A lit icon in a wooden frame in a dark church: a saint in a cowl and white vestments holds a small icon of the Mother of God.

Faith · Art · Books · People

Pavel Florensky's reflection on the nature of the icon

Imagine that you are in a closed room, but there is a dimly lit window through which you begin to guess at the existence of another world. Pavel Florensky, reflecting on what an icon is

Cinema · Paris · People · Pop Culture

Catherine Deneuve and her elder sister Françoise Dorléac on the Place Vendôme, 1965

Catherine Deneuve and her elder sister Françoise Dorléac on the Place Vendôme, 1965. Françoise Dorléac appeared alongside Deneuve in Jacques Demy's musical The Young Girls of Rochefort and in the film Where the Spies Are. Françoise was 18 months older than Catherine. Françoise Dorléac was a very well-

Black-and-white photograph of a man in round glasses and a dark suit seated in an armchair in front of a blackboard.

Observations · Science · People

Kurt Gödel on his conviction in life after death and a rationally constructed world

I am convinced of an afterlife, independently of theology. If the world is constructed rationally, there must be an afterlife. The Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)

Art · People · Society Pages · Humour

Vladey has opened a delightful exhibition to mark Pavel Pepperstein's joining the glittering Pleiad of painters of feasts and bards of the banquet table

The exhibition is called "Dinners", and every work depicts a dinner that might have taken place in the various halls and museums of contemporary art. Among the guests at these dinners one can make out Vladimir Lenin and Kazimir Malevich; Yayoi Kusama, whom the artist has surrealistically flattered

NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture

Charles Aznavour's Selfie

An elderly man in white vestments and a white skullcap drinks beer from a glass mug, beside a person in black holding another mug.

Faith · People · Humour

Saint Albert the Great on wine, milk and beer as both food and drink

Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) and a Mug of Beer. As Saint Albert the Great once said, wine, milk and beer are both food and drink

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People · Pop Culture

The Lad Tom Cruise in the USSR in 1988

A bearded man in glasses and a grey sweater speaks into a microphone in front of a screen reading “Conference” over an old map.

Observations · People · Humour

Conference presenting the publication “Academic History of Yugra”

Anatoly Wasserman in a Long-Sleeve T-Shirt, "Vintage 1952" What can one say: a living legend *at the conference marking the presentation of the publication "Academic History of Yugra"

A metal sculpture with a raised sickle and hammer on a stone pedestal, seen through a flowering apple branch with small fruits.

Art · Moscow · Observations · People

The talent of Vera Mukhina in the sculpture “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”

A Daily Declaration of Love to Moscow. And, of course, once again we doff our hats to the talent of Vera Ignatievna Mukhina.

Art · Books · People

Ilya Kabakov

Ilya Kabakov. Anna Borisovna Stoyeva: “Whose Fly Is This?” 1965–1968 “Where have you landed, fly?” “In the milk, in the milk.” “Are you comfortable, old girl?” “Not at all, not at all.” “You might climb out a little.” “I can't, I can't.” “I'll

NB! · Art · Museums · Paris · People

There is a theory that the man in the red turban in the background of Van Eyck's "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin" of 1435 is the sitter of the "Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban" of 1433, in other words, the painter Jan van Eyck himself

NB! · Archive · The East · Society · People