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Art · Books · Observations
They seek retreats for themselves in the wilderness, by the seashore, in the mountains
They seek retreats for themselves in the wilderness, by the seashore, in the mountains. You too pine for this. But how very commonplace it all is, when at any hour you please you may withdraw into yourself. For nowhere does a man retire more quietly and peacefully than into his
NB! · The East · Books · Mores · Humour
Gaspard Drouville observes that Persian women, though they wear the chador, and even when covered from head to foot, possess a peculiar art of recognising one another from a great distance, whereas their husbands often walk right beside them and cannot te
NB! · Books · Nature
The Enraged Elephant from an Old Book
Archaeology · Art · Books · Museums
Head of Odysseus from the sculptural group “The Blinding of Polyphemus”, found in 1957 in the grotto of the villa of the Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga
The work illustrates the episode from the “Odyssey” in which the hero and his companions blind the Cyclops Polyphemus. Because of its stylistic closeness to the “Laocoön” sculpture, this Odysseus is sometimes linked with the work of the Rhodian masters Hagesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. After many years of restoration, the
The East · Books · Mores
The Persians Sleep on the Floor
The Persians sleep on the floor. Beds are made up every evening, cleared away every morning and stored in the closets for the whole day. According to the rank and wealth of the persons concerned, they are made of one mattress or of many, of broadcloth, of a fine chintz
NB! · Books · Moscow · Humour
Quotations from Great Men
Quotations from Great Men. The Lenin Library
Archive · Art · Books · Education
We Are Tired of Using “You” to the Stars, We Have Learned the Sweetness of Roaring
The programme of the Futurists in two lines of Khlebnikov, written around 1908. We wish to say “thou” to the stars We are tired of saying “you” to the stars We have learned the sweetness of roaring Be fearsome, like Ostranitsa, Platov and Baklanov, Enough of your bowing To the
Archive · Books · Heritage · People
I should like to lie in the Tarusa Khlyst cemetery, under an elder bush, in one of those graves with a silver dove, where the reddest and largest wild strawberries in our parts grow
But if that is unattainable, if not only may I not lie there, but that cemetery is no more, I should like a stone from the Tarusa quarry to be set up on one of those hills over which the Kirillovnas walked to us at Pesochnoye, and we to them
Books
1st Stroller: And what, my good fellow, is that?
1st Stroller: And what, my good fellow, is that? 2nd Stroller: That is the Lithuanian ruin. A battle, see? How our lot fought the Lithuanians. 1st: And what's that when it's at home, Lithuania? 2nd: Well, it's Lithuania, and that's all there
Books · Observations · Society · Humour
But the most infamous trick of these voivodes and their subordinates was that, for the sake of money, they falsely accused the people, or encouraged frivolous suits against men, and then sought by threats to extort money from them absurdly: they ordered t
Thomas Salmon and Matthias van Goch relay the observation of John Perry, an English engineer in the service of Peter I, on how the Russian voivodes grew so very rich during their brief terms of office. "The Modern History, or the Present State of ... Russia", 1735. And, you
Archive · Books · Mores
In Any Dispute, the First Thing Done Is to Bribe the Judge
In any dispute, the first thing done is to bribe the judge. Money is taken from both sides, as is well known, and he who gives more wins the case. Thomas Salmon, "Modern History, or the Present State of ... Russia", 1735