…Hey, troika! bird-like troika, who chanced to think you up? it seems by one and only spry nation could you been born, in that land that doesn’t dabble but spread out flat-and-even on half of the world – and let you keep counting verst-posts until you are bedazzled. Yet it isn't a complicated vehicle on the face of it, clamped not with an iron bolt, - anyhow hastily, only with an axe and a chisel, it is equipped and made by a shrewd Yaroslavl fellow. Not in German jackboots is a coachman - just a beard and mittens, and the devil only knows what he is sitting on, still would he half-rise, and crack a whip, and strike up a song – and there is a whirlwind of horses, and spokes of wheels mingle into smooth circles, vibrates the road and cries out a stopped from fright passer-by, – and now, on the spur of the moment, it is flying, flying, flying!.. And right away something raising dust and drilling air is seen in the distance.