The memoirs of the playwright Augustus Friedrich von Kotzebue (1761-1819), super popular in his era, are dedicated to an event very unusual in his biography - exile to Siberia at the behest of Emperor Paul. The author describes in detail and very vividly all the events associated with this unfortunate episode of his adventurous biography, the people with whom he had to meet on the way and in Tobolsk, where he was serving a link, the nature of the region, the customs of local residents.