About the book: 2011 / People of old Russia look at us from ancient portraits and photographs. Noble, rich, beautiful - they seem to be the inhabitants of heaven, the chosen ones of fate, which is indifferent to the majority of those living in the world and is not at all generous. But the true facts of the biographies of the heroes of this book convince us: in fact, they do not exist - the favorites of Fortune, and living life is not a field go. It's always been that way. It will always be like this…