- Nabokov discusses the different family estates in the country outside St. Petersburg. The center one is Vyra, his own family's home, while his mother's brother's estate is on one side, and his grandmother's is on the other.
- There are other family estates nearby, but further out.
- Nabokov's grandmother lives in the Batovo estate, which came into the family in 1805.
- It was at Batovo that Pushkin (that famous Russian writer) had one of 29 duels. Duels were just how peeps handled things back in the day. (Need a quick breather from all this family history? Take a gander at this very important duel.)
- Pushkin won the duel at Batovo, and Nabokov takes this in as romantic—here on this family land, something historic happened.
- Rozhestveno, his uncle's estate, sits down the road and across a bridge.
- A Russian prince owned the estate prior to the Nabokovs, and Nabokov remembers its vibe well: "I particularly remember the cool and sonorous quality of the place, the checkerboard flagstones of the hall, ten porcelain cats on a shelf, a sarcophagus and an organ, the skylights and the upper galleries, the colored dusk of mysterious rooms, and carnations and crucifixes everywhere." (3.2.6)