I don't know where it comes from but I have a love of Russia and Russian literature and history. This bookmark is a bit gimmicky in that you get the chance to pull Catherine The Great across a scene in front of the Winter Palace. It was bought at The Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House in London after visiting a display about 300 years of photography at the Hermitage. I have to say if money was no object I'd be back in Saint Petersburg in a flash. My only time in Russia involved spending three days there and three days in Moscow with a night on the sleeper train.