The book contains similar, little-known and one unpublished articles by the outstanding historian and source scholar Elena Cheslavovna Skrzhinskaya (1897-1981), devoted to the mutual relations of Ancient Russia, then the Moscow principality with Byzantium and Italy. The book opens with the work "Polovtsy," which gives an original, previously not proposed explanation of this ethnicon, traces the relations of the steppes with Russia and Byzantium, their reflection in the annals and works of Byzantine authors. Next are articles covering various aspects of the diplomatic relations of Moscow Rus with Byzantium and Italy. The book ends with a large article extracted from the archive of E. C. Skrzhinsky, "Moscow Russia, Venice and the Byzantine Heritage in the 70s of the 15th Century," in the annexes to which documents never published in Russia from the archive of Venice are given.