Does anyone else find the scan quality on some of these PDFs incredibly charming? The yellowed pages, the faint coffee stain, the slightly crooked cut-off of the margin where someone held the magazine on a flatbed scanner. It adds to the atmosphere.
A pristine, OCR'd text file from Rekhta is fantastic for reading, but a raw scan feels like holding the object. You're seeing the vintage ads, the typography, the editorial notes. For historical or nostalgic value, I sometimes prefer the imperfect fan scans over the cleaned-up versions. They're time capsules, not just text.