Russian wandering

In the history of Russian Orthodox religion the tradition of wandering (Russian: странничество, strannichestvo) was a special way of life, a form of piety, devotion, and the search of God, which consisted in rejecting the earthly ways of life.

The major distinction is that pilgrimage has a finite goal: a visit of some holy place, while strannichectvo is the wandering way of life.

Some pilgrims carried out pilgrimage into several places spending a considerable part of their life for this.

[2] Unlike European mendicant orders, Russian stranniks were ordinary people, rather than monks.

The main difference is that for a strannik peregrination is a spiritual value, while for a vagrant or a travelling beggar it is an inevitable hapless state due to overwhelming circumstances.