Colour catalogue illustration of two theatre seats with perforated backs and cast iron frames, hats held under the seat and on the back, labelled No. 5 and No. 5½.

NB! · Archive · Mores · Humour

American Furniture Company Offers Theatre Seats with Hat Space Under the Seat

Where to put one's hat during the performance? As you see, an ingenious American furniture company has found a solution for gentlemen, allowing them to go to the theatre without disturbing the comfort of those around them.

NB! · Art · Books · People

In this portrait, Vissarion Belinsky is 27 or 28 years old

A white marble hand rises from a rough block, gripping an unfinished stone form in which intertwined figures can be made out. Grey background.

NB!

Marble sculpture of a hand rising from a rough-hewn block of stone

Black and white photograph of a marble sculpture: a hand rises from a roughly worked block of stone and clasps an unhewn mass.

NB! · Art · Museums · New York

Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Hand of God” of 1907 at the Metropolitan Museum

Auguste Rodin, The Hand of God, 1907. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Back cover of a 1990 booklet with text in a red frame about cashless payments by the public through the Savings Bank of the USSR.

NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Society

Savings Bank of the USSR advertises cashless payments on the back of a 1990 issue of the Ogonyok Library

1990: Sberbank of the USSR advertises cashless payment (the advertisement itself is on the back of an Ogonyok poetry collection, incidentally). As you can see, the automatic payment of utility bills was invented long before debit cards became ubiquitous and Sberbank Online was ever thought of.

NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Igor Stravinsky has knocked back a whisky and is delighted with life

Igor Stravinsky has knocked back a whisky and is delighted with life. To your health, naturally

NB! · Cinema · Books · Observations · Pop Culture · Ethnography

One would like to recall the death scene of Albus Dumbledore and look at those events from the standpoint, let us say, of Russian folk demonology

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

Zeus: a boy is seduced by an eagle, a girl by a swan

Zeus: a boy is seduced by an eagle, a girl by a swan. The main thing is not to get them mixed up. Museum of Fine Arts, Lisbon

White walls and towers with dark conical roofs, a church with silver domes and gilded crosses, and a bell tower on the left. Blue sky above the courtyard, with a lawn and benches in front.

NB!

Rostov Kremlin courtyard: bell tower, towers and the Resurrection Church

Page of a printed book with entries dated 25 and 28 December about Governor-General Vrevsky and work for the starving on the Volga.

NB! · The East · Observations · Society · Humour

Vrevsky in Turkestan and Annenkov on the Volga in records from late 1891

The end of 1891. The Governor-General of Turkestan, Vrevsky, is interested only in women and asparagus, while Annenkov makes the starving hack at the ice on the Volga by hand. Russia and her rulers do not change, even a hundred years on

A crystal chandelier hangs over a laid table with dishes and vases of blossoming branches against a dark wall.

NB! · Observations

Thanks to readers for birthday greetings and best wishes for the New Year

Dear friends, thank you very much for your birthday wishes! In return, I congratulate you all on the approaching New Year and wish you happiness and good fortune!