Page from an old printed edition of Pushkin's poem “Imitation of Anacreon”, signed A. Pushkin.

NB! · Art · Books · Mores · People

Pushkin declares his love to Olenina in “Imitation of Anacreon”

"Young mare!": this is how Pushkin declares his love to Olenina, the very one with the samovar. Promising, of course, to tame her with a "shortened bridle".

NB! · Archive · Mores · People

Vladimir and Véra Nabokov at the Montreux Palace Hotel

Books · Observations · Mores

Have you ever considered how, in European drama of, say, the nineteenth century, the existence of servants is largely ignored, servants who almost never make a decisive contribution to the development of the plot and, for the most part, do not act at all

Have you ever considered how, in European drama of, say, the nineteenth century, the existence of servants is largely ignored, servants who almost never make a decisive contribution to the development of the plot and, for the most part, do not act at all except by carrying out errands of

Books · Mores · Ethnography

Shipovka, or "Vodytsa": a drink of berries steeped in wine

Are you quite sure you know the Russian table?

Aristocracy · Museums · Mores · People

Denis Davydov's Golden Toothpick

The Pushkin Museum

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.

Aristocracy · Moscow · Museums · Mores · Saint Petersburg

The Olenin samovar in the Pushkin Museum and the poet's failed courtship of Anna Olenina

A cast-bronze Olenin samovar of the early nineteenth century, with a tap in the form of an eagle's head. The samovar belonged to Alexey Nikolayevich Olenin, President of the Academy of Arts and Director of the Imperial Public Library, whose salon was among the most brilliant in

Archive · Mores · Society

Sunday became the seventh day of the week in the USSR by decree of 26 June 1940

The calendars of 1928 and 1945. Spot the difference? Until 1940 in the USSR, as in many countries of the world, the first day of the week was the day of rest, Sunday. The Russian word for week, nedelya, originally meant Sunday, and the days that followed were named by

Monarchies · Moscow · Museums · Mores

A beard badge confirmed payment for exemption from shaving under the 1698 decree

The Famous Beard Token, or a Metal Receipt for the Tax on Wearing a Beard in the Time of Peter I. The compulsory shaving of beards, confirmed by a decree of 1698, did not apply to men who paid, depending on their estate, from 30 to 600 roubles a year.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Moscow · Mores

A chest with a roast ox and other provisions, uncovered and covered, set up along the route of Elizabeth Petrovna's ceremonial procession into Moscow on 28 February 1742

Architecture · Mores · Paris

The Bataclan Theatre in Paris in 2021 and in 1920

The building won its fame precisely for its unusual architecture. It was originally a large café-chantant built in the fashionable chinoiserie style. The ground floor housed a café with a theatre, and above it was a large dance hall. In 1926 the building, inspired by Chinese architecture, was sold

Books · Mores · People

The expression “Balzacian age” came into use after the appearance in 1842 of Honoré de Balzac's novel “The Woman of Thirty”

A woman of Balzacian age is between thirty and forty