Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations · Heritage

A couple of days ago I posted a reel about the sad, dilapidated state of the wonderful openwork cast-iron Demidov fence in front of the Pedagogical Library in Bolshoy Tolmachyovsky Lane, and literally today word came that restoration work has begun there…

A couple of days ago I posted a reel about the sad, dilapidated state of the wonderful openwork cast-iron Demidov fence in front of the Pedagogical Library in Bolshoy Tolmachyovsky Lane, and literally today word came that restoration work has begun on the spot. I do not yet know

Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

A missed concert with an elderly woman at the microphone and a ride on the metro this week

Missed the concert at which an elderly lady stood and shouted into a microphone. On the other hand, I have already been on the Tube this week

Archaeology · Observations · Science

A discovery in a megalithic tomb 50 km north of Paris seeks to explain why such structures ceased to be built across Europe at roughly the same time

In brief, the cause was a major catastrophe in the Stone Age, around 3000 BC, after which the structure of the population changed entirely. The study, naturally enough, implies that the disappearance of the communities that built such burial complexes led to the disappearance of the monuments themselves. At the

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations

I enjoy watching the construction of the pedestrian bridge along Bolotnaya Embankment

I enjoy watching the construction of the pedestrian bridge along Bolotnaya Embankment. It will probably be open in time for City Day

Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations

Man with a Log

Portrait of a Senior Inspector. Art group "Rossiya". I very much liked this painting at the new exhibition in the Voznesensky Centre. The wall label states that the portrait on display belongs to a cycle of three images of senior inspectors of the group "Inspection Medical Hermeneutics&

NB! · Faith · Observations

However terrible the things that happen in the world, we must remember that the Lord will once more reveal His glory and grant men peace

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Society · Humour

While Nobody Was Looking, the Toilers of Moscow's Municipal Budgetary Institutions from Central Asia Have Begun to Be Replaced by Specialists from Sunny Hindustan

While nobody was looking, the toilers of Moscow's municipal budgetary institutions (the GBU) from Central Asia have begun to be replaced by specialists from sunny Hindustan. The new ethnogeopolitical realities of our courtyard

A single-storey orange-brown wooden house with white window frames and a stone base. It stands on a quiet street under tall trees, behind a corrugated metal fence.

NB! · Observations

Single-storey wooden house with white window frames behind a metal fence

Architecture · Books · Moscow · Observations · Heritage

Restoration completed of the Toplenin house on Mansurovsky Lane, which Bulgakov visited

The restoration of the Melnikov-Yemelyanova-Toplenin house on Mansurovsky Lane has been completed. This wooden residence on a nineteenth-century stone plinth is commonly called "the Master's house": rumour assigns the Master of The Master and Margarita a little basement flat in this very building.

Almaty · Archaeology · Observations · Science

Genomes of 85 Iron Age nomads show high status was inherited through kinship

A colossal new study changes our picture of how power was organised among the Scythians. According to a collective paper recently published in Science Advances, high status among the early nomads of Eurasia was inherited along family lines rather than won anew by each generation. The researchers analysed whole-genome

Art · Observations · New York · Nature

Thomas Cole, Kaaterskill Falls and the Beginning of the Hudson River School in 1826

If one is to recall how American painting began and what it portended, one must name the country's first major artistic movement, the Hudson River School. Its voice is usually presented as a hymn to untouched nature. But can you really not sense the anxiety in these majestic

Archaeology · Art · Observations · Heritage · Science · Nature

Review of June in archaeology, art, restoration, science and nature

John Keats feared he might cease to be before his pen had gleaned his teeming brain, «before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain». Our concern is rather that, amid the informational din, the important things of the month should not get lost. Hence the regular digest: the