How did a tablecloth embroidered in the village of Kadom end up on the table of the Queen of England? Why was Michurin expelled from the Pronsky gymnasium? Why did the landowner from Elatma decide to fly to the moon and how did it end? Continuing the artistic exploration of the Russian hinterland, begun in the book “Unprintable Gingerbread”, Mikhail Baru writes new witty essays about not the most famous cities and towns - Sergach, Skopin, Mikhailov, Zavolzhsk, Shatsk and others, creating his own Facial Chronicle corpus, his Tsar- a book about the Russian province. Behind the modest county façade of these towns often hides not only the charm of local color, but also traces of a great history: the fate of these settlements, like their inhabitants, turns out to be rich in dramatic events, and changes of eras, wars and other national tragedies were lived here no less intensely than in capitals. Through these stories about small and very small towns, like through pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, the pattern of our common historical destiny is revealed. Mikhail Baru is a poet, prose writer, translator, chemical engineer, author of the book “Unprintable Gingerbread”, published by the UFO publishing house.