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Archaeology · Faith · The East · Museums · Heritage
In 1625, in the environs of Xi'an, the ancient capital of Tang China, Jesuit monks discovered beneath creepers and a layer of earth a stone stele almost three metres high, bearing a text in Chinese with Syriac insertions
In 1625, in the environs of Xi'an, the ancient capital of Tang China, Jesuit monks discovered beneath creepers and a layer of earth a stone stele almost three metres high, bearing a text in Chinese with Syriac insertions. The stele is dated to 781. The inscription described the
Archive · Cinema · Observations
Retouching in a photograph from the film “Once Again About Love” with Lazarev and Doronina
Can anyone explain why half of this photograph has been painted in? The hand has come out very strangely, both on Alexander Lazarev and on Tatyana Doronina. From the film "Once More About Love" by Georgy Natanson
NB! · Archive · Mores
May Festivities in the Kuban Region in 1910
Cinema · Science · People · Nature
On 8 May David Attenborough turns one hundred
On 8 May David Attenborough turns one hundred. No one in history has shown the whole world for so long how life on this planet is put together. At 99 he managed, last year, to make one more film, Ocean, in which for the first time he spoke openly of
Faith · Cinema · Books · Observations
The Russian title “Project End of the World” loses the meaning of Project Hail Mary
Several acquaintances, having read my complaint about the Russian title of Project Hail Mary, have written to say that it is not actually "Ave Maria" but sporting slang, meaning a desperate pass in American football, or a last hope. My dear Ted Lassos, my very own Utkins! The
Archive · The East · Books · Moscow · Science
The Fundamental Library of INION RAS opens trial access to the largest archive of digitised Chinese newspapers, the Contemporary Chinese Newspaper Full-Text Database, to a reprint database of the social sciences, and to Artron, with its albums and images
The Fundamental Library of INION RAS has opened trial access to the largest archive of digitised Chinese newspapers, the Contemporary Chinese Newspaper Full-Text Database, to a reprint database of the social sciences, and to Artron, with its albums and images on art. Until 30 June all of this may
Art · Society · Society Pages
Disputes over the Russian pavilion and the jury's resignation at the 61st Venice Biennale
The 61st Venice Biennale is due to open on 9 May, this time wreathed in scandal, protest and cancellation. Allow me to recall a brief chronology of unprecedented contradictions and squabbles. 💀In February 2026 the Biennale's curator, Koyo Kouoh, dies at the age of 57, without having brought
Archaeology · The East · Science · Nature
Georgia Yields the Earliest Physical Evidence of Bread Wheat Anywhere in the World
On the hills of Shulaveri and Gadachrili in Georgia, archaeologists led by David Lordkipanidze have found charred grains, impressions of ears in mudbricks and seeds of wild goat grass some eight thousand years old. A laboratory at the Weizmann Institute has confirmed the radiocarbon dating: 5800-6000 BC. The point
NB! · Observations · Society · Humour
If only one could now be cheerfully applauding the wise policy of Lenin and Stalin, instead of all this
Archive · Faith · The East · Society · People
Saint Gabriel (Urgebadze) of Georgia burns a 12-metre portrait of the godless Lenin during a May Day demonstration in Tbilisi in 1965
After he burned the portrait of Lenin, he was arrested, beaten and declared mentally ill, then dispatched for compulsory treatment to a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995 and was later canonised as a saint.
Observations · Science · Society
On 28 April the Trump administration dismissed the entire US National Science Board with a single letter: 22 scientists who oversaw the National Science Foundation, with its budget of 9 billion dollars a year
On 28 April the Trump administration dismissed the entire US National Science Board with a single letter: 22 scientists who oversaw the National Science Foundation, with its budget of 9 billion dollars a year. The NSF has been without a director since the spring of 2025, and Trump's