Moscow · Observations · Society
For me, the day the war began means watching the traditional selection of films on television at home and recalling stories that matter to our family, yet it is still interesting to watch new traditions of the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow emerge at the level of an entire country.
Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science
In a natural-scientific frame of mind, I share today a photograph of the microscopes of Hooke and Leeuwenhoek from the exhibition of the Darwin Museum. Leeuwenhoek is that same Dutch naturalist whose experiments with magnifying lenses laid the foundation of scientific microscopy. Over the course of 50 years he
Science · Nature
A grisly photograph from the Utah Conservation Officers Association. The story unfolded in North Carolina some 35 years ago: a hunter shot a deer and, when he began to butcher the carcass, discovered a strange formation in the region of the ribs. The later reconstructions were carried out by scientists
Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Humour
What's that you say? All rappers' wives look the same? One wonders how Henri Gascar, the French painter, would have commented on it in 1697, with his portrait of Marie Casimire Sobieska, Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania, with her daughter Therese Kunegunde, Electress of
NB! · Archive · Art · Mores · Paris
The centaur's kiss on the cover of La Vie Parisienne. 1924, drawing by Georges Léonnec
NB! · Faith · Art
John the Baptist and the Lamb. José de Ribera
NB! · Books · Moscow · Observations
It was a great pleasure to speak at the Red Square Book Festival! Thank you to everyone who came to listen, thank you to the Russian Military Historical Society for a splendid venue, and thank you to the Dostoevsky bookshop for its support!
NB! · Architecture · Museums · Observations
A small thing, but what splendour! Sickle, hammer and ears of wheat: the stylised lamps at the entrance to the Soil and Agronomy Museum
Faith · London · Heritage · People
The reliquary with the body of Saint John Southworth, one of the 40 martyrs of England and Ireland, is kept in the principal Catholic church of England, Westminster Cathedral. The priest John Southworth was executed in 1654 essentially for no more than being a Catholic and carrying on with his
Cinema · Observations · Society
Tonight's viewing is Kirill Serebrennikov's "Stalin's Funeral". This documentary production is not only, nor even chiefly, about Stalin and his burial. It is about people living in terror, about the inner answers to the most painful questions, about the eternal matter of
Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Education
Russian eclectic pseudo-Baroque strikes straight to the heart. Look at these cheerful and severe features of the Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy on the grounds of the old Petrovsko-Razumovskoye estate! The convex Finnish glass ordered to the design of the architect Benois has survived to this day. One is tempted,
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