Satellite map of South America with red markings across the Amazon basin.

Geography · Maps · Ethnography

Uncontacted peoples remain in Asia, New Guinea and South America

A Map of the Last Uncontacted Peoples of South America. At present, peoples who have never had direct contact with the outside world and modern civilisation remain in India, on islands of the Indian Ocean, in Vietnam, New Guinea, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Amazonia, Bolivia and Peru

The East · Art · Observations · Ethnography

Lenin's Meeting with the Mongolian Delegation

A popular subject in twentieth-century Mongolian art. The Mongols' attire is very beautiful. What a pity that national dress is vanishing so rapidly all over the world.

NB! · Humour

You might just as well have said you've got your hands full

NB! · Architecture · Observations

A Phenomenal View of the Courtyard of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena

Archive · Mores · Humour

Inspiring Examples of Import Substitution:

In January 1921 Khodasevich recalled that Gorky had treated him to chocolate made from sunflower husks, without any sugar.

Men, women and children in early 17th-century dress and ruffs in a picture gallery; a man displays a Madonna and Child painting, and a dog lies in the foreground.

NB!

Group in a collector's gallery viewing a painting of the Madonna and Child

Art · New York

A long-lost painting by Quentin Massys, founder of the Antwerp school of painting, known from seven copies by his own circle and from its appearance in another picture as one of the…

Books · Society

Russian digital book market reached 14.2 billion roubles in 2023, J’son & Partners estimates

A very serious study of the digital book market in Russia has been published by the leading analytical company J’son & Partners Consulting. This is the first independent assessment of the market, so on the whole it is a landmark event for the entire industry. The figures are very

Cinema · Society · Humour

It is held that from the 1980s onwards Italian cinema found itself in crisis; among the reasons cited is the proliferation of private television channels, which drew the viewer's attention away from the cinemas, and as a consequence…

In 2007, during the Cannes Festival, Quentin Tarantino, a great admirer of Italian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, described the state of affairs in Italian film as tragic, because the work of recent years strikes him as samey, dreary and soul-destroying: "They are about either boys coming

A white lamb with bound legs lies on a stone slab against a dark background, a faint thin halo above its head.

Faith · Art · Museums

Francisco de Zurbarán’s “Lamb of God” of 1639 and at least seven versions of the subject

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29) The Lamb of God, Francisco de Zurbarán, 1639. At least seven versions of this subject by Zurbarán are known.

NB! · Coming Up · Cinema · Society Pages

And on Friday, I remind you, we are off to the cinema to talk about "Little Buddha"

Geography · Maps · Science · Humour

And here comes Emmanuel Macron in the Mercator projection

And here comes Emmanuel Macron in the Mercator projection. A splendid photograph for explaining why the scale on Mercator maps is not constant, and why the true area of countries differs from their area in the projection the farther one moves from the equator. This comes from the function that

Alexandr Radayev