The opening shot of the episode shows the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Cathedral of the Archangel in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.

During the train ride through Russia, Indy asks his father about the Cossacks. Cossacks are members of various ethnic groups living in the Great Eurasian Steppe, mostly within the regions of modern day southern Russia and the Ukraine. The information Miss Seymour provides about the Tsar using Cossacks as police is true. The Tsar of Russia at this time was Nicholas II.

As the Jones' train pulls in at a Russian station, the train's fuel car has SE&CR painted on the side, indicating it was once part of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway of the southeast of England. This appears to be the same car that appeared in "Passion for Life", set in Paris.

The Jones' have been invited to Russia by the Akhmatovs, old friends of Henry, Sr.'s, for their daughter's wedding.

Apparently, the Jones' made some earlier stops in St. Petersburg, where Indy got in trouble for painting a pig purple and in Murmansk, where he somehow cajoled a moose into an outhouse. Indy claims to his mother there were excuses for both of those incidents, but it seems he may be in the habit of lying to cover up his misadventures because he tries to claim that the chandelier that fell onto the wedding cake minutes earlier had something to do with a bat that got into the room, but we saw no bat, just Indy's run of clumsiness.

Indy runs away from his parents, planning to find a way to return to New Jersey. On the road, he meets the elderly Lev (Leo) Tolstoy, who is also running away from his family. Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian writer, considered one of the greatest writers of all time.

Indy tells Tolstoy he misses his dog, Indiana, whom he hasn't seen in over a year because he's been travelling with his family. Actually, it's more like 2 years at this point.

Indy refers to his dog as a she here, but in most other instances the dog is referred to as male. As stated in the study of "My First Adventure", PopApostle will assume the Jones dog is a male since there are more references to it that way. 

The Bible Tolstoy sets down at 14:31 on the DVD is not the same one Indy picks up and holds in his hands seconds later! Notice the different design of the cross and the gilt work on the cover.

    Indy shows Tolstoy his prize possession, a Christy Mathewson baseball card. This must have become his prized possession after he gave the card of his favorite player, Ty Cobb, to his new friend, Krishnamurti, in "Journey of Radiance".

   Indy quotes Mathewson's stats with the New York Giants as 37 and 11 for "last year". He is quoting the stats for 1908, but it is supposed to 1910 now. It could be that Indy is not up on the latest stats though, having been outside of the U.S. for the past two years and he may be a bit mixed up on dates what with his constant family travels in that time.

Telling Tolstoy he wants to get back to the United States, Indy says he might stow away aboard a boat across the Bering Strait. The Bering Strait is a stretch of the Pacific Ocean which separates Russia and the United States (Alaska) near the Arctic Circle. At the strait's minimum point of width, only 52 miles of water separate the two countries.

Not recognizing Tolstoy's name, Indy wonders why the villagers all love Tolstoy so much and Tolstoy tells him he's known for having written some books a long time ago, adding, "They weren't very good." He's speaking largely of his classic novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). It's true that late in his life, Tolstoy came to be ashamed of his most famous works due to his new-found religious convictions.

When the police find Tolstoy in the village, they call him Count Tolstoy. He was, in fact, a count, having been born to an aristocratic Russian family.

Tolstoy tells Indy they can head for Shapkino, where they can board a train for free due to the author's fame. Shapkino is a village about 60 miles from Moscow.

As Indy and Tolstoy continue their trek across the land, eluding pursuit by Cossacks, they stop to play a quick two-man game of baseball. Indy narrates the game himself as if he were a radio sportscaster, referring to Tolstoy as the player (Ty) Cobb and himself as Mathewson.

Though he considered himself a Christian, Tolstoy came to disdain the churches of organized religion, just he as speaks of to Indy here.

The train Indy and Tolstoy spot at 36:20 on the DVD is engine 423094, which is now in the Czech Railway Museum at Lužná, Czech Republic.

Near the end of the episode, Indy convinces Tolstoy to go back to his home, as the trek away from his family has been too hard on the old man. This episode seems to take place around Spring 1910. In the real world, Tolstoy ran away from his family's home in November 1910 and died of pneumonia at Astapovo railway station, a day's train ride away. The station's name was changed to Lev Tolstoy in his honor in 1932.

At the end of the episode, we see that Indy and Tolstoy traded their most prized possessions with each other. Indy got Tolstoy's aged Bible and the great writer got Indy's cigar box of baseball cards.

When Miss Seymour is feeling sick as the Jones' begin their train ride through Russia for Henry, Sr.'s next speaking engagement in Athens, Anna suggests maybe they should stop in Odessa to see a doctor. Odessa is a city in Ukraine.

The Moscow train station seen here was actually at the Prague Main Railway Station in Prague, Czech Republic, where much of The Young Indiana Chronicles was shot.

Memorable Dialog

not rampaging barbarians.mp3

the pig you painted purple.mp3

have you shot at dawn.mp3

that explains it.mp3

you think only little boys are driven crazy by their families?.mp3

like a wart on a frog's behind.mp3

your dad's an imbecile.mp3

too bad you wasted all those years writing.mp3

they diminish God by claiming to speak for Him.mp3

see God through your own eyes.mp3

worried sick.mp3