Alexander Benois was a dedicated diary-keeper. Diaries must surely have underpinned his two published volumes of Memoirs, ending as the celebrated Russian seasons began in 1909. All trace of diary entries has vanished in these polished autobiographies, but he could hardly have produced them forty years later without such help. It is frustrating that the published Memoirs end where they do, for although Benois' role as Diaghilev's closest collaborator was over, he nevertheless gave the rest of a long lifetime to art and ballet. He was active in his native country until 1926, later in Paris, New York and London. He died in Paris in 1960, a few weeks before his ninetieth birthday. Although Benois never resumed his autobiographies, in early 1956 he considered publishing a diary running from September 1916 to January 1918. A copy of the MS is now in the hands of the Society for Dance Research, a typewritten document of sixtyone A4 pages. Benois, who was already eighty-five years old, had had his diary entries typed up from handwritten originals. The transcript is dated December 1955/January 1956. The typist was sometimes obliged to leave spaces blank to be filled in! Benois wrote an introduction, and the next step would have been getting the 12,500 word MS translated from Russian into French or English. Matters did not get that far. In the first place, Benois' view of the document changed. His typewritten title page had announced 'Memoirs of A. N. Benois' indicating the intention to continue the series of autobiographical volumes commenced and published a few years previously. But among the many amendments Benois made to the typewritten MS was the deletion of 'Memoirs' in favour of 'Vyborg Places. Diary 1916-1918 of Alexander Benois'. The implication is clear. Benois had realised that the main content of the diary related to the revolutionary period, and accordingly selected a new title with revolutionary associations. Vyborg is the suburb of St Petersburg containing the Finland