Archive · Monarchies · Observations · People

The legend of Fyodor Kuzmich and the words about escaping to America attributed to Alexander I

The legend of the elder Fyodor Kuzmich, under whose name Alexander I supposedly lived in hiding in Siberia, is not the only evidence that the Emperor was terribly weighed down by the burden of the crown and longed to be rid of the duties of power, to run away. A

Art · London · Monarchies · Mores

Sir John Melville Was Put in an Awkward Position by Queen Elizabeth: She Asked the Scottish Ambassador Whether She Was Fairer Than His Queen

Sir John Melville was put in an awkward position by Queen Elizabeth: she asked the Scottish ambassador whether she was fairer than his queen. Melville replied that "Elizabeth is the fairest queen in England, and Mary the fairest in Scotland". Which of us dances better, then? Elizabeth pressed

Stone head of Marianne with a winged dragon on its helmet and a hole in the face, in a dimly lit room of the Arc de Triomphe.

NB! · Art · Heritage · Society · Paris

Sculpture of Marianne damaged inside the Arc de Triomphe during clashes in Paris

Marianne, victim of circumstance. The sculpture, a symbol of the French Republic, in the display at the Arc de Triomphe was badly damaged during clashes between demonstrators and police in central Paris

Faith · Books · Observations

The word petoglasheniye in Church Slavonic texts and midnight prayers

There is a lovely and rare word in Church Slavonic texts: petoglashenie (“cockcrow”). It denotes the time between midnight and morning and corresponds to the first crowing of the cock, when special prayers are said, the midnight offices, otherwise known as the “cock-crowing” prayers. Anyway, I make you a

Faith · The East · Observations · Science

Irina Vasilyevna Pozdeyeva used to say that Saint Nicholas of Japan taught the Japanese language to Academician Huber, but only 12 years passed between the birth of the latter and the death of the former

Irina Vasilyevna Pozdeyeva used to say that Saint Nicholas of Japan taught the Japanese language to Academician Huber, but only 12 years passed between the birth of the latter and the death of the former. That leaves the possibility that Huber studied Japanese as a child, given his noble origins;

NB! · Humour

You're Looking Well: Is That a New Hat?

Archive · Faith · Museums · Mores

The 17th-century Kirillo-Novoezersky Synodikon lists dozens of forms of death

What Did the Common People of Ancient Rus' Die Of? Of wild beasts, the elements, disease and clumsy cookery. The synodikon, a handwritten church book listing names for commemoration, is recorded in Rus' quite early. In theory, a synodikon ought to name every Orthodox Christian who had ever

NB! · Faith · Art · Ethnography

Saint Nicholas in a Shrine with Folding Wings, Seventeenth Century, from the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus in the Village of Astafyevo, Kargopol District, Arkhangelsk Region

Saint Nicholas in a shrine with folding wings, seventeenth century, from the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus in the village of Astafyevo, Kargopol District, Arkhangelsk Region. In the upper part of the wings: the Nicene miracle, the sun and the moon, painted in the eighteenth century; on the right,

NB! · Faith · Art · Ethnography

A Seventeenth-Century Nicholas of Mozhaisk Holding a Church in His Left Hand, from a Private House in the Village of Lugi, Plesetsk District, Arkhangelsk Region

Faith · Art · Ethnography

Sculpture of Nikola Mozhaysky from Nikolskaya village in Arkhangelsk Region, 17th century

St Nicholas the Wonderworker (the image of Nikola of Mozhaysk, who, according to legend, defended the town of Mozhaysk from the enemy by appearing above it with a sword), seventeenth-century sculpture from the village of Nikolskaya, Kargopol District, Arkhangelsk Region. The traditional Nikola of Mozhaysk from the Arkhangelsk North

Coming Up · Faith · Art · Moscow · Ethnography

Carved wooden figures of the Russian North and an exhibition at the Tsereteli Gallery in Moscow

In the Russian North, special 'icons' were venerated: three-dimensional wooden figures of saints set in icon cases, sometimes carved at full length and reaching two metres in height. The oldest such icons in Arkhangelsk date from the 16th century. These original sculptural images were known as carved

Aristocracy · Books · London · People

Identifying the Princess Radziwill whom Baroness Trumpington met in Waitrose

In the autobiography of Baroness Trumpington, Jean Alys Barker, a prominent English political figure who sat in the House of Lords for 37 years and in her day held ministerial office, there is the sweetest episode in the whole history of memoirs:. “A few months ago I was doing my

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