Country-house and eminent country house residents were discoursed at the Presidential Library

The Presidential Library hosted the presentation of the July issue of the popular science and history magazine “Rodina”. The authors of the publication, historians, representatives of cultural institutions of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, employees and guests of the Belinsky Sverdlovsk Regional Universal Research Library participated in the event via video conferencing mode. The event on the closed part of the library portal was connected to the sites in Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Yalta and Volgograd.

As it was noted, these traditional meetings have become for “Rodina” the source of new acquaintances, discoveries, research, and then new issues.

This year's seventh issue of the magazine was presented by the press and editorial manager, the deputy editor-in-chief of “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” Igor Kots. In July, the main theme of the issue was "Country-house in Russian", dedicated to the country life as a part  of popular culture.

Participants of the event not only learnt and discussed the materials of the historical edition, but also delivered speeches on this issue. Thus, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, doctor of historical sciences and one of the authors of the book "The Near Stalin’s Country-House. The Experience of the Historical Guidebook" Sergei Devyatov devoted his report to one of the favorite places of the "leader of the peoples" in the Moscow region in Kuntsevo, where he spent most of the time, took landmark decisions for the country.

The closest associate of the head of the Soviet state S. M. Kirov also had his favorite place outside the city. His hunting lodge in the village of Pasha of the Volkhov district of the Leningrad Region could be abandoned, but it was preserved due to the fact that in his time the children's library was located there. Today it is already a real children’s activity center, - said Svetlana Garina, the chief librarian of the children's department of the Pasha library.

Participants of the event learned a lot of new interesting facts about Petersburg’s country neighborhoods, including the museum-estate "Penates" where the artist I. Repin lived and worked, the Pushkin Museum-Country-House in Tsarskoe Selo.

Visitors of the Presidential Library’s portal can learn more about the country-house period in the poet's life thanks to historical materials from the library's collections. "The yard was crowded, and Tsarskoe Selo turned into a capital ...", - wrote Alexander Sergeevich, who was looking for solitude and tranquility in the country. These words we will find in the "P. A. Pletnev’s Works and Correspondence", the censor and book publisher of the poet. Y. I. Grot in the book "Pushkin, his lyceum comrades and mentors" recalls visits to the alma mater of the most famous graduate of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum: "I will never forget the enthusiasm with which we accepted it. As always, when someone from our "grandfathers" came, we surrounded him with a whole course and accompanied him to the whole lyceum. His treatment with us was quite simple, as with old acquaintances; for each question he answered affably, with questions asked about our life, showed us his former room and gave details about the places he commemorated". More materials about Pushkin in Tsarskoe Selo is in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library, these are also memoirs of the writer Maria Kamenskaya in the “Historical Herald” for the year 1894, the memoirs of Pavel Miller, which he solemnly titled "Meeting and Acquaintance with Pushkin in Tsarskoe Selo" published in the "Russian Archive" in 1902, and many others.

At the presentation of the July issue of the popular science and history magazine “Rodina”, it was also discussed whether the Germans could save the royal family. It was about documents confirming the "German trace" of the tragedy in the Ipatiev House. Anatoly Kirillov, director of the Center for the History of the Sverdlovsk Region, told about the myths and realities of the execution of the royal family.

The presentations of issues of the popular science and history magazine “Rodina” in the Presidential Library have become traditional. They have been held monthly since April 2017 as part of a cooperation agreement between the Presidential Library and the “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, which was signed at the end of 2016. In the building on the Senate Square regular joint events are held: multimedia exhibitions dedicated to the "Rodina", video lectures with the authors of the history magazine. The digitized copies of the popular science edition are available on the Presidential Library portal.