Archive · Observations · Nature
Dima Sukhanov in a photograph by Vladimir Karlov, 1992
A Boy with Burdock Leaves from the Kaluga Region Will Bring You Summer. 1992, photograph by Vladimir Karlov, featuring Dima Sukhanov
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NB! · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society
Vandalism in Venice
Vandalism in Venice. The damage done to a sacred aedicule with an image of the Virgin Mary, not far from the Papadopoli Hotel, is the thanks of Christian Europe from the hordes of Afro-Arab "doctors and engineers". The Reconquista is inevitable
London · Observations · Society
Bilingual Royal Mail website and the legal status of Welsh in the United Kingdom
I noticed that the website of Royal Mail, the state post of the United Kingdom, works in two languages, English and Cymraeg, that is, Welsh. One wonders why only two, and why precisely these two? The United Kingdom has, in fact, no constitutionally enshrined state language. The status of English
Observations · Heritage · Society
Yet Another Absurd Piece of News
Yet another absurd piece of news. The restoration of monuments is being removed from independent expert review. On 12 June a law was signed that, from 1 March 2027, changes the procedure for work on cultural heritage sites. Amendments to Federal Law No. 73-FZ and to the Town Planning
Archaeology · Observations · Science
Language ability and HAQER regions that arose before the split of sapiens and Neanderthals
University of Iowa researchers suggest that the regulatory "volume knobs" in DNA were already present in Neanderthals. According to the authors of the study, the capacity for language depends most strongly on tiny stretches of the genome, the regulatory regions known as HAQERs, which occupy less than a
Observations · Science · People · Humour
Belokurov on Milky Way stars possibly originating in an absorbed dwarf galaxy
Vasily Belokurov, one of the 2026 Kavli Prize laureates in astrophysics, is a galactic archaeologist. I have read his article about intruders and learnt that the constancy of the starry sky, to which people have prayed from the Palaeolithic to our own day, is an optical illusion the length of
Coming Up · Archaeology · In the Press · Observations · Science
A popular genre, a chat about the brain: on Hugh Groucutt's interesting idea that Homo sapiens took shape slowly and gradually, without revolutionary upheavals
In essence, the cognitive revolution of 40,000 to 50,000 years ago is one of the textbook stories. Homo sapiens supposedly grew clever all of a sudden, drew a bull on a cave wall and set off to conquer the planet. The trouble is that anatomically modern humans appeared
Coming Up · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Pop Culture · Rome
Fendi to show Maria Grazia Chiuri's couture at Rome's GNAM gallery on 9 July
On 9 July Fendi will show its first couture collection by Maria Grazia Chiuri, who moved from Dior last October. The venue is not Paris but Rome's National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, the GNAM. The gallery building itself is a former seventeenth-century monastery of the
Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg
Unofficial Art of the 1980s in Open Storage and a Critique of the Curatorial Concept
The Garage Museum opens a new season of open storage with "Art on the Frequency of the 1980s", running until 23 September. I did not attend the guided tour, only chatted with friends, but that will not stop me from dissecting the curatorial conception. First, given that we
Archaeology · The East · Observations · Science · Society · Humour
Hominins at Gesher Benot Yaakov sourced basalt for tools from different lava flows
By right of the first. When political regimes justify their claims to some territory by length of tenure, one can always object that somebody other than them was there first. And somebody other than those first ones. And than them, too. If one is so inclined, one may go all
Art · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages
Shift Gallery opens a new space on Petrovsky Boulevard with the exhibition “Under Supervision”
Shift Gallery has opened a new space at 5c1 Petrovsky Boulevard. In a season when the news pours out nothing but closures, it is pleasant to see that the young and bold are, for a change, opening things and reopening them. The first exhibition is called "Under Observation"
Archive · Observations · Science
Talbot's salted paper, the first method of positive photographic printing on paper
Saw this photograph of the stallion Belyi from the 1880s and became curious about the "salted paper" or "salt paper" technique in which it was made. Salted paper is the earliest method of positive photographic printing on paper, invented by William Henry Fox Talbot at the