Archive · The East · Geography · Books · Science · People · Ethnography

The 1914 Pamir expedition of Gauthiot and Zarubin and Paléologue's memoir of the scholar

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

Geography · Moscow · Society

European capitals ranked by area

Moscow, however, takes first place by many other measures too. Before the annexation of New Moscow, the city's area was 1,081 square kilometres, which put it in third place in the list of the largest capitals of Europe

NB! · Geography · Maps

Empires of the Ancient World, AD 200

NB! · Geography · Maps

An Arctic-centred map, a most interesting view of this part of the world

Geography · Monarchies · Society

Victory of the Russian galley fleet under Golitsyn at Grengam in 1720

By 1720 Sweden, once the formidable Lion of the North, realises the futility of its ambitions to dominate the north of Europe; its former grandeur has been squandered in a string of defeats at the hands of Russia. England, which had stood on Sweden's side from the very

NB! · Archive · Geography · Ethnography

Trackers on the Yangtze, 1946

World map with south at the top and Brazil at the centre, with member countries of BRICS and other groupings shaded in colour.

NB! · Geography · Maps · Observations · Humour

World map with south at the top, published by the Brazilian government

A map of the world according to the government of Brazil. Indeed, why not?

Google Earth screenshot of the globe, with the Pacific Ocean filling most of the view.

NB! · Coming Up · Geography · Maps · Science

Where Pacifida, or the continent of Mu, is placed and where the idea came from

That very place on earth, rarely shown to the layman, where Pacifida, or the continent of Mu, ought to be found. Where the very idea of it came from, hear in the third episode of my podcast

Geography · Science

The Greek theory of the origin of the name Italy and three other hypotheses

One theory of the origin of the word “Italia” holds that the peninsula was originally named by the Greeks. Legend traces the name to the figure of Italus, grandson of Ulysses and king of the Oenotrians, Arcadian colonists who settled in what is now Calabria, on the western tip of

Archive · Geography · Science

Kosmos-482, backup of Venera-8, to fall to Earth between 12 and 14 May after 53 years in orbit

Postage stamps with the Soviet interplanetary automatic station "Venera-8", which reached the vicinity of Venus on 22 July 1972, 117 days after launch. Four days after Venera-8, its backup, an identical station, was launched; it failed to reach departure trajectory and remained in Earth orbit. This

NB! · Archive · The East · Geography

View of Yerevan, from "Chardin's Travels in Persia", undertaken by the merchant Jean Chardin in 1666

NB! · Geography · Maps · Observations · Humour

Next time you hear tales of a successful career, remember this map of the Mediterranean, which very modestly calls itself "The Career of Julius Caesar"