Black-and-white photograph of two girls dancing on a curving street beside a fountain, with the tall bare wall of a demolished house and an old car nearby.

NB! · Archive · Paris

Robert Doisneau photographs two girls dancing on a Paris street in 1950

Two girls dancing in the street, Paris, 1950. Photo by Robert Doisneau

Aristocracy · Archive · Books · Monarchies

Ivan VI in a 1763 genealogical table and his imprisonment at Kholmogory and Shlisselburg

The Genealogy of Peter III from Goudar's Book of 1763. The most intriguing thing in this document is the mention of Ioann Antonovich, or Emperor Ivan VI, a second cousin once removed of Peter III. At the time of this book's publication, 1763, Ivan VI, confined

Archive · Mores · Saint Petersburg

Restaurant coupon for 20 kopecks from the Stray Dog cafe in Saint Petersburg, 1912

A restaurant coupon of 20 kopecks from the Saint Petersburg literary café "The Stray Dog Cellar. Mikhailovskaya Square, 5", 1912. Officially, the Stray Dog was called the "Artistic Society of the Intimate Theatre", and in this literary and artistic café the key Petersburg figures of the

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg

In her Decree to the Senate after the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine calls him not sovereign, not Grand Duke, not husband, not even Peter Fyodorovich, but "the former Emperor"

In her Decree to the Senate after the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine calls him not sovereign, not Grand Duke, not husband, not even Peter Fyodorovich, but "the former Emperor". Of herself, however, Catherine writes: "the true Sovereign" and "Our Imperial Majesty"

Archive · The East · Cinema · Pop Culture

Yury Nikulin, Yevgeny Morgunov and Georgy Vitsin on the set of the film “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style”, 1966

Photo by Oleg Mertsedin

Colour children’s drawing: a rider in a plumed turban blows a horn on a blue horse, facing a rider in a red coat on a carrot.

NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Mores

Children’s drawings on the backs of Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species” drafts

Drawings by Charles Darwin's children on the backs of the drafts of "On the Origin of Species". Of the draft notes, only those sheets have survived on which the scientist's children left their drawings, undoubtedly inspired by natural-scientific interests

Archive · Faith · The East · Books · Observations · People

Abbot Daniel placed a lamp on the Holy Sepulchre on behalf of the whole Russian land

The remarkable Hegumen Daniel, who lived in the twelfth century, describes in his "Life and Pilgrimage of Hegumen Daniel of the Russian Land" how he petitioned King Baldwin I for leave to place a kandilo (a lamp) on the Holy Sepulchre on behalf of the who. Leave was

Archive · Faith · Books · Mores

If "pilgrim" comes from the Latin peregrinus, "foreigner, wanderer", then the Russian word palomnik comes from the Latin palma, "palm", because pilgrims carried in their hands palm branches in memory of the palm branches with which, at the gates of Jerusa

And the synonymous notion of the kaliki perekhozhie, the wandering "cripples", comes from the Greek "caligae", the name of the leather footwear in which wanderers tramped the roads. The same word gave rise to the nickname of Caligula, who as a child ran about in little

Archive · Books · Mores · People

In my old age (I turned 36 the day before yesterday), I all but fell in love

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

An elderly bearded man in a hat sits on a bench and gestures before a smiling boy and girl in a black-and-white photograph.

Archive · Books · People · Humour

Leo Tolstoy playing with his grandchildren in a photograph from 1909

Don't Worry, Children, It's Only 1,300 Pages. Leo Tolstoy playing with his grandchildren, 1909

Archive · Books · People

Oscar Wilde asks Robert Ross for books to await him on his release, in a letter of 1897

“I am terrified for myself, for I shall go out into the world without a single book. My one hope is in my friends… You know which authors I need: Flaubert, Stevenson, Baudelaire, Maeterlinck, Dumas père, Keats, Marlowe, Chatterton, Coleridge, Anatole France, Gautier, Dante and the literature about him, Goethe

Archive · Observations · Paris

Pedestrians on the Rue Mouffetard in 1951

Pedestrians on the Rue Mouffetard in 1951. Photo by Robert Doisneau. The picture reminded me of a woman with a very small dog whom I met yesterday on Solyanka: the mistress was coaxing the little creature to stand on the ground on its own little legs rather than merely sit