Birthday and proper name are perhaps the most obvious beginning for a story about the fate of a particular historical person. However, turning to the era that is commonly called the Time of Troubles, we suddenly discover that these names and significant dates are not always known to us, even if we are talking about rulers who occupied the Moscow throne for many years. Philological investigation requires an almost detective approach here, but it is precisely this that allows us to see completely unexpected aspects of the spiritual and everyday life of Moscow Rus'. The main characters of our book are Boris Godunov and members of his family, but we will not talk here only about them - we will try to talk about the rise and decline of the whole tradition of polynomialism, which spanned several centuries and meant so much to the people of the Russian Middle Ages.