 and in which German airships were used, agitational leaflets and posters bearing the slogan "God punish England!" appeared in Germany, for example, with…

The German air raids on Great Britain by Zeppelin, particularly those aimed at London, captured the imagination of the German public, yet did the English no substantial harm. Still, the airship raids, together with the later bombardments by aeroplane, forced England to divert a portion of its forces from the

Black-and-white photo of a smiling bearded man in glasses leaning on paintings set on easels. Spectators stand behind him at the edge of a forest.

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Bearded man in glasses beside paintings on easels in an open meadow

Coming Up · Art · Moscow · Society

It is now fifty years since the bulldozers and water-sprinkler trucks rumbled away from the junction of Ostrovityanov and Profsoyuznaya Streets, but the memory of the USSR's chief exhibition of unofficial art, the so-called "Bulldozer Exhibition", lives o

It is now fifty years since the bulldozers and water-sprinkler trucks rumbled away from the junction of Ostrovityanov and Profsoyuznaya Streets, but the memory of the USSR's chief exhibition of unofficial art, the so-called "Bulldozer Exhibition", lives on, and interest in Soviet nonconformism only

Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Observations · Heritage

History of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery near Moscow from its founding in 1398 to today

Not far from Moscow stands one of the foremost Orthodox monasteries, Savvino-Storozhevsky, founded in 1398 by the Venerable Sabbas, the Wonderworker of Zvenigorod. Sabbas was one of the first disciples of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh. Prince Yury Dmitrievich revered the Venerable Sabbas and extended his patronage to the

Geography · Science · Nature

Mercury's tail consists of surface particles ejected by micrometeorites

Professor of Planetary Science Paul Byrne explains that what we see in this photograph by the astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer is not a comet but Mercury. The reason it has a tail is that micrometeorites bombard the planet's surface and throw tiny fragments of it out into space. These

NB! · Archaeology · Archive · Heritage

Alexandr Radayev