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)
In 1704, Colonel Rudolph Felix Bauer found himself involved in the siege of Tartu, one of the many battles of the Great Northern War...
On Easter morning 1831, Joseph Major was murdered in his Urals home. A Scottish engineer, he had lived for 26 years in the gateway...
Abandoning his job as a domestic servant in 1735, Ivan Osipov, AKA Van'ka Kain, became one of imperial Russia's most legendary criminals, performing an...