Museums · Observations · Mores · New York · Humour
If anyone finds the constitutional amendments not frightening enough, I suggest a look at this ghastly automaton of the 1870s, which recalls the work of the Brothers Quay. The "Naturally Crawling Doll" is held by the Smithsonian Institution and by the American Museum of Natural History, where the
NB! · Observations · Science · Society · People
A reminder: Talia Khabrieva is Director of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation. Also a Doctor of Law, a professor and a Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Does anyone have questions about science in Russia?
Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Saint Petersburg
When the heir of Alexander II, Nicholas, suddenly died of an unknown illness, his bride, the Danish Princess Dagmar, passed, as it were, to the second son, became his betrothed and, accordingly, came to Saint Petersburg. This was September 1866. The weather was splendid. And so Tyutchev, in honour of
The East · Monarchies · Humour
There is a parable. Harun al-Rashid liked to wander about at night. One evening he strayed into a dark hovel in which an elderly woman was offering up a prayer for his health. "How pleasant!" he said. "How may I reward you?" "You see,
Science · Ethnography
Why vareniki, syrniki and blini are a symbol of the Moon is described at length in, for example, this interesting article, available on Academia. As for the claim that blini are a solar symbol, it too turns up very often in the literature, and has its champions and its opponents.
Archive · Observations · Saint Petersburg
As I am not a professional collector but a simple lover of valuables, I too failed to realise unaided that I had become the owner of a specimen of such secret production from the era of the NEP. Apart from slight traces of the shaving off of surplus gold, nothing
Archive · Society · Saint Petersburg
So, to return to the symbolic discs and coins. There was one curious episode: in 1925 Soviet Russia began to strike gold 10- and 5-rouble coins of Tsarist Russia. For a long time this information was regarded as no more than unconfirmed rumour, until some ten years ago official
Faith · Books · Ethnography
Maslenitsa is bound up with the cult of the dead and the cult of ancestors, as, indeed, are almost all East Slavic festivals. One can observe this, for instance, in the symbolism of the blin, the lunar disc, or in the custom of the first blin, which was left on
NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Humour
I have seen a thing or two, of course. But a sudoku made of the initials from Gerald of Wales's Topography of Ireland of 1188, his Conquest of Ireland and his Journey Through Wales of 1191 is a first for me. Are you getting off at the next
Aristocracy · Observations · Mores
Easy to remember. When the surname is Sheremetyev, with a soft sign, these are the serfs of the Counts whose surname is Sheremetev, without a soft sign. From the very simple and unwieldy Turkic word ‘sheremet’.
Books · Museums · Observations · Humour
If you cannot think how to spend 5 million roubles, then far from all Parnassuses and sundry vanities, in the illustrious city of Oryol an entire museum of Sergei Yesenin has been put up for sale. The lifelong labour of the man who assembled this priceless collection is being sold
NB!