Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage

Pushkin Museum refused the Ludwig collection over the branch name

The silliest thing about this renaming is its poor timing. For when the Pushkin Museum was offered, as a gift, the greatest collection of contemporary art of the second half of the twentieth century, the collection of Peter Ludwig, the very reason for the refusal was the condition that the

The East · NB! · Observations · Humour

Yeeeehaw!

Archive · Art · Books · Observations · Saint Petersburg

Inaccuracies in Boutrois's 1794 engraving of the Bronze Horseman in Chantreau's book

The depiction of the Bronze Horseman in the engraving by Philibert Boutrois, from Pierre Nicolas Chantreau's «Philosophical, Political and Literary Journey through Russia in 1788 and 1789» of 1794, is surprisingly inaccurate. The inscription «Petro Primo / Catharina Secunda», that is, «Catherine the Second to Peter the First», Boutrois

Etching of a hairy human-like creature sitting among plants and reading an unrolled scroll, signed Marcotino at the bottom.

In the Press · Art · Observations · Humour

1908 etching by German artist Markus Böhmer on reading the news

Each of us, reading day after day this endless stream of news German artist Markus Böhmer, 1908

Screenshot of a social media comment joking that people in Boston have been rude since the tea incident.

NB! · Observations · Society · Humour

Internet joke about the Boston Tea Party as a nod to the origins of the American Revolutionary War

An unexpected analysis of the preconditions of the American War of Independence

Moscow · Observations · Society

What a Square Metre of Housing Costs in Moscow and European Cities According to Global Property Guide

Everything is known by comparison, and property prices above all. While we rightly lament the exorbitant cost of housing in Moscow, the analytical portal Global Property Guide has published a fresh ranking of the price per square metre in European cities. If this table is to be believed, housing costs

Books · Observations · Society

Dickens and Rousseau on Caring for the Distant at the Expense of the Near, and a Remark by an American Blogger

Do you remember the heroine of Dickens's Bleak House who saved an African tribe while her own children were tumbling down the stairs? Today, apropos of this, I came across the following remark by an American conservative blogger: The very people who refuse to make any sacrifice for

The East · NB! · Observations · Pop Culture

Fashion Is Cyclical

Fashion is cyclical

Faith · Observations · Society · People

Preacher Ignaty Lapkin of Poteryaevka, dissident and community founder, has died

It is nine days since the preacher Ignaty Tikhonovich Lapkin of Poteryaevka completed his earthly journey. Within my memory Ignaty Lapkin was perhaps the most vivid and original preacher in all the Russian land. And, curiously, in his last years he gained particular renown through the vast number of admirers

A newspaper page with K. Paustovsky's story “The Air of the Metro” printed under the heading “Story”.

The Golden Age · NB! · Books · Moscow · Observations

Konstantin Paustovsky's story “The Air of the Metro” about a ride on the Moscow metro

Good morning from Konstantin Paustovsky. Dedicated to everyone who is about to take the Metro

A flowerbed covered in wood chips with young shrubs and trees in green protective casings, and a yellow domed building behind it in Paris.

NB! · Observations · Paris · Humour

A Paris flowerbed with young shrubs and litter by the kerb after works

May things turn out better for you than they have for this Parisian flowerbed

Faith · Art · Museums · Observations · Rome

Sleeping guards in Prospero Fontana’s “Resurrection of Christ” at the Accademia di San Luca

Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept Gospel of Matthew 28:13. Perhaps this is a mistaken reading, but I find the sleeping guards in Prospero Fontana's "Resurrection of Christ" (1563–1565), from the collection of the Accademia di