The two volumes consist of 38 short stories and travel sketches describing Russians and parts of the Soviet Union which up to Kazakov's time (he died in 1982) had been almost untouched by that country's 20th century upheavals. The majority of his settings are the coast and forests adjoining the White Sea, peopled by hunters, fishermen, buoy-keepers, ancient peasants, children in the most halcyon moment of their youth, and among his memorable actors are not excluded even an occasional soul-full dog or bear. Through the eyes of this new array of 'Russian originals' we return to forgotten ways...

In this second volume Kazakov presents more of his engaging character-cameos and North Russian scenic compositions. His pristine settings are once again living presences described with the touch of a 'psychologist of nature', to quote one of his admirers, the poet Andrei Voznesensky. This was a region whose inhabitants as late as the second half of the 20th century were still largely unaffected by the complexities of modernity, folk for whom the great world was the primordial one of their surroundings: an immediately-sensed universe extending from the near, and at first glance ordinary,...