Peter Nikolaevich Stolpyansky (1872–1938) - historian, local historian, bibliographer, author of over 200 works on the history of St. Petersburg and its suburbs. The book is a detailed guide that describes the journey up the Neva. From hoary antiquity - the 13th century, Alexander Nevsky, Landskrona, the author moves on to pictures from the life of Russian emperors, recalls the gloomy pictures of Russian reality, serfs of various departments, serfs of the theater directorate, serfs from the orphanage, the struggle of working people against absolutism, the struggle for brightness the first of May, the crazy waste of Russian people's money... Two hundred years of Russian history in its various experiences flash before the readers while the ship rises to Ladoga, while it sails those 71 miles that the beautiful Neva makes with its zigzags...