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The papers consist of manuscripts, photographs, and printed materials. Among the manuscripts are his typescript memoirs entitled "Vstrechi na zhiznennom puti" (53 pp.), which discuss his youth, student days in the history faculty of Moscow University, his work in the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party, and the 1917 Revolution; and manuscripts of articles, some concerning the emigre monarchist movement. There are four photographs of Efimovskiĭ. Printed materials include offprints of his articles.

The bound memoirs "Russian Experience 1910-1917" discuss Michael's adventures in Russia in 1910-1917. In 1910 he was hired by the Bessarabian provincial zemstvo to help landlords and peasants in that province improve their corn yields; he stayed there until 1916, when he returned to the United States. The first half of the memoirs covers these years, including extensive commentary on Bessarabian peasants, gentry, zemstvo politics, and some information on World War I. In 1917 he returned on a mission to study the Russian grain trade. He sailed across the Pacific with the American Red Cross Mission, spent August in Petrograd, and then travelled around Russia's Black Sea ports in September-November. In early November, he returned to Petrograd, and finally left Russia by the Trans-Siberian railroad in December. While the first half of these memoirs includes much first-hand information, the second half, on 1917, is more derivative in nature.

The papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, and printed materials. Correspondence includes 82 letters from Maksim Kovalevskiĭ to the mathematician Sofii︠a︡ Kovalevskai︠a︡; 69 letters from Petr Lavrov to Kovalevskiĭ; and letters to Kovalevskiĭ from Anton Chekhov (typed copies), Nikolaĭ Mikhaĭlovskiĭ, Pavel Mili︠u︡kov, Petr Struve, and Ivan Turgenev (typed copy). Manuscripts consist of Kovalevskiĭ's handwritten memoirs, with a typed copy and some printed excerpts. Documents consist of Kovalevskiĭ's diplomas from the University of Berlin (1873), the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences (1899), and the Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria (1901).