Archive · Society · People

Bourgeois civilisation has borne all its luxuriant fruits

Bourgeois civilisation has borne all its luxuriant fruits. America has taken first place among the free and educated countries in the level of development of the productive forces of collective human labour, in the use of machinery and of all the wonders of modern technology. At the same time, America

Archive · People · Humour

Alexander Kuprin: Muscular, Agreeable Strongman

*thanks Leo Tolstoy for his flattering review

Archive · Faith · Observations · Humour

In 1620, in Marburg, two spiritual men who styled themselves prophets preached repentance and foretold that there would be one faith, that Turks and Jews would be converted to the Christian religion, but only after a terrible war, famine and plague, and t

Any day now, I suppose

Archive · Books · Observations · People

John Keats described the pleasure of eating a nectarine on 22 September 1819

On 22 September 1819 the English Romantic poet John Keats wrote in his journal: "Talking of pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my mouth a nectarine — good god how fine! It went down soft, pulpy, slushy, oozy — all its delicious

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People

Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni during the filming of "8½", 1963

Archive · London · Monarchies · Society

The British Royal Family on Victory Day in 1945 and in 2025

The series of celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany has begun not only in Russia and the post-Soviet countries. Britain has been celebrating since yesterday. Yesterday senior members of the royal family joined thousands of people in London to watch a military parade and a

Archive · Art · Heritage · Science

Getty Research Institute opens access to over 12 million records in updated Provenance Index

The Getty Research Institute has updated its Provenance Index (Getty Provenance Index). The new version offers open access to more than 12 million records drawn from archival inventories, auction catalogues and art dealers' account books, reaching back as far as the sixteenth century. The development of the project reflects

Archive · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg

Resolution of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of 9 (22) March 1917:

"In view of information received that the Provisional Government has afforded Nicholas Romanov the opportunity to leave for England, it has been resolved to declare forthwith to the Provisional Government the inflexible will of the Executive Committee not to permit the departure of Nicholas Romanov for England and to

Archive · Geography · Science

Kosmos-482, backup of Venera-8, to fall to Earth between 12 and 14 May after 53 years in orbit

Postage stamps with the Soviet interplanetary automatic station "Venera-8", which reached the vicinity of Venus on 22 July 1972, 117 days after launch. Four days after Venera-8, its backup, an identical station, was launched; it failed to reach departure trajectory and remained in Earth orbit. This

NB! · Archive · Mores · Paris · Humour

Paris, the Champs-Élysées, 1955

Paris, the Champs-Élysées, 1955. The girls are delighted to be fined two thousand francs for jaywalking

NB! · Archaeology · Archive · The East · Heritage

The Ruins of Persepolis, Photographed around 1923

NB! · Archive · The East · Paris · Nature