Auction House Hermitage Fine Art is pleased to present the rarest historic documents with autographs of Russian Tsars and Emperors from private collections. These unique documentary evidences and true historical facts reflect political and social events in Russia before the revolution.

The collection was carefully selected over several decades. It comprises items of extremely remarkable provenance. Considerable part was acquired at the most significant auctions worldwide. Presented lots come from the collection of the legend of the world ballet Serge Lifar and of the neurosurgeon, Academician A.V. Bondarchuk.
These manuscripts have great historical and cultural importance.

The set of documents presented for the auction is a unique collection of letters of Russian diplomats and government officials addressed to S.S. Zinovyev over the period of his mission in Spain. Among his correspondents were José Moñino y Redondo, 1st Count of Floridablanca, chief minister of King Charles III of Spain and of Charles IV, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg, former envoy in Madrid, A.M. Golitsyn, D.M.Golitsyn, I.S. Barjatinskij, Count von Nesselrode, T.A.Osterman, P.V.Bakunin and others.

The Russian diplomates' correspondence may serve as a rich source of information concerning internal situation in Russia and its domestic politics. In particular it describes the process of erection of the Peter I monument in St Petersburg, Emperor family members' health condition, suppression of rebellion guided by Pugachev.

Part of the manuscripts are in French because in the middle of XVIII centuries French was a formal language in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. Probably many of the documents from archive of S.S.Zinovyev are published for the first time and thus various out an incredible potential as source of study and cultural value.