[1] Natalya Armfeldt abandoned her studies in 1874, to join the movement among idealistic Russian students and graduates to leave the cities and 'go to the people' to learn about and try to improve the lives of the peasants.
Natalya Armfeldt was deported to the Kara katorga in eastern Siberia, close to the Chinese border, where she was among dozens of political prisoners forced to work in privately owned mines, in harsh conditions.
[1] In November 1885, the American explorer George Kennan visited Kara, bringing a letter of introduction to Armfeldt from a Russian who knew the family and had told him where the two women were living.
"[3] Her mother was "a worn, broken woman...with soft grey hair and a face refined, gentle, intelligent but deeply lined by care and grief.
But when Kennan met Leo Tolstoy and described the conditions under which Armfeldt and other exiles were living, the novelist showed little sympathy, complaining that the revolutionaries had resorted to violence.