embarked upon an extensive journey through the Russian provinces where he met many people, notably religious cults leaders. He stayed for some time in Chudovo village where Uspensky lived, and both men spent many sleepless nights discussing things like "life's religious meaning," "a common man's cosmic vision" and "the power of the land." At the time he was seriously considering leaving the capital to settle down in some far-out country place and become a teacher. Another big influence was Mikhaylovsky, who introduced the young man to the staff of Severny Vestnik, a literary magazine he founded with Davydova. Here Merezhkovsky met Vladimir Korolenko and Vsevolod Garshin, and later Nikolai Minsky, Konstantin Balmont and Fyodor Sologub: the future leaders of the Russian Symbolism movement. Merezhkovsky's first article for the magazine, "A Peasant in the French literature", upset his mentor: Mikhaylovsky spotted in his young protégé the "penchant for mysticism," something he himself was averse to. In the early 1888 Merezhkovsky graduated from the University and embarked upon a tour through southern Russia, starting in Odessa. In Borjomi he met 19-year-old poet Zinaida Gippius. The two fell in love and on January 18, 1889, married in Tiflis, making arguably the most prolific and influential couple in the history of Russian literature. Soon husband and wife moved into their new Saint Petersburg house, Merezkovsky's mother's wedding present. Late 1880s to early 1890s Merezhkovsky's major literary debut came with the publication of Poems (1883–1888). It brought the author into the focus of the most favourable critical attention, but – even coupled with Protopop Avvacum, a poetry epic released the same year, could not solve young family's financial problems. Helpfully, Gippius unexpectedly reinvented herself as a prolific fiction writer, starting to churn out novels and novelettes she couldn't later even remember the titles of. Sergey Merezhkovsky's occasional hand-outs also helped the husband and wife to keep their meagre budget afloat. Having by this time lost interest in poetry, Dmitry Merezhkovsky developed a strong affinity to Greek drama and published translations of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in Vestnik Evropy. These and some of his later translations from Ancient Greek (like prose version of Daphnis and Chloe, 1896), almost unnoticed by the contemporary critics, later came to be regarded (according to biographer Yuri Zobnin) "the pride of the Russian school of classical translation." In the late 1880s Merezhkovsky debuted as a literary critic with an essay on