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The Magi on the cover of The New Yorker, 1951

Archive · Mores · Society

Sunday became the seventh day of the week in the USSR by decree of 26 June 1940

The calendars of 1928 and 1945. Spot the difference? Until 1940 in the USSR, as in many countries of the world, the first day of the week was the day of rest, Sunday. The Russian word for week, nedelya, originally meant Sunday, and the days that followed were named by

Archive · Faith · Books · Monarchies

Archbishop Platon on the hidden benefit of misfortunes and on moral unhappiness

Paul I's tutor, Platon, Archbishop of Moscow and Kaluga, in his sermon on the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, 22 October 1779, reasons on good and ill fortune, paying due respect precisely to the state of misfortune. According to Archbishop Platon, we reckon

Archive · Art · Humour

To Caw or Not to Caw?

An open letter. Drawing by Valery Carrick (1869 – 1943)

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Humour

Nicholas II at the Gym

Nicholas II at the gym. No, you're not seeing things

NB! · Archive · Books · Education · People

Tolkien sketched Helm's Deep on a used examination paper

Tolkien sketched Helm's Deep on a used examination paper. He wrote the epic The Lord of the Rings while already a professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature at the University of Oxford

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Moscow · Mores

A chest with a roast ox and other provisions, uncovered and covered, set up along the route of Elizabeth Petrovna's ceremonial procession into Moscow on 28 February 1742

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Once it was resonant, like a bird, Like a spring it flowed and rang out, As though it wished to pour itself out, all radiance, Along the steel wire

And then, like a distant sobbing, Like a farewell to the soul's joy, It began to sound, full of repentance, And vanished in some unknown backwoods. It perished in some wild field, Buried under a merciless blizzard... And my soul cries out in pain, And my black telephone