Valery Yarkho's book, covering almost three centuries, from the reign of Vasily the Dark to the beginning of the transformations of Peter I, contains the richest - and in large part rare - material about foreigners who arrived at the Russian service. Italians, Germans, Dutch, Greeks, English and Scots, Swedes, representatives of other European and non-European peoples went to Muscovy, attracted by rumors about the generosity of the local rulers. Among them there were architects, scribes, doctors, actors, but even more were military and all kinds of adventurers, up to the most real pirates who hunted with a privateer certificate issued by Ivan the Terrible.