The overwhelming majority of the memoirs of the famous publicist and prose writer that made up the book are extracted from emigrant periodicals and archival sources and are first published in Russia. Memoirs give a broad picture of Russian life in the late XIX - early XX centuries: according to their own impressions, Moscow University, the journalistic environment, the opera world, entrepreneurs and merchants, security guards, freemasons, revolutionary Petrograd, the Cheka prison, etc. are described. Meetings with L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, A. P. Chekhov, A. S. Suvorin, Vl. S. Soloviev, V. M. Doroshevich, N. S. Gumilev, M. S. Uritsky and many others are described in detail.