Russia

Russia's First Embassies

Trade was the impetus for early contacts between Russia and England, though each country had its own view of how the relationship should function. Helen Szamuely examines the first two centuries of Russian embassies to London.

A Visit to Russia, 1839

George Charles Henry Victor Paget, the 7th Marquis of Anglesey, shares the stories behind the trip that his ancestor, the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, paid to the Court of Russia with his sons during the summer of 1839.

Imperial Visit, 1901

J.D. Hargreaves on the turn-of-the-century visit of Russia's Nicholas II to France and its wider diplomatic ramifications.

The Russian Mrs Beeton

Helen Szamuely explores the unprecedented success of a household manual and cookery book produced by a Russian housewife, Yelena Molokhovets, following the Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861.

Ivan the Terrible

The contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, Ivan IV was the real founder of modern Russia, and, Jules Menken writes, the originator of the disciplinary system by means of which many Russian rulers since have held, their power.

A Game of Battleships

Roger Hudson expands on an image of Russian ships destroyed by the Japanese at Port Arthur, 1904.