The writer who links the Petersburg or Severnyi Vestnik group with Moscow is Konstantin Bal′mont. Born on his father's estate in the province of Vladimir, resident in Moscow in the 1890s but welcome contributor to Severnyi Vestnik from 1893 onward, Bal′mont published his first collection in Vladimir and the next two (all at his own expense, as did most of the early Symbolists) in St Petersburg; he lived in Moscow from 1886 and was associated closely with Briusov from 1894 onwards.

Most exotic of all the Russian Symbolists, polyglot and much travelled, Bal′mont was yet the first to have deep roots in the Russian countryside. His father, Dmitrii Konstantinovich, served briefly in the navy and then, well on into the twentieth century, in local government. He appears to have been somewhat under the thumb of his wife, Vera Nikolaevna, a general's daughter, who was, according to their son, ‘a clever and exceptional woman who had the most profound influence on my poetic life […] who introduced me to the world of music, literature, history and languages’. Both parents were full of good works, Vera Nikolaevna devoting much time to teaching and healing the peasants on their small estate, Dmitrii Konstantinovich doing what he could to combat illiteracy and injustice at the level of the Zemstvo, the organ of local government.