Books · Paris · People
I accept everything I am given, except my age
The French writer Louise de Vilmorin
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Art · Society · Humour
Konstantin Dorokhov’s painting “Deputy. Collective Farm Chairwoman”, created in 1951
The Soviet Union had not only sex but also magnificent women deputies, and, of course, excellent feminitives. Konstantin Gavrilovich Dorokhov, "Deputy. Collective Farm Chairwoman", 1951
Faith · Society · People · Rome
CBS report on a boy with autism and a miracle attributed to Pope Francis
CBS has aired a report on a miracle attributed to Pope Francis. A 10-year-old boy suffering from autism and epilepsy ran up onto the stage to the Pope and began to talk with the pontiff. For his mother, it was already a miracle that her son had climbed
Books · Science · People · Saint Petersburg
Adjunct Vasily Adodurov proposed abolishing yer, fita and izhitsa in the 1730s
Vasily Adodurov, Adjunct of the Academy of Sciences and a contemporary of Lomonosov, played a weighty part as early as the 1730s in establishing the norms of Russian orthography. True, many of his ideas were too progressive and remained no more than a project. He thought it sensible to rid
NB! · Archive · Books · Paris · People · Humour
For lovers of the inapposite but grandiloquent turn of phrase: yes, you can now say you have seen Marcel Proust in his coffin
NB! · Observations
Do You Still Imagine You Understand Investing?
Art · London · Monarchies · Museums
Brooch with a large blue stone at the Fabergé exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
This striking aquamarine brooch was given by Nicholas II, then still Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, to Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, the future Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, on their betrothal. The brooch is on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the Fabergé exhibition
Art · Observations · Humour
Medieval image of a woman hammering infants on an anvil personifies Nature
The popular medieval scene of a woman pounding infants laid on an anvil with a blacksmith's hammer is in fact a personification of Nature, who gives birth to children in her forge. She is merely giving her offspring the proper shape, so there is nothing to gawp at
NB! · Observations
What a Beautiful Day, Is It Not?
NB! · Moscow · Heritage · Society
Vakhtangov Theatre Marks Centenary by Giving Fragments of Its Historic Curtain
The Vakhtangov Theatre celebrated its centenary on 14 November. In memory of the jubilee, the venerable Vakhtangovites each received a piece of the theatre's historic curtain
Archaeology · The East · Mores · People
Sophia Schliemann in 1874 wearing a diadem from the Treasure of Priam smuggled out of Troy
Everyone, no doubt, remembers Agatha Christie's remark that it is good to be an archaeologist's wife, since the older a woman grows, the more interesting he finds her. Sophia Schliemann would perhaps have added: and besides, one may wear the freshly discovered treasures. In 1874 Sophia,
NB! · Art · Observations · Humour