Serf ownership was abolished in 1861 and Csar Alexander II took over the rule of Russia. False hope flickered accrossed every eye and the crippled society, including one-year-old Anton Checkhov's family. Living in a merchantile city off an extension of the Black Sea, times were and had been rough for at least 80% of Russia's population, suffering debts owed to their masters. Times would only sink further after Pavel, Anton's father, went bankrupt because of debts to try and move to a better street. To escape prison, Pavel fled the family to Moscow where part of his family lived. Anton stayed in Taganrog to begin tutoring. In 1879, he passed his university entrance examination and went to Moscow to live with his parents. The slummed basements is what the Checkhov's called home, but Anton never gave into the dark depression such conditions reek. To escape his his reality, Anton inspired many with his imaginative stories. He enjoyed visiting his grand father where he learned of the milieu of the Landowners' country houses, often present in the contents of his palys. The setting to his imagination was always Russia and it never escalated pass that. Anton felt that the peasants were the "true Russia." He traveled many times out of the Russian lines, but he only wrote about Russia, Russians, and Russian life. He wrote about what he related to and what he understood, making him an author of the twenthieth century.