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

The East · Books · Mores · Humour

Pushkin on the price of a cab fare in Tiflis in “Journey to Arzrum”

In Tiflis I was struck by the cheapness of money. I drove in a cab across two streets and dismissed the driver half an hour later, and had to pay two silver roubles. At first I supposed that he meant to take advantage of a newcomer's ignorance; but

NB! · Books

May this day endure through the ages as a union of friendship, glory and valour…

NB! · Observations · Society

But in fact the Russian army took Berlin three times: the first in the course of the bloody Seven Years' War, on 12 October 1760; the second on 4 March 1813, during the Russian army's Foreign Campaign of 1813-1814; now, unjustly…

A dark-haired woman in a black jacket smiles with her arms crossed beside a sculpture pedestal in a park.

NB! · Interviews · Books · People

Donna Tartt in an interview compares good books to an off-road vehicle on rough terrain

Donna Tartt, in a recent interview, likened reading and writing good books to an off-road vehicle driving over terrain so rough that it is unclear whether the machine will ever make it back. "It ought to be fun, I think," the writer remarked.

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