In 1902, one Henry Norman (MP) published a book entitled All the Russias: Travels and Studies in Contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia – the result, he claimed, of some fifteen years' interest in Russian affairs, and four journeys in European and Asian Russia. ‘Russia!’ he wrote: ‘What a flock of thoughts take wing as the word strikes the ear! Does any word in any language, except the dear name of one's own land, mean as much today?’

‘What is Russia?’ Norman asked, in the introduction to his book: is it the Tsar, Orthodoxy, St. Petersburg, ‘the vast and nearly roadless country’, Siberia, Central Asia? It was, of course, all of those things. And in the end, Norman concluded with the intriguing assertion that ‘it would be easier to say what is not Russia … In world affairs, wherever you turn you see Russia; wherever you listen you hear her. She moves in every path, she is mining in every claim. The “creeping murmur” of the world is her footfall – the “poring dark” is her veil. To the challenge of the nations, as they peer from their borders, comes the ever-same reply: “Who goes there?