Minneapolis–Saint Paul Grand Excursion, a trip into the Upper Midwest sponsored by the Rock Island Railroad, brought more than a thousand curious travelers into the area by rail and steamboat in 1854. The next year, in 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published "The Song of Hiawatha", an epic poem based on the Ojibwe legends of Hiawatha. A number of natural area landmarks were included in the story, such as Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Falls. Tourists inspired by the coverage of the Grand Excursion in eastern newspapers and those who read Longfellow's story flocked to the area in the following decades. At one time,
The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the Young Oprichnik, and the Valorous Merchant Kalashnikov (Russian: Песня про царя Ивана Васильевича, молодого опричника и удалого купца Калашникова), often abbreviated as "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov", is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov written in 1837 and first published in 1838. The plot of the poem is set during Oprichnina times. Rhythmically, "Kalashnikov" is patterned after "bylina", the Russian folk epic. Its most famous scene describes a fistfight between the protagonists, Kalashnikov and oprichnik Kiribeevich. The first scene of the poem describes a banquet at the