The central plot of Bruno Viane's book is the journey of the French navigator Jean Sauvage to the Russian North in 1585. Jean Sauvage was the first Frenchman to describe his trip to Russia, and his story was published in full in Viane's book. But this is just one story from a whole kaleidoscope of stories dedicated to the Russian Arctic, from the 10th century, when the first known voyage from Western Europe to the White Sea took place, to the Second World War. In particular, the book contains the first Russian-French dictionary compiled in the 16th century, early correspondence between Russian tsars and French kings, correspondence from the influential diplomat Charles de Danzey and vivid stories from the history of the Russian-Norwegian border. A number of documents from Russian and French archives are published for the first time. The book was published in French in Moscow in 2012 by the Thesaurus publishing house, and in 2014 in France by the l’Âge d’Homme publishing house.