Legends of Ancient Cities of the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East

In this unique book by writer and historian Evgeny Lukin, legends of fifteen ancient cities of the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East are presented together for the first time. You will discover the unknown history of the vast spaces beyond the Urals, cities and settlements founded in the 16th to 18th centuries, spanning from the Ural region to Kamchatka. Yekaterinburg and Nerchinsk, Omsk and Chita, Krasnoyarsk and Blagoveshchensk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yakutsk — lands of golden placers, endless taiga, and extreme frosts… Against the picturesque backdrop of our country's boundless expanses, the reader will meet great statesmen, brave pioneers, and builders of the Russian State. The book is based on folk traditions, chronicled tales, Orthodox lives of saints, diary notes of travelers and memoirs, folk songs, and poems by Russian poets, all enhanced by ancient iconographic masterpieces and paintings by Russian and Western European artists.