Or European nobility in general, I suppose. Those French and English-speaking characters appear in Tolstoy and other authors too, but it's true they're more dominant here. Might just be a coincidence that so many of the major characters are internationally oriented and the more Russian ones - like Bazarov's mother - have limited roles?

The book did seem Russian enough to me, but then I haven't read much to compare with, and I'm not used to things like their naming system, their measuring units, the reverence for Pushkin, and the like. And I don't know to what extent one might have found Anglophiles, Germanophiles, Francophiles *and* Slavophiles in the same country elsewhere in Europe - not in France or England, for sure, they were less influenced by foreigners there surely.