Alexander Herzen, a renowned Russian political thinker, visited this place in September 1855 with the German writer Malwida von Meysenbug. In the 1850s, after a series of family tragedies, including his wife's infidelity, the loss of his mother and son in a shipwreck, as well as the death of his wife and newborn child, Herzen moved to England. In London, he founded the Free Russian Press to publish banned works and began publishing the weekly newspaper "The Bell" in 1857. The same press also produced the almanac "Polar Star" in 1855 and 1868.