In August 1702, the serving girl Marta came into the possession of a Russian general following a siege. Some twenty-two years later, she was crowned Empress Catherine I of all Russia. In this episode, we follow the remarkable story of this woman and the men who fell in love with her, especially Peter the Great.
Source: I. Pavlenko, Ekaterina I (Moscow: Molodaia Gvardiia, 2004)
From the Baltic to the Black Sea, the First World War's eastern front massacred men by the thousand. Father Dimitrii Smirnov, along with hundreds...
In this episode, we look at the story of the oddly refined peasant wanderer Fedor Kuzmich, who was claimed by many to be the...
On Easter morning 1831, Joseph Major was murdered in his Urals home. A Scottish engineer, he had lived for 26 years in the gateway...