From Velsk and Pudozh to Yaransk and Urzhum... The third book of essays by Mikhail Baru is dedicated to places where a traveler eager for famous sights and popular destinations is unlikely to find himself. However, each of these cities, like people, has its own unique biography and its own unique character. The sharp and tragic turns of Russian history are interspersed with funny curiosities, private destinies are intertwined with public ones, and grief coexists with hope. Describing them with subtle irony and at the same time tenderness, Baru helps to discern in the history of provincial cities something very important both for their residents and for those who have never been to these places. Mikhail Baru is a poet, prose writer, translator, chemical engineer, author of the books “Unprintable Gingerbread” and “The Tablecloth of the Queen of England,” published by the New Literary Review publishing house.