31 March 1872
Sergei Diaghilev was born
The future ballet impresario was born in Selishchi village, Novgorod governorate. In few months after his birth, his mother passed away. Soon the boy had a stepmother Elena Panayeva, who was well educated and loved her stepson very much. In Sergei's childhood, the family lived first in Petersburg, and then in Perm, where his father, a horse-guardsman and a nobleman by birth did military service. At that time, Dyaghilev’s home was called Permian Athens; it was the place where the city intellectuals got together on Thursdays.