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"A small room, plain, petty-bourgeois. Stalin is drunk, 'blind drunk', as they say. There are only men in the room; of the peasants, myself and one other, black-bearded. Without a word, Vissarionovich threw the black-bearded peasant down, covered him with a sheet and raped
Archive · Books · Museums · Observations · Society
File on Telegram I have long wanted to tell you about one project of the Museum of the History of the Gulag: colleagues, together with the Memory Foundation, have created a collection of graphic novellas based on the recollections of people who passed through the cauldron of Stalinist repression. The
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Observations · Nature
A noble stump of Lebanese cedar from the 1st century BC, in excellent condition, which is, however, characteristic of the wood of this species. It stands in a place of honour by the main entrance of the National Museum of Beirut. With this venerable relic I should like to draw
Faith · Observations · Ethnography
I am not hinting at anything, but if you wish to feel how Jesus handed out bread and wine to his disciples at the Last Supper, try finding video of Hasidic feasts. To attend such a gathering would be nothing short of a miracle, if only because the way there
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Ethnography
The hippopotamuses themselves are also represented in the Bronze Age galleries of the Beirut Museum. These, for example, found in the Temple of the Obelisks at Byblos, portray an animal the Egyptians detested for its gluttony and its merciless raids on their plantations, and the rather dismissive attitude is conveyed
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Observations
This duck lying on its back was made in the Late Bronze Age from a hippopotamus tooth, and it is hollow inside. It is a special vessel for cosmetics and a true luxury object, an example of rare Lebanese work in ivory. From beak to belly, the duck was filled
NB! · Art · Observations · Nature · Humour
Psyche, a white Persian cat, captured by the celebrated artist of the day Francis Sartorius the Elder (1734-1804). She looks like the Choupette of her age
Archaeology · Faith · Museums
The rhyton is a vessel like a horn, fashioned in the form of the lowered head of an animal. This rather rare Iron Age rhyton in the shape of a pig's head was found during the building of a road out of Tripoli in 1924, in a rich
NB! · Museums · Observations · Humour
I feel an irresistible pull towards museum treasures. As usual, though
The East · Art · Museums · Society
Barge Haulers on the Nile. Yes, barge haulers existed not only in Russia: the poorest men towed boats upstream, straining at the harness, in France, Belgium, Egypt and other countries, and in some places this form of employment survived until the 1930s. As proof that the destitute in different corners
The East · Museums · Mores
A realistiscope from the collection of the Sursock Museum in Beirut. More often it is called a stereoscope. In its day this device, devised in the 1850s, was enormously popular. To use the curious contraption, one must press the velvet edges of the mask firmly to the face, holding it
Architecture · The East · Heritage
The Rolex clock tower in central Beirut on Place de l’Etoile, at the beginning of the twentieth century, one of the tallest buildings in the city. This district was the seat of the French government of Lebanon. During the war the whole district, like much of the city, was