Books · Observations · Society · Humour

Portuguese President Rebelo de Sousa takes Russian books on Dostoevsky and Yesenin

Nothing special, just the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the company of our ambassador Mikhail Kamynin, loading up on Russian books. What, one wonders, will Señor Rebelo de Sousa (by Portuguese standards, still a short surname) be reading tonight? Apart from my Telegram channel, naturally. I can

Coming Up · Books · Observations

Meanwhile, Dostoevsky, one of the country's finest bookshops, is representing Russia and Russian literature at the Lisbon Book Fair, one of the oldest cultural festivals in Portugal

Meanwhile, Dostoevsky, one of the country's finest bookshops, is representing Russia and Russian literature at the Lisbon Book Fair, one of the oldest cultural festivals in Portugal. On the stand I see not only the classics and editions devoted to Dostoevsky, but also a good deal of ordinary

NB! · Observations · Science · Humour

By 1979 Computers Had Become Positively Tiny

By 1979 computers had become positively tiny. And the floppy disk! A mere trifle! I even mistook it for a nano-SIM

NB! · Observations · Humour

Big Clay, at the Very Least, Has Been Immortalised on Yandex Maps

NB! · Observations · Society · Humour

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain. On the evidence of the annihilated native peoples of North America, say, if nothing else

Observations · Society · Humour

Avito lists stone and bronze monuments to Lenin for 1.2 and 2.5 million

Don't know where to invest a million or two? For that sort of sum, Avito will sell you a monument to Lenin, for example. In stone, it is a million two hundred thousand; cast in bronze, two million five hundred. Not the most profitable of purchases, admittedly. Even

Monarchies · Observations · People

Edward VIII's remarks about his mother Mary of Teck and sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Do you know what was the most loathsome thing about Edward VIII? Not even his abdication, nor his total obsession with Wallis Simpson, but the fact that he called his grieving mother, the Dowager Queen Mary of Teck, and his sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ice-cold bitches. Such

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Physical resemblance of Danton and Robespierre in portraits at the Carnavalet Museum

Do you think there is a connection between the very distinctive appearance of two French revolutionaries, Danton and Robespierre, and their personal qualities? At any rate, one cannot fail to notice the outward resemblance of these two figures of the French Revolution in these portraits by unknown artists from the

NB! · Coming Up · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

An Unexpected Greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich Advertises the Premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre

An unexpected greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich advertises the premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre. Such a touching merger of two forgotten universes that I quite wanted to reread Doronina's letter to Putin.

Architecture · Art · Observations · Ethnography

Blacksmith Kirillov’s House in the Village of Kunara, Sverdlovsk Region, Built in 1954–1967

What does the country property of one's dreams look like? Here, for example, is the house of the blacksmith Kirillov in the village of Kunara in the Sverdlovsk Region, built in 1954-67 by a simple Russian man for himself and his family and decorated by his own

NB! · Observations · Pop Culture

And You Call That Fashion?

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