NB! · Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Moscow

The Convent of Saints Martha and Mary, founded by Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, was built to a design by the architect Shchusev, the very man who authored Lenin's Mausoleum and, somewhat earlier, Kazan Station

Art · London · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages

First solo exhibition of London-based artist Nika Neelova opens in Moscow

And at Nika Neyolova's Show at the Voznesensky Centre the Parquet Has Gone Up in Arms. The first solo exhibition of the London-based artist of Russian origin Nika Neyolova, [Ъ] [Ы] [Ь], has opened in Moscow, curated by graduates of that very Garage and Higher School of

NB! · Archive · Cinema · Pop Culture

Maria Callas and Pier Paolo Pasolini on the Set of "Medea" in 1969

NB! · Archive · People

Tsypkin's photograph from the Okhrana file

Tsypkin's photograph from the Tsarist Okhrana file. Tsypkin, Israel-Leizer Wulfovich. Card from the case file on the surveillance by the Tsarist secret police of certain Russian political figures. The photograph was certified by two police officers in his presence on 18 June 1916

Three brown loafers on a gold tiered cake on a stand, with a handwritten French caption above.

Observations · Pop Culture

JM Weston window display with Mocassins 180 loafers on a gilded cake

I love it when even the footwear is served on a golden platter. The windows of the shoemaker JM Weston are, as ever, superb and not without irony

NB! · Observations

I Hope It Is Merely Clickbait

NB! · Monarchies · People · Pop Culture

Yves Saint Laurent, 1980

Yves Saint Laurent, 1980. Photograph by Lord Snowdon, brother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II and husband of her younger sister Princess Margaret, Antony Armstrong-Jones

Books · Mores · People

Intelligence equals moral health, and health is needed to live long, not only physically but mentally

The fundamental principle of the intelligentsia's ethos is intellectual freedom, freedom as a moral category. The only things from which a cultured person is not free are his own conscience and his own thought. Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev, “Letters on the Good and the Beautiful”.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Rome

A fresco in one of the Raphael Rooms on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican

A fresco in one of the Raphael Rooms on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The fresco of the 1580s in the Hall of Constantine, by Tommaso Laureti, is called the Triumph of Christianity and shows the Crucifix rising on a pedestal above a shattered statue

Faith · The East · Art · Museums

Matteo di Giovanni: Saint Bartholomew with his own flayed skin draped over his shoulders

According to legend, one of the apostles, Bartholomew, was flayed alive and then beheaded. Bartholomew preached in Lesser India and in the Caucasus. In the Orthodox tradition he is held to have suffered martyrdom on the site of the modern city of Baku. In the 1480s di Giovanni was the

Rainy evening in Saint Peter's Square with a tall fir tree, the obelisk, the lit basilica facade and people with umbrellas on wet paving.

NB! · Faith · Observations · Rome

Christmas tree installed in Saint Peter's Square in Rome beside the obelisk of Caligula

A Christmas tree has been erected in St Peter's Square. In Rome, with its obelisks, one does not usually chase after the size of Christmas trees, though this one, I would say, is an impressive 25.5 metres, considering the forty-metre Vatican obelisk of Caligula

Medieval miniature of an armoured knight crawling on a sword across water towards a castle, with two lions on the bank and two figures at a window.

NB! · Observations · Humour

Lancelot crosses the sword bridge to a castle in a medieval miniature

It is Friday today, which means that many a Lancelot will be returning to his castle in roughly this fashion. Mind your swords!

Alexandr Radayev