Both born and raised in Australia, Jennifer Chater and Nathan Toohey met in 1990 while studying Russian at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. After making several trips to Russia as students and tourists, the pair finally decided to move to St. Petersburg and buy a dirt-cheap apartment in 1998. Russia's financial crisis of that year prompted their 1999 move to prosperous Moscow, where they have lived ever since, making frequent trips back to the northern capital.

In the past decade they have worked mostly at Moscow's only English-language daily newspaper, The Moscow Times, covering everything from real estate to restaurants. They have also created several newspaper-affiliated publications, including a monthly entertainment magazine, a dining-guide series, and a photojournalism album. More recently they joined Moscow's English-language weekly, The Moscow News.

Jennifer and Nathan travel extensively around Russia for both work and play, camping at Lake Baikal in Siberia, hiking in the Caucasus Mountains around Dombay, swimming in the Black Sea in Sochi and Anapa, and exploring the many fascinating cities and towns closer to home. Still, they find practically nothing more enjoyable than discovering and rediscovering little-known corners of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Nothing more, that is, than acquainting their readers with these very same discoveries.