Amazing people lived in St. Petersburg with the most extraordinary biographies, which many today do not know at all or know very badly. Before you is a book of portrait essays telling about the bright and difficult fates of famous Russians, native Petersburgers and those whose life path was inextricably linked with the city on the Neva. The author collected little-known, sometimes inaccessible to a wide audience facts from the life of his heroes - scientists, artists, inventors, politicians, military, who made up the color of the nation, who lived in St. Petersburg from the time of its foundation - to the present day.