Petersburg Poles in urban folklore. Mystical secrets, predictions, legends, traditions and historical jokes

Today we will talk about famous St. Petersburg residents and guests of the northern capital of Polish origin. The narrative begins with a story about a terrible curse sent to the Romanov clan proud Pole Marina Mnishek. With a certain share of actual and chronological conventionality, we can say that from this time the presence of the Poles in St. Petersburg was indicated. We learn that he was predicted by a native of Poland, the court astrologer Simeon Polotsky, on the eve of the birth of Peter I. We will read a lot of interesting things about the historical characters of Polish origin, who left their mark in legends, myths and jokes of St. Petersburg. Stanislav Ponatovsky, Grigory Potemkin, Adam Mitskevich, Nestor Kukolnik, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Green, Mikhail Grinka, Dmitry Shostakovich, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Vaclav Nezhinsky, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Edita Pieha, Anatoly Sobchak ... This is far from complete list of Poles, folklore data about which They are collected in this cognitive book, which will be interesting to the widest circle of readers