Museums · Paris · Ethnography
What Do Henpecked Husbands Have to Do with Birds of Prey? The klobuk is not only a monk's headdress: it is also the name of the little cap placed on a hunting bird, covering its eyes completely and its ears in part. The hood is needed to calm
Faith · Art · Books · Ethnography
A droning bell calls us to prayer, Ringing on sunbeams over the cornfields; The distance of the water-meadows drowns in blue, And the river on the meadows sparkles and burns. And in the village since morning the liturgy goes on in the church: The whole ambo is strewn with
Faith · Pop Culture · Ethnography
Ever heard the story of the leshy who took a fancy to a village girl and came courting her in the guise of a wealthy merchant, and her parents gave her to him as a wife? After a while the girl came back to return her cross to her father,
Observations · Nature · Ethnography
In Malaysia and Indonesia the proboscis monkey, or Nasalis larvatus, is called the Dutch monkey, or more precisely simply the Dutchman, literally orang belanda. The curiosity has two explanations. The first is that with their faces these primates reminded the local population of the Dutch, who had once held colonial
Observations · People · Ethnography
Friends! A new episode of the podcast is already on air! This time we talk about my darling Svetlana Zharnikova and her mad and brilliant theories You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Yandex Music, VK, Soundstream, Litres and on other platforms. Share your impressions, subscribe to the
Archive · The East · Geography · Books · Science · People · Ethnography
In the memoirs of Maurice Georges Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, there is a curious recollection of meeting the well-known linguist Robert Edmund Gauthiot, who explored the Russian territories of the Pamirs together with the young Russian schola. The story runs as follows. In 1914 Zarubin, as a linguist
Museums · Heritage · Ethnography
The Fowler Museum returns 11 valuable artefacts to an Aboriginal community in Australia. On 20 May the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) handed over 11 objects to the Lawrakia community in the Northern Territory of Australia. Among them are a headband made of kangaroo teeth
Architecture · Observations · Ethnography · Humour
Sit down and learn them, I shall be round to test you
NB! · Archive · Geography · Ethnography
NB! · Archaeology · Ethnography · Humour
3 ways to embrace ancient Egyptian fashion with an ordinary bedsheet. Don't mention it
Archaeology · Ethnography · Humour
Pictographs in Barrier Canyon, otherwise known as Horseshoe Canyon, in the desert of central Utah. The little figures, in some respects resembling people, in others insects, in others your common-or-garden extraterrestrials, have given their name to an entire style of rock art: similar petroglyphs are said to be
Archaeology · Archive · The East · Books · London · Museums · Observations · Ethnography
I am reading the diary of Professor Ivan Ivanovich Zarubin about his journey to the Pamirs in the summer of 1914. He describes sailing down a mountain river on a raft made of inflated goatskins. It brought to mind the Neo-Assyrian relief of the 8th century BC from the