Among other books devoted to the time of the formation of the Old Russian state, the book of Boris Romanov stands apart. The focus here is not the struggle of princes for power and not military campaigns, but the life of an ordinary person from birth to death with all its hardships and joys, ordeals and thoughts - in a word, everyday life. This man is many faces: we have a whole gallery - princes, vigilantes, spiritual fathers, servants, smerds, slaves... The author looks into the most hidden corners of Russian life and as a result creates a wide picture of the morals of pre-Mongol Russia, based on a thorough analysis of written sources of the 11th - early 13th centuries. In the circle of its consideration - Russian annals, teachings, paterics, lives, church charters, literary monuments, international treaties, various editions of Russian Truth.