NB! · Archive

A German cavalryman in the winter of 1915 on the Eastern Front

A woman with short blonde hair in a light quilted jacket raises her hand at a table set with glasses.

NB! · Archive · New York · People · Pop Culture

Marlene Dietrich at a party in New York in 1967, aged 66

Marlene Dietrich in 1967. A photograph from a party in New York: the diva is 66

A woman in a hat and a checked dress stands at a building entrance as the wind lifts her skirt; beside her a man in a suit holds a hat.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · People · Humour

Wind blows up the skirt of Queen Elizabeth II in a black-and-white photograph

Queen Elizabeth II. The wind lifts her skirt

Old sepia photograph of several men sitting at a table with cups, a bottle and a carafe, with a translucent lampshade hanging above.

Archive · Moscow · People

Photograph by Alexander Rodchenko, 1926, showing men seated at a table

Morning in the Flat of Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Briks in Gendrikov Lane. Photograph by Alexander Rodchenko, 1926

Archive · Faith · Books

Claude Debussy in a 1903 letter on asceticism and cosmogonic pantheism

Naturally, I am aware of how well-founded are such aspirations and apostolic enthusiasms. Nothing is so exciting as playing at being a little Buddha: living on one egg and two glasses of water a day and giving the leavings to the poor, chewing over the endless ravings of cosmogonic

NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture

Charles Aznavour's Selfie

Archive · Books · Moscow · Observations · Education · Humour

“Boris Godunov” from Academia as a gift to a delegate of a trade union conference in 1936

They really knew how to give presents in those days. A dedicatory inscription to a Delegate of the first district trade-union conference of the union of primary and secondary school workers of the RSFSR, 22 September 1936, from the Krasnogvardeisky District Committee of the city of Moscow. And on

Archive · Mores · Humour

Inspiring Examples of Import Substitution:

In January 1921 Khodasevich recalled that Gorky had treated him to chocolate made from sunflower husks, without any sugar.

NB! · Archive · Society · Paris

Victory Day in Paris, 8 May 1945

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People · Pop Culture

The Lad Tom Cruise in the USSR in 1988

Archive · Art · Books · Paris

The ballet “Parade” with costumes by Picasso failed in Paris and succeeded in London in 1919

"The geometrical dauber and dabbler Picasso has pushed himself to the front of the stage, while talented artists humbly wait to be put on show," wrote the critic Léo Poldès on 19 May 1917 of Diaghilev's new Russian ballet, Parade… The characters of the ballet: the

Guests at a wedding ceremony, with a woman in a white dress and a man in dark clothing seen from behind circled in red, and a bride in a long veil nearby.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Camilla Parker Bowles among the guests at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana

Camilla Parker Bowles in a white dress and veiled hat at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. One really does have to be quite something to manage that…