Mud and stars

"With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides-Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Turgenev, among others-Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Bypassing major cities as much as possible, she goes instead to the places associated with the country's literary masters"--Jacket flap.