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Akunin the most mysterious secret and other plots. Boris Akunin the most mysterious secret and other stories. Survey. Which secret is more seductive

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Boris Akunin
The most mysterious secret and other plots

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This is the third book in the Love for History series, which brings together publications from my blog on LiveJournal. Most of the novels are really dedicated historical events and historical characters, both very famous and completely forgotten. But there is no need to treat these texts as a source of factual information - they are not so much about the story itself, but about love for it, that is, about the thoughts and feelings that stories from the past evoke in me. In the Internet blog, I write a lot about modern times, but most of these “posts” did not get into the book, because the “topic of the day” is short-lived and after a few months it is forgotten or loses its relevance, but the story will never become obsolete.

The book consists of two unequal parts.

First, historical miniatures are given, some of which are an invitation for readers to talk or even deliberately provoke them into an argument (like the very first one). On the Internet, each such topic is followed by a lively and meaningful discussion, which usually involves hundreds of people.

After the story sketches, the section "Polls and Questions" devoted to feedback with online audience. Thousands of readers take part in voting on the most different topics, and members of the "Noble Assembly" (this is the name of the community of regular readers-commentators of the club) ask the author questions, which can be very difficult to answer.

If you are interested in the life of the blog - welcome to http://borisakunin.livejournal.com. There are a lot of interesting things besides my texts. Perhaps the most valuable thing is the atmosphere of mutual respect in communication between members of the community, a rarity in the “wild steppe”, which is the Russian network space today.

One of the most unconditional truths says: whoever does not know history does not understand modernity. And I would say this: "Love history, and modernity will love you."

imported product
07.06.2012

But there are people who would still scold the pernicious influence of the West!

Do you know that Love is an imported product, brought to Russia only ten generations ago and taking root in our soil slowly?

I made this discovery for myself when, as A. O. Brusnikin, I invented love line for the novel "The Ninth Spas", from the Petrine era. I got into the sources for examples of the old Russian love vocabulary - and found that there is none, because no love in our country three hundred years ago, it seems, did not yet exist.

I have in mind love as a feeling by means of which a sublimely romantic super-sense is given to physiological relationships.

In Muscovy, this concept, it seems, did not exist. They married, they fornicated, but somehow no one stuttered about feelings. All fairy tales about princes in love and sleeping beauties coming to life from a kiss appeared much later - mainly in the 19th century. And the ancestors did without any “I love you, I can’t live without you” there. Initially, in the times of Peter the Great, this exotic and fashionable state was called by the foreign word "cupid", it was brought to Russia by foreigners along with allonge wigs, earthen apple and coffee. One could indulge in such exquisite emotion only somewhere in an assembly, with a shaved chin and a tobacco pipe in one's hand. It was supposed to sigh, roll your eyes and portray heartache - such a new trend arose in the narrow circles of advanced youth.

This splint is our copy-pastil from a European engraving

There are different opinions about who was the first Russian lyric poet and when the first love poem appeared.

Obviously, this glory should be shared between Antioch Cantemir and Vasily Trediakovsky. Cantemir began to sing love a little earlier. In his youth, he composed some “Love Songs”, but they did not reach us, and the poet himself, having matured, spoke dismissively of such writing:

Love songs to write, I have tea, those things
Of which the mind did not sing as much as the body is weak.

But Trediakovsky's love lyrics have been preserved. It is dated 1730, which, obviously, should be considered the official birth of Russian Love:

Without love and without passion
All days are unpleasant:
You need to sigh to sweeten
Lovers were famous.

Handsome Cantemir disillusioned with love poetry

Frankly, not Shakespeare's ninetieth sonnet, but rich in what.

I have a question in this regard. Well, the word "love" in its current sense did not exist in Russia. But was there love itself or not? Did the heart stop with delight and longing? Was the soul struck by magical lightning? Has the sky opened up? Has the Earth stopped its rotation? Was life not sweet without a loved one?

Ugly Trediakovsky, the first nightingale of Russian Love

Or did all these neuro-emotional phenomena arise later - when poets and writers explained to readers in detail what love is and how this process should take place?

This version is flattering and pleasant to me as a writer, but still takes some doubt.

Once again about love
09.06.2012

Thanks to everyone who, in response to the previous post, rushed to defend the honor of the fatherland and severely refuted my insinuations that romantic love did not exist in Russia in the pre-Petrine era. I certainly didn't expect so many people to take simple trolling seriously.

The question of whether love has always existed in the world does not generally require a reasoned answer. Firstly, ® "and no evidence is needed"; Second, everyone has personal experience. vl2011 wrote in the comments: “At the age of three, I fell in love. Yana told neither mom nor dad about this - no one. I could not understand what kind of thing it is, helping to easily wake up on a dark winter morning and joyfully walk through the frost into the hated Kindergarten, where is LYUDA TRUSHINA. I remember this even now, 57 years later.” That's it. The same thing happened to me at the age of four, when I still didn’t know the word “love”.

From the institute course in the history of world literature, I remembered that sublime love is found in ancient poetry; then disappears for a long time under the yoke of the dull early Middle Ages; comes to life in oriental literature; from there, in the twelfth century, it enters the south of France, and then flies on transparent wings throughout the European continent.

courtly love

But love - the same one that makes you forget about earthly and even heavenly blessings - existed before the troubadours, before the knightly service to the Lady of the Heart.

I will tell a story from a very remote time - about how one man, who did not read love literature (for lack of it), fought for his love with people and even with the Lord God himself.

King Robert the Pious (972-1031), son of Hugo Capet, at the age of 18 was forced to marry a lady who was either twenty or thirty years older. (Obviously, because of the difference in age, Robert became so pious.) He was famous for his devout piety, composed church hymns, and eschewed carnal pleasures. But at twenty-two, the most august fasting met Bertha, the wife of the Count of Blois, and fell in love for life. The Countess already had five children and was not young by the standards of that time (27 years old), but lovers, as you know, have a special vision. Bertha seemed to the king the most beautiful of women.

First, he declared war on the Comte de Blois in order to save his beloved from her husband. The Count very conveniently died own death, and the king immediately wooed the widow. She agreed, but there was no happy ending.

The Church forbade marriages between relatives up to the seventh degree and observed this rule very strictly. It was difficult for European monarchs to find a decent bride - all the ruling houses were already related. Wives had to look for distant lands. One of the French kings, as we remember, was forced to send matchmakers all the way to Kiev, to Anna Yaroslavna.

And Robert and Bertha were either second cousins or fourth cousins. Therefore, the Pope did not give permission for the marriage.

And at once all piety was taken away from the king. Putting the throne, life, even the salvation of the soul on the line, he disobeyed his Holiness. Married.

In response, the pope excommunicated Robert from the church.

It was a terrible punishment. Everything that was touched by the hand of an anathematized person was considered defiled. The servants did not wash, but burned the royal linen; They didn't wash, they threw away the dishes. The subjects fled at the sight of the damned royal couple, hiding their children.

For five whole years, the lovers held on. Then the king grew wiser. And most likely, it was his wife who gave him good advice because men are terrible fools and often sacrifice well-being for the sake of ambition.

Painting by J.-P. Laurence "The Excommunication of Robert II" (It is not a filtered cigarette that smokes on the floor, but a ritually extinguished candle)

Robert repented, divorced and took another wife, but according to current concepts, the marriage would be called fictitious, because the king continued to live with his beloved Bertha. (This was not considered a mortal sin by the church.) The lovers lived to old age and died in the same year. And by the way, historians are confused in the years of life of such distant monarchs, so perhaps all this is nothing more than a beautiful legend.

Boris Grebenshchikov wrote a famous song about the former pious king. There Robert says to the Lord: listen, I do not need a place in your paradise,

Just give me the one
I love

Well, if you are like that, the Lord answers the king. And as for a place in My paradise, we'll see.

Once again
15.06.2012

I mean, about love. I've gone deep into the Love.doc file and can't stop. There I have collected various historical facts about the quirks and vicissitudes of love. Some I have already used in novels, others are clearly not needed.

Here, for example, is a story that is definitely not useful for any novel. In literature, this would look like tear-squeezing kitsch. Only real life can afford a dramaturgy of such intensity.

About the morals that reigned in prisons French Revolution, many studies and literary texts have been written. The material is really juicy: horror and obsceneness, blood-love, sublime and base - everything is mixed.

In the Conciergerie prison in Paris, prisoners of both sexes were kept together - in any case, during the daytime, the doors of the cells were open.

Conciergerie: waiting for the guillotine

There was practically no hope for salvation among the prisoners. Out of here, with rare exceptions, only in one direction.

And it wasn't the scariest ending. The end could well be like this:

But still the revolution preferred to observe formalities. The court worked on the same conveyor principle as our "troikas" of the thirty-seventh year, but the usual Conciergerie prisoners had to wait in line for the next world for months. Still, 2,780 death sentences in a year of Jacobin terror is no small amount of bureaucratic work.

The mob breaks into the prison to finish off the "enemies of the people"

The majority of the population of the prison, of course, were "former". The nobles of the Old Regime had not been distinguished by strict morals before, and even in the face of imminent death, they completely forgot about decency. Very many began to seek oblivion in carnal joys. Revolutionary newspapers and popular prints vividly depicted the unprecedented debauchery that reigned in the casemates - this confirmed the thesis about the moral decay of the aristocracy.

But, of course, it was not a matter of decomposition. It was life, finally, convulsively rushing to snatch its own - until death imperiously knocked on the door of the dungeon.

However, in the midst of physiological hysteria, deep, true love arose from time to time. Because in a moment of danger, as you know, base souls sink even lower, and exalted ones rise even higher.

The prison love of the Terror had no future. Ahead was not a crown, but a guillotine. Therefore, the lovers of the Conciergerie dreamed not of living happily ever after, but of dying on the same day. It was considered incredible luck, the highest happiness, if a loving couple was lucky to fall into the same sentence list. But in this lottery, it was difficult to pull out a winning ticket. Every day in the prison yard, from where the convicts were taken on carts to the place of execution, there were heartbreaking partings.

And then one day someone resourceful (history did not save the name, even the gender is unknown) guessed to shout loudly at the moment of separation: “Long live the king!”. For such a terrible crime, they were executed without a sentence or delay. The villain (or the villainess - for some reason it seems to me that it was a woman) was seized and thrown into the wagon. The lovers embraced and went to the meeting with the guillotine, as if to the altar, completely happy.

Subsequently, this know-how was used repeatedly in the Conciergerie.

Well, tell me, can a modern novel withstand such a scene? "Fi, what vulgarity!" the reader will exclaim, ashamed of the tingling in his eyes. And he will be absolutely right.

I told you this Bollywood story not to make you sob, but to check my feelings with yours. When I first read about the tragic love endings of the Terror era, I got the feeling that this (I deliberately switch to stationery so as not to get emotional) is not depressive, but positive information about human nature.

Subsequently, I tried to rationalize this impulse as follows (as it is written in the file):

“In the confrontation between Love and Death, the first, it would seem, has no chance of winning. Even the marriage vow says: “Until death do us part” - they say, further, due to force majeure, all obligations are canceled.

That's how it is, but every time when love turns out to be stronger than the fear of death, and lovers prefer a joint journey into the Unknown to parting, it turns out that Death, although it received a double prey, did not win, but lost.

Great experts in this matter are the Japanese with their tradition of double suicide of lovers "shinju". But about shinju some other time.

Disclaimer: This post is in no way intended to promote suicidal behavior. Any member of the Noble Assembly who lays hands on himself will be immediately banned by the moderator.

The most mysterious secret
18.06.2012

Shall we continue our mental fitness classes? Last year, you chose the worst villain, and I had to act as his lawyer. Now your and my task will be more difficult. I suggest you choose the most intriguing historical mystery from among the unsolved. And I will offer a guess. Let's see if I can develop a plausible version and if it satisfies you.

Of course, you remember the historical anecdote about the long-liver of the Pushkin era, Natalya Kirillovna Zagryazhskaya, who used to say: “I don’t want to die suddenly. You will come to heaven mad and in a hurry, and I need to ask the Lord God three questions: who was False Dmitry, who is the Iron Mask and who is the Chevalier d "Eon - a man or a woman?"

Here she is, a wonderful old lady

I understand the old lady very well. It’s a terrible shame to think that you will die without knowing who “ordered” John F. Kennedy, whether Atlantis existed, how did Hitler manage to fool Stalin on June 22, who Dickens ordered to kill Edwin Drood, where did the Nasca geoglyphs come from. There are so many questions that remain unanswered...

It was good for Zagryazhskaya, who firmly believed in God and, moreover, had no doubt that she had the courage to “make questions” to the Almighty. But the writer has his own opportunities. Some of the secrets that have occupied me since childhood, I have already tried to explain in novels: the origin of False Dmitry ("Children's Book"), the riddle of the Plevna siege ("Turkish Gambit"), Napoleon's stupor during the Battle of Borodino ("Quest"), Stalin's mystical blindness ( "Spy novel"), the sudden death of Skobelev ("Death of Achilles") and so on. Those who read it know that sometimes my versions are fantastic - this is because I could not explain what happened in any other way. It is very possible that this time I will have to follow the same path - I warn you in advance. It will depend on the difficulty of the puzzle.

So, ask me questions. Although I am not the Lord God, I will try to satisfy your curiosity.

We work like this.

You offer historical plots in the comments to this post. Who supports the named topic - upvote. The most popular "riddles" I will put up for voting with a brief commentary on each.

Let's choose the most popular. Well, then, after some timeout, I will tell you how easy (or not easy) this chest opens.

Well, monsieur-dames, order. It's interesting to see what will come of it.

Mysterious mysteries
21.08.2012

From all the abundance of mysteries brought down on me by commentators, the moderator selected six leading ones. That is, in general, there were seven stories that aroused particular interest, but I will not touch on one - about the explosions of 1999. The case is too bleeding, completely unsuitable for mind games. Such crimes have no statute of limitations. I am sure that sooner or later a full-fledged and transparent investigation will be carried out. Then we will finally know the background of those massacres.

Therefore, you will choose from six options. Not all mysteries here are tragic, and if they are tragedies, then they are old ones. I hope nobody's feelings are hurt.

1. Secret of secrets

Where did we – in the sense, humanity – come from?

Evolved, or revolutionized, or created by the Supreme Intelligence, or landed from space? You can continue the list of existing versions yourself. Do you want to know mine too? You just have to vote.

2. So Alexander Pavlovich or Fedor Kuzmich?

The question is understandable. Who died there in Taganrog on November 19, 1825 - the king or not the king? Or did no one die?

Many have written on this topic, including Leo Tolstoy. Will it be my lot to follow the same path? (I mean, not by the path of the sovereign emperor, but by the path of the author of the story “The Posthumous Notes of the Elder Fyodor Kuzmich.” Somehow creepy.)

3. Disappearance of "Mary Celeste"

I never thought that this old collision still excites the minds so much.

By telegraph - for those who are not in the know: a brigantine running along the waves; not a soul on board; where the people went is not clear. If not for the strict documentation of events, it would have been just another legend about the "Flying Dutchman". But here almost even the ship's log with the last entry dated November 4, 1872 has been preserved.

4. Another secret with the "beard": Grand Duchess Anastasia

Saved or not saved? Swindler or unfortunate victim? (I’m sure that it wasn’t Anastasia, but if I have to artistically immerse myself in the topic, I can change my mind - I can’t guarantee anything).

5. Assassination of Stolypin

Oh, I didn't want to write about it. In the novel “The whole world is a theater”, which takes place in those very days, I deftly took Fandorin away from the investigation of a high-profile crime into private life. Well, all of them, Erast Petrovich and I then thought: anti-Semites, anti-Semites, Great Powers, provocateurs in uniform and without them. The result is not a novel, but a political pamphlet.

But this time, if the veche sentences, I will not shirk.

Who fired is known. Question: Who was behind this? And was anyone standing?

6. Dyatlov Pass

This is something from my youth. I remember there were some incredible rumors about a group of students who died during a ski trip in the northern Urals.

Only the orange faces of the dead remained in my memory - it was this detail that excited the imagination the most. Either the aliens did something to the tourists, or the American spy planes messed up (at about the same time, and also in the Urals, Powers was shot down). I honestly admit: I don’t know the circumstances of the case, but if you vote, I’ll figure it out and report back.

Survey. Which secret is more seductive?

Choose one topic

Members: 8396

How did humanity appear? 1449 (17.4 %)

Did Alexander die in Taganrog? 603 (7.2 %)

Mystery of Mary Celeste 1129 (13.5 %)

Did Anastasia survive? 363 (4.4 %)

Who is to blame for the death of Stolypin? 938 (11.2 %)

What happened to the Dyatlov group? 3861 (46.3 %)

Well, let's get started?
24.06.2012

I promised that the voting on topics would last until the end of Sunday, but the result is obvious, so I don't see the point in wasting time. It is clear that number six is leading by a huge margin and the situation will not change. I have been bookmarking for the second day, preparing to clarify the circumstances of the death of the Ural tourists. It turns out that there are a lot of resources and materials, you can drown. But the main difficulty, as I am beginning to understand, is not in the clutter of the topic and not even in the riddle itself, but in a completely different circumstance, which damnably complicates my task. Okay, more on that later.

So, on the agenda is the mystery of the Dyatlov group. Let's try to unravel this charade - of course, with the means available to us.

For those who do not know anything about this amazing story, the moderator prepared a digest of a very good Wikipedia article.

The death of the Dyatlov tourist group is an event that supposedly happened on the night of February 1-2, 1959 in the Northern Urals, when a group of tourists led by Igor Dyatlov died under unclear circumstances.

The group consisted of skiers from the tourist club of the Ural Polytechnic Institute: five students, three UPI graduate engineers and a hostel instructor.

January 23, 1959 the group went on a ski trip in the north of the Sverdlovsk region. The group was headed by an experienced tourist Igor Dyatlov. The campaign was timed to coincide with the XXI Congress of the CPSU. The task of the trip is to pass through the forests and mountains of the Northern Urals on a ski trip of the 3rd (highest) category of difficulty. For 16 days, the participants of the trip had to ski at least 350 km and climb the North Ural mountains Otorten and Oiko-Chakur.

On February 1, 1959, the group stopped for the night on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl (Kholat-Syakhl, translated from Mansi - "Mountain of the Dead"), not far from the nameless pass (later called the Dyatlov Pass).

On February 12, the group was supposed to reach the end point of the route - the village of Vizhay, send a telegram to the institute's sports club, and return to Sverdlovsk on February 15. But no one came to the village of Vizhay.

The first search group was sent to Ivdel on February 20 to organize searches from the air. Search and rescue operations began on February 22.

Cheerful and young

On February 26, a search group led by B. Slobtsov discovered an empty tent with a cut wall facing down the slope.

Investigator V.I. Tempalov, who was among the first at the scene of the tragedy, testified about the tracks: “Down from the tent 50–60 m from us on the slope, I found 8 pairs of footprints of people, which I carefully examined, but they were deformed due to winds and temperature fluctuations. I failed to establish the ninth trace, and it was not. I photographed the tracks. They walked down from the tent. The tracks showed me that the people were walking at a normal pace down the mountain. Traces were visible only in the 50-meter section, there were no further, because the lower from the mountain, the more snow. All this indicated that there was an organized retreat in a dense group, there was no disorderly and "panic" flight from the tent.

On the same day, one and a half kilometers from the tent and 280 m down the slope, near the cedar, the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found. Rescuers were struck by the fact that both were stripped to their underwear. Doroshenko was lying on his stomach. Near the corpses, a fire was found, which had sunk into the snow.

Almost simultaneously with them, 300 meters from the cedar up the slope in the direction of the tent, the body of Igor Dyatlov was found. He was slightly covered with snow, reclining on his back, with his head towards the tent, his arm around the trunk of a birch.

About 330 meters from Dyatlov, up the slope, under a layer of dense snow 10 cm, the body of Zina Kolmogorova was found. She was warmly dressed, but without shoes. His face showed signs of nosebleeds.

A few days later, on March 5, 180 meters from the place where Dyatlov's body was found and 150 meters from the location of Kolmogorova's body, the corpse of Rustem Slobodin was found under a layer of snow of 15–20 cm using iron probes. He was also quite warmly dressed, while on his right leg he had a felt boot worn over 4 pairs of socks (the second felt boot was found in the tent).

The location of all three bodies found on the slope, their positions indicated that they died on the way back from the cedar to the tent.

There were no signs of violence on the bodies of the first tourists found, all people died from hypothermia (at autopsy, it was revealed that Slobodan had a craniocerebral injury (skull crack 16 cm long and 0.1 cm wide), which could be accompanied by repeated loss of consciousness and contributed to freezing). Another characteristic feature was the color of the skin: according to the recollections of the rescuers - orange-red, in the documents of the forensic medical examination - reddish-crimson.

The search for the remaining tourists took place in several stages from February to May.

Only after the snow began to melt, objects began to be found that indicated the rescuers in the right direction to search. The exposed branches and scraps of clothes led to the hollow of the stream about 70 m from the cedar, which was heavily covered with snow.

The excavation made it possible to find at a depth of more than 2.5 m a flooring of 14 trunks of small firs and one birch up to 2 m long. On the flooring lay a spruce branch and several items of clothing.

On May 4, 75 meters from the bonfire where the first bodies were found, under a four-meter layer of snow, in the bed of a stream that had already begun to melt, the remaining tourists were found below and slightly away from the flooring. First they found Lyudmila Dubinina - she froze, kneeling, facing the slope at the waterfall of the stream. The other three were found a little lower. Kolevatov and Zolotarev lay in an embrace "chest to back" at the edge of the stream, apparently warming each other to the end. Thibaut-Brignolles was the lowest, in the water of the stream.

Krivonischenko and Doroshenko's clothes - trousers, sweaters - were found on the corpses, as well as a few meters from them. All clothes had traces of even cuts, as they had already been removed from the corpses of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko.

Especially for some reason, a checkered cowboy shirt breaks through. My brother had exactly the same in the early 60s

During the autopsy procedure in Ivdel, it turned out that three of the four had severe injuries. Dubinina and Zolotarev had fractures of 12 ribs, Dubinina had fractures on both the right and left sides, Zolotarev only on the right. Since the fractures were recorded traces of hemorrhage in internal organs, it was concluded that the injuries were received in vivo.

Thibaut-Brignolles had a severe traumatic brain injury that led to death (according to the conclusion of the forensic expert).

Kolevatov did not have any serious injuries, except for damage to his head caused by an avalanche probe, with which they searched for bodies.

The investigation initially worked out the version of the attack and murder of tourists by representatives of the indigenous people of the northern Urals, the Mansi. Mansi Anyamov, Sanbindalov, Kurikov and their relatives fell under suspicion. Some were imprisoned in a pre-trial detention cell, accused of forcibly entering a tent with tourists.

In turn, the Mansi said that they saw strange "fireballs" over the place of death of tourists. They not only described this phenomenon, but also drew it. "Fireballs" during the search period were observed by the rescuers themselves, as well as other residents of the Northern Urals.

Some young fir trees on the edge of the forest had a burnt mark, but these marks were not concentric or otherwise. There was no epicenter. At the same time, the snow was not melted, the trees were not damaged.

After finding the corpses of four tourists in the stream, their clothes were sent to the Sverdlovsk SES for a radiological examination. The chief radiologist of Sverdlovsk, Levashov, made the following conclusion: “The items submitted for examination (sweater, trousers) contain radioactive substances. Individual samples of clothing contain a slightly overestimated content of a radioactive substance, which is a beta emitter. The detected radioactive substances are washed away during washing, that is, they are not caused by a neutron flux and induced radioactivity, but radioactive contamination beta radiation.

From all participants in the search for the Dyatlov group, a non-disclosure subscription was taken for 25 years.

The conclusions of professionals - tourists and climbers, with some discrepancies in assessments, in general and in general boil down to the fact that for some reason on the evening of February 1 or at night from February 1 to 2, spending the night in a tent on a treeless mountain slope, members of the group in hurriedly left the tent and moved down the slope towards the forest. People left partly without getting dressed, without shoes, without getting the necessary things and equipment from the tent, not wearing all their outer clothing.

It is this fact - the reason for the group leaving the tent - that represents main question in this tragedy.

There are many versions of the reasons that prompted the group to leave the tent, and each has its own weak points. There are also a certain number of unusual, unexplained features seen during the autopsy: for example, a barely noticeable purple tint to clothes, Dubinina's tongue and eyeballs are missing from her and Zolotarev, the strange skin color of the dead or fireballs that witnesses spoke about.

I'll just tell you this, ladies and gentlemen. I know you. You will now begin to discuss, build versions, and by the time I, sweating, present my result, you will have already decided everything yourself. Therefore, I declare an embargo: no discussion of the topic in the comments to this post. For this we will severely ban. Let the person think.

Respect the cleaning lady!

And so that you have something to do and not only I creaked my brains, you should also work. Now I will show you another mysterious fact. And you try to figure out what really happened there. There are many hypotheses, but no one knows for sure.

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

* * *

This is the third book in the Love for History series, which brings together publications from my blog on LiveJournal. Most of the short stories are really dedicated to historical events and historical characters, both very famous and completely forgotten. But there is no need to treat these texts as a source of factual information - they are not so much about the story itself, but about love for it, that is, about the thoughts and feelings that stories from the past evoke in me. In the Internet blog, I write a lot about modern times, but most of these “posts” did not get into the book, because the “topic of the day” is short-lived and after a few months it is forgotten or loses its relevance, but the story will never become obsolete.

The book consists of two unequal parts.

After the story sketches, there is a “Polls and Questions” section dedicated to feedback from the online audience. Thousands of readers take part in voting on a variety of topics, and members of the "Noble Assembly" (as the community of regular readers-commentators of the club is called) ask the author questions that can be very difficult to answer.

One of the most unconditional truths says: whoever does not know history does not understand modernity. And I would say this: "Love history, and modernity will love you."