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Napoleon's letters to Josephine written on campaign and the impression of their emotional tone
"Ah, you naughty girl! How could you write such a letter! How cold it is! My soul is sad! My heart melts, and my imagination simply frightens me. You love me less strongly. A day will come when you will cease to love me altogether." I have been
Archive · Books · Humour
The tale of Vasily Rozanov's archive kept in Pavel Florensky's shed
There is a tale that after his death the archive of the Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov was kept by another Russian philosopher, Pavel Florensky. True, Florensky stored Rozanov's papers in a shed, explaining that he could not abide the aroma of those manuscripts.
Aristocracy · Archive · Art · People
Contemporaries described Most Serene Prince Konstantin Gorchakov as a very attractive man
Contemporaries described Most Serene Prince Konstantin Gorchakov as a very attractive man. Count Witte, for example, remembered Gorchakov as "remarkably handsome" and as someone who "until very recently drew attention by his appearance." This is not easy to grasp from the surviving photograph of an elegant,
Archive · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Mores
The Prague Restaurant in Moscow from a Tavern in 1872 to Its Closure, with a 1901 Photograph
@sncmag, it is a great pity that these interiors are now closed to visitors. For if we speak of the truly iconic establishments of Moscow, then it is, of course, the "Praga", opened as long ago as 1872. True, at that time it was rather a tavern, and
NB! · Archive · Architecture · Faith · Heritage
The Old Synagogue of San Francisco on Sutter Street, before and after its destruction
Archive · Architecture · Faith
Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco, destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt elsewhere 20 years later
Temple Emanu-El, the grand synagogue of San Francisco, for which funds were raised over 11 years, built in 1864, was the heart of the city's Jewish community. It was here, for example, that Levi Strauss, the very inventor of jeans, came to worship. In 1906 the synagogue
Archive · Books · Observations · Society
"A small room, plain, petty-bourgeois
"A small room, plain, petty-bourgeois. Stalin is drunk, 'blind drunk', as they say. There are only men in the room; of the peasants, myself and one other, black-bearded. Without a word, Vissarionovich threw the black-bearded peasant down, covered him with a sheet and raped
Archive · Books · Museums · Observations · Society
I have long wanted to tell you about one project of the Museum of the History of the Gulag: colleagues, together with the Memory Foundation, have created a collection of graphic novellas based on the recollections of people who passed through the cauldron
File on Telegram I have long wanted to tell you about one project of the Museum of the History of the Gulag: colleagues, together with the Memory Foundation, have created a collection of graphic novellas based on the recollections of people who passed through the cauldron of Stalinist repression. The
Archive · Faith · Monarchies · Saint Petersburg · Humour
Pahlen arrested Bishop Sestrentsevich instead of a chamber page on the orders of Paul I
A Very Short Story about Dim but Dutiful Officials, Which Could Quite Easily Have Happened in Our Own Day. One day Paul I was receiving the Governor-General of Saint Petersburg, Count Pahlen, and the Catholic bishop Stanisław Siestrzeńcewicz, who enjoyed the Emperor's particular favour. How far the
Aristocracy · Archive · Observations · Mores
Andrey Rostopchin, son of Moscow's governor-general, looked far older than his years
"A man prematurely aged provokes surprise, if not fear" Countess Lydia Andreyevna Rostopchina applied this conclusion to the memory of her father, Andrey Fyodorovich. Not very flattering words, but the fact is that the younger son of the all-powerful Governor-General of Moscow really did look considerably
Aristocracy · Archive · Mores · People
The christening of Prince Dolgorukov's son and the will of his aunt, Baroness Stroganova
Baroness Natalya Mikhailovna Stroganova, known for her rich collection of books and the vast fortune she received from her husband Nikolai, was widowed at forty and left with one son. Her nephew, Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Dolgorukov, left a most amusing account of his relations with his aunt. Chance joined the