V. V. BELYAKOV Doctor of Historical Sciences In the modern world, persistent ideas about other nations have become fixed in the public consciousness of peoples. They were formed over the centuries-both from the primary source, i.e. mutual communication, and from secondary sources - works of literature and art. At the same time, the process of forming the image of another nation in each particular case had its own specific features. What has been said fully applies to the formation of the image of Russians in Egypt. Russia's ties with Egypt seem to date back at least a thousand years. As early as 1001, Prince Vladimir sent the first ambassadors to Egypt, 1 most likely on ecclesiastical matters. On the Egyptian Sinai, there are Christian shrines - the Burning Bush (the bush in the flame of which the Lord first appeared to Moses) and Mount Sinai, on the top of which Moses received the tablets of faith from the Lord. It is true that the earliest known pilgrimage to the shrines of Sinai, that of Archimandrite Agrefenius, dates back to 1370. 2 However, there is reason to believe that the first Russian pilgrims appeared in Sinai at the same time as in Palestine, i.e. in the XI century. 3 The pilgrimage to the holy places of Sinai in the Russian Orthodox tradition is on a par with the pilgrimage to Palestine and Mount Athos - with the only difference being that due to the relative inaccessibility of the area, it is difficult to reach Sinai was visited less frequently than other shrines. As a rule, the pilgrimage to Sinai was made from the Holy Land. The shortest way from Jerusalem to the monastery of St. John the Baptist. St. Catherine's-the guardian of Sinai shrines-goes through the Negev Desert, then along the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea, and from there into the depths of Sinai. However, it was only at the end of the 19th century that it became possible to use this route: before that, to get to the monastery, you first had to get a recommendation from it ... Read more