"When I think of Russia, I picture to myself what I have read in Turgenev and in my friend Maurice Baring

"When I think of Russia, I picture to myself what I have read in Turgenev and in my friend Maurice Baring. I picture a country where the winters are so long, and the summer is sultry and bright; where expanses of carelessly tilled fields stretch far and wide; where village streets are broad and muddy, and the wooden houses are painted in motley colours; where there are many peasants, carefree and devout, cheerful and patient; where there are many icons and bearded priests, where deserted, wretched roads run on across endless plains and through dark pine forests. I do not know, perhaps it is all not so; I should like to know whether it is"

H. G. Wells on Russia, in the preface to the first Russian edition of his collected works, 1908