NB! · Monarchies · People · Nature · Humour

Peter I owned a horse called Lisette and a smooth-haired terrier called Lisette, and his imagination, it seems, did not stretch to names

NB! · Observations · Nature · Humour

Marsupial joeys make their way to a meal along a path licked clear by their mother: in the wild, it's all just like show business

NB! · Geography · Nature

A View of New Zealand from Space

Geography · Observations · Nature

Malkhan Range tourmalines of Transbaikalia as an alternative to paraiba tourmaline

To all jewellers and admirers of luxe-class gems who have been charmed by the fashion for the extravagantly praised Paraiba tourmaline, priced above diamonds: I recommend a closer look at the home-grown tourmalines of the Malkhan Range. The legendary deposit in Transbaikalia is an inexhaustible source of this

Science · Palaeontology · Nature

Russian scientists grew narrow-leaved campion from 38,000-year-old permafrost tissue

In these pots before you is narrow-leaved catchfly, a plant of the pink family (Caryophyllaceae) common in tundra conditions. What is so special about these unprepossessing flowers? If nothing else, that they were grown from the tissues of a plant 38,000 years old, preserved in the permafrost. As

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · Nature

Alexander Brodsky's park at the Vereteyevo estate near Moscow wins gold at the prestigious international Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2022

Still life with red berries and a white flower on a stone ledge against a dark background.

NB! · Art · Observations · Nature · Humour

Dutch seventeenth-century painter Adriaen Coorte and his still life with berries

Bought strawberries at the market for 150 roubles a kilo; they say they are from Greece, though the price tag says "Azerbaijan". Tasteless, so clearly Greece: all the fruit there is plastic, nothing but the smell. Anyway, until our own strawberries ripen, let us look at the seventeenth-

Archive · Monarchies · Nature

Nicholas II's two elephants, Indian and African, and how they died

Nicholas II had two elephants: one Indian, one African. The Emperor liked to fuss over animals, bathed the elephants and fed them, and could watch the giants at play in their pool for a long time. The Indian elephant did not live long, having failed to adapt to the climate,

NB! · Art · Nature

The White Cat

The White Cat. Pierre Bonnard

Black-and-white image of a huge gorilla holding a limp woman in its hand.

NB! · Paris · People · Nature · Humour

An orangutan attacked Henriette Poincaré in the Élysée Palace garden in 1917

In 1917, the wife of the tenth President of France, Henriette Poincaré, was attacked in the garden of the Élysée Palace by an orangutan that tried to abduct her. The animal, according to different versions, escaped either from the Théâtre du Rond-Point or from the house of a diplomat

Coming Up · Architecture · Books · Society · Nature

Art estate Veretyevo asks visitors to help restock the library in its park pavilions

The park created by the architect Brodsky at the Veretyevo art estate needs help restocking its library, scattered across tiny pavilions over 7 hectares of wooded marsh. Anna Narinskaya, curator of the Veretyevo book project, has already written that many visitors to the park, for some reason, take the bookshelves

Faith · Nature · Ethnography

The parasitic plant Peter's Cross in bloom in France and in Russian folk beliefs

In France, toothwort is already in full bloom, a most beautiful parasitic plant that has no chlorophyll of its own and lives by attaching itself to the roots of other plants. In Russian it is called "Peter's cross" (petrov krest) for the shape of its rhizomes,