Ceiling with geometric ornament in green, blue and gold, carved cornices and white openwork lamps.

NB! · Architecture · The East · Art · Museums · Observations

Painted ceiling of a hall in the Museum of Applied Arts of Uzbekistan

In the Museum of Applied Arts of Uzbekistan, a single room is enough to fall irrevocably in love. No exhibits, guided tours or wall labels are required: just lift your head

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Do You Love Arnold Böcklin as I Love Him?

NB! · Archive · The East · Observations · Mores · Humour

I Cannot Decide Which Number at This Ball-Concert in Grozny Is the More Interesting: the Eccentric Negro Dance "Elly", the Ryazan Peasant Women with Their Chastushki, "Jealousy" as Performed by Sofya, or the Jazz Imitation of Domestic Animals, "The Piglet

NB! · Faith · The East · Observations · People

All the same, humanity would probably have come out ahead had the young Joseph become a priest in Georgia

Observations · People

There are two types of people: those who do what they themselves want, and those who do what others want

Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Humour

I am certain the Good Lord is sending some sign by lighting up the House on the Embankment like this

NB! · Observations

Thank you, my love ❤️ I dream of when we shall finally spend an evening together

NB! · Observations · Humour

Well, I don't know, I wouldn't be overjoyed in Roosevelt's place

NB! · Archive · Observations

When you read parish registers, the most agreeable thing is to find that in a given month there were no deaths

Books · Observations

Tolstoy on military genius in the reflections of Prince Andrei in “War and Peace”

And why does everyone say: a military genius? Is he a genius, the man who manages to order the rusks to be brought up in good time, and to tell this one to go to the right and that one to the left? It is only because military men are

Black-and-white photograph of two mummers in masks, one with a false beard, in baggy clothes standing on grass before hills.

NB! · Archive · Observations · Ethnography

Mummers in masks in photographs taken in Scotland in 1932

Mummers used to be far more frightening. After all, between the modern person and the person of the early last century (these photographs were taken in Scotland in 1932) there lies a vast, unbridgeable chasm