Faith · Books · Museums · Paris

Behold the monstrance, like a golden sun, Hung in the air: a magnificent moment

Behold the monstrance, like a golden sun, Hung in the air: a magnificent moment. Here only the Greek language should be heard: A whole world is taken into the hands, like a simple apple. The solemn zenith of the divine service, Light in the round chamber beneath the dome in

Archive · Society · People

Maria Limanskaya of Khaldei's “Brandenburg Madonna” photo turns 100 in Saratov Region

Maria Filippovna Limanskaya, made famous worldwide by Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph "The Brandenburg Madonna", turns 100 this year. The image of Maria Limanskaya has become one of the most recognisable symbols of Victory. In the war Maria Limanskaya was a traffic controller and travelled all the roads

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Society

The choice of Shirshov and Mikoyan for signs on the House on the Embankment

Opposite the mostly infamous House on the Embankment stand two signs reading "The house where ... lived". One wonders by what principle, out of several dozen outstanding and quite well-known names, it was Academician Shirshov and Mikoyan who were chosen. After all, besides them the house was home

A small sculpted mask of a smiling, wrinkled face with a sideways glance, fixed to the corner of a brick.

NB! · Art · Observations

Miniature face on a brick wall on Lev Tolstoy Street, author unknown

Dreadful street art on Lev Tolstoy Street. Own up: whose work is it?

Coming Up · Moscow

Listings from 11 to 20 May include Bruckner’s Mass, the opera “Faust” and the premiere of “Fathers and Sons”

The Traditional Friday Round-Up of Concerts and Theatre Events in Moscow for the Coming Days. 11 May at 19:00 📌Anton Bruckner's Mass No. 3 in F minor, performed by a mixed choir and orchestra under the direction of Philipp Chizhevsky at the Novaya Opera Theatre in

NB! · Observations

A reminder: you, together with all your cares, sorrows and joys, are to be found somewhere in here

NB! · Humour

What a Top-of-the-Range Motor Really Looks Like

Faith · Books

The Ascension of the Lord falls on 9 May for Catholics and 13 June for the Orthodox

He was taken up before their eyes, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

Moscow · Heritage · Nature

Snow fells a willow in the Apothecary Garden that predates the garden's founding in 1706

In the Apothecary Garden, snow has brought down an ancient willow that was growing there even before the botanical garden was founded under Peter I in 1706. It is one of the oldest trees in Moscow. The willow was not planted deliberately as part of the botanical garden, but had

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Moscow · Observations

On the site of the cosy "Zvon" coffee shop in the basement of the seventeenth-century bell tower of the Church of St John the Baptist on Pyatnitskaya Street, a different coffee shop has opened following a change of rector: it is called "Perezvon"

NB! · Science · Nature

Why Are Men Dying Out?

Medieval miniature: bare feet in a pink robe below a cloud in the sky and two footprints on a green mountaintop beneath.

NB! · Faith · The East · Heritage

Footprint of Christ's right foot on the Mount of Olives and the left one in Al-Aqsa Mosque

On the Mount of Olives, from which Jesus Christ ascended, a stone slab bearing the imprint of Christ's right foot remains. The relic is called the "Little Footprint" ("Stopochka"). The part of the stone with the imprint of Jesus's left foot was

Alexandr Radayev