Books · Mores · Ethnography
Shipovka, or "Vodytsa": a drink of berries steeped in wine
Are you quite sure you know the Russian table?
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Cinema · Books · Observations
Netflix series based on García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as a reason to reread the novel
Without exaggeration, Netflix's adaptation of Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is a masterpiece. I cannot say which of their projects could rival it for beauty. Flawlessly beautiful and unhurried, it neither wrecks the harmony nor interrupts the flow of the text. I did
NB! · Books · Observations · Society
A fine time it was, when "Russians" was written with a capital letter
Art · Books · Observations · Humour
Denizens of Moominvalley, wake up: the holidays are over!
Drawing by Tove Jansson
Books · Mores · Humour
Such are our relations: we are bound to pet them, to love them, to respect them from the heart and, after the custom of the people, to visit them at Christmas or congratulate them by post, so that for the rest of the year they should not think of us... An
Such are our relations: we are bound to pet them, To love them, to respect them from the heart And, after the custom of the people, To visit them at Christmas Or congratulate them by post, So that for the rest of the year They should not think of us.
Books · Observations
A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship with the face of earth, with the labours men go forth to, with the sounds and accents that haunt it, with whatever appeals to the affecti
Only here are the first, especially vivid memories coloured by sincere sympathy, while friendly acquaintance with all one's neighbours, dogs and donkeys included, is acquired not by sentimental effort and reflection but by a dear habit that has entered the flesh and blood. At five years old mortals
NB! · Cinema · Books · Observations · Humour
A comment exchange on whether discussing a film differs from discussing the book
What came first: the adaptation or the text. One of the unresolvable philosophical dilemmas of our age
NB! · Books · People · Humour
Advice of the Day from Alexandr Petrovich Sumarokov
Coming Up · Art · Books · Observations
Mikhail Shemyakin's illustration to Alexander Vvedensky's poem "The Guest on Horseback and the World"
Mikhail Shemyakin's illustration to Alexander Vvedensky's poem "The Guest on Horseback and the World". 1971. Do note how closely it resembles Pepperstein's present manner. And Shemyakin, here still very early, at 28, has not yet acquired his recognisable, frightening hand, with its
Cinema · Books · London · Observations · Humour
Jane Conan Doyle, Holmes actors and the expertise of an author's heirs
The Younger Daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Jean Conan Doyle, on How the Actor Jeremy Brett Came to Meet Her:. “He was charming. He was the only actor who played Sherlock Holmes who bothered to get in touch with me and come to see me. All this time
Art · Books
René Magritte's paradoxical series "The Empire of Light": a bright daytime sky above a night-time landscape of houses and trees
The series comprises no fewer than 17 works, titled for the most part "The Empire of Light", together with "God's Drawing Room" and "Luck". By various estimates, as many as 27 paintings are counted in the series. They were painted over many
Archive · Faith · Books · Monarchies
Archbishop Platon on the hidden benefit of misfortunes and on moral unhappiness
Paul I's tutor, Platon, Archbishop of Moscow and Kaluga, in his sermon on the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, 22 October 1779, reasons on good and ill fortune, paying due respect precisely to the state of misfortune. According to Archbishop Platon, we reckon