I think the charm of biographical stories of Podgornaja, in particular of "The unrepeatable moment," consists precisely in this approach "personalistic / journalist" of history, out of pre-made academicism which encumbers the description. Her writings are firmly anchored in the events, but "peer" or better, peep through the anecdotes, the drawings and the mysteries that are between the pages of the day, between the curtains of the alcove, between the beats of  “love and death” that hound the time. Then the reading is tasty and of interest to an audience who may feel distant or estranged from the scene narrated in the text.

                  We have the confirmation of this with the work of "Mafalda of Savoy-Hesse" and "Pushkin and Baltic countries", the author's direct involvement in addressing these biographical narratives with a blend of airy color and freshness of interpretation have been able to attract the ' Italian reader's attention, were able to drag him into the universality of the story that goes beyond the experience of the players to arrive in the charm of solemn and indistinct of the human destinies that shake their history.

"The unrepeatable moment" is a dip in the ocean of the past three centuries, a flight that crosses many skies of Europe, from Russia to the Baltic countries, Germany and slices of England and France. Browsing through the pages of the book one feels the awesome sound of armies on the march, the struggles of peoples for freedom, there is the useless bloodshed of revolutions. But you also can hear the steps of the dances, the minuet and the magnificence of the imperial courts and in the distance, the voices of poets and novelists of a literary season, perhaps only truly "unrepeatable".

And then, what about the Empress Catherine I who as peasant from the lands of Latvia achieves the throne of Russia? And about the mystery of the castle of Lode where it is not known how and why died the unhappy Princess Augusta of Württemberg? And the prophetic dream of Margarita Tučkova? And why was Rasputin in the magnificence of the court of the czars?

In the background empires that arise, face themselves and break down: Napoleon, the Romanovs, the Hessen, the Savoy ... Weddings designed on desk to ensure aristocratic lineages often without any happiness. Impossible loves and betrayals, burning beds, ambitions and fears, the flow of the years that flows like water from the Volga and the Rhine. Everything belongs to us and sinking roots in common, is the experience that we possess of our Europe.