Pushkin in English

Idea for a writer's retreat: a Russian manor house, hundreds of miles from the bright lights of St Petersburg or Moscow. You can only get there by horse. Don't go in spring or autumn: the road's nothing but mud then. You might do the trip in three or four days in summer, or, even better, by sledge in winter, when the frost has hardened the ruts and the snow has smoothed the way. It's a lovely wooden building, not big by the standards of the gentry, one or perhaps two storeys, with a slightly too grand colonnaded portico over the door. It has a bath-house, perhaps a small formal garden, an orchard, a summerhouse. There's a river nearby, or possibly a lake, ideal for a swim first thing. There are woods of oak and birch, and water meadows. The floors are oak. A handful of rooms are heated by wood-burning stoves, and it's sparsely furnished. There aren't many distractions: no internet, television, computers, phones, radio, electricity. It's the early 19th century, after all.