NB! · Archive · Monarchies · People

Attached to the police investigation file on Ehrenburg, held in the State Archive, is a touching letter from his parents to Tsar Nicholas II, pleading for clemency for their son

NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · People

This year marked 125 years since the birth of Ehrenburg, a man of interesting biography and, perhaps, a fortunate fate

This year marked 125 years since the birth of Ehrenburg, a man of interesting biography and, perhaps, a fortunate fate. I should like to acquaint you with a curious archival file on the arrest of the young Ilya Ehrenburg

NB! · Books · Museums

The Beetle Table in the Kazan House of the Poet Yevgeny Baratynsky

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Monomakh was depicted in a two-tiered hat that looked more like a papal tiara than the Cap of Monomakh, which, according to legend, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX presented on a golden platter to his grandson Vovka

Coat of arms with a red shield bearing three armoured legs, a crown above, a falcon left, a raven right and a motto ribbon below.

NB! · Geography · Monarchies · Observations

Coat of arms of the Isle of Man with triskelion, crown, falcon, raven and motto

The arms of Mann are rather splendid too: the Sicilian triskelion (a tripod), the coronation crown of St Edward, supporters a falcon and a raven. The motto is Quocunque Jeceris Stabit: "Whichever way you throw it, it will stand".

NB! · Geography · Maps

Map of the Isle of Man, 1610, with some curious figures at sea: to the south-east a Norman riding a reptile, to the north-east an Englishman on a lion, to the north-west an Irishman on a fish, to the north a Scotsman on a unicorn

Coat of arms with a red and blue shield, count's coronet, ermine mantle and a soldier in a tricorne holding it, with a green turban lying beside.

NB! · Aristocracy · The East · Observations

Coat of arms of the Counts Kamensky with one supporter and an overturned Turkish turban

The only coat of arms in Russian heraldry with a single supporter belongs to Count Kamensky; where the second supporter should be, there is an overturned Turkish turban. Very witty, I think

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Geography · Moscow

Yaroslavsky Station, 1930s

NB! · Faith · Art

The Magi and the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus in Her Arms beneath the Star of Bethlehem, Set in Diamonds

The Magi and the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus in her arms beneath the Star of Bethlehem, set in diamonds. Pendant, 15th century

NB! · Moscow · Science · Society

Dear colleagues, this announcement concerns all of us and the staff of our friendly institutes, especially those located on Vavilov, Lyapunov and Fotiyeva Streets and on Leninsky Prospekt

Two staff members in masks and gloves stand by an open cardboard case holding a mummy on white fabric, with shelves of boxes behind.

NB! · Archaeology · Science · Ethnography

Chilean scientists examine 15 mummies of the Chinchorro people, the world's oldest

Chilean scientists have examined 15 mummies of the Chinchorro people, who lived on the Pacific coast of South America from the 10th to the 3rd millennium BC. These mummies are the oldest on earth, and several thousand years older than the Egyptian ones.

NB! · Archive · In the Press · Geography · Society · Paris

The Novy Altaysky Luch of 15 Feb 1919 carries on a single page both the flooding of the Seine and the affairs of Semirechye: famine, cattle plague, arrests of the steppe intelligentsia

The Novy Altaysky Luch of 15 Feb 1919 carries on a single page both the flooding of the Seine and the affairs of Semirechye: famine, cattle plague, arrests of the steppe intelligentsia. The Bolsheviks, who had seemed to be calming down, have once more stepped up their terror