Elena Elokhina - “Roman at heart” - originally from St. Petersburg, bachelor and master of St. Petersburg State University and La Sapienza University, professional guide in Rome and the Vatican. He has lived in the Eternal City for more than 15 years and knows the local culture and language very well. She runs a popular blog about Rome, where she talks about unknown places in the city. The book is written based on her experiences and the excursions she conducts for individual travelers. Rome is an amazing city in which eras are layered on top of each other, like a “historical lasagne.” It is worth studying it not horizontally, as we are used to when traveling, collecting places and museums. And vertically, looking at the cross-section of each monument, like cutting a century-old oak with many rings. The Romans run to work past ancient columns stuck in the walls of houses, sit in parks on antique sarcophagi instead of benches, build new houses on ancient foundations and decorate city squares with fragments of marble statues . Everyone is so used to it that they don’t even notice. Time has left such a strong legacy here that not taking it into account would be dishonest to the city. These are all doors to storerooms full of unexpected worlds. Almost like a wardrobe in Narnia. To get there, you just need to be as curious as children. Notice an ancient inscription on the wall or an almost erased fresco on the facade of the house. It’s not the ceremonial squares and fountains, but often something unnoticeable that can tell the most interesting story. But only to those who are ready to hear it.• Is it true that statues talk in Rome?• How to visit recluse nuns?• Where were poisons brewed for alchemists and potions for the Pope?• Where did honest courtesans atone for their sins?• How to find masterpieces by Caravaggio and Raphael without buying a ticket to the museum? You will find answers to all these and many other unexpected questions in the book you are holding in your hands! The publication is supplemented with author's photographs.