NB! · Books · Mores · Humour

Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov, champion of the old style, proposed to use "sharokat" instead of the word billiards, and "sharopikh" instead of the word cue

NB! · Archive · Mores · People

Soviet People, Photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Architecture · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Paris

In 1782 Marie Antoinette commissioned a hamlet at Versailles inspired by Rousseau

Inspired by Rousseau's idyllic descriptions of country life, in 1782 Marie Antoinette asked for a little hamlet to be laid out for her right within the grounds of Versailles. In the course of a single winter an entire village of peasant cottages and farms was raised for the

Colour photograph of a girl in a pink dress walking on a path by a building with wooden galleries, a man and a woman talking nearby.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

A girl in court dress at Marie Antoinette's Hamlet in Versailles in 1966

Look at this delightful little girl in court dress in Marie Antoinette's hamlet at Versailles in 1966. From the photograph it is impossible to tell whether the gown is of the English or the French type, but be that as it may, what a touching gesture of reverence!

Aristocracy · Art · Mores

Wrought iron travel bed of the 16th century priced at about 40,000 euros

Have you ever seen an iron bed like this? A unique piece of furniture! It is made of wrought iron with openwork decoration of foliage and bouquets of flowers. This is a travelling bed, easy to dismantle and transport, which you can always take along if you set off on

NB! · Aristocracy · Observations · Mores · Pop Culture · Humour

I don't see anything funny here, by the way: the lady might have stood up for the birds that had taken up residence in her wig

I don't see anything funny here, by the way: the lady might have stood up for the birds that had taken up residence in her wig. A pity that in 1775 mercy was not in fashion to the same degree as extravagant coiffures. Still, the aristocrats of the

Black-and-white photograph of a man in a dark suit and tie beside a white-framed window, holding a pair of glasses.

Books · Mores · Humour

Evelyn Waugh on the French as an inventive people who chose the path of evil

“The French are an ingenious and perspicacious people, who have deliberately chosen the path of evil. This shows itself in everything they have done over the centuries.” Evelyn Waugh

Archive · Geography · Books · Mores

Stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy describes Venetian gondolas, how they were built and hired

Gondoliers in Venice are an exclusively male profession, but if this engraving of 1610 is to be believed, women were also admitted to the traditional gondola race. A Russian traveller of that time, the stolnik Pyotr Tolstoy, describes what he saw in Venice as follows: In Venice there are hackney

Art · Mores · Paris · People

Surgeon Samuel Pozzi, his romance with Sarah Bernhardt and her 1915 leg amputation

The celebrated surgeon and simply the handsomest man of his day, Samuel Jean Pozzi, captured in an equally celebrated portrait by John Singer Sargent, was the hero of numerous love affairs. One of them bound him to the greatest actress of her age, Sarah Bernhardt. The vivid romance between the

NB! · Archive · The East · Art · Books · Mores

Life in the Muscovite State in the Sixteenth Century in Engravings from Adam Olearius's "Description of a Journey to Muscovy, to Persia and Back", 1696 Edition

NB! · Archive · Books · Mores · Ethnography

Street Theatre in the Sixteenth-Century Tsardom of Muscovy, as Adam Olearius Saw It

NB! · Archive · Mores · Pop Culture