Olga Ulyanova received the second volume of Ivan Goncharov’s works, “Frigate Pallada”, together with a letter of commendation after graduating from the third class of the Simbirsk Mariinsky gymnasium for girls in 1885.

This book was printed in St. Petersburg in 1879, but the Mariinsky gymnasium for girls ordered a new book cover and design at the printing house of Nikolay Anuchin in Simbirsk. There is an embossed inscription on the upper front side of the cover: “For good behavior and academic success”. On the first page of the book there is an insciprion in ink: “For excellent academic results and piousness the Conference of Simbirsk Mariinsky gymnasium for girls awarded the pupil of the third grade Olga Ulyanova with this book and a letter of commendation. June 6, 1885.”

In 1852, the writer Ivan Goncharov, a native of Simbirsk, who had served as an interpreter in the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance, was appointed secretary to Vice-Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin. He was entrusted to establish trade and diplomatic relations with at that time closed Japan.

In October 1852, the 52-gun frigate Pallada left Kronstadt, which was to deliver the Russian expedition to Nagasaki. Goncharov kept travel notes throughout the voyage. He visited England, Africa, Indonesia, Japan, China, the Philippines, and many islands in three oceans: the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Pacific. In 1854, Goncharov landed in Ayan on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and returned to St. Petersburg by land.

The writer’s first travel essay was published in the magazine ‘Patriotic Notes”[“Otechestvennye Zapiski”] in 1855, and Goncharov published his other notes in “The Contemporary” [“Sovremennik”], “Sea Anthology” [“Morskoy Sbornik”] and “Russian Herald” [“Russkiy Vestnik”]. The first full edition of “Frigate Pallada” did not appear until 1858. During Goncharov’s lifetime, the book was reissued six times, both as a separate edition and in collected works.

Goncharov opens the exhibited edition of ‘Frigate Pallada’ with a discourse on the role of travel in human life and explains why he went on a round-the-world expedition. He then introduces the reader to the ship’s crew and tells stories about the countries and cities he visited, sometimes comparing them to Russia. He describes the long return home through Siberia, and in the afterword, written 20 years after the voyage, adds new information about the expedition.