One of the main principles of the pagan art - an idea of the ability of сreative product to real action in the natural and human world.In the 6-7^th centuries in Byzantine philosophy is a struggle of opinions about the role of jewelry in Christian art was going on.Slavic elite jewelry of 6-8^th centuries had no expressed symbolism. In the 8-9^th centuries jewelry was blurred with images of pagan culture aesthetics. The coexistence of two aesthetic cultures, the Byzantine and Slavic pagan jewelry, in 9-13^th centuries may be noted by jewelry of plain technologies. The ornamentation and beauty were main features in the guise of crafts of ancient Russia filigree complex of jewelry of 10^th century. Aesthetics of rising Russian nobles in the sacred aspect turns out to be free of ideology.

The article considers historic circumstances of the creation and dissemination of Byzantine, Eastern and South Slavonic hymnography of the church service dedicated to pope Leo the Great included in the 12^th-17^th centuries into manuscripts of the Service Menaion for February. The content of the Canon to pope Leo the Great, that was unusual for orthodox hymnography, could be explained by views of Canon’s author Theophanes the Branded (Graptus) who belonged to the monastic opposition to the iconoclastic government in Byzantine Empire in the first half of the 9th century.

By the example of Prince A.M. Kurbskii’s historic visions the author of the article demonstrates how roots of the Russian ruling dynasty and Muscovite boyars were reinterpreted in the history-writing of the second part of the 16^th century. Kurbskii asserted the legend about Rurik’s and his companions’ German ethnicity so far as ideas of original imperial status of the “Grand Rus”, priority of saint princes and their descendants in the rights for the power in Russian lands and especially Princes Ostrozhskii and Slutskii’s rights to become sovereigns in Russian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and the whole Russian land.

The article considers an image of the reception of Polish ambassadors by Dmitry the False I from manuscript of Philipp Hainhofer in comparison with the same plot painting from Budapest National Museum and its copy from The State Historical Museum Moscow.

The article is devoted to regional monetary reforms in the South-West of the Russian state: to legalizing the circulation of Polish coins in the region in 1677 and in 1683-1686, limiting the use of only “Czechs” - a 1½ grosh coin - and try to enter into circulation in 1686 low-brow “Sevsk Czechs” which were soon devalued and banned in 1689.

The article analyses a group of sources highlighting stages of biography of a converted Jew from Salonica whose name was Ivan Pavlov. He came to Russia in 1753. During his stay in the Russian empire he gained rich experience in interaction with the state bureaucracy. He also personally came to the reception to the Empress Elizabeth. on the basis of archival sources the author reconstructs one of the possible ways of adaptation of the neophyte of Jewish origin to a new sociocultural environment. The article is accompanied by the publication of the neophyte’s petitions to her Majesty. It sets out an extraordinary personal story of the applicant, which claims to be a «track record», so important for getting governmental support.

The article investigates the Greek manuscripts belonged to the library of the Moscow Synodal Printing-house and stored now in RGADA (fund 381). Mainly these manuscripts contain the educational texts that were prepared for printing in Synodal printing-house (A-B-C books, primers, Greek language manuals, lexicons). Those codices in that fund are not numerous, however they have played an important role in the history of education and perception of the Greek culture in Russia in the 18^th-19^th centuries.

The article is an attempt to perform an in-depth study of the mechanism of selling books printed in the Lviv Stauropigion Confraternity printing-house in 1788-1791. The article names the author of sales register: it is an artist Ostap Belyavskiy. There is a detailed analysis of attribution of sold books and reconstruction of Stauropigion printing-house publications repertoire. The number of sold books, their prices and the amount of sales are defined.

This publication is dedicated to the history of the Civil war in Central Asia in 1918. The published document allows events of 1918 to be seen through the eyes of a Russian officer, who managed to escape from the red Turkestan, and had a long way to white Siberia through India. This report was transferred from the General staff to the Department of the Council of Ministers of the Russian government. Kolchak’s authorities paid great attention to the situation in Soviet Turkestan, but were unable to assist anti-Bolshevik forces in that region.

This is a review on the monograph by the outstanding specialist of the Moscow archaeology L.A. Belyaev, devoted to the study of Donskoy monastery necropolis, and on prospects of further study of the Moscow necropolis associated with the archival and archaeological search and the application of photogrammetric techniques for the reconstruction of lost cemeteries.