Russian Rambles

Passports, shopping, city streets and household customs give Isabel Florence Hapgood her material for these sketches of Russia. Writing from personal experience, she sets out to correct foreign accounts that turn ordinary Russian life into something strange or sensational. Her preface tests such stories against practical details, from church music to the usefulness of guides. The chapters range across St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Volga, with space for bargaining, censorship and a summer resort.

Encounters with Count Tolstoy add a more reflective strand. Her account discusses his interest in pilgrims' speech, his observance of religious practices and his objections to prayers for an army's success. Hapgood weighs these ideas in a conversational, sometimes argumentative voice. Readers interested in travel writing or Russian social history will find a visitor's close attention to everyday arrangements alongside her effort to understand people through their language and customs.