Pietukh's estate is the setting of an unplanned visit that turns a mistaken arrival into an overnight stay and a vivid encounter with communal life. Its hospitality is generous but decisive: the host redirects Chichikov’s journey, and a springtime boating excursion culminates in contrasting responses to the songs of the rowers and the Russian landscape.

Arrival and Welcome

Chichikov expects to have reached Colonel Koshkarev’s house, but the man who greets him corrects him: this is the home of Peter Petrovich Pietukh. The estate is therefore introduced through a mistaken destination, not a planned call. Pietukh rejects the idea that the arrival is simply an error and invites Chichikov inside, promising dinner as the reason the detour will prove worthwhile.

The welcome extends to Chichikov’s attendants. Pietukh sends Selifan and Petrushka to the kitchen for vodka, then directs them to stable the horses and go to the servants’ quarters. He introduces his two sons, home from secondary school, and asks one to entertain the visitor while he takes the other with him. The household’s hospitality is organized and immediate, turning a stranger’s confusion into an occasion for hosting.

An Overnight Stay

Later, Chichikov and Platon are ready to leave, but Pietukh has already had the wheels removed from Chichikov’s carriage and sent Platon’s horse to graze fifteen versts away. With their means of departure unavailable, the guests have no practical choice but to stay the night. The episode gives Pietukh’s hospitality a forceful, comic edge: he welcomes visitors by making their departure impossible until morning.

Boating on the River

Pietukh fills the evening with a boating excursion. A dozen rowers, working a dozen pairs of oars, carry the party across the lake and up a broad river between high banks. Fishing lines stretched across the water interrupt the route, while each turn of the current opens another view of wooded slopes and varied foliage. The skiff seems to glide forward almost by itself, and the rowers’ coordinated labor shapes the scene as much as the landscape does.

A broad-shouldered young oarsman begins a boat song; several others join until the melody swells into a chorus. Pietukh joins in lustily, and Chichikov feels acutely conscious of being Russian. The excursion thus makes shared song a moment of collective feeling rather than mere entertainment, carried by the movement of the boat and the voices of its rowers.

Return and Contrasting Responses

The party returns at dusk. Along the shore, lights mark the fishermen boiling eels for soup; cattle and poultry have been put away, and herdsmen wait by the village pens. The sounds of people and dogs carry across the countryside as the moon rises and the dark landscape begins to brighten again. The narration presents this evening scene as a picture of striking beauty, but the guests do not respond alike: Chichikov has felt the force of communal song, while Platon finds the songs melancholy and says they deepen his depression.

Narrative Significance

The estate episode joins hospitality, constraint, and fellowship in a single detour. Pietukh’s household welcomes Chichikov generously, yet its host also determines when the visitors can leave; the excursion then shifts attention from private plans to a landscape animated by work, village life, and music. Chichikov’s sudden sense of national belonging and Platon’s gloom leave the same scene unresolved between exhilaration and melancholy.