NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Humour

An insert in the collected works of Stalin asking that the book bearing this personal label be returned should any defect be found in it

An insert in the collected works of Stalin asking that the book bearing this personal label be returned should any defect be found in it. One does not, of course, envy the inspector after whose check a flaw or error turns up in a book by Stalin. Oh, one does

Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Science

nplus1 reports that Italian archaeologists have discovered in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence six previously unrecorded cardboard boxes and wooden crates containing more than 150 bone fragments, including the remains of two infant

nplus1 reports that Italian archaeologists have discovered in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence six previously unrecorded cardboard boxes and wooden crates containing more than 150 bone fragments, including the remains of two infants. It turned out that they had been excavated as long ago as the

A painting from 1937–1939 in a frame on a dark museum wall: workers assemble a large metal tank in a factory hall.

NB! · Coming Up · Moscow · Museums · Observations

Exhibition marking the centenary of the GOELRO plan at the Museum of Moscow

It is a hundred years since our country was blessed with electricity, GOELRO-style. The exhibition is about just that. Everyone to the Museum of Moscow

A fallen oak lies on the ground, its split trunk with a broken root end and moss-covered bark set against green foliage.

NB! · Observations · Nature · Saint Petersburg

The oldest oak, aged 160 years, falls in the botanical garden of Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg Live reports that the oldest oak in the botanical garden has fallen. The 160-year-old tree, with a crown 24 metres across and a height of 18 metres, which had witnessed the abolition of serfdom, could not survive climate change, or, quite as likely, a fungal disease.

NB! · Observations · Humour

Oh, if only Karl Marx really were nothing more than the name of a luxury brand

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Mores

A Moscow family bought a 1908 log house in Tarusa and opened a café in the yard

A touching piece about how a young family left Moscow, buying in Tarusa an izba of 1908 that was once a dependency of the Holy Trinity Convent community. The house was sold by the elderly granddaughters of its first owner, who chose these buyers precisely because they were the only

Observations · Society · Humour

If we are to speak seriously of the meme "in the USSR bread was bread, the crusts were tasty and the crumb heavenly, that's what Canadian wheat does for you", then the Soviet Union began buying wheat from Western countries as early as 1963, a year that wa

Nature sent a drought, and the government, as luck would have it, chose that very moment for another piece of folly. Instead of wheat they sowed maize and fodder crops, to feed the livestock that had been taken from private households since 1959; the cultivation of the virgin lands faltered;

The East · Books · Observations · Nature

Ephedra distachya as the possible basis of the haoma drink of the Saka tribes

For all who remember the opening lines of my book, where the drink haoma is mentioned, and never learnt what this bracing tipple was: remember this little herb, which grows in many lands of Eurasia. This handsome plant goes by many names: Kuzmich's grass, steppe raspberry, soma and,

NB! · Architecture · Observations · Humour

A fine example of repair work by an Italian contractor in a dining hall of the late Renaissance, not far from the castle at Racconigi

Architecture · Monarchies · Observations · Paris · Humour

Azure standard in Napoleon's dressing room at Rambouillet resembles the flag of Kazakhstan

I recalled Napoleon's lavatory in the Château de Rambouillet, which he rebuilt for his own needs and restored after the ravages of the Revolution. Today the palace is used for the highest affairs of state. The interiors are beautiful. And in the lavatory, with its medallion by Jean

Concrete frame and steel beams of a building under construction, part of the facade covered by green netting, with a blue fence in the foreground.

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Museums · Observations

Construction of the New Tretyakov Gallery Building as Seen by the Author

The new Tretyakov Gallery building. I trust history will not remember it

NB! · Faith · Moscow · Observations