Books · Society · People
Taganrog is the only Russian city that Garibaldi names in his memoirs. And it is no accident that Garibaldi is commemorated in Taganrog by two monuments. Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived in Taganrog aboard a small merchant vessel with the most prosaic of purposes: to buy flour of a variety popular in
Archive · Art · Books · Ethnography
An engraved sketch from the atlas "Travels through the Southern Governorships of the Russian Empire in the Years 1793 and 1794" by the German-Russian encyclopaedist Peter Simon Pallas
NB! · Books · Moscow · Observations
The antiquarian bookshop “Lyudi i veshchi” [People and Things] is on fire in Starosadsky Lane, in Kitay-gorod. I hope there are neither people nor valuable things inside at the moment
Architecture · Books · Heritage · Society
The Falling Tower from the "Divine Comedy" Is Under Threat of Collapse. The authorities of Bologna have closed access to the famous leaning tower of Garisenda and cordoned off the area around it, since the instruments monitoring the tower's condition have recorded anomalous oscillations. The Garisenda
Cinema · Books · Humour
Watching "Khraniteli" (The Guardians), the Soviet heartfelt screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, based on the splendid translation of the novel by Muravyov and Kistyakovsky, in which many details cut from the plot in Peter Jackson's version have been preserved. Tom Bombadil, for instance,
Books · Observations · People
The bourgeoisie is any group of people dissatisfied with what they have and satisfied with what they are. The Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila
NB! · Books · Observations
Art · Books · Museums · Observations
The Jewish Museum invites visitors to look at art through the prism of Kafka's work. At the entrance they hand out booklets, one red and one brown. The two routes, we are told, are built on the story "The Metamorphosis" and the novel "The Trial&
Books · Monarchies · Mores
Jean Froissart describes the horrors of the “Bal des Ardents” of 1398, when a spark set alight costumes and masks made of linen soaked in pitch. Charles VI, dressed as a wild man, managed to save himself by hiding beneath the skirts of the Duchess de Berry; one or two
Books · Mores · Humour
Illustration from the book "The Art of Bayonet Fencing, or Instruction in the Use of the Infantry Rifle as an Offensive and Defensive Weapon", 1832
Cinema · Books · Observations
He set out from Rivendell for Mount Doom only 17 years later. All that time Gandalf was gathering information about the Ring. Thus the Ring was destroyed when Frodo was already past 50. In the film adaptation, all of this took no more than a couple of weeks, or three
Archaeology · Books · Heritage
Girls Are Standing, Standing to One Side. The ruins of Cyrene, the chief city of Libya according to Herodotus