NB! · Observations

A Peredelkino Mood

A woman with short blonde hair in a light quilted jacket raises her hand at a table set with glasses.

NB! · Archive · New York · People · Pop Culture

Marlene Dietrich at a party in New York in 1967, aged 66

Marlene Dietrich in 1967. A photograph from a party in New York: the diva is 66

NB! · Moscow · Museums · Observations

The Pushkin Museum Turns 112

NB! · Books · Museums · People · Saint Petersburg

The Writing Desk in Dostoevsky's Flat

A woman in a hat and a checked dress stands at a building entrance as the wind lifts her skirt; beside her a man in a suit holds a hat.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · People · Humour

Wind blows up the skirt of Queen Elizabeth II in a black-and-white photograph

Queen Elizabeth II. The wind lifts her skirt

NB!

Ours

NB! · Pop Culture · Humour

And what will the round-earthers make of this tortoise?

NB! · Observations · Humour

And These People Will Be Judging Your Restaurant

Marble statue of a seated goddess in a crenellated city-wall crown, holding ears of wheat, with a male figure at her feet.

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Rome

Statue of the Goddess Tyche as the Seleucid Capital in the Vatican Museums

I photographed this statue in the Vatican Museums some time ago because of its extraordinary crown. It turns out that this Roman copy of a Greek bronze depicts the goddess Tyche in the allegorical guise of the capital of the Seleucids. On her head sits a city wall, complete with

NB! · Observations

Good Old Versailles

NB! · Cinema · Pop Culture

Poster for the film “Star Wars: Episode I”, 1999

A rider in a yellow robe and cap on a black horse, with a man in an orange robe standing beside him against a white wall.

NB! · Faith · The East · Art · Ethnography

Kalmyk lama in an 1870 painting by Vasily Vereshchagin

Kalmyk Lama. Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin, 1870