Russia found itself “non-protected and non-defended”. No one could foresee the state recreation through great upheavals, civil war and new modernization.

For Stalin the communist religion (and he realized that it was a religion) was never particularly close. He used it to strengthen the Empire.

The emperor believed that the Orthodox people will not dare to harm Russia for the sake of political intrigues.

Noble officers and peasants-soldiers were constructors of the Empire, the army was a continuation of the estate and the peasant community, the continuation of “eternity”.

In modern Russia it is practically impossible to find a person, who has worked with all the country’s leaders from Stalin to Yeltsin. Valentin Falin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, reputable foreign affairs specialist, ex-ambassador of the USSR in Germany, the former CPSU Central Committee Secretary, probably the “last of the Mohicans”. He prepared analytical reports for Stalin and Beria. He wrote foreign policy speeches for Khrushchev. Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin relied on his advices. His fate was intervened by Andropov. He was accused of organizing a coup in Germany, the collapse of the USSR and was summoned to court in respect of the famous “CPSU affair”. Valentin Falin since 1950 had a responsible job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, in the seventies served as the Soviet ambassador in Bonn, in the eighties — the political columnist of “Izvestia” newspaper and the head of the “News” Press Agency, from 1988 to 1991 — Head of the International department of the CPSU Central Committee and adviser to M.Gorbachev on general political issues. In the interview with Alexander Ageev and Alexander Isayev — fragments of the USSR backstage history through the point of view of its participant and witness.

Nicholas II saw the ideal of the Orthodox Empire in the unity of the state and the Orthodox Church, but bishops were striving for independence, actually — for separating from the state.

At the time, when the World War forces were already gathered, there lived in Russia one happy family, in which husband and wife doted each other, and children were surrounded by care and love. Perhaps there were quite a lot of such families. But we shall talk about only one, the family of Nicholay Alexandrovich and Alexandra Feodorovna, the Emperor and the Empress.

Balancing between strong European states, the peripheral Russia tried to secure its economic development and not to slide down to the status of a semi-colonial country.

The article presents a comparative analysis of intellectual environment, creative development and the literary activity results of two writers of the early twentieth century, who depicted the last days of their epoch in their works, — I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprin, binded by long-term friendship.

Postreform Russia is a new country developing with different speeds.