Nikolai Aleksandrovich Leykin was a once-famous St. Petersburg humorist, journalist, and publisher. His popularity was colossal: the poet Alexander Blok called the late 19th century 'the era of Alexander III and the writer Leykin.' Leykin began publishing in the 1860s, attracting attention with his essays on merchant life. Beginning in the early 1870s, he became a regular contributor to the Petersburg newspaper, where he contributed short skits almost daily. By 1882, Leykin was publishing his own magazine, the humorous weekly Oskolki (Fragments), where he recruited the young Anton Chekhov, discovering his talent (Chekhov would later call Leykin his literary 'godfather'). The book Our People Abroad is one of Leykin's most famous works; during the author's lifetime alone, it went through 24 editions! This is a humorous story about the journey of merchant Nikolai Ivanovich Ivanov and his wife Glafira Semyonovna to France—to the famous World's Fair in Paris, for which the Eiffel Tower was built. Along the way, the heroes encounter amusing adventures and all sorts of misunderstandings. Leykin's gentle humor about his compatriots who set out to see the world and show off remains relevant today.