Diary of a famous scientist, numismatist, archaeologist and historian, long-term employee of the Imperial Russian, then State Historical Museum, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.V. Oreshnikov (1855-1933) covers the turning years of Russian history. Its author happened to become an eyewitness to the events of the period of the First World War, the revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, the policy of war communism and the NEP, collectivization, the persecution of the Soviet state against the Church and the old regime intelligentsia, etc.