Phony ‘Potemkin villages’ explain a lot about Russian mindset, – Marquis de Custine in...
"In the midst of the fetes of Petersburg, I cannot forget the journey of Empress Catherine into the Crimea, and the facades of vilages,...
Moscow appanage was insignificant until in 1276 the Mongols gave it to Nevsky’s son...
Richard Pipes (July 11, 1923 – May 17, 2018) was an American academic who specialized in Russian and Soviet history. In 1976, he headed...
Voltaire depicted Muscovies-Russians of his time: born the slaves of masters as barbarous as...
Voltaire (1694-1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, satirist, and historian. One of Voltaire's best-known histories is History of Charles XII (1731). The quotes below are taken...
Servile to superiors, haughty and cruel to their dependents – description of Russia 200...
The picture of Russian manners varies little with reference to the prince or the peasant. The first nobleman in the empire, when dismissed by...
Europeans perceive in Russians barbarians ‘rejoicing over the thought that something somewhere may be...
The quote is taken from The Diary of a Writer: "I have said that Russians are disliked in Europe. That they are disliked, I...
‘Ukraine or the Cossacks Land’ map of 1720
The map was made by a famous German geographer and cartographer Johann Baptist Homann. The map is valuable not just because it can serve as...
Moxel, ‘race of pure pagans’ to the north of Rus described by Willliam of...
William of Rubruck was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer. In 1248, he accompanied King Louis IX of France on the Seventh Crusade. On...
‘Russia’ has the same relation to Kyiv Rus as the Guinea Pig to the...
According to Wikipedia, "despite their common name, guinea pigs are not native to Guinea, nor are they closely related biologically to pigs, and the...
‘Kremlin’ derives from Tartar word for fortress
British traveler of the 18th century Dr. Clarke sounded very confident describing the etymology of the word 'Kremlin'. In his bestselling book 'Travels in...
Forensic facial reconstruction of the ‘Russian’ ruler Andrey Bogolyubsky who allegedly destroyed Kyiv in...
Forensic facial reconstruction was made by famous Soviet archaeologist and anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov. Among some 200 faces Gerasimov reconstructed are also the faces of emperor Timur (Tamerlane), Yaroslav...
