September 30, 1833 A.S. Pushkin visited the Orenburg province. The purpose of this trip was to collect materials about Pugachev. At that time, Alexander Sergeevich decided to write both a historical essay about Pugachev and a novel from the era of the Pugachev uprising. This is in our time: make a couple of mouse clicks and you will get more or less reliable information, but then everything was much more complicated, but also more interesting. Pushkin not only traveled through the “eastern province” to personally visit the places where the events took place, but met with local old-timers - contemporaries [...]