The book tells about the ancient estates of the Russian Empire, their origin, heyday and extinction along with the fall of the monarchy. The basis of the book is made up of essays by contemporaries: historians of architecture, writers, artists and cultural figures, owners and inhabitants of estates, as well as eyewitness accounts of the many-sided world of the Russian estate. The picture of the life of the estate is complemented by old photographs, reproductions from paintings, facsimiles of documents of the past. The fourth volume is devoted to Russian estates located on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire, on the lands that are now part of the republics of the Baltic states, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.