Books · Observations · People

Tomas Tranströmer, Delfin's favourite poet, and his Russian editions since the 1970s

Incidentally, Delfin names the Swede Tomas Tranströmer as his favourite poet. Now there is a man of remarkable destiny: a psychologist by profession who became a professional pianist and poet, all the while engaged in literature from his youth, and who won worldwide poetic recognition only after an accident that

Stacks of books and issues of Seans magazine with black-and-white and colour covers laid out on a dark floor, including issues 64, 66 and 69.

NB! · Cinema · Books · Moscow · Observations

Sale of Seans publications at the Falanster shop

Falanster is holding a sale of Seans publications. There are some interesting things; I am reserving Varda and Barskaya

NB! · Art · Observations · Mores · Humour

Borrowing from a popular Twitter thread, I would like to conduct a poll: what surprises you more in the painting “The Unequal Marriage”: the ghost of an old woman regarding the old groom with contempt, or, ahem, the groom's friend?

Cinema · Books · Observations · Society

A fine piece on one untranslated novel by Ruth Rendell has appeared on Gorky

I have long wanted to draw attention to Claude Chabrol's film "La Cérémonie", which we watched with the lads at my film club; the article mentions it too. The point is that this social drama, which in its day won a great many awards, is now

NB! · Archaeology · Observations

During lockdown archaeologists were not idle: one of them, look, was digging in his own garden and turned up Neolithic arrowheads and Roman pottery

During lockdown archaeologists were not idle: one of them, look, was digging in his own garden and turned up Neolithic arrowheads and Roman pottery. I had less luck with finds, though once I did come across a genuine Stone Age tool, but otherwise it was nineteenth-century coins and some

NB! · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg

This Is Very Touching and Deserves Respect: To the Museum of the Soviet Era in Saint Petersburg

NB! · In the Press · Books · Observations

AST Nonfiction is running a poll on which cover best suits the hardback edition of Mockingbird

AST Nonfiction is running a poll on which cover best suits the hardback edition of Mockingbird. My choice, I think, is obvious. And what do you think? Thank you all for your congratulations; very soon it will be in bookshops across the country 🥰

Coming Up · Archive · Museums · Observations

Have you ever wondered what Berlin looked like in the first months after Victory?

Have you ever wondered what Berlin looked like in the first months after Victory? The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center has opened the exhibition “Unknown Berlin. May 1945”, which brings together previously unpublished photographs of Berlin in the spring and summer of 1945: people in the city, victorious soldiers, high-

NB! · Archive · Observations · Humour

A subscriber informs me in a private message that the letter was written with a broad-nibbed pen, not a pointed one

A subscriber informs me in a private message that the letter was written with a broad-nibbed pen, not a pointed one. Having looked through the other comments of the esteemed Matroskin on Dzen, I understand that, contrary to the instructions, he has rather incautiously lapsed into dotage(

Archive · Observations · Society · Humour

A 1933 letter from Vitebsk asking for spoons and bread is called a forgery by a reader

Some time ago a letter from 1933, found in an old book, was published on "The Golden Age". In it a certain woman describes the grim state of affairs in Vitebsk and asks the relative to whom the letter is addressed to send her a dozen silver teaspoons.

Art · Observations · Humour

The Sculptor, 1964

The Sculptor, 1964. By the American realist painter John Koch (1909-1978). When the model quite literally gives off fire: having taken the measurements of his nude sitter, the master has nothing left to do but light a cigarette with shaking hands, never letting go of the callipers. I simply

The East · Geography · Maps · Observations · Nature

The Kapchagay Reservoir, created in 1969, on a map of Alexander the Great's empire

The map of Alexander the Great's empire caught my interest for its easternmost part. If one looks at the north-eastern frontier of Alexander's conquests, where they run up against the unsubdued Massagetae and Saka, one notices an amusing thing: the Central Asian lakes Issyk-Kul