Name: Poblamiento del Continente Americano
ISBN: 978-9929-687-90-5

Books · Mores · Education · People

The legend of Lermontov learning English from Byron and his tutor Vinson

There is a legend that Mikhail Lermontov began learning English by reading Byron's poetry in the original. And within a few months the fifteen-year-old Mikhail Yuryevich was supposedly a fine master of English, or at least understood it remarkably well. Like all legends, this tale sounds

Archive · Books · Mores · Ethnography

Caesar, Strabo and Cassius Dio on polyandry and shared wives in the British Isles

"In Brittany many men sleep with a single wife, and many wives lust after a single man," reports a Russian chronicler. This is not the only mention of polygyny and polyandry in the British Isles. Already in Julius Caesar's "Commentaries on the Gallic War"

NB! · Books · Humour

A Summary of Any Masterpiece of World Literature

Books · People

Arseny Tarkovsky’s poem “In the Middle of the World” about man between infusoria and the stars

In the Middle of the World. Arseny Tarkovsky I am a man, I am in the middle of the world, Behind me are myriads of infusoria, Before me are myriads of stars. I have lain down between them at my full height, Two shores joined by the sea, A bridge

Books · Observations

Actually, it is all you can hope for: to be happy for a while, and then to remember it

Philip K. Dick

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

When you decide to look at your own bibliography after a two-week holiday

Art · Cinema · Books · People

When Tarkovsky, the cinematographer Yusov and I had only just begun work on the film "Solaris", we managed to see a new film: Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"

When Tarkovsky, the cinematographer Yusov and I had only just begun work on the film "Solaris", we managed to see a new film: Stanley Kubrick's "A Space Odyssey". We wanted to do something directly opposite. Recalled by Mikhail Nikolayevich Romadin (1940–2012), production designer

Faith · Books · People

François René de Chateaubriand, French writer

When a man believes in nothing, he is very close to believing in everything. François René de Chateaubriand

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

Remember Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin?

Remember Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin? It turns out there is an Ancient Greek version too!

Books · Observations · Humour

Hoffmann's tale of a boy who sucked his finger and a modern retelling with a phone

There is a tale by Hoffmann about a boy who kept sucking his thumb despite his mother's prohibitions. However strictly she watched him, the moment she left the house he was putting his little thumb in his mouth again. And then one day an itinerant tailor appeared and

Books · People

Any language is an alphabet of symbols, the use of which presupposes a past shared by the interlocutors

Jorge Luis Borges

Books · London · Humour

Geoffrey of Monmouth derives the name of Britain from the Trojan hero Brutus

Britain is named after the Trojan hero Brutus, grandson of Aeneas, who was banished from Italy for the killing of his father. The goddess Diana prophesied to Brutus that he would found a new Troy, and so it came to pass: he laid out a city on the banks of