In a letter to a Moscow magazine, Aleksey Khomyakov recorded his impressions of Victorian England gathered on a visit in 1847. He acknowledged that the English could seem standoffish, but he had found them generous and helpful, and if they felt no need to venerate foreigners, unlike their Continental neighbours they also felt no wish to improve or impress them.

After acquitting the English of bad manners, Khomyakov reminded his Russian readers of the good that England had done in the world. The English were a commercial people, but they had used wealth for global philanthropy, they had taken the lead in abolishing slavery, and like Russia, but unlike some other European lands, they had remained a Christian nation.

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