Old Petersburg. Stories from the Past Life of the Capital

The book of the great chronicler and historian Mikhail Ivanovich Pylyaev "Old Petersburg. Stories from the Past Life of the Capital" was published in 1887 and is considered one of the first books about Petersburg written for a wide audience.

How this beautiful city was created, what its inhabitants were engaged in, what houses they built, how they entertained themselves, what they traded at the markets, what clothes they wore, what food they ordered in inns, what anecdotes were told – with the help of all these lovingly collected strokes and details by Pylyaev, he managed to create the unique image of the northern capital and an excellent gallery of portraits of local celebrities, eccentrics, and originals.

Mikhail Pylyaev wrote the history of Petersburg in a lively style, with a touch of light irony, making the book captivating even for contemporary readers, despite its one-and-a-half-century age. "Old Petersburg" inspired several generations of writers and historians, and today Pylyaev's books remain classic sources for studying the history of Russia and Russian life.