NB! · Nature

May this rare, vanishing Japanese bird, known as the snow fairy, bring you a good morning

NB! · Humour

When the princess turns out to be not merely a frog, but one who keeps asking for money

NB! · Archive · People

Chekhov in Yalta, 1901

NB! · Art · Observations · Pop Culture · Nature · Humour

A piglet in the 1578 work by Hans Hoffmann

Does anyone still remember the popular baby hippo? To my mind, the sweet piglet by Hans Hoffmann, 1578, is not one whit less charming. Though, is there a single young creature in the world that fails to melt the heart?

NB! · Art

Igor Shelkovsky, it turns out, on 99% of contemporary artists

NB! · Moscow · Observations

Beloved Beauty Moscow

Colour lithograph: a man in a blouse holds a flag on a throne under a red canopy, surrounded by an armed crowd, scattered papers and an ermine robe.

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Insurgent with a tricolour flag standing on a throne in a ransacked palace hall

NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Observations · Heritage · Paris

The restored furnishings of Louis XVIII's throne room in the Louvre raise one question: why do the proportions and appearance of the canopy differ so greatly from the dome above the throne under Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III?

NB! · Archive · In the Press · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Good Lord, how touching!

Good Lord, how touching! A memorial notice of the death of Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, in the Hastings Observer

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

Should Earthlings Offer the Cosmos Darya Dontsova and Barbara Cartland, or the Brontë Sisters and George Sand After All?

Should Earthlings offer the cosmos Darya Dontsova and Barbara Cartland, or the Brontë sisters and George Sand after all? That is the question

A white crenellated wall with arches beside a red-brick building with white decoration and a green canopy. Above them, a blue sky with wispy clouds.

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White wall and red-brick annex beneath a cloudy sky

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Moscow · Heritage