"In their entertainment the landlords often equalised with peasants; altogether they hunted foxes and hares with traps, we read in the book "Russky byt po vospominaniyam sovremennikov" ("Russian Every-day Life in the Memoirs of Contemporaries"). - Armed with the sharpened staves the landlord and his brave villains went for wolves and bears".
   "But along with these entertainment I never abandoned my best and beloved busines, , - writes À.Ò. Bolotov, - I customarily went on either reading, or writing, or drew, or at least painted. The last I experienced the most: this autumn and many of the oil paintings, now kept in my house, were executed at that period".