Archive · Faith · Museums · Ethnography

Novgorod Museum-Reserve Acquires Birch-Bark Manuscript Found in an Old Believer Settlement on the Yenisei

The Novgorod Museum-Reserve has received a manuscript on birch bark, found in an Old Believer settlement on the Yenisei. The twentieth-century manuscript contains excerpts from the “Ladder of Divine Ascent” of John Climacus. In Siberian villages, letters and books continued to be produced on birch bark right up

Archive · The East · Science

Database of knights shows most of the first crusaders came from France

British researchers have compiled a database listing the knights who took part in the Crusades. Enthusiasts online then established their origins: it turned out that most of the first crusaders came from France. Even many of those who set out from England or southern Italy were natives of the Norman

Almaty · Archive · Society

On 21 December 1991 the Alma-Ata Declaration was signed, the document that effectively confirmed the end of the USSR

The Declaration on the Aims and Principles of the CIS and its Foundations confirmed the Belovezha Accords, stating that with the formation of the CIS the USSR ceases to exist. The document was signed at a meeting of presidents in Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan

Archive · Art · People

The sculptor Phidias creates the statue of the goddess Athena Pallas for the Parthenon

The Italian artist Raffaello Sorbi, 1869

NB! · Archive · Books · Ethnography

A Kacha Tatar Woman: An Illustration from Academician Johann Gottlieb Georgi's "Description of All the Peoples Inhabiting the Russian State", 1799

Archive · Books · Observations · Society

Letter requesting a translation of Shalva Amisulashvili's book and translators' pay in the USSR

A letter from Yevgeny Yevtushenko to the writer Vladimir Sokolov:. “...I am sending you my old friend Shalva Amisulashvili, a fervent admirer of yours. His book is already quite ready; Mezhirov, Lukonin, Maksimov and Vinokurov have translated it. The book will come out in a month. The “Gomecari Pictures” must

NB! · Archive · Mores

Swimming Lesson, Vienna, 1911

A smiling man in glasses leans out behind a serious girl in a pink T-shirt against a red background, both raising their palms.

Archive · Cinema · Pop Culture

Photograph of Natalie aged 13 and Jean aged 46, born in 1948

Natalie Portman and Jean Reno on the set of Léon in 1994. Natalie is 13 here, Jean is 46; it turns out he was born in 1948

Archive · Books

There is no friend as loyal as a book

Ernest Hemingway. In the photograph, from the 1900s: the historian Mikhail Pokrovsky

Archive · Art

The Decembrists

Semyon Levenkov, 1950s

Archive · Saint Petersburg · Ethnography

On Reindeer

Postcard. Saint Petersburg: Kyakhta Tea Merchants' Association “Jin-Long”, 1900s.

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Observations · Society

So long as the contented citizen May sleep without fear, And children, free subjects, May order their lives by their own thoughts, Enjoy nature, Be everywhere adorned by learning, And sing Thy charms <..> So long as Thou grantest freedom to all, And dost

From Karamzin's spiritual ode «To Mercy», addressed to Catherine II. A good thought, and a sound one: so long as the contented citizen may sleep without fear, and children, free subjects, may order their lives by their own thoughts, so long as Thou grantest freedom to all and