Portal:Russia/DYK/5

... that Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna (pictured) kept her morganatic marriage secret from her father, Nicholas I of Russia, until his death in 1855?
... that Ivan Argunov, one of the founders of the Russian school of portrait painting, spent his entire life as a serf?
... that the finds at the village of Gnezdovo near Smolensk include an early folding razor, the first pivoted scissors found in Eastern Europe, and the earliest inscription in the Old Russian language?

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