A small metal censer hangs on a chain beside a wall of wide wooden planks. The planks carry faded paintings: red and ochre scrolls and plant ornament.

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Hanging censer by a wooden wall with remnants of ornamental painting

Interior of a log house with walls, ceiling and furniture covered in bright floral painting, with a table and benches by the windows.

NB! · Architecture · Art · Museums · Ethnography

Olav Hanssen's 1784 house with rosemaling decoration in the Heddal museum

Heddal Museum of Traditional Norwegian Folk Art, a house of 1784 built by Olav Hansen. The walls and ceiling are decorated with the folk painting known as rosemaling

Map screenshot of the Adriatic Sea, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. A red marker labelled Plava Laguna sits on Istria's western coast, north of Pula.

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Map of the northern Adriatic with a Plava Laguna marker on the Istrian coast

NB! · Coming Up · Cinema · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture

Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes from Luc Besson's The Fifth Element at the Paris Fashion Museum, in the Expo1997 retrospective, open until 17 July

NB! · Archaeology · Geography · Maps

The Spread of Slavic Culture in the 4th to 7th Centuries

NB! · The East · Geography · Maps

The frontiers of Russia (the Fergana Region), China (Kashgaria) and the British possessions (Dardistan) met on a short stretch between the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram range

The frontiers of Russia (the Fergana Region), China (Kashgaria) and the British possessions (Dardistan) met on a short stretch between the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram range. Map of 1909

Medieval miniature of the sun as a fiery circle with a crowned figure holding a torch, and people below gazing upward with hands on their chests.

NB! · Geography · Observations · Nature

Summer solstice on 21 June 2023 at 17:57 Moscow time, the longest day of the year

The summer solstice in 2023 will occur on 21 June at 17:57 Moscow time. A reminder that today is the longest day of the year.

NB! · Archive · Paris

Fishermen by Notre-Dame de Paris, Summer 1932

NB! · The East · Art · Cinema · Museums · Saint Petersburg · Humour

A Kirghiz convict painted by Vasily Perov in 1873 looks exactly like Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow

A Kirghiz convict painted by Vasily Perov in 1873 looks exactly like Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. Collection of the Russian Museum

NB! · Books · Mores

Why does every man love his own opinion so ardently and beyond all measure?

NB! · Archive · Science · Pop Culture

The blueprint of the geyser coffee maker that became a symbol of Italy, patented by the industrialist Alfonso Bialetti in 1933

NB! · Archive · Books · People