In 1796, the merchant Ivan Tolchenov was secreted in his magnificent mansion in Dmitrov, hiding from his creditors. This episode seeks to understand how Ivan lost his enormous fortune, along the way shedding light into the lives of Russian merchants in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Source
David L. Ransel, A Russian Merchant’s Tale. The Life and Adventures of Ivan Alekseevich Tolchenov, Based on His Diary (Bloomington and Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 2009)
From the 1890s, the Russian Empire saw an outburst of interest in vegetarianism, especially since it was being propounded by famous figures like the...
In this episode, we look at the story of the oddly refined peasant wanderer Fedor Kuzmich, who was claimed by many to be the...
Between 1770 and 1772, Moscow saw a virulent outbreak of the Black Death, one of the most feared diseases in European history: Dr Afanasii...
