About the book: 1925 / A voluminous volume was preserved in one of the government secret archives the case of the collegiate assessor Ivan Fedorov Manuylov. On the cover of the case there is an inscription: “Top Secret. It is not subject to extradition to other office proceedings.” From 1895 to 1917, all sorts of documents and papers relating to the collegiate assessor were filed here with a caring hand. Taken together, these papers unfold the whole canvas of Ivan Fedorovich’s life; his life is a true novel of adventures like the story of Lazarillo from Tormez and other similar thieves' stories, telling about the adventures and adventures of famous swindlers, adventurers, and so on. We have no doubt that the documentary biography of Ivan Fedorovich will provide good material for fiction for the fiction writer of the future. For us living, Manuilov’s life is a necessary and irremovable episode in the history of the fall of the regime. To understand why the regime fell and why it fell in this particular way and not otherwise, the historian, along with large, pathetic and dramatic figures, figures with big names, must also study the small, nimble, specifically characteristic figure of the collegiate assessor. His adventures are interesting because of the threads and connections that stretch from a petty agent to the most prominent figures of a bygone era, and because of the unusually motley and curious plot. All these documents about him - letters, protocols, certificates - are read with unflagging interest, and the reader, of course, will not complain about us for the abundance of extracts. It should be added that the secret file that we are using was also secret for the investigative and judicial authorities examining the Manuilov case in 1916. Only a small part of the documents was communicated to the investigator, and the rest seemed too shameful for disclosure, at least among investigators and prosecutors. This the book splits into two parts. The first part, containing 6 chapters, was written by P. Pavlov, first appeared in print in the magazine “Byloe” (1017, No. 5–6) and is reproduced here with some additions; the second part, concluding the remaining chapters, was written by K. Betsky and appears in published for the first time. This part is based on press reports, personal memories of the author, the memoirs of his contemporaries collected by him, and on testimony and interrogations taken in the extraordinary investigative commission and now published in the publication of Lengiz “The Fall of the Tsarist Regime” edited by P. B. Shchegolev.V. publications carefully preserved (if possible) the spelling and punctuation features of the source code.