Faith · Monarchies · Observations · Society · Humour
She who lives to eat and is mad for sweetmeats, whose only pleasure is her belly and her throat, who stuffs her cheeks and her paunch, a gluttonous queen, grows fat herself and makes her husband's purse lean. The main thing is not to become like the Queen
Archive · Observations · Mores · Education · Ethnography
Children with plastic bags on their heads play at being snowballs. This put me in mind of Shrovetide at my own kindergarten, and the chief impression it left: a strange bewilderment that nobody could properly explain what sort of holiday it was, or why someone had to be burned. I
Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society
Bulgaria Puts Images of Orthodox Saints on the Obverses of Its National Euro Coins. The 2-euro coin depicts Saint Paisius of Hilendar, who lived in the 18th century, a key figure of the Bulgarian National Revival and the author of the Slavonic-Bulgarian History of the Bulgarian peoples and
Moscow · Observations · Society
In the Moscow metro, the announcement "Dear passengers, please give up your seats to the disabled, the elderly, passengers with children and pregnant women" has been replaced with "Be courteous, give up your seats to those for whom standing is harder". I am not sure whether
Books · Observations · Society
I recall this phrase of the blessed Miss Flite from Charles Dickens's Bleak House whenever I think of the mighty of this world, indeed of almost all the famous persons invested with power, and ask myself, really, what do you want so much money for? And, by the
NB! · Madrid · Observations
The arms of Madrid, then and now. But why?
NB! · Art · Observations · Mores · Ethnography
Archive · Observations · Science · Mores · Humour
A reminder that Darwin was not merely drawing up a list of the advantages and drawbacks of marriage before deciding to wed, but following the ideas of Benthamism then in vogue, and specifically Jeremy Bentham's schemes of "moral arithmetic" The Darwin archive holds an amusing sheet
NB! · Observations
NB! · Observations · Pop Culture
Remember him? I count the 1990s as the golden years of Russian television. Nowadays it is all straw.
Faith · Books · Monarchies · Observations
On Pharaoh's Cart. At the very beginning of the eighteenth century, Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky, in his sermons, likens the Russian state, "our most glorious monarchy", to the chariot of Ezekiel. The comparison is most interesting, and not only because the chariot, which by design ought to
Archive · Books · Observations
It may be noted that in 1945 the expression "Russian soldier" was not yet taboo.