Old Moscow. Old Petersburg. Pylyaev M.

Mikhail Ivanovich Pylyaev (1842–1899) was born in GDOV, studied in St. Petersburg, listened to lectures at Kharkov University, traveled a lot, including Siberia and the Caucasus, Turkey and Egypt. In the capital's publications, Mikhail Pylyaev published articles on the history of theater and ballet, reviews of art exhibitions, wrote about the events of the cultural life of St. Petersburg. In 1879, several articles on St. Petersburg antiquity laid the foundation for future collections “Old Petersburg. Stories from the former life of the capital ”and“ Old Moscow. Stories from the former life of the pioneer capital ”, who has won the author the glory of a subtle expert on history.

For us, the compositions of Mikhail Pilyaev often remained the only source of facts gleaned by the author from private archives, later lost. But even these extremely charming narratives, peculiar guidebooks on the past days of two Russian capitals, even more than a century later, deservedly enjoy the love of readers.