NB! · Books · Moscow

Not a Bad Berth at the Moscow Bookshop

NB! · London · Monarchies · People

Today marks the 69th anniversary of Elizabeth II's accession to the throne

NB! · Observations · Society · People

A reminder: by the racial reckoning of the nineteenth century, Pushkin counts as an octoroon, that is, the possessor of one-eighth African blood

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Nature

In Moscow an unheard-of cold snap by the standards of our times, in Versailles, fogs

NB! · Art · Pop Culture · Humour

Not that I am hinting at anything, but no one has ever seen Napoleon (the unfinished portrait of the Emperor by Jacques-Louis David) and Captain Harlock in the same room

A print on a blue wall shows two cartoon characters in light lab coats and ties on a retro TV screen. A tape label reads 32; other drawings hang nearby.

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Print of Beavis and Butt-Head on a TV screen, displayed on a gallery wall

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Society Pages

Last week I visited the exhibition of the Ball and Cross, which became a sensation during the pandemic, by your old acquaintance Max Boxer at the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts

Last week I visited the exhibition of the Ball and Cross, which became a sensation during the pandemic, by your old acquaintance Max Boxer at the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts. And do you know, Boxer is still the best at what he does. A splendid collection of young

Brick vaults in a dark underground space lit by a torch, with a smaller arch and a heap of broken bricks below.

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Reportage

Visit to the underground vaults of the Kitay-gorod Wall, with a lower level filled with bricks

Visited the underground chambers of the Kitay-gorod Wall. Atmospheric, slightly eerie: a whole city beneath the earth indeed, with yet another city below it, though that one has long since been filled in with bricks.

NB! · Books · Observations

Marietta Chudakova: Incomparable All the Same

NB! · Archive · Books · Science

Anatomical Pamphlet, 1559

NB! · Books · Observations

Mockingbird on Ozon's bestseller lists 😊 Most gratifying

NB! · Observations · Saint Petersburg · Humour

On the one hand, the 250th anniversary of Leningrad sounds absurd, but how else is one to put it?

On the one hand, the 250th anniversary of Leningrad sounds absurd, but how else is one to put it? Surely not the 250th anniversary of the city on the Neva, presumably