7 Russian rarities Library of Congress

"What we have - do not store" - a conclusion can be made acquainted with the collection of rarities Russian Library of Congress, founded January 26, 1802. Unnecessary country valuable books and rare artifacts are now living in America.

1. FROM SIBERIA WITH LOVE

Gennady Yudin, Siberian merchants and an avid collector of books, failed to attach a unique library in the homeland, and in February 1907, after long negotiations, the collection was sent to the United States. The library consisted of more than 80 000 volumes, nearly 4,000 - rare books. Among them are such valuable items as the first edition of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" Radishchev, the first Russian book on geometry and one of the copies of the first edition of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", survived the fire of Moscow in 1812. Yudin's desire to save the library as a whole has not been fulfilled, and now "yudinskie" books can be found in the libraries of American universities and bibliophiles collections.

2. PHOTO

Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, a pioneer of color photography in Russia, studied with renowned scientists in Berlin and Paris. He photographed Tolstoy, and Chaliapin. The first color photography of the Russian Empire was made in 1903, and in 1908, Prokudin-Gorsky developed new technology of color photography for photo-documentation of the Russian Empire. Having received the support of Emperor Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky had a unique photo review. He traveled in a specially equipped car with a dark room, having the documents, providing access to all parts of the country. After the departure of Prokudin-Gorsky abroad in 1918, his collection was a time in the Soviet Union, but was soon part of it was exported to France. After lying all the years of the occupation of Paris in damp basements, in 1948 it was sold by his heirs to the Library of Congress, and a few decades of it, seemed to have forgotten. In 2001, all the pictures were finally scanned and published on the Internet.

3. MUSIC GOLD

In the 30 years the United States Library of Congress bought from booksellers Israel Perlstein about 3,000 volumes from the personal library of the Royal Family. Among them - a unique collection of musical recordings and books on music. Diverse musical palette presented in this collection: chamber, church, military music, opera scores and folk songs.

During the research it became known that there is work at least twenty Russian women composers in the collection, which is surprising: even in Europe at the time, very few female composers sought recognition.

It is likely that part of the recorded music performed by members of the royal family, as the Grand Duchesses were talented musician, but on some recordings you can hear amazing contralto, which, as you know, had the Empress Alexandra.

4. SECRET

"Letter to members of the Politburo Comrade Molotov for Politburo members. Strictly confidential. Please in any case copies are not removed, and each member of the Politburo (Comrade Kalinin, too.) To make your notes on the document itself, "- it was titled a secret letter of Lenin on March 19, 1922, in which he laid out his monstrous plan the massacre of the Church . During 1922 more than 8,000 clergy were killed defending the holy icons from the Commission on the confiscation of church property. Now this unique document - part of the collections of the US Library of Congress.

5. The Church in Alaska

With the closure of the Russian-American Company of Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska has not stopped, there continued to operate 17 parishes and 36 house churches have their archives: confessional receipts, reports on the status of church property and the missionary work done by the clergy, travel magazines and diaries of clerics, various correspondence. The most interesting - it's the travel journals and diaries of the clergy. Written in the self-made notebooks, diaries are a valuable eyewitness accounts of the early days of Russian America.

6. "Notes on Muscovite Affairs"

The Austrian diplomat Sigismund Herberstein twice visited Russia as ambassador. In the XVI century in Europe were aware of Russian small and Herberstein showed great interest in all things Russian. Knowing the Slavic language, he spoke with Russian and carefully studied the life of Russia. His attention has always been fine tuned, and he created the first ethnographic description of Russia, based on personal observations. The book was first published in Vienna in 1557.

7. Letters to the Editor

33 years Anatoly Rubinov led social problems in the department of "Literary newspaper". His devastating article made newspaper center - it all signed. It is thanks to him on the goods in the Soviet Union began to indicate shelf life, and his articles have influenced the fact that the per-minute billing system for the phone has been delayed for more than 10 years. It filled up with letters.

In the post-perestroika times Anatoly Rubinov decided to dismiss, and archive emails - more than half - to recycle. But he managed to save a considerable part of them. US Library of Congress has long tried to persuade him to give him the letter, and as in Russia they did not need anyone, he agreed. These letters - a kind of encyclopedia of Soviet life, testimony era. Except that they are stored in the United States.