text:  These walks (it should be remarked that a taste for walking is much more rare among the Russians than in England from the severity and extreme changes in the climate of the North the heat in summer rendering such exercise much more laborious than with us and the cold in winter necessitating the use of the heavy shuba of fur)--these walks were Pushkin's principal amusement if we except bathing an exercise which the poet would frequently continue far into autumn--a season when the weather in Russia is frequently very severe