A smiling woman in a light coat and hat holds the rail of a train window, with a man in dark clothing visible behind her.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations

Elizabeth II smiling from a train window in a black-and-white photograph

Elizabeth II at a train window. Sad, though it is some time now since she was seen off.

Archive · Architecture · Geography · Education · Society

Ancient and Soviet Seven Wonders of the World in the Children's Magazine “Yozh” of 1935

The Seven Wonders of the World in Antiquity:. The Pyramid of Cheops The Gardens of Semiramis The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus The Tomb of Mausolus The Statue of Zeus The Colossus of Rhodes The Pharos Lighthouse. The Seven Wonders of the World under Soviet Power: The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station

Archive · Observations · Science

A robot pilot over Berlin and an American calculating machine in the 1930s children’s magazine “Yozh”

There is no need to marvel at modern technology, for it was all thought up long before us. As early as 1935 a robot was demonstrating its mastery of aircraft control in the skies above Berlin, while an American mathematical machine coped with the most formidable equations. And already in

Post-mortem photograph of an elderly man with white hair and beard in an oval frame on a mourning card with a black border.

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Edmond About on Turgenev's service to Russia in his speech at the grave

At Turgenev's graveside, the French writer Edmond François About said: "Your heart belonged to all mankind. But Russia held the first place in your affections. It was Russia you served first and foremost"

Archive · Observations · Humour

I Don't Like Lenin

I don't like Lenin. I just don't. Not a stylish sort of fellow. I can only express my respects to the boy Tolka. The children's magazine “Yozh” [Hedgehog], January 1930

Magazine page with Rita Rait's story “Krysyonok” and a drawing of a girl with pigtails holding a doll.

Archive · Books · People

Rita Rait's story about the Chinese boy Van in the 1939 magazine “Chizh”

A story by the legendary translator and writer Rita Rait-Kovaleva (1898-1988), thanks to whom the Soviet reader became acquainted with many works by Kafka, Faulkner, Salinger, Poe and Vonnegut. Besides her translations, Rita Rait was the author of memoirs of the great writers who were her contemporaries, and

Worn cover of an album from 1903 with the title, red poppies and an Art Nouveau tulip ornament.

NB! · Archive · Moscow · Observations · Mores

Album of beauties of the whole world, published by the newspaper “Russky Listok” in 1903

Album of the Beauties of the Whole World from the editors of the newspaper Russkiy Listok, 1903. These are precisely the world's beauties as I had always pictured them

NB! · Archive · Science · People · Humour

Albert Einstein Sunbathing

Archive · Mores · People · Humour

Secret Order No. 3 to First Secretary Comrade Stalin from his eleven-year-old daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, 20 May 1937:

I order you to go to the cinema together with Comrades Molotov, Kaganovich, Zhdanov, Vasya and me. (Be sure to go to the cinema today). Below is Stalin's endorsement: "I obey with pleasure. I. Stalin"

NB! · Archive · Art · London · Museums

The Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum, 1885

Archive · Books · Ethnography

Please Meet Kozyavka

A story about a Jewish boy from a Crimean kolkhoz. Chizh magazine, issue 6, 1939. The boy, in case you were wondering, was called Elya. And Kozyavka is a small ginger cow.

NB! · Archive · Architecture