Archive · Mores · Society

Pensions of Decembrists' widows under the 1846 law and exceptions for those who moved to Moscow

It turns out that the Decembrists' wives, that is, the wives of exiled state criminals, were entitled to a pension under a law of 1846. After the husband's death they were paid an allowance equal to that which the exile himself had received. True, payment of this

1834 caricature “A Point of Taste”: two bishops with huge white sleeves converse near two priests in golden vestments and mitres.

NB! · Archive · Faith · Mores · Humour

Anglican bishops mock the vestments of Catholic priests at Dublin Castle

An incident at Dublin Castle: Anglican bishops in absurd attire mock the flamboyant vestments of Catholic priests. Or why there is no disputing about tastes

Archive · Monarchies · Mores · People

Nicholas I on Alexander I's childlessness and conjectures about the Emperor's illness

The future Emperor Nicholas I wrote of Alexander I, on the occasion of his wife Alexandra Feodorovna's pregnancy with their daughter Maria: "The Sovereign began to say that he saw our family bliss with joy... That he had never known this happiness, blaming himself for a liaison

NB! · Archive · The East · Art · Monarchies · People

The diamonds bought in 1668 by Louis XIV from the traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, drawn by Abraham Bosse

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Mores · Ethnography

The photograph of Victoria at the spinning wheel is in fact a very telling one: for a long time the English word "spinster" meant both a woman who spun and an old maid, and the image of a woman at her spinning stood for an unfortunate private life

Black-and-white cartoon of two women in crinolines talking by a doorway in the rain, with a La Traviata poster on the wall and the caption The Great Social Evil.

NB! · Archive · London · Mores · Humour

Cartoon “The Great Social Evil” and the meaning of the word gay in 19th-century England

Ah, Fanny! How long have you been gay? In nineteenth-century England the word "gay" was used of those working in the sex trade. In the background is a poster for La Traviata, an opera about a courtesan, for the especially slow on the uptake

Archive · Moscow · Society

Viktor Grishin's 1975 visit to the play “Fasten Your Seat Belts!” at the Taganka Theatre

The story of Viktor Grishin, for many years the master of Moscow, visiting the Taganka Theatre in 1975 has long since been overgrown with conjecture and turned into legend. The play itself, “Fasten Your Seat Belts!”, which openly mocked the failings of the Soviet system, stayed in the theatre'

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Art · Saint Petersburg · Humour

The Bengal Lion and Tiger and the Petersburg Lion and Tiger

The Bengal Lion and Tiger and the Petersburg Lion and Tiger. A caricature, presumably of the 1840s, from the album of Prince Pyotr Urusov. In the guise of the Petersburg lion is Arkady Pavlovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov (above)

Coloured chalk drawing of a stout man in an armchair with a bare foot on a stool, an angry woman in a bonnet and a man in boots bending toward them.

NB! · Archive · Science · Mores

Gout remedies advertised in the 19th century were almost useless, as the causes were unknown

Interestingly, the gout remedies so widely advertised in the 19th century were almost useless, since the causes of the disease had not yet been established. And the advertising mostly described the shape of the little bottles

NB! · Archive · Faith · Ethnography

Members of the Russian Doukhobor sect in Saskatchewan in 1907: the Doukhobors fled persecution at home, with the sponsorship of Leo Tolstoy and other benefactors, and founded a flourishing diaspora in Canada

Archive · Mores · Society · People

Suicide of Londonderry, Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, in 1822

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and from 1821 Marquess of Londonderry, had been British Foreign Secretary since 1812 and in 1822 was to have represented his country at the Congress of Verona, had it not been for an unfortunate incident. One of the minister's ill-wishers learned of his

Archive · Faith · Ethnography · Humour

Green in Orthodox symbolism and the mantles of the patriarch and bishops

Green holds a high place in Orthodox symbolism and is associated with the Trinity: it is the union of yellow (gold), linked with Jesus, and blue, signifying the Holy Spirit. Traditionally the green mantle belongs to the Patriarch alone, and it is not a liturgical vestment but a ceremonial one.