Matted watercolour: an illuminated domed basilica, obelisk, colonnades and fountains on a square, small figures and carriages, with dark smoke rising over the rooftops.

NB!

Night view of St. Peter's Square and Basilica in Rome with smoke and lights, watercolour

Coming Up · Architecture · Art · Maps · Museums · Rome

In the 16th to 18th Centuries Rome Was One of the Most Depicted Cities in the World

In the 16th to 18th centuries Rome was one of the most depicted cities in the world. Dozens of vedutisti from many countries sought to capture its appearance. This allows us today to trace every stage of the city's transformation and its different faces: from the melancholy landscapes

Art · Moscow · Museums · Rome

Mask of a River God from a Roman Sarcophagus of the Third Century

From the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Exhibition "Three Times of Rome. Antiquity. Renaissance. Baroque"

NB! · Books · People

Evelyn Waugh and the Sphinxes

NB! · Humour

We Have Napoleon at Home

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg

In her Decree to the Senate after the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine calls him not sovereign, not Grand Duke, not husband, not even Peter Fyodorovich, but "the former Emperor"

In her Decree to the Senate after the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine calls him not sovereign, not Grand Duke, not husband, not even Peter Fyodorovich, but "the former Emperor". Of herself, however, Catherine writes: "the true Sovereign" and "Our Imperial Majesty"

Architecture · Faith · Art · Heritage

Jan Keser and Martin Zimmermann's flying cathedral for the bicentenary of the canton of St. Gallen

The Flying Cathedral is a project by the artists Jan Keser and Martin Zimmermann, timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Swiss canton of St Gallen. The balloon was conceived as a flying advertisement for the canton and its chief symbol, the Baroque Cathedral of St Gallen of

Pen drawing on a pale sheet showing six pillows from different angles, with the date 1493 written at the top.

NB! · Art · Observations

Albrecht Dürer’s drawing of six pillows, made in 1493

Good morning! Six cushions by Albrecht Dürer, 1493

Books · People

Nikolay Rubtsov's 1960 poem on love for Russia and his native home

Hello, Russia, my homeland! How joyful it is for me beneath your foliage! There is no singing, yet I clearly hear The choral singing of unseen singers… As though a wind had driven me across it, Across the whole land, through villages and capitals! I was strong, but the wind

Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · Society

1954 station building at Leninskaya platform in Domodedovo put up for sale on Avito

Apparently, the platform from which Lenin's funeral train departed in 1924 is being sold for half a billion roubles. A railway station has been put up for sale on Avito. Leninskaya (Gerasimovo) platform on the Paveletsky line of the Moscow Railway, in the Domodedovo urban district of Moscow

People relax on the grass and benches among pines in front of a brick house with a veranda and string lights. On the right, a woman in a denim jacket holds a red cup.

NB!

Evening in the garden by a two-storey brick house with string lights

Books · Society · People

I do not call for the replacement of the state by a library – though the thought has visited me more than once — but I have no doubt that, were we to choose our rulers on the basis of their reading experience rather than their political programmes, there

I do not call for the replacement of the state by a library – though the thought has visited me more than once — but I have no doubt that, were we to choose our rulers on the basis of their reading experience rather than their political programmes, there would be less

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