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

Books · Observations · Mores

The Russian actress Elena Nikolayevna Gogoleva (1900-1993) left a recollection of another Russian actress, the great Maria Nikolayevna Yermolova (1853-1928), dating from the second half of the 1920s:

"I had no scenes directly with Marya Nikolayevna, but all the same I was in the same picture as her. And here is what is interesting: Marya Nikolayevna, always so attentive, so courteous, so kind... you understand, here, when I ran off the stage and had not met her

Architecture · Books · Paris · People

Cocteau in “The Difficulty of Being” on his house as a refuge far from the Palais-Royal

In 1947 Jean Cocteau moved into a seventeenth-century château near Fontainebleau, which remained his permanent residence until the end of his days. In La Difficulté d'être [“The Difficulty of Being”] he wrote of it: “This house was waiting for me. Here I am as in a refuge,

Art · Books · Observations · Pop Culture

The song “Paromshchik” to Zinoviev’s poem and Patinir’s “Crossing the Styx”

An early star has fallen, there is coolness in the fields, A ferry glides, the water sings of something close by. And where the river gleams by a quiet grove, A grey-haired ferryman joins the banks together. There are so many partings on earth, and so many different fates,

Books · Observations

And suddenly summer was plunged into autumn

Oscar Wilde

Books · Observations · Pop Culture

In Agatha Christie's story "Harlequin's Lane" from the collection "The Mysterious Mr Quin", devoted entirely to one of the author's own favourite characters, Mr Harley Quin, there appears a cameo by the Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina…

While visiting the married couple the Denmans, the conversation turns to Russia. The wife, Anna, is a Russian émigrée who was rescued from the storm of revolution when still very young. Speaking of ballet, she says that she knows everything about it, since she herself once danced. In the denouement

Chests, knightly shields, bags and poles beside a red basement entrance of a brick building.

NB! · Architecture · Books · Moscow · Humour

Knight Ivanhoe caught up in Moscow's renovation programme in 2021

Sir Ivanhoe falls victim to renovation. Moscow, 2021

Books · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Society Pages

The Library of Foreign Literature opens a research hall with books of Vyacheslav Ivanov

What is the indispensable element of any scientific institution? Why, a hallmark of quality, an emblem that would shine like a star on the lapel of that institution's jacket. Today, in one of Moscow's jackets (the Library of Foreign Literature), a very important pocket was unstitched,

Books · Moscow · Observations · Humour

It is alarming that Dasha Veledeyeva of Harper's Bazaar repeats the mistake of Lyudmila Sviridova from the bread factory, who was let into the general reading room (Hall No. 3, though the largest in Europe) and told that it was the academic hall (Hall No.

Girls, the academic hall is straight down the corridor, not to the right!!!

NB! · Faith · Books · Moscow · Society Pages

Alexey Dmitrievich Dostoevsky, Captain of the Valaam Monastery Fleet and Bass Guitarist, at the Unveiling of the Monument to His Great-Grandfather, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Outside the Dostoevsky Bookshop on Sapozhkovskaya Square by the Walls of th

Alexey Dmitrievich Dostoevsky, Captain of the Valaam Monastery Fleet and bass guitarist, at the unveiling of the monument to his great-grandfather, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, outside the Dostoevsky bookshop on Sapozhkovskaya Square by the walls of the Kremlin. In the photograph, both Dostoevskys stand behind the substantial figure of Igor

Coming Up · Art · Books · Moscow · Observations

Tomorrow at 6.30 p.m. a new monument to Fyodor Mikhailovich is due to be unveiled beside the "Dostoevsky" bookshop; this year he is, after all, 200

Tomorrow at 6.30 p.m. a new monument to Fyodor Mikhailovich is due to be unveiled beside the "Dostoevsky" bookshop; this year he is, after all, 200. The previous Dostoevsky sits literally 20 metres away, on the little patch by the Lenin Library, where he has been

NB! · Books · Observations · Reportage · Humour

Walking Dmitry Volkostrelov's route at Yasnaya Polyana during the "Tolstoy" theatre festival

My colleagues and I walked Dmitry Volkostrelov's route at Yasnaya Polyana during the "Tolstoy" theatre festival. The length of the path equals the combined length of all the lines of the first edition of War and Peace. A stroll of some 6 km: the sum of

Books · Observations · Science · Education

The word abiturient changed its meaning from school leaver to applicant

Originally, the word abiturient was used to mean "a pupil finishing secondary school, a school-leaver". Today it has acquired practically the opposite sense: not one who leaves school, but one who applies for admission. As late as the 1960s, explanatory dictionaries described abiturients exclusively as school-leavers.