Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science · Society
The Museum of Moscow has a rather successful exhibition, "Take Away the Stuffed Fox", devoted to the local-lore movement and the canon. The organisers declare that the project is meant to dispel "the nostalgic aura around the museum of local lore". Suit yourselves. Many historians
Books · Moscow · Observations · Society
A favourite initiative of Moscow's libraries: adopt a withdrawn book. The city portal lists the libraries and the books they are prepared to give away. The books are conveniently sorted by category, author and subject; you can choose a library on the map or simply search for the
The East · Observations · Society · People
So, on the subject of gender, nationality and politics. Kazakhstan is issuing commemorative collector's coins with face values of 100, 500 and 5000 tenge bearing the image of Nursultan Nazarbayev. The inscription on the coins reads: independent Kazakhstan, 30 years. Of course, in Cyrillic the phrase would look
The East · Observations · Mores · Nature · Ethnography
A man in Turkish dress feeds stray cats and dogs with meat. Anyone who has been to Istanbul in our own day knows that the tradition of kindness to animals lives on there still. Perhaps in someone's heart this picture will awaken mercy towards stray cats and dogs
NB! · Books · Observations · Humour
Incidentally, if you fancy it, you can telephone Proust. Though he is almost never at home
Museums · Observations · Mores
The New Year holidays are coming, and the fussy are preparing to wrinkle their noses at festive suppers of egg and mayonnaise salads. Quite wrongly. In the early modern period eggs were so important an element of the feast that in the 18th century the table was adorned with a
NB! · Archaeology · Observations · Humour
The East · Observations · Heritage · Society
Every year Greece holds a memorial ceremony honouring its heroic forebears, the participants of the revolution of 1821, also known as the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire. The country even has clubs of descendants of the fighters for freedom. The ceremony takes place at the memorial necropolis
Museums · Observations · Heritage · Mores
Yesterday I witnessed a flagrant incident: a society lady, moreover one connected with the museum community, twice knocked down barriers in a house museum, pushing her way into a roped-off dining room to photograph the furniture at closer range, and after brazenly walking into the area cordoned off from
NB! · Observations · Humour
Yesterday they were 5 each, but big ones. And these are small, but 3 each
Art · London · Observations · Humour
I met an English artist who makes surreal artefacts out of hair. At first I took it for a genuine wig from some masquerade and asked her to tell me its story, so imagine my astonishment when the owner of the cake of hair said, "It's an
NB! · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
What do you make of the interior? To my eye, the only thing missing from the frame is Timati