Nelka wrote from St. Petersburg in 1905:
"Baroness Ixkull seems an awfully clever, energetic and altogether charming person. I think although the Bakhmeteffs highly approve, they are afraid she is just on the edge of being a little 'advanced,' which to such arch conservatives as they, seems all wrong. The extremes are very great. You see Pletnioff is somewhat liberal, but nothing in the sense that the word is used abroad and Mr. Bakhmeteff is for the strictest adherence to middle age regime. Between the two I must find the just milieu. Anyway everyone is in a certain sense conservative just now. For the moment I can only tell you of my delight at being here. I suppose the Constitution had to come but surely autocracy is the only ideal Government and I am sorry that the nation was not equal to it."
Here we see this very distinct adherence to the principles of the Russian government of the autocratic regime, the adherence to which seemed only natural and acceptable to Nelka in her idea of a patriotic Russian.
St. Petersburg 1905.
"Tomorrow it will be one week that I am in the hospital and I am getting quite accustomed to it. It is certainly a very complete change of habits in every way, but the essentials are all right. Over and above everything is the joy of at last being able to do, if only a little, for the poor soldiers who have suffered so much and who are so good and patient. I shall never cease to regret that I did not get here at the beginning of the war. This is a perfectly beautiful hospital, quite large and everything perfect. The soldiers are so well provided for that I should think that some of them would almost hate to leave; but oh, Poodie, it is so terrible to see them, many so young, without arms or legs and one whose head was almost blown off, so grateful to have a new glass eye put in him the other day. Soon they are going to make him a nose. On Thursday there was the opening of a new ward and the service and benediction were very impressive. The Queen of Greece came and I was presented to her."
"There are four sisters in a room but the rooms are large with two big windows and they are very nice. Sister Belskaya speaks every language and has helped me a great deal. I am managing to get on somehow with Russian but the other night when I had a conversation with a Sister Swetlova on subjects that were not absolutely elementary it was awfully funny. While the ward is being settled, 5 of us are being sent to the big city hospital where all the sisters have been for a time to learn all kinds of things, but it is to be, I think, only for a few days. O, Poodie, I cannot describe it to you. The hospital itself is all right enough, but the poor people! There are 3,000 there. We are in the surgical section for women. It is very various and valuable experience as you learn everything in a short while, but I would not care to prolong it."
During the summer of 1906 Nelka went with some of the wounded to Finland where the convalescents were sent to recuperate in the country. She was then in her second year working with the wounded and was hoping to be able to return to America before too long.
Politics were very much of importance at that time in Russia which had just emerged from an attempted revolution and certain political changes had taken place. A new parliamentary system had been formed but did not last and was breaking up. Nelka wrote in 1906 from Finland:
"I cannot say what a feeling of relief and thankfulness I had when the Duma (Parliament) was dispersed. I cannot see that any solution is anywhere in view. No one seems to have the least assurance of what will happen. I feel so stirred up I really almost wish I was a man and could enter into the question and do something."
"Poodie, Poodie, do you realize that I am almost an old lady of 28. It seems so funny for that is really honorable—60 is young beside it. I wish you could see the sky here. Such sunsets I have never seen—every day different and the colors on the lake unimaginable. I simply go flying to the roof, I don't know how many times and look and look and look."