The printed notes of Heinrich Staden occupy a very important place among the sources on the history of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. A Westphalian by origin, thrown into Muscovy by a play of fate and recorded in the oprichnina, the author closely saw the phenomena and orders he described, and the autobiographical form that he gave to his notes, even in the part devoted to the description of the country, makes them especially valuable, revealing specifically and artlessly those small details of the daily life of a serving man of the 16th century, which can hardly be found in any modern monument. In addition, Staden’s ingenuous story gives us rich material for a general judgment about such a far obscure phenomenon in the history of the 16th century as the oprichnina. Individual hints scattered throughout the notes paint this institution in a new light. From the general context of scattered episodes and comments, the overall picture of the oprichnina emerges more specifically than in other sources, and its history acquires greater certainty. This edition includes the German text of “Notes on Muscovy,” which is reproduced in accordance with modern rules of archaeography. The book also includes two translations into Russian - the second translation in 1938 by I. I. Polosin and the new one in 1996 by S. N. Ferdinand. The compilers included comments on the text in the second volume of this publication. CONTENTS: INTRODUCTION (A.L. Khoroshkevich) (8). Dedication (8). The vicissitudes of discovery and introduction into scientific circulation (9). Staden and his contemporaries are the authors of notes on “ Muscovy" (25). Historiography of Staden's Notes of the 40-90s of the XX century. and the beginning of the 21st century. (30).Structure of the complex of works (42).Riddles of the complex of works of G. Staden (52).Appendix: Chronology of the “Moscow” and “post-Moscow” periods of the life of Heinrich Staden (56).PUBLICATION (57).Foreword by the publisher of the German text (E E. Rychalovsky) (58). NOTES ABOUT MUSCOVIIA (61). The country of the Muscovites and the rule described by Heinrich von Staden (63). Project (263). Petition to Emperor Rudolf II (327). Autobiography of Staden (339). APPENDIX I : 1a. G. Staden. “Swedish” description of the north of Russia (451). 1b. Petition of G. Staden to Johan III (463). APPENDIX II: 1578 September 27. G.H. von Feldenz. Project for a campaign against Moscow (fragment) (471). APPENDIX III: Notes of Heinrich Staden on Muscovy (Translation by I.I. Polosin) (488).