Archive · Education · Society · Saint Petersburg · Humour
The historian of antiquity Mark Naumovich Botvinnik (1917-1994) recalls Stalin's post-war reforms as an attempt by an ageing leader to bring back the feeling of youth. Old people begin to fancy that when they were young everything was much better: the snow was whiter, the water
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society · Humour
In short, nothing new. A piece on Russo-German relations, a sort of Telegram-channel analytics of 1872. They keep mulling over the future after the death of Alexander II, although he has another nine years allotted to him, and, as usual, they threaten to cut our dear little Russia
Faith · Art · Observations · Humour
Good heavens, what is the matter with this woman? Why is her face so serene, with the faintest smile? She has, after all, just cut off a man's head. Yet nothing in her appearance betrays the murder so recently committed. True, painters always give Judith this blissful tranquillity
Art · Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour
Once more, then: the Marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV and mother of seven of his children, in the guise of the Old Testament heroine Judith, the young widow who saved besieged Judea by cutting off the head of Nebuchadnezzar's seduced general Holofernes while he slept. A
Books · Moscow · Observations · Reportage · Humour
Shall I tell you what a fair of intellectual literature is? City dwellers, worn out by bustle, obligations and a dusk that begins at four in the afternoon, come to Gostiny Dvor to sigh a little in the queue at the entrance, jostle by the cloakroom and, at last, plunge
Archaeology · Science · Humour
A galleon filled to the brim with gold has been found in the Caribbean, yet the scientists somehow report that all they have managed to raise from the treasure ship is a piece of rope, some broken cups, three coins and a cannon. Curious, is it not? In the Caribbean
Art · Moscow · Observations · Reportage · Humour
Buy! Buy! Buy! I have come to a new contemporary art fair, yes, yet another in this year of squandered budgets. It is called Obertone, and it is devoted exclusively to graphic art. It is held in an industrial zone behind Leningradsky Station. The taxi driver was most curious as
Art · Mores · Humour
Makovsky's painting of 1872 is called "Secretly from His Wife"
NB! · Pop Culture · Humour
Archive · Books · Mores · Education · Saint Petersburg · Humour
Gymnastics for Young Ladies, Adapted to Their Various Ages, for Public and Domestic Education. Adopted as a guide in the Saint Petersburg institutes under the Department of the Institutions of Empress Maria. The author, a doctor of medicine and surgery, described exercises intended specifically for women. The doctor held that
NB! · Pop Culture · Humour
Nike? An excellent choice!
Art · Observations · People · Humour
A meme a hundred years old, then