Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov

This chapter focuses on the author's grandfather, Stepan Mikhailovich Bagrov. While living in the province of Simbirsk, on the ancestral estate granted to his forefathers by the Muscovite tsars, Stepan Mikhailovich began to feel cramped. For some time he had been hearing about life in the district of Ufa—about the endless amount of land, its fertility, the wide-open spaces, the indescribable abundance of game, fish, and all the fruits of the earth, and how easy it was to acquire large tracts of land for almost no money. Stepan Mikhailovich believed that he could relocate half of his inherited serfs and move there with his family. Scraping together several thousand rubles, he set off to cross the Volga River on his way to the district of Ufa. The chapter then describes the Orenburg province, whose original and patriarchal inhabitants and proprietors are the peaceful and quiet, nomadic Bashkir tribes. It recounts how, following Stepan Mikhailovich's example, resettlement in Ufa or Orenburg began to increase with every year. Finally, the chapter details Stepan Mikhailovich's good day.