The women joining their husbands could serve as a survival stategy for the women. If you were a member of a family of the intelligentsia, and your husband was a

The women joining their husbands could serve as a survival stategy for the women. If you were a member of a family of the intelligentsia, and your husband was arrested, it was likely just a matter of time before they arrested you, too. Leaving Moscow or Saint-Petersburg for that kind of voluntary internal exile was thus a way for women to escape the notice of the authorities and keep their own records clean.