Archive · Mores · Society · People

Were such photographs not captioned, there would simply be no way of telling who is who, even for the most seasoned archivists

One might suppose that the frame is an ideological statement, yet we could just as easily take the picture for a prank. If you have ever looked through a good collection of photographs of that era, the chances are that it contained something of the kind: men larking about in

NB! · Observations · Society · Humour

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain. On the evidence of the annihilated native peoples of North America, say, if nothing else

London · Mores · Pop Culture · Humour

Velvet cap with 88 teeth as the sign of a dentist's profession

Barely 150 years ago, a man in a hat like this could be met on the streets of London, a hat that evidently set Philipp Plein upon the road along which he now speeds without turning aside. But the decoration of this headgear, unlike the designer flourishes of our own

NB! · Books · People · Humour

When it was put to Chesterton that he was not especially gallant, the writer objected: in fact, only this morning on the bus I stood up to give my seat to three ladies at once

Observations · Society · Humour

Avito lists stone and bronze monuments to Lenin for 1.2 and 2.5 million

Don't know where to invest a million or two? For that sort of sum, Avito will sell you a monument to Lenin, for example. In stone, it is a million two hundred thousand; cast in bronze, two million five hundred. Not the most profitable of purchases, admittedly. Even

Old sepia photograph of a bearded man sleeping in bed with his head on a pillow before a striped wall.

NB! · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Claude Debussy asleep in an old photograph for his birthday

Claude Debussy is still asleep: he has second period today. It is his birthday, after all

Monarchies · Observations · People

Edward VIII's remarks about his mother Mary of Teck and sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Do you know what was the most loathsome thing about Edward VIII? Not even his abdication, nor his total obsession with Wallis Simpson, but the fact that he called his grieving mother, the Dowager Queen Mary of Teck, and his sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ice-cold bitches. Such

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Physical resemblance of Danton and Robespierre in portraits at the Carnavalet Museum

Do you think there is a connection between the very distinctive appearance of two French revolutionaries, Danton and Robespierre, and their personal qualities? At any rate, one cannot fail to notice the outward resemblance of these two figures of the French Revolution in these portraits by unknown artists from the

NB! · Coming Up · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

An Unexpected Greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich Advertises the Premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre

An unexpected greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich advertises the premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre. Such a touching merger of two forgotten universes that I quite wanted to reread Doronina's letter to Putin.

A room with turquoise walls painted with red flowers. Two portraits in ornate frames hang on the wall beside a painted door; a metal stove stands at right, with a chair and sofa below.

NB!

Interior of a house with painted turquoise walls, floral ornament and portraits

Architecture · Art · Observations · Ethnography

Blacksmith Kirillov’s House in the Village of Kunara, Sverdlovsk Region, Built in 1954–1967

What does the country property of one's dreams look like? Here, for example, is the house of the blacksmith Kirillov in the village of Kunara in the Sverdlovsk Region, built in 1954-67 by a simple Russian man for himself and his family and decorated by his own

NB! · Observations · Pop Culture

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