“The Smolny Institute was Russia’s most prestigious girls’ school, and this 1905 album gives an unparalleled glimpse into the life of its early twentieth-century pupils, the last generation of pre-revolutionary Russia’s social elite. Alexander Liarsky’s fascinating commentary provides a rich social and cultural context for the beautiful photographs, and the album’s owner, Nancy Kovaleff Baker, tells the story of her family’s lives in Russia and America, and how they came to acquire their heirloom. Only a few copies of the album are known to exist, two in Russian collections. This bilingual publication, making the book available to scholars and general readers, is a major event.” — Catriona Kelly, Professor of Russian, University of Oxford