Albert Bechtold lived with Russia in its “fateful moments”: the beginning of the First World War, the turbulent time of the Russian Revolution. The autobiographical novel “Peter Ivanovich” tells about these years (1913–1918). Its main character, Peter Rebman, is the alter ego of the writer himself. He visits Kyiv, Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk, Bryansk, Crimea, and lives in Moscow for a long time. The novel offers a rare opportunity to look at well-known events through the eyes of an unbiased eyewitness who eagerly learned about Russia and tried to unravel its historical destinies in his own way. Like all of A. Bechtold’s work, this book is a very personal testimony, in which there is almost no fiction. The novel helps the reader not only get to know Russia better during the revolutionary era, but also look into the soul of a young Swiss man who is comprehending his blood connection with his native land and the difficult relationship with his new homeland.