 Leading "new realists" include Ilja Stogoff, Zakhar Prilepin, Alexander Karasyov, Arkady Babchenko, Vladimir Lorchenkov and Alexander Snegiryov.Scottish poet Robert Burns became a ‘people’s poet’ in Russia.In Imperial times the Russian aristocracy were so out of touch with the peasantry that Burns, translated into Russian, became a symbol for the ordinary Russian people.