One of the reasons to leave Russia’s cities is that it allows one to see a more authentic side of the country. But what counts as authentic has gotten complicated lately, as rural Russia appears racked with nostalgia for the pre-Soviet era.

The state emblem of the hammer and sickle has been replaced by the czar-era double-headed eagle (on pediments of buildings, the iron gates to government compounds, the flags that government cars sometimes fly), and the rich of Russia are building summer homes that look like 19th-century wooden dachas, with their filigreed carvings and sloping eaves.

The Eco Farm had some of that aesthetic, but in the spirit of contemporary Russia — where more is more — it also had a polo field, a stocked pond for fishing, and its own cows so that one can have fresh milk as if one were on a country estate in a Chekhov play. Those looking for authenticity might find their heads spinning.

The woman who took my wife and me into the woods, an employee of the hotel, was wearing tight white jeans and high heels. As she walked, she kept apologizing for the fact that it hadn’t rained and so there wouldn’t be many mushrooms. She was right: we only found puffballs, which Russians call “the devil’s tobacco.”

In the absence of other bounty, we did collect, through our guide’s chatter, strange superstitions: Among the reasons people prefer to come from Moscow to sleep in wooden dachas is that sleep in a wooden building is much more restful than in an ordinary house; five hours of sleep in a wooden house is worth eight in an ordinary one; if one has a country home, one should not leave furniture out at night, because moonlight ruins furniture.

Our next hunt was in Yaroslavl, in the Golden Ring, about four hours northeast of Moscow, an ancient city, which, during the 1600s, was the de facto capital of Russia. But again, we came up empty. Wandering among trees, we kicked up plumes of dust, and our potbellied guide smoked cigarettes and made jokes about the various poisonous varieties that we spotted. “This one is for someone you dislike,” he said, and “that one is for someone you hate.”

We backtracked south to an area near Suzdal, a small thousand-year-old town that through various tricks of fate was left alone by both the Soviets and the industrialization of the 19th century. The town is so beautiful and well preserved that directors shoot historical movies in its streets. There are 54 churches and five monasteries for a population of 12,000.