Archive · Monarchies · People · Humour
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich replied to all introductions, petitions and communications in one stereotyped fashion: “Very glad, I thank you heartily.” He replied in just the same way when he was informed of the death of Dobryakov, the chief military doctor. From the memoirs of A. V. Bogdanovich
Archive · Science · Society
A group of American scholars has created a 3D model of an eighteenth-century slave ship. Judging by the description, the model is based on the only fully surviving plan of a typical vessel used to transport slaves from Africa. Dr Nicholas Radburn, lecturer at Lancaster University and historian of
NB! · Archive
Archive · Museums · Science · Saint Petersburg
The Lomonosov Museum's collection was assembled with the help of other academic institutions, the Hermitage, the Russian and Historical Museums, and the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In 1946-1948, 343,950 roubles were spent on acquisitions, and for this sum 254 items were bought, illustrating Lomonosov'
Archive · Museums · Science · Saint Petersburg
All the scientific institutions of the Academy of Sciences were born in the Kunstkamera. And in its very centre, in the circular hall, stands what is perhaps the key exhibit: the round table at which the academicians sat in session. It came to the museum from the Manuscripts Department of
Archive · Science · Humour
This drawing of 1695 shows a spermatozoon. Inside the spermatozoon, in case you did not know, sits a little man, who makes his way into the womb and begins to grow until he becomes an infant. So, at any rate, the mathematician Nicolaas Hartsoeker saw it, peering at semen through
Archive · The East · Art · People
A miniature of 1635, sold twice at Sotheby's: twenty years ago and again last year. All this time the man in the portrait remained unknown: he was thought to be from Abyssinia or North Africa. Imagine the astonishment of the owners of this trifle when it emerged that
Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums
Group portrait of the heroine airwomen of the 46th Guards Taman Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, Order of the Red Banner and Order of Suvorov, by the artist Sergey Bocharov, 1985. The painting was acquired by the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics of DOSAAF, where it remains on display to
Archive · Moscow · Society · People
In 1920 Alexandra Tolstaya, daughter of Leo Tolstoy, was arrested on a charge of involvement in a counter-revolutionary organisation and sentenced to three years' confinement in a concentration camp at the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow. She wrote: “My father, whose views I share, openly denounced the Tsarist government
Archive · Monarchies · Society · People
The admirers of Ferdinand VII could, of course, have known that while they fought for his freedom under the slogans «God. Fatherland. King», their dearly beloved ruler was heartily congratulating Napoleon on his victories on the Spanish front. The Otechestvennye zapiski of 1868 offered a rather pithy characterisation of Ferdinand:
Aristocracy · Archive · Observations · Mores · People
Owing to the great unrest, Pushkin's funeral service was held behind closed doors: besides relatives and friends, only select representatives of the nobility and prominent public figures were invited. Entry to the cathedral was by invitation card, and these, as Skalon recalls, very soon turned up on the
Archive · Faith · Art
"The extract of our deacons, those lions of the clergy, in whom not one iota of anything spiritual is to be found: he is all flesh and blood, goggle eyes, maw and senseless roar" - so Repin wrote to Kramskoy of his "Protodeacon" in 1878. Well, these