In the 18th–19th centuries, German entrepreneurs actively moved to Russia. Leaving Germany, where trade was complicated by the fragmentation of the country, some of them hoped to improve matters that were not going very well in their homeland, while others hoped to increase their capital. The collection, compiled by the German historian Wolfgang Sartor, contains memoirs of three Moscow entrepreneurs of German origin (Georg Spies (1861–1926), Walter Mark (1873–1950) and Andreas Zenker (1855–1928)) about the life of the German colony in Moscow, about German companies who existed there, and their leaders, about their contacts with Russian entrepreneurs, administrators and cultural figures. The memoirs contain both general observations of the conditions of business activity in Russia and private comments about the morals and customs of Russians. The characters in the book also describe specific events from the coronation of Nicholas II and the stampede on Khodynka Field to the All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896 and the German pogroms in 1914. Wolfgang Sartor – historian, independent researcher.