NB! · Art · Museums
Alexandr Radayev
NB! · Aristocracy · Moscow · Observations · Paris · Humour
Suddenly, on the Diletant website, Moscow's culture chief Kibovsky and Venediktov call Viscount Olivier d'Archiac, Dantès's second in the duel with Pushkin, ARISHAK
Suddenly, on the Diletant website, Moscow's culture chief Kibovsky and Venediktov call Viscount Olivier d'Archiac, Dantès's second in the duel with Pushkin, ARISHAK. The cooks are baking cakes for one another.
Archive · The East · Books · Monarchies · Moscow
Olearius on the Kabardian delegation's visit to the Tsar's court in 1634
The German Olearius witnessed a visit by a Kabardian delegation to the Tsar's court in 1634. What particularly struck Olearius was that the Kabardians arrived in modest array and with no particular occasion or pretext for conversation with the Tsar's officials, yet were presented with silk
NB! · Faith · Books · Humour
A Bookmark in an Eighteenth-Century Suetonius, Salisbury Cathedral Library
A bookmark in an eighteenth-century Suetonius, Salisbury Cathedral Library. You get the idea.
Science · Mores
Why Ice in Victorian Bars Remained a Rarity Because of Contaminated Water
By the 1840s American bartenders had already shown the British cocktails with ice, but the use of ice in Victorian bars remained a curiosity all the same. Strange as it may seem, many sensible people were extremely wary of drinking water, and equally of adding it to their drinks, even
Books · Observations · Mores · Society
Charles Dickens on Entertainment and Newspapers in “American Notes” of 1843
Is there no amusement here? Why, yes. Over the way, there is the lecture-room, from which shafts of light pour out, and then, three times a week or more, there are evening services for the ladies. For the young gentlemen there are the counting-house, the store and the
Archive · Observations · Society · Humour
Glavarkhiv meeting discusses loans for archive staff as salaries fail to match prices
November 1919. Exceptionally hard conditions of life for employees. Salaries out of all proportion to the price of food, clothing and fuel. Institutions grant their workers loans to tide them over several months. At a meeting convened by the head of the Chief Archive Administration (Glavarkhiv) the opinion is voiced
NB! · Monarchies · Museums · Nature · Humour
The lion presented to King Frederick I by the governor of Algiers was, after its death, handed over to a taxidermist who, it is true, had never seen a living lion and, receiving the bones and the skin separately, produced this
NB! · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Nature
The Swedish Lion, or the Lion of Gripsholm Castle, was once a favourite of King Frederick I, and is today one of the emblems of the royal residence, alongside its portrait gallery, its theatre and its 18th-century interiors
NB! · Museums · Observations · Humour
The Plague-Struck Stuffed Lion in a Tower of Gripsholm Castle, Sweden
Faith · Art · Mores · Ethnography
Norwegian likvaka dance beside the dead persisted until the end of the 19th century
The traditional Norwegian dance of the dead, the likvaka, went like this: a crowd of young people gathered in the house of the deceased and danced to lively music, shaking the floor so hard that the corpse lying there in its bed or coffin jumped. Sometimes the dance was arranged
Faith · Observations · Humour
On intelligent life beyond Earth and the creation of kingdoms as a sign of reason
In the Gospel of Luke, in the fourth chapter, where the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and He met the devil, there is an interesting moment: "And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a momen.