The book of Tatyana Georgieva is devoted to the customs and customs of Russians from antiquity to the beginning of the Peter's transformations. Centuries pass before the reader, and with them generations of Russian people with the peculiarities of their life, family relations, religion, crafts, rituals, holidays and superstitions, bearing the reflection of pagan times. The author bit by bit reconstructs the process of forming Russian culture, trying, together with the reader, to figure out why the Russian person is the way he is now. Rare archival materials help to better comprehend the tread of Russian civilization, "hear" how Russian speech is changing, "see" how the appearance of our ancestors is being transformed, find out how traditions have arisen, lost and changed, but at the same time a cultural core has always been preserved that preserves Russians as a single people.