If you attended a meeting with HSE University-St Petersburg at least once, you must have met Adrian Selin, an academic supervisor of the Bachelor's programme 'History' and the dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. Usually, he talks about HSE University-St Petersburg but today, we are going to tell you about him and the job of a historian. Find out what prosopography is, why the Time of Trouble is interesting and why it is useless to look for Rurik's remains in the interview with the doctor of historical science.