NB! · Art · Museums · Paris · Nature

If loyalty, then canine

If loyalty, then canine. So vivid a characterisation that the subject of a dog lying at its master's grave needs no explanation. A little-known painting by the animalier Alfred de Dreux, 1850, acquired by the Louvre in 2001.

Painting of teenagers on a city playground behind a chain-link fence. A thin, shirtless blond youth stands in front, with brick tenements behind.

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Teenage boys by a chain-link fence on a city playground, painting

NB! · Archive · Books · Observations

since we have come to speak of Solzhenitsyn, here are some lines about him, taken down from the words of Vsevolod Ivanov by his friend Anna Saed-Shakh and set out in a short tale of the history of Peredelkino

Time cover with a red frame: three blue portraits marked Щ-232 and a colour portrait of a bearded man. Captions read Russia's Dissident Intellectuals and Solzhenitsyn.

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Time cover on Russia's dissident intellectuals, September 1968

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you're in!

Black-and-white photo of a bearded man in a bowler hat and overcoat, standing with a cane on a rug. It hangs in a black frame on a white wall, with reflections in the glass.

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Vintage photograph of a man in a bowler hat and overcoat on exhibition

Two framed photos on a gallery wall: a man with a microphone beside a car, and an auctioneer with a gavel before a dense crowd. Young women in white uniforms stand nearby.

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Auction in a large hall: two black-and-white photographs on exhibition

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages · Humour

At the premiere of “Bulba

At the premiere of Molochnikov’s “Bulba. The Feast”, the ushers at the entrance to the auditorium of the palace on the Yauza thoughtfully inform guests that glasses are not allowed(

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That Is What It Means to Be a Cultural Capital

On a black painted tray lie eight turquoise glazed tile magnets inscribed with the word Kolomna, and three ceramic butterflies.

NB! · Faith · Observations · Ethnography

Tile-style magnets from the ceramic workshop of the Assumption Cathedral in the Kolomna Kremlin

I do so love such charming details: in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kolomna Kremlin one can buy naive tile magnets from the cathedral's own ceramic workshop. The price is 150 roubles

A tall red-brick wall with crenellations and an arched recess runs toward a tower with a pointed roof. A grassy moat lies along its base under a clear blue sky.

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Brick fortress wall with a corner tower above a grassy moat

NB! · Architecture · Art · Observations

Kolomna's Streets in Faces and Fables: A Most Agreeable Piece of Street Art in the Historic Centre of Kolomna

Kolomna's Streets in Faces and Fables: a most agreeable piece of street art in the historic centre of Kolomna. A note for the negligent devotees of Sobyanin