Archaeology · Art

The painting of the so-called Tomb of the Diver, 480 BC, at Paestum, a Greek colony in Italy

The painting of the so-called Tomb of the Diver, 480 BC, at Paestum, a Greek colony in Italy. This rarest example of fresco painting from the period of Classical Greece shows not merely a youth diving into a pool or the sea, but a man making the leap into

Archive · Geography · Society · People

A Secret History

A Secret History. Margaret Thatcher, aged 57, Prime Minister of Great Britain, pirate, witch and murderess. Guilty! Margaret Thatcher as a pirate in the Argentine press after Britain's invasion of the Malvinas, or Falkland Islands, in 1982. The islands remain a disputed territory: Argentina regards them as occupied

NB! · Geography · Maps

Topographical and Political Map of Africa

Miniature diorama in a display case: a golden lattice ship atop a hill, a helicopter beside it, tiny figures on the slope and the words VADA A BORDO CAZZO.

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Diorama of a lattice ship on a sandy hill with a helicopter

White model of a colonnaded building with a portico under a glass cover, with a garden and red-and-blue windsock cones in front. A screen below reads «Vitruvian Man».

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Ponomarev's Vitruvian Man model: museum building with red-and-blue windsocks

Art · Moscow · Museums · Paris

At the Engineering Building of the Tretyakov Gallery: an exhibition of the remarkable Russian artist Alexander Ponomarev, "I Am Mad Only at North-North-West", gathering models of his world-famous works from Venice and Paris, Egypt and Japan, Moscow and…

The exhibition is intimate, yet Ponomarev does not feel cramped in this modest space: his spirit lives in the open expanse of the world's elements and takes form in works whose driving forces are the surface of the sea and the canopy of the sky, the might of

A long bed of blue glass shards with curved glass panels on metal fittings fills a museum hall. Round projections glow on the walls, and a visitor walks at right.

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Glass installation on a bed of blue glass shards in a museum hall

Architecture · Art · Heritage · Rome

Caravaggio's only fresco at the Villa Ludovisi in Rome and its alchemical symbolism

"Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto", the only fresco painted by Caravaggio, is found in the alchemical study of his patron, Cardinal Del Monte, in the hunting lodge of his villa. Today the sixteenth-century building on the highest ground in Rome, the Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, is often called the

NB! · Geography · Moscow · Observations

They say Moscow is a big village, but I do not much care for the phrase, and it is not true at all

They say Moscow is a big village, but I do not much care for the phrase, and it is not true at all. The French rock musician Jacques Dutronc has a more accurate one: Corsica is a small continent, Europe is a large island. You can continue the analogy yourselves

NB! · Art · People

The Violet Wave, Georges Lacombe, 1895

Books · Moscow · Observations

I see a great deal about "The Master and Margarita" these days; I once wrote a note on the subject:

On the whole, "The Master and Margarita" is less about mysticism than about people who have got stuck in some other time. Or perhaps it is the novel itself that has got stuck in the wrong time? In the Silver Age, for instance. Otherwise it would be hard

A white house with coloured window frames stands behind shrubs on a steeply sloping street under a blue sky with clouds.

Architecture · Geography · Observations · Humour

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, the world's steepest street, rises almost 50 metres

Greetings to all those who said geometry would never be of any use to them in their lives. Houses on the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. Over a length of 130 metres, the street climbs almost 50 metres

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