NB! · Archive · Art · Books · Museums
One of the best-known works in the collection: Konstantin Somov, “Alexandra Levchenko”, 1936. A preparatory study for La Belle Simonetta. I give here the text from Somov's diary of 1934. But Maxim himself says that for him this is, above all, Alexandra Levchenko in the guise of
Archive · Art · People
In all, up to 16 thousand men from Württemberg took part in the Russian campaign; only a few hundred of them returned from Russia.
Archive · Society
The Brezhnev Constitution of 1977 took 15 years to prepare. The decision to draw up a new constitution was taken in the spring of 1962, and the constitutional commission originally numbered 97 members. A draft was ready by the autumn of 1964, but it was not adopted and was sent
Archive · Art · Museums · Observations
How works of colossal size are exhibited is more interesting still. Look at the system of blocks and ropes that several workmen used to hang a large-scale painting in the Museum of Picardy a little over 100 years ago. As far as I know, the photograph shows work on
Archive · Mores · People
Arriving at two in the morning, Dr Schwörer offered the dying Chekhov a cylinder of oxygen. Anton Pavlovich declined: "By the time they bring the oxygen, I shall be dead." He had only minutes left. Chekhov preferred to drink champagne. He took the glass with the words "
Archive · Observations · Society
Strange as it may seem, the face of our own day is reflected not only in the writings of Lenin, but in those of Stalin too. Take, for example, the following report: the Political Report of the Central Committee to the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
Archive · Observations · Society · Saint Petersburg
Revolutionary intelligentsia and class-conscious proletarians, who would most probably have armed themselves, could not but shun the Zubatov movement, could not but keep away from it. The government thus had an especially free hand and was playing a game it could not lose: THE MOST PEACEFUL, THE LEAST ORGANISED,
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
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
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