Old Moscow

Based on the memories of contemporaries, Russian and foreign writings, and documents from private archives, many of which have not survived to this day, the famous writer and journalist Mikhail Pylyaev paints a portrait of the capital as it was in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Thanks to the author's wide-ranging interests, stories about court customs, noble culture, and coronation celebrations coexist with information about Christmas festivities and fistfights, the arrangement of city pavements, the number of streetlights, and the everyday lives of ordinary people: janitors, street hawkers, and city guards. The portraits of nobles, merchants, and townspeople, based on historical documents, are skillfully complemented by anecdotes, gossip, and jokes about the less publicized side of the lives of the book's heroes.