Vadim Aristov fell in love with history when he was still in school after reading the book Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece. Aristov never believed, however, that he himself would one day become a writer. It all happened many years later, almost by accident. As a young man he tried his hand at many different things. He served in the Navy, worked as an industrial alpinist and excavator operator. Aristov, however, wasn’t satisfied with such work as he wanted to do something that would involve his passion, history. He decided to make a radical change and enrolled in St. Petersburg State University in the history department. From that moment on his fascination with the history of his country, and in particular his hometown Kingisepp, became his profession. The first article he wrote on the regional natural history was printed in a local newspaper and proved to the public what a talented writer Aristov was. He wrote several books in which he revealed what were at the time many little-known historical facts about one of Russia’s oldest cities.