The collection contains minutes of meetings of the various political parties and groups to which Volkov belonged, as well as manifestos, programs, and other materials derived from social-democratic activity. A small but significant part of the collection concerns the emergence of the Leningrad Popular Front and related organizations during the perestroika period.

When setting off for your yoga class, take a moment to think about Sir Paul Dukes, British journalist, author, and master of espionage and disguise. Credited for helping introduce yoga to the West with his books Yoga for the Western World (1958)and The Yoga of Health, Youth, and Joy: A Treatise on Hatha Yoga Adapted to the West (1960), Dukes's life story reads more like that of an action hero than a yoga guru.

This collection should interest researchers studying both Soviet feminism and the Soviet propaganda system. Anna Abramovna Stepanova (Faikina) (1910–87), a journalist, participated in a 10,000–kilometer Women’s Auto Race in honor of Stalin’s constitution in 1936; the race is documented in a number of photographs and associated materials. In other photographs, she and her husband, Aleksandr Vasil’evich Stepanov (1906–65), are shown with I. G. Bolshakov, the Soviet minister of cinematography from 1946 to 1953, S. A. Lozovskii, head of the Sovinformbiuro (the official news and propaganda agency of the Soviet government, formed during the Second World War), as well as Soviet military leaders Marshals V.D. Sokolovskii and S. M. Budennyi.