Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · Nature

Hurricane of 1998 destroyed several Kremlin wall merlons, out of 1044 in total

Three Merlons of the Moscow Kremlin Wall Collapsed in Today's Storm. This is not the first time the merlons of the Kremlin wall have come down. During the storm in the summer of 1998, several of them were likewise destroyed by falling trees. In all, the wall is

Art · Monarchies · Moscow · Museums · Science · Nature · Humour

The Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire Made of Insects, 1842, Presented by an Author from Slovenia to His Colleagues, the Moscow Naturalists

Over the long years the picture has been restored more than once, and by our day all the insects, originally natives of the Illyrian Provinces, have been replaced by insects born, lived and died on Russian soil. One might say that this curious heraldic trinket has, in the end, become

Aerial view of a densely built town among mountains and slopes, with roads curving around the houses.

NB! · Geography · Observations · Nature · Humour

The Sicilian town of Centuripe, built on a mountain ridge in the shape of a human figure

A view of the Sicilian town of Centuripe, spread across the mountains in the shape of a man. Or perhaps one might simply turn into a bird?

Observations · Society · Nature · Ethnography

The killing of a white deer by Liverpool police and its symbolism in European culture

This morning in Liverpool, police killed a white stag that had the folly to run into the city. Yes, the animal might have been temporarily sedated and carried off elsewhere, but someone took the decision to deprive it of its life. In my view, this is a very bad omen

NB! · Art · Nature · Humour

Why Does Dürer's Walrus Look So Much Like a Man from the Next Staircase Along?

In the Press · Interviews · Society · People · Nature

On the eve of her 87th birthday, Brigitte Bardot gave an interview to Parisien Magazine, speaking of her fight for animals, their lives and rights, of French presidents, and of the funerals of famous Frenchmen

First and foremost, Bardot spoke of the “barbarians, bastards, vile, rotten monsters” who inflict suffering on animals. She recalled, among other things, the shocking tragedy of the bloody slaughter of 1,428 cetaceans in a fjord in the Faroe Islands; on this occasion she wrote to the Prime Minister of

Observations · Nature

Did you know that such an incredibly beautiful mushroom exists, called Gyroporus cyanescens, popularly known as the "Bruise" (Sinyak), and looking as though it had been painted in Gzhel blue?

The mushroom is edible, and moreover very tasty. In Russia it grows in mixed forests, most often under birches, and is listed in the Red Book

NB! · Archive · In the Press · Science · Nature

One might consider it a prophecy of catastrophic climate change from 1912 come true, although humanity has pushed nature to the brink of existence and extinction not over centuries, as the futurologists of a century ago supposed, but in merely…

A fallen oak lies on the ground, its split trunk with a broken root end and moss-covered bark set against green foliage.

NB! · Observations · Nature · Saint Petersburg

The oldest oak, aged 160 years, falls in the botanical garden of Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg Live reports that the oldest oak in the botanical garden has fallen. The 160-year-old tree, with a crown 24 metres across and a height of 18 metres, which had witnessed the abolition of serfdom, could not survive climate change, or, quite as likely, a fungal disease.

The East · Books · Observations · Nature

Ephedra distachya as the possible basis of the haoma drink of the Saka tribes

For all who remember the opening lines of my book, where the drink haoma is mentioned, and never learnt what this bracing tipple was: remember this little herb, which grows in many lands of Eurasia. This handsome plant goes by many names: Kuzmich's grass, steppe raspberry, soma and,

NB! · Observations · Nature · Humour

Good morning, and may your day be as joyful as this eighteenth-century sea lion

Observations · Palaeontology · Nature · Ethnography

I read a post on an anthropology channel about Elliot Smith and hyperdiffusionism, which among other things hints at the penetration of Egyptian culture into America, explained by the presence of images of elephants in Mesoamerican art…

I shall not hold forth at length on Mesoamerican art and Egypt, still less on the views of Elliot Smith. I will say only that there were, of course, elephants in America. And of the most various kinds. If we speak of the family Elephantidae proper, America was widely populated