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)
Between 1905 and 1912, the monk Iliodor (Trufanov) set Russia ablaze with his inflammatory right-wing rhetoric, causing scandal after scandal. In this episode, we...
In 1796, the merchant Ivan Tolchenov was secreted in his magnificent mansion in Dmitrov, hiding from his creditors. This episode seeks to understand how...
In 1889, a small band of unlikely Russian colonists seized the abandoned fortress of Sagallo in today's Djibouti. Led by the would-be Cossack Nikolai...
