Four gilded statuettes of seated figures in long robes stand in a row on square bases against a dark background.

NB! · Art · Pop Culture · Humour

Four elements as seated figures, northern France, around 1180

The four elements: water, fire, earth, air. Northern France, around 1180. Not quite as they are shown in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but still

Stacks of books and issues of Seans magazine with black-and-white and colour covers laid out on a dark floor, including issues 64, 66 and 69.

NB! · Cinema · Books · Moscow · Observations

Sale of Seans publications at the Falanster shop

Falanster is holding a sale of Seans publications. There are some interesting things; I am reserving Varda and Barskaya

NB! · Art · Observations · Mores · Humour

Borrowing from a popular Twitter thread, I would like to conduct a poll: what surprises you more in the painting “The Unequal Marriage”: the ghost of an old woman regarding the old groom with contempt, or, ahem, the groom's friend?

NB! · Art · Books · Museums · People

Inkwell "Pushkin at Work"

Inkwell "Pushkin at Work". 1936, Lomonosov Porcelain Factory

NB! · Archaeology · Observations

During lockdown archaeologists were not idle: one of them, look, was digging in his own garden and turned up Neolithic arrowheads and Roman pottery

During lockdown archaeologists were not idle: one of them, look, was digging in his own garden and turned up Neolithic arrowheads and Roman pottery. I had less luck with finds, though once I did come across a genuine Stone Age tool, but otherwise it was nineteenth-century coins and some

Black-and-white photo: an older man in an overcoat and a woman in a dark veil stand by a train, with a group of men in dark suits behind them.

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Man and woman in mourning dress beside a railway carriage

NB! · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg

This Is Very Touching and Deserves Respect: To the Museum of the Soviet Era in Saint Petersburg

NB! · In the Press · Books · Observations

AST Nonfiction is running a poll on which cover best suits the hardback edition of Mockingbird

AST Nonfiction is running a poll on which cover best suits the hardback edition of Mockingbird. My choice, I think, is obvious. And what do you think? Thank you all for your congratulations; very soon it will be in bookshops across the country 🥰

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Geopolitical

Black-and-white photo: a man in a military cap and a man in a leather jacket, both holding film cameras, look upward. Behind them are the damaged Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag dome.

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Two men with film cameras before the damaged Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag

NB! · Archive · Observations · Humour

A subscriber informs me in a private message that the letter was written with a broad-nibbed pen, not a pointed one

A subscriber informs me in a private message that the letter was written with a broad-nibbed pen, not a pointed one. Having looked through the other comments of the esteemed Matroskin on Dzen, I understand that, contrary to the instructions, he has rather incautiously lapsed into dotage(

NB! · Science · Education