Faith · Books · London
The ghost of Jacob Marley appeared before Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. Marley, the miser's former partner, found himself after death bound in chains made up of ledgers and cash-boxes: in life, after all, he had been far too greedy. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol
NB! · Archive · Books · Ethnography
Archive · Books · Observations · Society
A letter from Yevgeny Yevtushenko to the writer Vladimir Sokolov:. “...I am sending you my old friend Shalva Amisulashvili, a fervent admirer of yours. His book is already quite ready; Mezhirov, Lukonin, Maksimov and Vinokurov have translated it. The book will come out in a month. The “Gomecari Pictures” must
Faith · Books · Rome
The Vatican's publishing house has issued a new edition of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection's "The Practice of the Presence of God", which, in the words of Pope Leo XIV, shaped his own path to knowing the Lord and loving Him. The Pontiff has
Archaeology · Art · Books · Heritage
Etruscan Art: Enigmatic and Alluring. In this case we are dealing with a monument described in the books: a funerary urn of the early 4th century BC bearing the image of the spirit of the deceased and of a guardian spirit. As you can see, the present state of the
Books · Observations · Education · Society · Humour
The Russian Ministry of Labour Has Approved a Professional Standard for “Writer”, to Take Effect on 1 September 2026. One of its provisions states that a writer is a person with a higher education. No, Maxim Gorky did not have a higher education. He tried to enter Kazan University, but
Art · Books · Observations · Humour
I recommended Smirnov von Rauch's book "The Board of Dionysius" to my book club, and my fellow members say: a dreadful book, Alexandr, why did you choose it? I find no answers; such, it seems, is my taste 😭 The photograph shows a portrait of Pushkin by
Art · Books · Observations
People still cling to money, as people clung to crosses in the days of the remote Kerzhenets, but it will not last for ever. People still reach for power, not knowing its measure or its price, but this will not endure for long: other times will come. People still chase
Archive · Books
Ernest Hemingway. In the photograph, from the 1900s: the historian Mikhail Pokrovsky
Books · Observations · Education
A very common error in the government of prepositions turned up in a book title. It is usually met with in the formatting of time intervals, but ordinarily in humdrum circumstances: in notices of opening hours, in announcements and in regulations of every sort, drawn up in haste and without
NB! · Cinema · Books · Pop Culture
Johnny Depp is to film The Master and Margarita. It is also known that Depp will play the lead in the first English-language screen adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel
Art · Books · Moscow · Museums · Observations
My favourite monument to Leo Tolstoy stands in the courtyard of his museum on Prechistenka. It is the work of Sergey Merkurov, who, incidentally, took the death mask of Lev Nikolayevich. The monument, completed in 1913, could not be erected in Moscow: the Black Hundreds threatened to blow it up.