Gilyarovsky had the reputation of the “king of Moscow reporters.” His forte was criminal chronicles and reportage—he wrote about the most noticeable and sensational events. He was the most famous and recognized expert on Moscow: the writer brilliantly knew the city’s history and modernity, its architecture and geography, high society and Moscow’s “bottom”—Khitrivka, shelters for the poor, tramps and outcasts. “Moscow and Muscovites” (1926) is Gilyarovsky’s calling card for today’s reader. In it, the writer truthfully and captivatingly depicts life in Moscow of the 1880s–1890s: customs and traditions, markets and slums, bookshops, bathhouses and taverns, streets and boulevards, people of art, traders, officials…