The book is compiled from essays by the authoritative St. Petersburg scholar A.D. Margolis. He chose them for publication under one cover from his many works of a cultural and local history nature, completed at different times, but dedicated to one thing - his beloved city. The topics covered in them are varied: from “philosophical” discussions about St. Petersburg as an object of world cultural heritage to bitter reflections on the burial places of victims of the Red Terror; from stories about the Romanov palaces and mansions to descriptions of St. Petersburg prisons; from the story of St. Petersburg scholars to the history of the samizdat magazine of the perestroika era.