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The memoirs of Smugge, nʹee Gori︠a︡chkina, which cover the 1880-1955 period, begin with a vivid description of her early life in Irkut︠s︡k. She then chronicles the years she lived and studied in Geneva and Paris before returning to Siberia and thence moving to Harbin, Port Arthur and, in 1902, to Vladivostok. The next section of the manuscript deals with her marriage to Evgeniĭ M. Smugge, a railroad engineer, and their life and work in Turkestan (1907-1910) and Odessa (1910-1911 and 1916-1920). The memoirs then turn to the Civil War period and the Smugges' evacuation via Constantinople to Yugoslavia where they lived until 1925. Following a description of the 1926-1944 period, when the Smugges lived in Riga, the memoirs end with the evacuation to Germany and their life there. A few revised sections are appended to the very end of the manuscript. The memoirs are in 5 notebooks and total ca. 250 pages.

Kriger's memoirs "Zapiski inzhenera" describe his childhood, education and work as director of the railways of Southern Russia. They include a brief history of railways and their importance in Russia, concentrating on the period before the Revolution. Kriger also gives his opinion of why the tsarist government fell, citing a number of geographical, ethnographical and historical factors.

A major part of the collection is von Meck's autobiography (660 p.), covering up to the latter part of World War II, when she left Russia for the West. This autobiography primarily discusses her life in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s; her father was executed and she herself was imprisoned in Soviet concentration camps. There are five brief essays discussing railroads in Russia and the USSR, and a photograph of her grandmother, Anna Merkling. Also icluded is von Meck's translation of 681 letters written by P.I. Tchaikovsky to his family during the period March 1861 to September 1893.

Typescript memoirs that cover a broad range of topics, including St. Petersburg before the Revolution, World War I, the railroads in the Russian Far East and China, the Civil War, and the emigration.

The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, notebooks, diagrams and tables, lists of addresses, and printed materials. Correspondence is mostly drafts of letters by Novak and letters to and from Mark Weinbaum. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts by Novak dealing with topics in engineering and physics. Novak criticizes Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Newton's laws of mechanics in his discussions. Notebooks include drafts of articles. Diagrams and tables mostly complement his manuscripts. Printed materials include copies of a pamphlet by Novak"Fizika 3-khmernogo prostranstva.".