YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

A COURT BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG. [See page 10.

THE

TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE

OR

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA

"ITUustrateo

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1891

Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers,
All rights reserved-

>,v-v:^

CONTENTS.

PAGE
SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA  i
THROUGH THE CAUCASUS-—  101
PALATIAL PETERSBURG  151
THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD  201
HOLY MOSCOW  245
THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART  291
MODERN RUSSIAN ART  341
RUSSIAN BRONZES  393
A RUSSIAN VILLAGE  417

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.
By the Vicomte EUGENE MELCHIOR DE VOGUE.

V*X\-

IN order to understand the social structure of Russia we
must imagine to ourselves a Gothic cathedral. The vis
itor who enters the nave is struck first of all by an inexpli
cable disproportion between the heaviness of the colossus and
the frail elegance of its visible anatomy. Arches with fine
mouldings, sustained by slender columns, are the only appar
ent supports of the enormous mass of stone. All these sup
ports converge upward towards a common point, where they
abut, namely, towards the key-stone, which often takes the
form of a figure sculptured in relief. It seems to be sus
pended in space, and it nevertheless carries the whole weight
of the edifice. This central figure, from which everything
starts and to which everything converges, is the Tsar; the
arches and the columns are the aristocracy, which emanates
from him, and which alone stands out in relief on the thick
masonry behind this net-work of lace. We say the aristoc
racy, and not the nobility. In Russia the word "nobility"
corresponds with ideas considerably different from those
which it awakens in the West. It is not here an ancient
and closed caste ; it is a numerous class, open, and increased
each generation by the service of the state under all its forms.
It includes all the officers, and with few exceptions all the
minor functionaries and all the magistrates. In the country
i

2 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
districts there is nothing intermediate between the peasantry
and the nobility, which counts in its ranks all that in France
and in England would be called the upper and lower middle
classes. In the towns alone, in the rather .limited class of
the merchants, and in the still more limited group of the lib
eral professions, we might find something analogous to the
French bourgeoisie. Nevertheless we should have to take this
term in the sense which it had in our European towns in the
Middle Ages. The emancipation of serfs dealt a mortal blow
to the minor nobility. Such of its members as possessed only
a few acres of land and a few serfs, losing at the same time
a part of this land and the gratuitous labor of their emanci
pated serfs, had to sell their patrimony. They then migrated
towards the towns, demanded their living from the service of
the state, and established themselves in the bureaus of the
administration. The result is — if we may associate these
two words — a very numerous and a very miserable noble
proletariat. With the exception of a few historical families,
the greater part of this nobility has its origin in the tchine,
and is constantly augmented and renewed from this source.
The tchine is the uniform hierarchy, established by Peter the
Great to include all his servants in a vast mandarinate, where
the civilian, the military man, and the churchman are assimi
lated with equality of rank. This Jacob's ladder rises at the
beginning of life before all Russians of every condition, even
before those who have no condition at all. The great busi
ness of existence is to slowly climb the fourteen steps until
they reach that one from which death alone will dislodo-e
them. At two epochs in the year, when the Emperor dis
tributes his favors, on the first of the year and at Easter, you
may see during several days all the functionaries and officers
looking for their names among the thousands of others on
the closely printed lists which fill the third page of the news
papers, just as the Italians look for their numbers on the

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 3
lists of the drawings of the royal lottery. If the first of the
year and Easter do not bring to the exemplary functionary
a hoist up the ladder of the tchine, they will bring him the
cross, the plaque, or the cordon of one of the seven orders of
chivalry, which must be placed in mathematical progression,
according to the degrees of service, one above the other, on
persevering breasts. At the top of the hierarchy, on the
uppermost step, radiate a few highly favored by fortune, the
Field-Marshals and the Chancellor of the empire. On the
last of the fourteen steps the cornet and the student humbly
take position. After the sixth step, corresponding with the
rank of Colonel, hereditary nobility is acquired; while the
fourth step confers the much-desired title of General, both
in the civil and military order, with the qualification of " Ex
cellency." When one has not lived in Russia it is impossible
to conceive the prestige attached to this title of General, or
the facilities which it gives everywhere and for everything.
The man who is invested with it is separated from the com
mon run of mortals. He obeys the laws only so far as he
finds it convenient, and commands in everything, wherever
he may be. The common people obey him as if he were a
demi-god. To attain this dignity is the supreme ambition of
all the servants of the state. The common salutation, by
way of pleasantry among friends, is this verse from the com
edy of Griboiedof, which has become a proverb : " I wish you
health and the tchine of General." Nevertheless, the mere
fact of being a General, especially in civil order, does not
class a man in the aristocracy of Petersburg. For that, one
at least of the following conditions is necessary : brilliant
birth, an office at the court, service in the Guards, a reputa
tion for elegance, political influence, and finally, and above
all, the favor of the sovereign. You must be of the court or
approach the court easily. Two words borrowed from cur
rent language characterize the absorption of the empire (an

4 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
empire which covers the half of Europe and the half of Asia)
for the benefit of one man and of a privileged elite; Peters
burg, the capital of this empire, is called, in official style,
" The Residence." This term tells us plainly that the city
derives its importance not from the interests that are con
centrated there, but from the circumstance that the court
resides there. On the other hand, you will invariably hear
an individual, or a place judged with these words, "He is in
society; society goes or does not go to such a place." "So
ciety" means the two thousand five hundred persons who are
inscribed on the lists of the grand fetes of the court; the
rest of the world does not exist from the point of view of
representation. These short explanations were necessary in order to
mark the boundaries of the world whose exterior life we
wish to depict. To those who desire to study more deeply
its constitution and secrets we cannot do better than recom
mend the reading of the memoirs of Saint- Simon, who
described by anticipation the court of the Tsars when he
sketched with satirical pen the physiognomy and peculiari
ties of the court of Louis XIV. We find in the court of the
Tsars the absolute predominance of the military element,
with a special nuance, which is the fetichism of uniform com
municated a century ago by German military regime; the
disdain of the nobility of Versailles for the provincial nobil
ity ; the competitions and intrigues around the sovereign ;
the craze for imitating his tastes and manners — in short, all
the forms of that perpetual monomania which haunts the
soul of the courtier, namely, the desire to be distinguished
by the master.
And now let us beg the reader to try and form an idea
of the frame in which we are going to sketch a few scenes
of elegant life, as it were — those luminous images which the
electric-light projects for a moment on a white wall.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

II.
This framework is the immense polar region buried be
neath snow, vast horizons of plains of a crude white color — a
dead world, shining and brilliant like old Chinese porcelain.
The accidents of the land having neither form nor color, you
divine their existence vaguely, lost as they are beneath the
uniform shroud. This frozen world reminds one of the
Eastern desert, of which it has the silence, the solitude, and
the dazzling quality ; the only difference is that snow takes
the place of sand. For whole weeks together heavy flakes
of snow fall from the low sky, obscuring from view the near
est objects ; ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty degrees of
cold — a temperature which seems to exclude all manifesta
tions of life.
Suddenly before the train which has rolled the weary
traveller for many mortal days across this dreary and unva
ried landscape a capital arises : it is the Palmyra of the
North, heralded by the painted or gilded domes of its
churches. While the miserable sun of pale copper-color
shines for a few hours just above the horizon, let us get into
a sleigh, which glides rapidly over the noiseless carpet of the
streets. It carries us through business quarters, between
lofty houses with double windows, and crosses three lines of
canals connecting with the Neva. Here we are in the heart
of the city, on the Nevskoi Prospekt. The black trotting-
horses run at full speed, cross each other like flashes of
lightning, making the snow fly beneath their feet in fine
dust around the light ¦' egoists." This is the name given to
those light sleighs without any back to lean against, where
an officer and sometimes a young woman balance themselves,
their knees imprisoned beneath the rug of bear-skin. When

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

ON THE NEVSKOI PROSPEKT.

a couple ride in these
sleighs the man holds
the woman with a
graceful gesture, pass
ing his right arm
around her waist. On
the tiny seat an enor
mous coachman, with a long white beard, wrapped in his
long coat, a square cap of red or blue velvet on his head,
drives his trotters with pontifical majesty, his arms well
rounded, his elbows out, his hands taut. He controls the
animals by means of two reins no thicker than ribbons.
The whole harness, composed of a few leather thongs, is
scarcely visible. This gives to the horse a picturesque ele
gance ; it seems to run at liberty beneath the big wooden
arch that curves above his neck. Sometimes the sleigh is
harnessed with a "madman"; that is to say, a loose horse is

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

attached by a simple trace, who prances and curvets all alone
like a wild horse ; when a third is added it becomes the
"troika" — the classical team — where the shaft-horse trots
between his two companions, who are kept at a gallop all
the time. On both sides of the road more modest vehicles,
arranged in long rows, appeal to the humbler folks. These
are sleighs for hire. They are drawn by poor little ponies,
and driven by peasants crouched up in their touloupe of
sheepskin — farmers from the environs who come to the
capital to earn their living
with their farm-horses dur
ing the winter season. On
the sidewalks the crowd of
pedestrians hurry towards
the Gostiny D vor, the bazaar,
vaulted after the Oriental
fashion, where you perceive
beneath the arcades the low-
roofed shops of the gold
smiths and of the sellers of
holy images. A group of
mujiks have stopped in front
of a chapel all ablaze with
light; they are piously mak
ing the sign of the cross
and prostrating themselves on the ground before lighting
their candles before the silver-gilt image of the Madonna,
which we see shining in the midst of this glowing halo.
Let us continue our ride to the end of the Prospekt. We
round the building of the Admiralty, pass alongside the
Church of St. Isaac, remark as we pass the admirable
statue of Peter the Great, raised by the sculptor Falconet
on the bank of the river. The bronze Tsar is represented
on horseback ; with a gesture of sovereign will he causes

STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT.

8 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the town of his dream to rise at his command on this des
ert marsh where the elks used to wander. A few steps
farther and we reach the Quay. This is the marvel of
St. Petersburg — this dike of rose Finland granite which
stretches in a straight line over a length of more than three
miles, closing in the Neva, which is as broad at this spot as
an arm of the sea. The river is held captive beneath its
crust of ice. Foot-passengers and equipages cross it in
every direction. In the middle there is a crowd of sports
men around a ring, where a course has been traced for
horse-racing. Farther on some Laplanders have fixed their
home in a tent of skins, in front of which the children amuse
themselves by riding on the backs of reindeers. Opposite,
on the northern bank of the Neva, the Cathedral of St. Peter
and St. Paul rises above the bastions of the citadel. A flash
of light bursts from the twilight sky, and remains there mo
tionless, like a tongue of fire. It is the lofty and slender
golden point of the steeple. A ray of the invisible horizon
tal sun strikes it above the mist, in the clouds, and this
luminous sign indicates the burial-place of the Romanoffs,
the place where they all go to rest beside the Tsar who
founded their race. Farther on, the river divides into nu
merous branches, which run towards the sea through the
docks of Vassili-Ostroff, and the view is lost amid the masts
of the ships, fixed for long months in the spot where winter
has imprisoned them.
Let us proceed along the Court Quay. As we advance,
an uninterrupted series of palaces unfolds itself before our
eyes, those of the Grand-Dukes and those of the families of
mark. For some years past several of these families have
been obliged to give up their ancestral houses to new-comers
more favored by fortune, or to the great embassies ; but as
much as possible the fine people continue to reside on the
Quay, in order to be near the palace par excellence, the Win-

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 9
ter Palace. This colossal building, connected by a covered
bridge with the Palace of the Hermitage, seems to command
all the subject palaces around it, and to shelter them under
its wings. Built in rococo style by the architect Rastrelli
in the reign of Catherine, it has been often altered and en
larged in order to lodge multitudes of servitors of all ranks.
It is, a world in itself, like
the palace of the Sultan

' p

at Constantinople. The
resemblance is striking-,
and shows us the identity
of origin and manners be
tween the masters of the

THE COURT QUAY.

East and the masters of the North. One single fact will
give an idea of the luxury and disorder which formerly pre
vailed in the immense caravansary : when a severe revision
of the personnel and of the lodgings was made for the first
time after the fire which broke out in the reign of Nich
olas, several cows were found in the attics. These cows

IO THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
belonged to an old servant, who kept them for his own per
sonal use.
Let us stop at the Winter Palace. It is there that we
shall at once make acquaintance with Russian society on
one of the days when it has been invited to a grand court ball.

III.
In the morning the sergeants of the imperial household
have gone through the town with their lists to the houses of
the elect, who have been convoked for that evening. An
invitation to the court is an order given on the very day of
the fete. According to received etiquette, it liberates from
all anterior engagements with private persons ; it liberates
even from duties towards the dead, for mourning does not dis
pense one from the obligation to appear at a court ceremony,
and it must be laid aside when one enters the palace. A
woman is not allowed to present herself in black before the
sovereign, unless she is wearing mourning for one of the
sovereign's relatives. Dinner has been taken hastily, for the
ball opens at nine o'clock, and you must be there well before
the hour in the salons, where you wait for the arrival of the
Emperor. Hundreds of carriages fall in line and deposit at
the different entrances of the Winter Palace shapeless bundles
of furs, and then return to take their position on the square.
The coachmen, who pass a part of the night standing in the
snow, gather around large fires lighted in grates, which are
placed there for these occasions. It is a picturesque biv
ouac. They look like elves assembled in the darkness on
this field of ice to guard the enchanted palace where a magi
cian is calling up the sweetest visions in a mirage of spring.
The doors close behind the bundles of fur, and immedi
ately after they have entered the vestibule they are meta
morphosed by a touch of the magician's wand. The fairy

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. H
spectacle begins. The heavy cloaks fall from bare shoulders,
and beautiful butterflies issue from these chrysalides in the
midst of the rare flowers that cover the marble steps, and
in the mild air of a June atmosphere. A cortege reminding
one of the Arabian Nights mounts the staircases ; trains of
lace sweep over the porphyry steps ; diamonds and gems
shine in the glow of the lustres ; there is a brilliant array of
many -colored uniforms; sabres and spurs clank over the
floors. The guests defile between pickets of Chevalier
Guards, chosen from among the handsomest men in the
regiment — giants in armor, who stand as motionless as
statues. The company assembles in the White Room, in
the Salle du Trone.
Here in the front rank are considerable personages, the
old " portrait ladies," so called because they wear in their
corsage in a frame of brilliants a miniature of the Empress ;
severe guardians of ancient etiquette, living chronicles of
the court, they teach the traditions to the swarm of young
women over whom they keep watch, namely, the maids of
honor, who may be recognized by the monogram in dia
monds of the reigning Empress, which they wear buckled
with a knot of blue ribbon on the left shoulder. The cele
brated beauties of Petersburg are all there. They cross
the room with a picturesque indolency and pliancy in their
walk and bearing. There is something languid in their
manner, as though their looks and words were absently fol-
lowino- a long; dream that leads them to the extreme limits
of their interminable father-land. Among the men who
press around them we remark first of all some aged people
and high dignitaries, old servitors who have grown white
in the service of the court ever since the reign of Nicholas ;
aides-de-camp of his Majesty, ministers, ambassadors, and
chamberlains with the golden key on their backs ; and all
these worthy bosoms are bedecked with grand cordons and

I2 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
constellated with decorations which do not leave a square
inch of surface free on their breasts. Then come the young
officers ; most of them belong to the two crack regiments of
the Chevalier Guards and the Horse Guards. They carry
in <their hands a heavy helmet surmounted with a silver eagle
with open wings. Here beside them are Lancers in red jack
ets, Grodno Hussars in green, Cossacks draped in their long
tunics belted with cartridge cases in nielle silver. The Hus
sars of the Guard look peculiarly elegant in their short white
dolmans embroidered with gold and bordered with sable fur,
which hang loosely over their shoulders. In this crowd the
pages of the Empress move about discreetly, and finally the
servitors of the palace, the runners, with their hats with long
plumes of the time of Catherine, and negroes dressed in rich
Oriental costume. The gloomy note of the black dress-coat
is banished from this brilliant symphony of color. One sin
gle swallow-tail may be seen — that of the honorable minister
of the United States.
Nine o'clock. The doors of the private apartments of
the Winter Palace open. Immediately there is a deathly
silence. A voice announces, " The Emperor." The Tsar
advances, followed by all the members of his family, each one
in the rank assigned to him by his degree of relationship. If
you wish to comprehend at a glance the social secret of this
empire, turn your back to the door through which the sover
eign enters, and look at this entrance by reflection — if I may
so express myself — on the faces of those present. At the
same moment all these physiognomies put on, as it were, the
same uniform, the same solemn expression, at once grave and
smiling. The whole vital force of these men and women is
concentrated in their eyes, which seek those of the master.
We have never contemplated this spectacle without having
been reminded of the first appearance of the rays of the sun
on the crests of mountains at the instant when it rises. You

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. , ,
1 o
have no need to look behind you to know that the sun has
risen ; you are informed of it by this quivering light on the
opposite summits. In the same way, when you are a little
accustomed to the court, you have only to look at the faces
of the courtiers to be able to see, without possibility of mis
take, that the Emperor is about to come, that the Emperor
is coming, or that the Emperor has come. And his coming
is in reality a rising of the sun — of the sun which brings fa
vor and dispenses life to all these persons.
The first bars of the polonaise immediately re-echo
through the rooms. It is not a dance, but a cadenced march,
the traditional promenade which opens the ball. The Grand
Marshal and the Grand Mistress take the head of the proces
sion. Generally this venerable couple represent between
them pretty nearly two complete centuries. The Emperor
gives his hand to one of the Grand- Duchesses, the Empress
to one of the foreign ambassadors, and other couples form in
their suite and proceed around the room. After this obliga
tory ceremony the sovereign goes to chat with the diplomatic
corps or with his grand dignitaries, and the quadrilles and
waltzes begin; but the ball does not become really animated
until the mazurka, that dashing military and par excellence
national dance. The cavalier marks the rhythm of the music
by striking the floor with the heel of his spurred boot ; he
raises his partner in his arms like a trembling bird, dashes
across the room in three bounds, deposits his prey at the
other end, and falls on his knees before her.
The grand balls are the most imposing, but the more pri
vate balls, called " bals des palmiers," are perhaps more mag
nificent. Those who wish to see what old society was must
make haste to be present at a " bal des palmiers." There is
nothing in the other courts of Europe that can be compared
to this fairy-like scene. At one o'clock the Grand Marshal
opens the doors of a long gallery transformed into a tropical

!4 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
conservatory. On the boxes out of which spring palm-trees,
myrtles, and camellias in full bloom small tables of twelve
covers are placed sufficient for a supper for five hundred peo
ple. In the paths of this African forest, which is brought in
the morning from the imperial greenhouses on sleighs, the
picturesque crowd that we have above described form groups,
while the music plays, hidden behind the foliage. In this
realm of verdure all is joy for the eyes— the flowers on the
trees and on the women ; the bright colors ; the play of light
on the cloaks and the cuirasses, on the court dresses all stiff
with gold embroidery, on the flashing steel of the swords and
helmets, on the plaques of the orders of chivalry, and on the
rivers of diamonds — orders and diamonds such as you see
nowhere except in Russia.
This is a unique fete for the eyes, but it is still more so
for the philosophical observer. Nowhere else can be seen in
stronger relief the perpetual struggle of refined life against
this cruel climate — the caprice of the impossible which
caused Petersburg to be born, and which makes it live so
near^-the north pole. These ladies in low-necked dresses
who are lounging beneath these blooming camellias have
come over a road of ice through twenty degrees of cold.
Between the branches of the palm-trees we can see the
motionless river with its burden of equipages ; we can ' see
the carpet of snow which surrounds the palace; and our
thoughts follow this carpet of snow far, very far, over thou
sands of versts, and see jt covering even to Asia the sad sol
itudes where the Russian people are sleeping their gloomy
winter sleep. Whether we look at the sight before us or
whether we reflect, everything is contrast and miracle in
this noise of pleasure in the midst of such a silence, in this
supreme luxury of civilization at the order of the almighty
power of the East.
When this almighty power is weary of the scenery of the

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. i$
tropics, it changes it at will for a frame composed of the
marvels of European genius and the treasures of Flanders
and of Italy. Sometimes, in accordance with the usage
which dates from the time of the great Catherine, the ball is
transported into the neighboring rooms of the Hermitage
Museum, and the mazurka is danced in the midst of an
assembly of spectators painted by Veronese, Rubens, and
Vandyck. The living and real fete is as elegant and superb as the
fete of those noble phantoms on the panels ; and for the
stranger who brings to it our paltry cares it is almost as
chimerical and as distant as that of the patricians of Vero
nese. Do those who order the fete and enjoy it bring to it
the happy conviction of former times before the days of dis
aster? There is an indescribable something suggestive of
ceremonies which are continued out of a sense of duty, and
of a Church where faith has lost its firmness.
There can no longer be any frank gayety in this Winter
Palace, haunted as it must be by one of those formidable
souvenirs which impose upon royal dwellings a lugubrious
physiognomy. In entering this palace under the new reign,
on the days when Alexander III. is holding court, the servi
tors of his father cannot forget the last receptions of Alexan
der II., which were darkened by so many tragedies. One in
particular we can see before our eyes as if it were yesterday.
On March 2, 1880, was celebrated the twenty-fifth anniver
sary of the accession to the throne of the Emancipator, who
at that memorable date was to receive the tribute of grati
tude from his people. Magnificent fetes had been arranged^
but two weeks before the anniversary day, the 18th of Feb
ruarys the explosion at the Winter Palace occurred, ruined
all those projects, and spread mourning and terror around
the sovereign. A repetition of the attempt was announced
for the 2d of March, and in the capital, smitten with unrea-

iG THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
sonable panic, the precautions of the police caused people
to believe that it was a day of riot rather than of festivity.
When we entered these sumptuous halls, where the imagina
tion saw nothing but mines and ambuscades, alarm was be
trayed on many a face. Alexander 1 1, appeared; his visible
fatigue and emotion scarcely allowed him to address a few
words to his guests. Prince Gortchakoff, who had been
absent from Russia for several years, was seen there for the
last time. The old companions of the Emperor, witnesses
twenty-five years previously of the prodigal hopes that had
greeted his accession to the throne, looked without courage
through the veil of present sadness upon their master, grown
old, smitten physically and morally by so many blows, a pris
oner in' this palace which threatened to fall in ruins over his
head. The illustrious Chancellor, in the decline of age and
success, betrayed by his strength as well as by his plans,
leaned painfully on a console in the salon of Peter the Great,
in the midst of that court where absence had made him for
so long a time a stranger. A presentiment of an inevitable
misfortune oppressed all hearts and hovered over all this
august pomp and circumstance.
One year after, March 13, 1881, there was a fresh meet
ing in this palace, in presence of the bleeding body that had
been brought in from a neighboring street. The unforgetta
ble vision of that afternoon is still present in the minds of
the youngest of the dancers when a ball calls them to the
palace. They see once more the terror and desolation of
these vast rooms; the courtiers watching for the doctors to
give them news of the agony ; the immense square all black
with people ; the stupor of the crowd waiting with eyes fixed
on the imperial standard ; finally the sign of the cross which
passed over all these tearful visages when the standard fell
down the flag-staff, announcing that the drama was over.
The habitual guests of the palace who passed there the

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 1 7
winter months of 1881, and heard on two occasions the dull
explosion of dynamite, retain in their ears that besetting an
guish, and more than one catch themselves listening for it
between two bars of a waltz.
After all, this is perhaps a stimulant for wild pleasure,
especially for the Russian nature ; and for that matter it is a
sin to sadden by these gloomy thoughts the young couples
who are dancing beneath the palm-trees. Life, which desires
us to forget everything in order to continue its work, orders
them to forget and be happy by love, as it commands these
plants to bear flowers in spite of ice and snow. No souve
nir of mourning and of terror can prevail against the sweet
influence of life.
Outside of the gala balls the Winter Palace is only
opened to society on rare occasions — on the ist of January
and at Easter, on the anniversary of the Tsar's accession to
the throne, on the reception of a foreign prince, or for the
baptism or marriage of a member of the imperial family.
There is also a meeting there on January 6th for the fete of
the Jordan, or benediction of the waters of the Neva. This
is the most characteristic of these ceremonies. Religious
pomp is joined with military glory to give it more brilliancy.
A pavilion richly decorated is built on the ice of the river,
through which is bored an opening, in order that the cross
may be dipped in the water. Liturgical hymns sung by the
choruses of the imperial chapel with inimitable perfection
accompany the prayers of the Metropolitan. This prelate,
followed by his clergy, blesses the invisible waters in order
that they may be beneficial to man and fertilizing to the
earth during the ensuing year. Formerly at Petersburg, and
quite recently among the pious populations of the Volga and
the Don, this solemnity gave occasion to explosions of fa
naticism. As soon as the priest had plunged his crucifix in
the river, mujiks would throw themselves into the sanctified

i8

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

waters, with the persuasion that they had a curative virtue
like those of the pool of Bethesda. A natural result of this
icy bath was a cold in the chest. At the fete of the Jordan
it was not devotion alone that made martyrs ; the etiquette
of the court had its martyrs also. Up to the end of the

THE EMPRESS WEARING THE " KAKOCHNIK."

reign of Nicholas tradition demanded that the Emperor
should follow the procession bareheaded and without cloak,
and the persons of his household were obliged to imitate his
example. Furthermore, incredible as it may seem, the ladies

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

19

of the palace used to go down into the snow decolletees,
their delicate arms and bosoms exposed to the rigorous tem
perature that prevails at this epoch of the year. At the
present day the old usages have become modified, and cloaks
are tolerated. We must return to the salons, where people
come to congratulate the Tsar, in order to see the curious
spectacle of an assembly in ball-room attire at eleven o'clock
in the morning. The maids of honor on that occasion wear
the ceremonial costume of a red robe with long train ; their
hair is bound up beneath the kakochnik — the national head
dress, borrowed from the ancient Boyars. It is a half- dia
dem and crescent of garnet red velvet, surrounded with
pearls, from which hangs a long white veil. This archaic
adornment gives a strong character to the beauty of these
blond daughters of the North.

IV.
It is not at the palace that one oftenest has occasion
to see and approach the Emperor. It is rather at military
solemnities. These solemnities are less frequent in the pres
ent reign than they used to be. Alexander III. has not the
passionate love of his predecessors for the minor details of
military life. He resides very little in Petersburg. Even
during his stay in the capital he shirks the exacting duties
of military work as much as possible. Nicholas and Alexan
der II., on the contrary, vied in exactitude in this matter
with the Prussian monarchs, and trained the whole mascu
line society of their empire to respect uniform, and the
minute obligations which it imposes. A society keeps for a
long time a habit which has been thus profoundly impressed
upon it. For nothing in the world would the old Emperor
have missed the Sunday parade in the large riding-school of
the Michael Square. He went there on the 13th of March,

20

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

SUNDAY PARADE IN A RIDING-SCHOOL.

1 88 1, in spite of the sup
plications of his minister,
Count Loris Melikoff. It
will be remembered that
it was on his return from
this ceremony to the pal
ace that the assassins
struck him. When the Tsar receives the Sunday report in
front of the two battalions which share the service of the
week he is surrounded by his numerous military household.
The old generals resume for the moment their place in the
regiment of the Guards where they made their debut, and
they make a point of marching past with the troops under
the eyes of their chief. The foreign attaches and most of
the ambassadors follow these exercises regularly ; indeed the
European powers are almost always represented in Russia
by generals, in order that their envoy may enjoy the prestige

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 21
attached to the epaulet, and the facility of access to the pres
ence of the sovereign which it alone gives. The ambassa
dor rides a moment beside him, and a few words are then
exchanged on the events of the day: the words that have
had most influence on temporary history have fallen from
the imperial lips in the Michael Riding- school, murmured
in a half-whisper in the attentive ear between the two com
mands of " Shoulder — arms."
These riding-schools of the Guards corps are immense
buildings, well closed and heated, where a regiment of cav
alry can manoeuvre at ease in the depth of winter. In those
of the Hussars and Chevalier Guards the officers sometimes
give brilliant carousals. They organize equestrian quadrilles
with daring horsewomen, and vie with each other in skill
to conquer the ribbons of their ladies, who applaud them
from the surrounding tribunes. Besides the Sunday parade,
scarcely a week passes without the Emperor presiding over
the fete of some regiment which is celebrating its patron
saint, or one of those numerous jubilees which are destined
to perpetuate the military spirit, such as the anniversary of
a victory, or the fiftieth anniversary of some chief made
famous by a half-century of service. On such occasions the
Tsar wears the uniform of the regiment which he wishes to
honor, or that of the corps to which the hero of the cere
mony belongs. In the same way, when he marries one of
his aides-de-camp, or when he visits him on his death-bed,
he always wears a corresponding uniform. This usage im
plies a whole system of wardrobe policy, very subtle and very
complicated. The servitors of the empire attach much im
portance to these flattering shades of attention ; the motive
for which the Emperor has put on such and such a uniform
on such and such a day is commented upon, and carefully
registered on that thermometer of the sovereign favor, the
variations of which are the perpetual study of the courtier.

22 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
If you wish to see military Russia in all its glory and
epic luxury you must take your place in the first days of
April on one of those tribunes which rise at the extremity of
the Champ de Mars on both sides of the imperial pavilion.
Society meets there to assist at the grand spring review.
All the Guard is massed before us — 20,000 men at least, and
perhaps more. Other States may pride themselves on a mil
itary force equivalent to this, but none can show a force so
magnificent and picturesque in aspect. All the races and
all the arms of this varied empire are about to defile before
our eyes, from those noble Chevalier Guards, who seem to
have been resuscitated from the romantic Middle Ages,
down to the Kirgheez of the Asiatic steppe, who are still
pagans. " Attention !" Thousands of voices have trans
mitted the same word of command. " The Emperor !" He
appears yonder at the corner of the Champ de Mars. The
moment he is seen all the flags flutter, all the bands join in
one formidable chorus to send heavenward the sounds of
the national hymn, " God save the Tsar." The Emperor
arrives at a gentle gallop. Behind him follows an escort
which makes many hearts beat among the fair public of the
tribunes. It is a gathering of the most illustrious names
and the finest horsemen of the Russian nobility. All the
armies of the world have contributed to form this staff.
The Hungarian magnate rides side by side with the Japan
ese military attache, the French kepi salutes the fez of the
Mussulman bey. The Master passes along the front of his
troops ; the Empress follows in an open barouche. At the
approach of their Majesties the band of each regiment re
sumes the hymn with wild fury — a hurricane of harmony,
which accompanies and envelops the imperial procession.
The traditional salutations are exchanged between the Tsar
and his soldiers : " Good-day, children." " We are happy to
do well for your Imperial Majesty."

A SPRING REVIEW ON THE "CHAMP DE MARS.

-I

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 25
The sovereign stops before the tribune of the Grand-
Duchesses ; he gives the signal and the march past begins.
At the head are the platoons of the Asiatic escort, east
ern and wild Russia, Mussulmans from Khiva and Bokhara,
Georgian princes, Tcherkesses, Persians, Mongols, and Cau
casians. These primitive warriors, armed with lances and
steel maces, wear long coats of mail over their brilliant silk
dresses, furs of great price, damascened helmets or Tartar
caps. This is the vanguard of the hordes of Attila, the con
cession made in the regular army to legend and fancy.
Then come the- compact masses of the regular army, the
infantry first of all — Preobrajensky, Finland Chasseurs, and
soldiers of the Paul Regiment, with their large copper hats
in the form of mitres — such as were worn by the Grenadiers
of Frederick the Great. In accordance with an old tradition,
all men who have flat noses are recruited for this regiment.
The lines of cavalry follow the infantry like living walls of
brass and steel. Then come the light troops — Red Hussars,
Grenadiers, and Lancers ; and finally swarms of Cossacks,
galloping on their little ponies, sweep along from the ex
tremity of the Champ de Mars at full speed, stop and turn
short at the foot of the imperial tribune. These troops per
form the exercises of the Arab fantasia — lie down on their
saddles, lean over to the ground without quitting their stir
rups, and pick up the lance or pistol that they have thrown
down before them. The artillery closes the march. The
batteries, admirably horsed, are carried along at full speed
by black chargers as fine as the finest trotters.
As the last cannons disappear, rattling over the pave
ment behind the trees of the Summer Garden, the court and
its guests go to breakfast in the palace of the Princes of
Oldenburg, which faces the Champ de Mars ; and the for
eigner who follows the Emperor — his eyes still full of this
heroic vision — wonders how a man can resist the intoxica-

26

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

tion of such power gathered in his hand, and the temptation
which must come upon him to let loose this superb force
against the world.
In the summer, at the camp of Krasnoe-Selo, the Tsar
and his military company
live for two weeks in the
midst of the troops of the
Guard. Every day there
are marches and sham bat
tles improvised for the oc
casion. Breakfast is served
in tents, and at night victors
and vanquished meet at a
gala spectacle in the theatre
of Tsarskoe. No civilian is
admitted. It is a wonderful
sight, this floor of the the
atre covered with helmets
and epaulets, below a doub
le row of boxes, where the
women vie with each other
in elegance. At these ma
noeuvres of Krasnoe, at these
combats in the presence of
carriages full of ladies, we
can imagine to ourselves
what must have been the
campaigns of Louis XIV.
when the great King be
sieged the towns of Flan
ders surrounded by the
beauties of Versailles, and when the trenches were dug be
fore their eyes to the sound of violins.
We have perhaps stayed too long at the court, but it was

EMPEROR ALEXANDER III. AT
KRASNOE-SELO.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

27

necessary in order to make the reader appreciate the pre
ponderating place it holds in social life. But with the ex
ception of the rapid appearances which we have just indi
cated, the Emperor disappears from the eyes of his subjects
and retires with his family to the solitude of Gatschina —
that Russian Escurial — a gloomy and sombre castle hidden
in the midst of pine forests at a few leagues' distance from
the capital. There the imperial couple lead a regular, tran
quil — one might say bourgeois — existence. The Emperor
and Empress devote themselves to the education of their
children and to the expedition of business. Respect forbids
us entering indiscreetly into the home of their Majesties.
Let us take leave of them in order to follow society as
it goes out of the Winter Palace. We shall find it free
from the trammels of etiquette, amusing itself more frankly
in the daily life of the salons.

V.
The salons enable us to understand the life of the French
aristocracy in the eighteenth century, such as it is described
in the memoirs of the time. Organized entirely for the sake
of worldly intercourse, conversation, and elegant pleasure, one
might revive and apply to this society Talleyrand's words
when he called up his souvenirs of the years before 1 789 :
" Those who have not lived at that time have not known
what the pleasure of living is." We have sometimes ventured
to ask with admiration grave functionaries, whom we used to
meet every night at an advanced hour at the fetes of Peters
burg, when they found time to work. We must believe that
such a thing as work is quite superfluous in this happy coun
try. Everybody gets up late like the winter sun, himself so
late. Street life does not begin before ten o'clock in the
morning; the shopkeepers have not taken down their shut-

28 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ters before that hour. Immediately after breakfast you call
your sleigh for a promenade on the crowded Quay or on the
Prospekt, but already day has begun to decline. Visits fol
low uninterruptedly until dinner-time. You go from house
to house among your friends, exchange news— almost always
court news which has been published in the morning in the
foumal de St.-Petersbourg, and the more private news which
you have gathered from the lips of some high-placed person
age. After dinner you go to the play. This usage is begin
ning to go out of fashion, but a few years ago all the "smart"
people passed the early part of the evening in some fashion
able theatre — either at the Italiens or at the Theatre Michel,
where the best Parisian actors play French comedy. The
younger people prefer to go to the bouffes, where Judic and
Granier used to receive ecrins of diamonds in bouquets of
roses. Nowadays the Russian theatre, which was formerly
abandoned by the upper class, is coming into favor again.
The present reign is setting the example of patronizing na
tional life. People pay court by going to applaud the pieces
of Griboiedof, of Gogol, and of Ostrowsky, interpreted by
Madame Savina, the Sara Bernhardt of Russia.
After the theatre each repairs to the salon which he ha
bitually frequents. The evening meetings begin quite late.
If you arrive at eleven o'clock at the house where you are
invited, it is not rare to be told that madame is not yet
dressed ; she has been sleeping after dinner in order to rest
her complexion. On the other hand, you may knock at cer
tain hospitable doors up to two o'clock in the morning ; no
one will be astonished to see you come in, and your place
will be set at supper, which is the favorite meal with the
Russians. Luxurious or modest, the supper is always served
for the intimate friends. It is prolonged until a late hour,
and no one goes to bed in St. Petersburg until three o'clock
in the morning. These children of the night live at their

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 29
ease only after dark and by artificial light. There are some
delicate women whom no one remembers to have seen by
daylight; it is true, very generally, they are women who have
passed the prime of their beauty.
Formerly, and that not so long ago, some seigneurs kept
" open house," and you could go and dine there without
being invited. The diminution in fortunes has put an end
to these patriarchal manners. During the carnival season
rich private individuals give balls and concerts, and some
times folles journees, or dances which begin in the morning
in the greenhouse filled with tropical plants, and do not end
until dawn of the following day in the supper-room. But a
description of these amusements would appear pale after a
description of the balls of the palace. Let us rather try to
catch the physiognomy of the ordinary every-day social life
in the familiar groups which meet night after night around
the tea-table, where the silver samovar sings.
The subdivision into coteries is the characteristic feature
of the change which has been going on in this society during
the past fifteen or twenty years. Formerly it was a large
family, maintained within limits rigorously fixed by the court
list. This common bond kept closely together all the mem
bers, who lived in perpetual intercourse. Everybody knew
everybody even from childhood. In speaking of each other
they used, in accordance with Russian custom, the baptismal
name, followed by the name of the father ; for instance, Ivan
Petrovitch, Anna Pavlovna. Some few foreigners — young
men belonging to the European aristocracy — brought to Pe
tersburg by the diplomatic service were received with open
arms as children of the house. All this has changed with the
growing extension of that family, with the embarrassments
in which nearly all fortunes are involved, and with the ap
pointment to public office of new individuals selected from
outside the ancient caste. Shall we add that the formation

3°

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

of opposite political parties contributes somewhat to this
schism ? The word " parties " would be inexact ane, at present
at least, too serious for Russia ; but at any rate there has
grown up in certain circles a habit of criticising the consti
tuted powers, and in order to do that you must be sure of all
the persons of the company. We cannot say that society has
been invaded, for the largest fortune in commerce does not
yet give any access to it. Nevertheless, society feels the need
of defending itself, being conscious of the approaching dan
ger, and the strongest and proudest sections of it intrench
themselves within their little citadels. Foreigners, whom the
railways and business are bringing daily in greater numbers,
are received less readily than formerly ; they no longer enter
the family circle. A material barrier has arisen before them.
Hitherto French was the natural language of Petersburg so
ciety. There are still grandmothers living who scarcely speak
Russian, and do not write it at all. Under the new reign, in
order to flatter the manifest tastes of the sovereign and of
his surroundings, the native tongue has made an offensive
return. It is currently spoken in the salons — a fact which
would have been considered to be bad tone by the preceding
generation. At the Yacht Club, which is the most elegant
of all the clubs, ten years ago general conversation took place
in French, but to-day the members employ only the mother-
tongue. When the foreigner has been lucky enough to con
quer these difficulties, after a long stay, he soon appreciates
the charm of Russian social intercourse. He discovers, among
the women especially, a universal intellectual culture beneath
the frivolity of fashionable life. When do these torpid beau-
'ties find time to read and learn? You rarely see them with
a book in their hands ; their existence is idle or wholly taken
up by pleasure ; and yet you never find them at a loss. They
are acquainted with the latest novel published in Paris, in
London, and in New York ; with the latest scientific theory

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

31

of Harttmann, Herbert Spencer, or Edison ; with the opera
which has just been presented at Bayreuth or at Milan ; they
talk intelligently about literature, music, science, metaphys
ics, spiritualism, or politics, and always in a well-informed
manner, and with surprising clearness and novelty of views.
They know everything, it would seem, by birth and intuition.
The fact is, they learn everything by social and cosmopoli
tan intercourse, just like the French women of the eighteenth
century. Mesdames du Deffand, de Tencin, and d'Epinay
would find sisters worthy of themselves in Petersburg, living
in conditions absolutely similar to those of life in Paris under
the reign of Louis XV. It is always to this epoch that we
must return in order to understand what constitutes the
charm of Russian society. This charm is born of absolute
liberty of intellect, and of a boldness of thought which scru
tinizes all problems, and attacks all questions with the arms
of scepticism. Here are none of the conventions or fears
which tie the tongue in our old society, divided and battered
by so many revolutions. The Russian plays with dangerous
ideas like a child with knives whose hurtful power he does
not know by experience. The ideas which among us reopen
old wounds, because they have been translated into facts, do
not awaken in Russia anything but hopes, because they are
still in the domain of dream. In the same way, on the eve
of 1789, the French nobility was delighted with that which
was destined to decapitate and ruin it. An old Russian lady
who was reading Taine's book on the Ancien Regime said to
us one day, " From time to time I close this book with ter
ror, so completely do I find in it the image of our own social
and intellectual state" — a state threatening by the morrow
which it forebodes, but charming so long as it lasts.
The comparison would be inexact as regards one point
only. The servants and men of letters who used to reign in
the salons of the eighteenth century mingle very little with

32

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

the aristocracy of Petersburg. There are only two or three
houses where they are received in the private circle. In
these intelligent homes we have at times met Tourguenief
when he returned to his father-land, Dostoievsky, Goutcha-
rof, and the celebrated novelists and poets of the last twenty
years. Alone, the greatest of all, the Count Tolstoi", remain
ing invisible. In retirement on his estate of Yasnaia-Poli-
ana, he applies to his peasants the social theories which he
preaches in his writings ; he has broken with the life of
Petersburg. These writers of the preceding generation
belong by birth and education to the noble class. Those of
the present day spring from a lower sphere ; poor, unaccus
tomed to elegant manners, separated from one another by
foolish jealousies, often suspected of subversive tendencies,
they live isolated, without being united by any bond of pro
fessional brotherhood, and without any common ground on
which they can enter into
relations with society. The
society which reads them is
unacquainted with their per
sons, and when they do appear
in a salon they bring with
them an embarrassed and si
lent reserve.

THE EMPRESS'S CARRIAGE.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

33

Instead of professional literary men, the artists and liter
ary men of society animate the conversation, particularly the
poets. In Russia everybody is a bit of a poet. Verses are
written there in abundance and with facility ; but, as a gen
eral rule, in the aristocracy, as in all classes of this nation,
the woman is, par excellence, the sociable element. She is
superior to the man in penetration and promptitude of intel
lect. As humanity does not live by brains alone, the young
officers of the Guards play the most prominent role in the
salons, and if they do not shine by their refined culture, they
take their revenge by their gallantry. In this social function
they give proof of that passionate folly and princely prodi
gality which Madame de Stael immortalized by saying, " The
desire of the Slav would set a town on fire." You may still
see grand seigneurs, true sons of Potemkin, playing with the
impossible in order to satisfy the caprices of the lady of their
heart. One will by telegraph send for a cart-load of roses
from Nice, another for a celebrated orchestra from Warsaw.
The following story is told of a gentleman poet who died a
few years ago. He was talking in the presence of a lady of
a Kirgheez musician whom he had met during a journey
beyond the Ural, in the steppe of Orenburg — one of those
camel -drivers who play their antique Asian melodies on
long reed pipes. The lady expressed regret at never having
heard these harmonies of the desert. The poet immediately
wrote for this Kirgheez to be sent from the other end of
Russia, and then despatched him to play before the lady.
Sport holds a very small place in the existence of these
long winters. The climate is unfavorable, and Russians of
all conditions detest physical exercise, and do not feel the
need of it. In a village on a Sunday you will not see the
peasants engaged in games. They remain motionless, grave
ly seated at their doors, or around the table at the inn. In
the upper classes the men who are not hunters resolve the
3

,4 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
problem of life without ever moving their limbs. Old men
are known whom no one ever remembers to have seen walk ;
they do not stir except to go from their chair to their car
riage. Horseback riding is not held in honor even among
the officers of the cavalry regiments, who rarely ride except
when their military duties compel them. Petersburg is the
only point in the universe where lawn-tennis has not made its
appearance. Skating, in this country where the climate fur
nishes so abundantly the necessary conditions, is abandoned
to the children of the common people. It had a momentary
vogue only during the embassy of Lord Dufferin, who was
one of the lions of society ; the noble lord imposed this taste,
which he had brought back with him from Canada. On the
contrary, the Montagnes Russe are very popular, because you
meet there the Grand-Duchesses in the beautiful gardens of
the Tauride. The Empress used to excel in this exercise
when she was still Crown-Princess, and practise it in its most
dangerous forms ; she would a thousand times descend a
rapid incline standing up, at the risk of breaking her neck.
It cannot be said that the Russian man is sedentary.
He will readily pass his life in a carriage, on a sleigh, or in
the railway cars. To traverse space at full speed is a pleas
ure of which he never wearies, but it is only seated locomo
tion that he loves. The women, frail hot-house flowers, take
pleasure only in the nonchalant habits of their homes amid
hyacinths and azaleas. Conversation, card-playing, dancing
constitute their pastimes. 'At times they also feel the pas
sion of the Slavs for dizzy speed, merely for the pleasure of
feeling the icy air beat against their cheeks' across the snowy
steppe over which they career. Often during the conversa
tion around the tea-table some one will propose a troika ride;
the motion is accepted with enthusiasm. This is the favor
ite amusement of winter nights, and the one that leaves in
the mind of the foreigner the most vivid and novel souvenirs.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

35

VI. \
Large four-seated sleighs are ordered from a job master
famous for the swiftness of his horses and the skill of his
drivers. The bells of the teams tinkle at the door';, the com
pany envelop themselves from head to foot in furs i the wom
en tie Orenburg shawls over their faces. Two couples take
their places in each of the vehicles, and, as may be "readily
conceived, it is not chance that generally presides over this
arrangement, but another little god who is less wise than
chance. The driver gathers in his hands the bundle- of
reins, and speaks tenderly to his horses : " Forward, my little
pigeons." The three pigeons start at full gallop through the
empty streets, twenty degrees below zero, the air still, the sky
black as steel, and sparkling with golden spots which glitter
over the whiteness of all objects in this limpid atmosphere.
The cold freezes the breath as it issues from the lips. In a
few minutes the beards are converted into stalactites of ice.
The Russian heart bounds with joy. "Quicker! quicker!"
cry the women, their voices broken by wild and joyous laugh
ter. The driver, who has previously fortified his stomach
with innumerable glasses of brandy, administers stout blows
with his knout over the backs of his horses, and yet they are
giving the maximum of speed that can be expected from
their limbs. They too seem to get intoxicated with their
own galloping. The equipage flies along the quays and
crosses the river; the mean houses of the faubourgs, with
their poor little lights, vanish out of sight behind it like phan
toms. Trees take the place of houses the more deeply we
penetrate into the islands ; now we glide over vacant country
in absolute darkness, the tinkling of the bells and the rip
ples of laughter alone breaking the silence that has gathered

36

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

over the earth. When the hoofs of the horses strike the
pavemert beneath the thinner snow, or when they bound
over a projecting block of ice on an arm of the Neva, the
heavy sle'igh jumps and jolts enough to throw the travellers
out. Woe be to the one who is talking at this moment; he
is sure to bite his tongue cruelly; and then the laughter
redouble s at his expense. The combined intoxication of the
movemen t and of the cold is at its height. " Go on more
quickly," the voices of the women say, nervously ; and some
times 'a deeper voice murmurs in a lower tone: "Why faster?
It-, "would be better that we never arrived at the end."
We do arrive, however. The team, white with foam,
stops in front of an isolated tavern. It is Samarcande or
Tachkent, one of the inns of the suburbs of Petersburg,
famous for the troupes of Bohemians who lodge there. The
party hires a room decorated in anything but a luxurious
manner : four smoky walls, a few chairs, and a table. Cham
pagne is brought, and the Tsiganes appear. The choir is
composed of three or four men and eight or ten women.
The men wear on their bronze faces the expression of the
tranquil dignity of their race. With their aquiline profiles,
their sad and profound eyes, they seem like dispossessed
kings of Asia. We would gladly depict the women in some
picturesque Eastern costume, but the truth compels us to
confess that they are dressed in shabby silk dresses, the cast-
off finery of some elegant lady, bought at a second-hand
store in the Gostiny Dvor. The olive-colored complexions
beneath their painted cheeks, and the fire of their eyes be
neath their painted eyebrows, alone betray the Indian origin
of these daughters of the Pariahs. The leader of the choir
tunes his guitar and strikes up an accompaniment, very slow
at first, and then gradually quicker and quicker. The Bo
hemian girls sing ; they are seated in a semicircle, their bod
ies and faces motionless. At the beginning the accent is

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

37

cold and restrained. These women appear indifferent to the
sentiment they are interpreting, like sibyls visited by a god
whom they do not feel. But little by little their voices be
come animated, and warm into that guttural trembling which
artists of any other race can never succeed in imitating.
The demon has taken possession of the singers ; they hurry
the rhythm with furious alternations ; melodies and words

RACING ON THE NEVA.

are infused with the same excitement, the languor, the de
spair, and the fire of wild passions. The soul of the old
Aryas has accumulated in these songs all the wildness and
melancholy of its nature.
It finds an echo in the soul of the Slavs. Look at those
patrician ladies who are listening to the daughters of Bo-

38 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
hemia; in spite of the difference in education and social
condition they are true sisters of the Tsiganes. With all
their apparent reserve and disdain, they vibrate in unison,
with the same violence of nature ; they will remain there all
night, magnetized by these airs of the native country. The
men do not attempt to conceal their delight. A Russian
will spend his last ruble in order to procure himself the
pleasure which he prizes above all others. Monomaniacs
return here every evening, and pass their nights listening to
these songs, nailed to the table by a tyranny as irresistible
as that of the opium -smoker. Most of the officers of the
Guards live on a footing of friendly familiarity with the Bo
hemian women ; this evening the presence of ladies embar
rasses them. Next time when they return alone champagne
will flow in torrents, and pocket-books will be opened with
out counting. Occasionally a scuffle disturbs the party ;
some merchants, tired of waiting, will quarrel with the offi
cers for possession of the room and the singers. No less
passionately fond of this pleasure, and even more prodigal,
fhe merchants manifest their enthusiasm by throwing to the
Tsiganes handfuls of bank-notes and golden imperials. A
Bohemian woman celebrated in her art has only to stoop to
pick up as much money as an operatic " star." Neverthe
less, none will ever think of suspecting her savage virtue — a
virtue which is proverbial, protected by the jealous watch
ing of the men of the tribe, and guaranteed by interest. A
handsome Bohemian woman often ends by marrying a Gen
eral. These unions are not rare in Russia, and the sing
ing woman of Samarcande ends her career as an honorable
mother of a family in a provincial town where her husband
commands. The inns where the Tsiganes sing are the usual object
of nocturnal excursions ; sometimes, however, others are sug
gested ; for instance, to the observatory of Pulkowa, which

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 39
rises midway between Petersburg and Tsarskoe-Selo, on a
hill crowned with pine-trees. It is the only elevation in the
marshy plains which surround the capital. There lives a
little German colony ; for they are Germans who keep watch
over the Russian heavens. With a few exceptions this fam
ily of astronomers is recruited in the university at Dorpat,
and holds its celestial fief with jealous care. When you en
ter Pulkowa you find yourself transported to another world.
You might imagine yourself in some calm institute in Got-
tingen or Jena. Confined in the mysteries of space and
time, these modest savants work under the direction of their
senior member or " doyen." They live in common a patri
archal life, an honest German life, staid and serious like that
of the stars. Strangers to the noises of the great city and to
the interests and passions which surround them, these astron
omers have fixed the boundaries of their earthly horizon at
the wood of pine-trees and the roofs which shelter their house
holds and their books. The only revolutions that they look
forward to are those of the firmament ; their newspapers are
the tables of the sun and planets ; their subject of conversa
tion, the theorems of Kepler, or the excellent recipe of Ma
dame la Doyenne for smoking the breasts of geese — an art
less mixture of humble domestic cares and of the great secrets
of the Eternal. The monks of science mount into their glass
palace wrapped up in warm cloaks, with fur caps on their
heads, like the astrologers you see depicted in ancient engrav
ings. The old savants conduct their pupils to the top of the
tower, into that vast rotunda which revolves upon itself, and
seems like the poop of a ship, with its masts, its rigging, its
instruments of polished brass, and its port-holes where the
telescopes are pointed. The lamps burn over the books, the
compass moves over the charts, the telescope scrutinizes the
polar regions, and the calculations of ages are continued.
The observers are adding a page to the annals of the sky.

40 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
At that hour when everything which makes noise and illu
sion on the earth is silent, these modest people are truly the
masters of the universe. They ordain its destinies; they
know from whence it comes, whither it goes, and what it
weighs. Grave, and proud of their responsibility — like their
brothers the sailors — they watch for us all. They mark the
passage of the planet in the unknown, in the midst of the
formidable fleets which it crosses in its passage. If some
benighted traveller passes in these solitudes, he perceives up
there the lights of the crew manoeuvring its aerial dome ; he
wonders if it is not some phantom ship lost on the sea of
snow, or else he may imagine that he hears some monks as
sembled in their oratory for matins, who sing by night the
praises of the Lord.
But this solitude and this peace are exposed to frequent
invasions. If an eclipse is announced, the ladies of Peters
burg form a party to go to Pulkowa ; they either belong to
the court or have taken the precaution to have some digni
tary in their party, and consequently the Imperial Observa
tory could not refuse to satisfy their caprices. The troikas
deposit in the temple of science the noisy visitors, who take
possession of the telescopes, and demand for their own par
ticular use that corner of the heavens where something im
portant is about to happen. They have all these mysteries
explained to them : they ferret about in albums of lunar pho
tographs, and their curiosity is excited by the marvels that
the old sorcerers tell them. The evening ends with supper
on ham and sauerkraut prepared by Madame la Doyenne,
and in listening to one of the young German women play
on the piano a sonata of Schumann or Weber. The joyous
band then starts back, enchanted with the contrast between
its habits of luxury and the austere simplicity of the exist
ence of which it has just taken a glimpse. Another day the
troikas will be called for in the morning for a long excursion

¦ s

A TROIKA RIDE TO THE FORTS OF CRONSTADT.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

43

to the forts of Cronstadt, over the icy road which connects
this island with Petersburg. It is distant about fifteen miles
— two hours' gallop over the frozen sea. Poles indicate the
route across this deceptive plain ; houses of refuge, with
alarm-bells which tinkle during the blizzard, remind us that
this desert has also its moral sirocco. Here and there a ship
stands up against the horizon frozen in the ice ; some you
see with all their sails spread and yet quite motionless. It is
on the return journey after nightfall that the horror of this
landscape impresses one. At a certain moment at twilight
it is impossible to distinguish on the horizon where the sky
begins and where the earth ends. You seem to be caught in
an immense sphere of milky crystal ; when you look at the
horses fixedly they seem to be suspended in ether. In order
to enable the eye to recover the sense of reality you must
wait until you come across a refuge — the paltry sleigh of a
mujik, a flight of crows, or one of those ships which seemed
motionless in the morning, but which now in the crepuscular
twilight of the snow seem to be gliding along in the opposite
direction to your sleigh. No words can express the anguish
that weighs like a pall on this polar country — the gloom, the
cold, the terror of it are palpable ; you are beset with a terri
ble dread of losing your way. Such, doubtless, was the pri
mordial chaos before light was separated from darkness and
the sea from the land. And the Russian delights in this
wild flight through space, feeling that his soul is almost lib
erated from the body and transported into dream-land by a
Walkyrian ride. " Troika," said Gogol in a celebrated pas
sage of the Ames Mortes — " troika-bird, who invented thee ?
Thou couldst only be born among an audacious people. But
art thou not thyself, O Russia, the brave troika that none can
pass ? Where art thou going ? Answer ! The troika does
not answer ; it flies onward, and clears all obstacles."

44 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

VII.
Let us leave the salons and the ladies and visit the men
when they are among themselves at their club. In Russia,
as everywhere else, this institution has been introduced from
England. At Petersburg and Moscow the principal club to
which all the society men belong is called the English Club.
Its foundation dates from the reign of the great Catherine.
At that epoch the British merchants contracted the habit of
meeting together on Saturday evenings, after they had shut
up their offices and settled their accounts of the week, to
dine, chat, and amuse themselves together. Thus were born
the English clubs. They have retained down to our times
this characteristic of being meeting-places only on special
days. During the rest of the week you meet there only a
small number of habitues. On Saturday alone one hundred
and sometimes two hundred guests, or even more, begin at
four o'clock in the afternoon to partake of the zakouska. This
is the preliminary repast, which is eaten standing, while you
pick out of a multitude of little plates caviare, smoked fish,
and salt dainties. These hors-d'oeuvre are accompanied with
draughts of eau-de-vie and kummel; for the Russians drink
their strong liquors before dinner. At five o'clock the table
is served. This early dinner-hour is the subject of perpet
ual discussion between the young men, who wish to adopt
Western fashions, and the conservatives of the old school,
who have hitherto succeeded in maintaining the patriarchal
usage. The men take their seats with due regard to subor
dination of ranks ; as Tolstoi has said in describing a dinner
at Moscow, the men take their hierarchic places as naturally
as water seeks its level. The club has no president. It is
directed by the senior members, who are elected and take

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

45

service alternately. The member on duty sits at the upper
end of the table, and it is he who, in a loud voice, proposes
the health of the Emperor on the anniversaries of the impe
rial fetes, when all the men rise immediately and clink their
glasses noisily.
What a dinner it is ! The heart of Pantagruel would be

AT THE CLUB — THE WHIST TABLE.

wild with joy if the Rabelaisian hero could contemplate the
piles of victuals which are so gravely absorbed by the heroic
stomachs of the Generals of the English Club. It is not the
sight of Russia under arms that makes one tremble for the

46 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
future of the world. It is when he sees Russia eating that
the physiologist can surely say, " This is the race that will
devour the others." The table groans under the enormous
weight of joints of beef, the roasted suckling pigs served hot,
or cold in jelly, the sterlets of the Volga, and the monster
pasties. By way of an appetizer, as we would eat our dozen
oysters, the terrible Russian General absorbs before his soup
a dozen blinies — which are heavy pancakes stuffed with ca
viare and seasoned with hot melted butter. This national dish
is served only during the carnival, and then it is obligatory.
The feast is moistened with copious libations — French wines,
hydromel, kvass or rye beer, the Russian drink par excellence.
It is on Easter Day that the capacity of these ogres may be
best estimated. The morning is passed in visits to friends,
and in every house there is a table laden with viands, in the
midst of which towers a whole lamb. The breakfast begins
over again at each visit.
The Merchants' Club is organized on the model of the
English Club, and its traditions are the same. During the
week the rich commercial man of Petersburg or Moscow does
not leave his counting-house. Seated with senatorial gravity
in his modest shop, where business in tea, grain, and fur is
transacted for millions of rubles, he calculates his profits on
rings of yellow and black wood threaded on rods of wire
fixed on a frame. The Russians have borrowed this arith
metical machine from the Turks and Persians. The mer
chant passes his evenings with his wife, who is a veritable
harem recluse, drinking countless glasses of tea, while the
lamp burns before the holy image. On Sunday he puts on
his finest caftan and his shiniest boots, calls his drosky, and
goes to join his colleagues at the club dinner. The appetite
of the General would have astonished Pantagruel, but that of
the merchant would confound Gargantua. After these sumpt
uous repasts we will not guarantee that he will not end up

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 47
the evening at the tavern of the Bohemians, unless he has
paid one hundred rubles for a box to see Sara Bernhardt, who
is just giving her opening performance in a language which
he does not understand. But the psychology of this most
strange mortal, the Russian merchant, would lead us too far.
Let us conclude our review of the clubs.
The young " swells " of the Guards and of the diplomatic
corps deign to enter the Yacht Club only. Originally, in or
der to be admitted to this select circle, you had to possess a
yacht of your own, but gradually the club has extended its
membership, while at the same time it has remained exclusive
and rigorous in its elections. Here the superannuated man
ners of the English Club are ridiculed, and the members ob
serve the usages of the Jockey Club of Vienna and of Paris.
At the hour of the promenade the fashionable carriages
pass and repass in the grand Morskaia in front of the win
dows, where the judges of haut ton deliver their verdicts.
The women raise their eyes timidly towards the areopagus,
which judges, without possibility of appeal, their beauty, their
toilets, their liaisons, whether open or secret, but always fully
known to the Arguses of the Yacht Club.
In these clubs, different as they are, one common charac
teristic reminds you that you are in Russia. On leaving the
dining-room each one hurries to take his seat at the whist
table. Those who are the most eager call those who lin
ger, with the traditional phrase, "We are losing golden time."
In order to arrive at the number of tables, you may boldly
divide by four the total number of persons present ; there will
scarcely ever be a mistake. The General whom we saw just
now preparing for himself so laborious a digestion is settled
for the night at his fighting post. He establishes around him
the various attributes necessary for his happiness : the glass
of tea, which will be constantly filled ; the big silver case,
overloaded with monograms and coronets in relief, and con-

48 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
taining a goodly stock of cigarettes, which will be lighted one
after the other without a moment's respite ; the stick of chalk
and the brush, for in Russia counters are unknown, and losses
and winnings are written on the corner of the green cloth,
which is brushed vigorously after each game. The cards are
dealt, and for seven or eight hours the conversation of this
honorable assembly is reduced to the sacramental formulae,
" Clubs," " Hearts," " Trumps," " The Trick."
If we were requested to represent Russia by some sym
bolic figure, hesitation would be impossible. We should
simply have to paint a green baize table with some packs of
cards in the middle of a snow steppe. This universal pas
sion for gaming may be explained by many causes. The
Slav is nervous, eager for violent emotion, and devoted to
chance. The hours are long, and ennui unendurable, during
a stay in the deserted country districts or in the natural stag
nation of the small provincial towns. In the capitals, for
the rich and leisured classes, conversation in public places
was, even until quite recently, embarrassing and full of dan
ger; the police of the terrible Third Section had an eye and
an ear in every club. In these places of meeting an impru
dent or misunderstood word involved certain disgrace ; it was
preferable to be silent and to play. This latter cause has dis
appeared, but its effect remanis.
If acquaintances meet in a railway car, cards are brought
out of the valise ; the conductor is asked to bring a table
and some candles ; and from Petersburg to Odessa the trav
ellers will play at bezique or quinze without raising their eyes
from the board for days and nights together. Two persons
who may happen to step from their carriages together at a
relay station get into conversation, and the first thing they
do is to challenge each other for a game of cards, which will
not finish until the one or the other has lost all his money.
Pouchkin relates many adventures of this kind; he could

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 49
not meet a hussar in an inn room without risking all his
fortune for the moment, and dawn would surprise the great
poet with no longer the wherewithal to pay for his lodging !
The place which gambling scenes hold in the stories of
Gogol, Dostoievsky, and Tolstoi, and the force with which
they are depicted, suffice to convince us that these writers
are painting the strongest of national weaknesses, and that
they have painted their personal experiences. The whist
tables at the clubs show the passion in its mildest form.
Alas! these tables' are not satisfied with reigning in their
legitimate kingdom. Every day they usurp a little more
room in the salons, and drive away that charming conversa
tion which we were vaunting just now; this transformation
in social manners is very marked. With some young wom
en gaming has taken the place of that wit which was the
charm of former generations ; everything is sacrificed to this
speechless god. To the guest who enters, the mistress of
the house hands a card ; the guest salutes with a few rapid
words, takes his seat at the table, and fulfils his function.
The unlucky guest who does not share the general taste
may sit away from the tables, and take up a newspaper or
review ; no one *will pay any heed to him. During the
whole evening he will hear fall from those charming lips
only the words of the cabalistic vocabulary, "Clubs," " Hearts,"
" Trumps," " The trick."

VIII.
But while we are sketching these scenes of winter life
the days are growing longer and milder; the ice on the
Neva is breaking up ; the blue water appears between the
blocks that float seaward. The Petersburg hive is about
to swarm over the whole surface of the empire. Let us fol
low the emigrants out of the town ; we shall find them in
4

c0 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
another existence, in the midst of new scenes and of other
horizons. The late Petersburg summer arrives with the suddenness
of a thunder-clap. The previous day there is not a bud to
be seen on the trees, and a few days later you may literally
see the leaves growing ; the heat sets in brusquely and with
out transition. This renewal of nature coincides with the
period of the " white nights " at the end of May and the be
ginning of June. The sun scarcely disappears from the sky
for two or three hours only, during which, although it is ab
sent, you divine its presence just below the horizon. The
redness of sunrise follows immediately that of sunset. This
diffused radiation that fills the atmosphere is neither day nor
night; it is an Elysian light in which men and objects pro
duce no shadows and assume the aspect of pale spectres.
Such must be the quality of the light in the dead valleys of
the moon. During these disturbing hours when the twilight
and the dawn are confounded, nervous people cannot sleep.
This is the time for long excursions to the Islands. At the
first smile of spring nothing can be more charming and fresh
than this labyrinth of forests cut up by the numerous branches
of the Neva, which meanders between the clumps of verdure
bathed in the waters of the gulf that wash softly around the
Point. The Point is the Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne
of Petersburg. The droskies and the barouches, which have
taken the place of the sleighs, bring to this promontory every
evening during the spring nights all the fashionable world
of Petersburg. The equipages are drawn up in rows at the
water's edge. In the crowd of promenaders, in which the
officers form the majority, each one waits for the carriage in
which he is particularly interested, and when it arrives groups
form at the door and talk of the topics of the day, or of more
private affairs, as they watch the sun sinking slowly into the
waves towards Oranienbaum, or the sails of the fishino--boats

"THE POINT," ON THE ISLANDS OF THE NEVA,

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 53
scudding away towards the coast of Finland. It is a sweet
and meditative hour, and nothing warns you that it is fleeting,
for the darkness does not arrive, and the promenaders linger,
and nothing can induce them to quit this enchanted spot.
On the return drive the fogs that rise from the marshy
land float like a silver canopy over the fields and forests
standing motionless and fantastic in the calm white night.
The equipages scatter among the avenues that traverse the
Islands in every direction, and stop at the doors of the villas,
whose gates open on the road — pleasure-houses belonging to
the nobility and the rich merchants, built with facades on the
water, and with steps descending to the water's edge, where
are moored the boats that bring into communication the pal
aces of this rustic and sylvan Venice. In a few days more
the families whose business obliges them to remain near the
capital will come and take up their summer quarters. They
dine in the open air on the garden lawns, breathe the fresh
air at the water's edge, or go off in joyous boating parties to
hear the fashionable operetta in one of the country theatres
that add to the gayety of the Islands ; on all sides orchestra
bands invite the loungers, garlands of Japanese lanterns are
reflected in the rivers, bouquets of fireworks burst above the
trees. Whether he follows the road or the river, the prom-
enader is stopped at every step by the animated pictures that
solicit his attention. The gardens, full of light-colored toi
lets and of the laughter of children, the houses thrown wide
open — everything makes him forget that he is in Russia, and
transports him to the life of Italy or to the borders of the
Bosporus. Those who are attached to the service of the court pass
the summer at Tsarskoe-Selo, or at Peterhof, according as
the caprice of the sovereign may have preferred one or the
other of these residences. The small towns grouped around
these imperial palaces are situated in opposite directions at

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
one hour's distance by rail from Petersburg. Peterhof is the
Russian Versailles. Peter the Great endeavored to repro-
Le there the splendors that he had seen at the residence _ of
Louis XIV.: a park with majestic prospects, alleys of trim
med and sculptured yew-trees, fountains streaming rom the
luths of bronze Tritons. The vicinity of the sea furnishes
Ze an additional decorative element; a fine ; P^-ade
stretches away between the waves and the oak forest, and

A CORONATION CARRIAGE.

leads to the pier where the imperial yachts are moored.
Tsarskoe-Selo is the most living of the two, and the richest
in souvenirs. In the vast castle built by Rastrelli, and un
der the larch-trees that fringe the lake, one thinks one still
sees the shade of the great Catherine, who used to lead in
this place a familiar and intelligent life in company with her
favorites, her philosophers, and her poets. One fancies that
one sees, too, the shade of the unfortunate Alexander II.,

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 55
who used to delight to assemble us here in his private fetes
when the summer brought him back to his favorite abode.
By the side of the palace the Lycee calls up the most glori
ous souvenirs of Russian letters. It was long the monopoly
of this house to educate the children of the high nobility ;
on its commemorative tablets are inscribed most of the
names that have made a mark in the politics or in the ro
mantic movement of the first half of the century. There
Pouchkin passed his childhood, and some of his verses de
scribe the enchantments of Tsarskoe. The Hussars of the
Guard who are stationed in the town keep ennui at a respect
ful distance. The park, admirably laid out with its roads
that lead to triumphal arches and classical temples and pavil
ions in the style of the eighteenth century, is contiguous
to the park of Pavlovsk, which surrounds the castle of the
Grand -Duke Constantine. Between these two residences
there is an incessant going to and fro of equipages which
issue from the chalets that are disseminated among the shel
tering pine-trees, and drive round the open-air orchestras,
which are the habitual rendezvous of rusticating Petersburg.
We shall not stay to describe this villeggiatura life. It
gravitates in the orbit of the court, and the life scarcely
differs from that of Potsdam or Schonbrunn. We should
simply find there over again, with a little more liberty, the
society of which we have already made the acquaintance at
the Winter Palace. Nor shall we follow the considerable
fraction of Russian society which goes abroad as soon as the
fine weather comes ; although a piquant chapter might be
written on social life outside of Russia at Baden, Homburg,
Trouville, Biarritz — scenes which Tourguenief has depicted
with a satirical pen in his novel, Smoke. Let us leave to this
witty writer the " Baden Generals," as he calls them. We
are seeking rather for picturesque representations of nation
al life, and in order to find them we shall do best to follow

56 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
in the footsteps of the great landed proprietors who pass the
summer on their estates, " leur bien" as people say at Peters
burg. Each one diverges towards some remote province of
the empire. The time is not distant when these journeys
required two or three weeks over the post-roads, along which
horses dragged the easy chaises. Nowadays a family takes
its place in a comfortable railway car, accompanied by a van
full of boxes as numerous as would be required by an explor
er starting for Central Africa: provisions, clothes, stuffs,
books, everything has to be carried from the shops of Pe
tersburg or Moscow into the forlorn region where the fam
ily is going to live. Which party shall we join ? Their
proverbial hospitality invites us to Lithuania, Ukrania, the
Crimea, the Ural. Let us follow first of all this Cossack
seigneur who is going by way of the Volga to his do
mains in the steppe of the Don.

IX.
He has been staying for a few days at Moscow to see his
friends in the old capital, and to perform his devotions in the
cathedrals of the Kremlin. It is always a joy to the heart of
a good Russian to contemplate the town of the sixteen hun
dred churches with its ocean of green roofs, its lace-work of
spires, and its domes that rise against the azure sky as far as
the eye can reach. He has visited Saint Michael the Arch
angel, where the old Tsars, since Ivan Kalita, sleep side by
side in coffins reared up against the pillars ; he has kissed
the reliquaries of the saints beneath the sombre vaults of the
Ouspensky Sobor, the metropolitan church where the Em
peror is invested with the crown on the day of his consecra
tion. In the evening his friends have invited him to Petri-
kief's, the restaurant famous for the orthodoxy of its national
cooking; Tatars dressed in white serve the oukha, or sterlet

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

57

soup, so dear to the gourmet, the rastigdi, or fish pasty, which
accompanies it; the diners listen solemnly to a gigantic and
indefatigable organ, whose mechanical rollers grind out in
the immense hall select pieces from Glinka's opera, Life for
the Tsar. At last our traveller has made his last purchases
in the bazaar of the " Chinese Town," in those little booths
and stalls that run along the vaulted galleries where the Mus
covite merchants, as impassible and wily as the Turks, sell
caravan tea, Siberian furs, and silver -gilt chased images.
Then he takes the train for Nijnii-Novgorod, and as he will
certainly have some business to do in grain or cattle at the
fair, we shall have time with him to take a glance at this
microcosm of Russian life.
The fair has just begun. According to the traditional
usage, the flags that announce the opening have been hoisted
on their poles and blessed with grand ceremonies. A naval
officer presides over this ceremony ; it is a solemn moment ;
according to the hereditary superstition of the Nijnii mer
chants, if the flags mount without a hitch, and float at once
bravely in the breeze, the success of the fair is certain ; but
if they get entangled in the cords, it is useless to hope to do
good business. The level of the waters of the Volga is also
anxiously consulted. When the waters are too low in con
sequence of the excessive heat, the heavy boats laden with
metal, stuffs, and cereals run aground on the sand-banks in
the river, and cannot get up to the fair, which is limited to
the triangle of alluvium formed at the confluence of the Volga
and the Oka rivers. On this sandy plain, bare and marshy
in spring-time, a large city rises for the space of two months,
with its wooden houses, its long streets with names estab
lished by ancient custom, its Chinese quarter with pagoda
roofs bristling with dragons and bells. The municipalities
of our proudest Western capitals might learn much by study
ing the problems which have had to be resolved in order to

58 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
insure the administrative services of this ephemeral town,
and its provisioning in food and in water. Two things are
particularly worthy of attention— the system of sewers and
the organization of the fire brigade. Fire is the great enemy
of the fair ; every year it destroys shops to the value of a
considerable sum. Everywhere there are towers for watch
men, and stations where powerful engines are always ready
under steam, with horses standing beside them. The firemen

THE " BOURLAKI OF THE VOLGA.

of Nijnii surpass all their European colleagues in skill and
rapidity. General Ignatief, the Governor of the town in
1 88 1, left here traces of his activity, and marked his passage
by useful reforms. To him are due the foundation of night
refuges, immense dormitories which give shelter to a float
ing population of sweepers and dock laborers, who formerly
slept in the door-ways of inns, and did not contribute much
to the security of this agglomeration of men.
The population of Nijnii is formed of types of the whole
universe. You see there all the costumes of Asia, and hear

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

59

all its tongues. The Chinaman from Pekin rubs elbows with
the Mussulman from Constantinople ; Khivans and Bokha-
rians and Persians have arrived in company on the Caspian
steamboats ; the German fur-trader from Leipsic bargains for
sables with the trapper from the borders of the Lena. As
people come to Nijnii for amusement as well as for business,
the places of entertainment occupy one-third of the impro
vised town. There are attractions graduated so as to suit all
purses, from that of the Moscow nabob down to that of the
poorest mujik, and varied to suit all nationalities. There
are theatres where the most famous Russian artists are ap
plauded, and shanties where you find the poorest artists of
the French cafe concerts ; Indian jugglers and mountebanks
from Marseilles alternate with Bohemian singing women and
Caucasian dancers. In virtue of immemorial custom, the
administration takes care that its guests may want nothing,
and that they may find at the fair the pleasures of their re
spective and diverse countries. Some time before the open
ing, mysterious boats come up the Volga ; each one of these
boats carries an ethnographic sample of the East — Persian,
Turkish, German, and French, or supposedly French, ladies.
It would require a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette
to trace the realistic pictures which may be seen in Nijnii in
all their patriarchal candor. You may study here the most
abject misery and vice, and at the same time the most incred
ible follies of wealth. There in a few weeks a Russian mer
chant will drink more champagne than a whole provincial
town in France consumes in a year, and spend a fortune
such as Paris rarely sees squandered within the same lapse
of time. These great business operators seem to be seized
with vertigo; in good years everything is out of all propor
tion — their profits, their liberality, and also their pompous
piety. Some of them ruin themselves by dedicating a church
to St. Macaire, the patron of the fair. The total amount of

60 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
business transacted at Nijnii is the surest barometer of the
public fortune and commercial vigor of Russia.
Let us take our Cossack friend far from these temptations
as quickly as possible, and embark on one of the steamers
that go down the Volga as far as Astrakhan. The boat,
whose boilers are heated with petroleum, is fitted up with a
luxury which will soon be shabby, as one may see from the
habits of the passengers, who lie on the benches with their
greasy touloupes, especially the Jews, who squat on the di
vans, holding their foot in one hand, with their shoes off.
Meals collect in the salon people of all kinds — state engi"-
neers who are making the hydrographic survey of the river;
merchants from Perm, who think to give themselves a cachet
of elegance by speaking a French of their own invention ;
middle-class women, their heads wrapped up in silk kerchiefs,
who are taking their daughters on a pilgrimage to some
monastery. These children are all charming, with their
Russian chemisettes brilliantly embroidered in blue and red,
and with their blond plaits which hang down to their girdle
of nielle silver. There is always and everywhere a General,
to whom all yield the principal place with respect. If the
merchants can make acquaintance with him, if they happen
to live in the same town, they will invite him to some feast
in order that he may come there in full uniform with all his
decorations, and they will then show him off proudly as if he
were a gold centre-piece on the table. Formerly the mer
chants used to pay for this honor in cash. It is stated that
this is no longer done. Let .us hope so. At the side of the
General is a neatly dressed gentleman, who says he is a law
yer at Saratov ; and indeed he talks copiously and eloquently
about everything, and particularly about himself. Son of an
officer, brought up in the cadet corps for the military pro
fession, he has seen a little service in central Asia with
Tchernaief, " a true Slavophile," he affirms. After that ex-

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

61

perience he resolutely said to himself, cedant arma togcs. In
order to better understand judicial practice and get accus
tomed to business, he occupied various minor positions be
fore passing his examination as a lawyer. He was clerk of
a civil tribunal, sher
iff's officer, rural po
lice commissioner.
Thus he has been
able to realize " the
disorder and stupid
ity that reign every
where." After the
first ten words of com
monplace remarks he
plunges at once into
the most burning po
litical questions; nat
urally discontented, a
liberal, and a parlia
mentarian, he is wait
ing for a constitution.
Everything is going
on badly, but he has
methods of his own
to solve all social
problems, and pos
sesses the most fan
tastic and curious in
formation as to the
projects of the court.
Like most of the men
of his type, he is a big baby, angry because he has no role
to play with his tongue ; boastful, irresolute, intelligent in
spite of everything, and withal fond of good living. His

CHIEF OF MONASTERY.

62 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
speeches cease suddenly the moment the card-table is laid,
and behold all our friends absorbed in playing until bedtime.
Let us leave them in the discharge of their sacred func
tions and go up on deck. The great solitary river flows be
tween its left bank, low and sandy, and its right bank, which
is lofty and covered with wood. Glistening in the sunlight
and bathed in a warm haze, it reminds you of the Nile.
The sun is lowering; red and peaceful, it vanishes in serene
glory ; the immense sheet of water remains for a long time
as it if were embroidered with purple and gold, like the cope
of an archimandrite. We meet little boats going up the
stream along the shore, dragged with ropes by women in
scarlet petticoats. These apparitions run one after the other
along the towing-path, standing out in relief against the
brown clay soil of the cliffs, and disappearing between the
groups of poplar-trees. The heavier barges, laden with iron
from the Ural, are towed by the bourlaki, laborers who have
succeeded in this hard trade the convicts of former days.
The Russian painter, Mr. Repine, has frequently depicted
these athletes, almost naked, with their powerful muscles
and savage-looking faces. Along the banks of the river few
villages are seen, and they become rarer and rarer as we
advance towards the south. Up to a recent period the pi
rates and pillaging Cossacks used to infest the lower Volga,
and the population had to take refuge in the interior in
order to escape from their incursions. With the exception
of the fisheries, which retain a semi-nomad people near the
water, one scarcely finds in the second part of the journey
anything but German colonies, established since the reign
of Catherine on this fertile territory. The houses look
comfortable, and have an air of cleanliness which distin
guishes them at once from the miserable Russian isbas. In
these colonies swarm evangelical sects of all kinds : Mora
vians, Stundistes, Molokanes. This fact constitutes an ad-

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

63

ditional point of resemblance between the steppe of the Ger
man colonies and the new districts of western America, to
which these new regions have been frequently compared.
Orthodox convents exist in great numbers along the course
of the Volga in the upper parts, where the forests offer shel
ter to the monks. Some of these old monasteries have cele
brated legends, and attract an immense concourse of pilgrims
from all over Russia. One night when the steamer stops near
one of these fortified buildings, we will take the opportunity
of visiting the holy retreat.
The convents occupy a *z3l&ft^
considerable place in so
cial life. They monopo
lize all the veneration of
the popular classes to the
detriment of the secular
clergy; their riches give
them incontestable influ
ence ; the episcopate is re
cruited in this monastic
militia. Almost every
where these holy towns
are constructed on the
same plan ; the convent
ual buildings run around
a large esplanade, with the
church isolated in the middle. A belfry rises above the
entrance porch, and from the summit the big bell calls the
monks to evening prayer. In the warm and still air of this
summer twilight the grave vibrations of the bronze roll slow
ly in sonorous waves, taking a very long time to die away,
wafted over the woods into the far distant silence. The bells
are answered by the sounds of the songs which issue from
the church whose lights we perceive. The candles are burn-

A TCHEREMISSE GIRL.

64 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ing in the choir. As we cross the court-yard, monks brush
by us in their long robes. These Basilians have something
of the majesty of phantoms beneath their long black vesture,
which drags behind them and is continued in the floating
folds of the mourning veil which is tied on the top of their
head to the klobouque, or tall cylindrical cap. They glide
along noiselessly, with pious gravity, like birds of night, sum
moned from their retreat to the place of prayer. They as
semble in the choir, and disappear in the stalls in the shadow
of the pillars, where they remain for several hours' without a
wrinkle of their faces or a muscle of their limbs stirring, petri
fied like black statues of basalt. The Oriental spirit, which is
theirs, has made holiness consist in immobility. Some of them
wear priestly dresses, and accomplish the religious ceremonies
with the usual pomp. Lay brothers, grouped under the direc
tion of the organist, sing those Russian litanies in which the
human voice attempts to vie with the bronze bell in the spire
in prolonging the low-toned vibrations. Our Western organs
have not. deeper groans or more plaintive expressions of
agony. At the end of the church, pilgrims strike the pave
ment with their foreheads. These are mujiks who have
come from distant villages with their wallets on their backs,
or peasant women carrying a baby tied up in one corner of
their cloaks. Dazzled by these walls glittering with gold and
light, the poor people take out of their pockets the kopecks
which they have painfully economized, and light a little can
dle on the iron tripod where hundreds of similar offerings
are burning. The same scene is being enacted at this hour
at a thousand different places, even to the very extremities
Of the empire, which counts a whole people of these black
monks, and in the great centres of cenobitic life it becomes
truly grand : for instance, at the church of St. Serge at Mos
cow, or the Laura at Kiev, where the pilgrims come every
year in millions.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

65

The boat resumes its journey, and the majestic waters of
the Russian Mississippi continue to spread themselves be
fore us. Every day we touch at one of the great towns of the
East ; Kasan first of all, the semi-Oriental city where half the
population is composed of Mussulmans living there with their
Koran, their mollahs, their laws, and their harems, as freely
and unrestrainedly as their brethren of Stamboul or of Mec
ca. From the top of the minarets the muezzins call the faith-

THE TRAVELLING VIRGIN.

ful to the mosques. The great street of Kasan, the Voskre-
senskaia, is a veritable kaleidoscope. You find there the
remains of those Mongolian tribes who formerly dwelt in
the recesses of the Ural mountains ; the Mordwa, the
Tchouvaches, the Tcheremisses ; these latter are of Lillipu
tian stature, with flat Mongolian faces like those coarse stone
idols which they adore in secret beneath sheds ; for there are
5

66 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
still many pagans among these Asiatics, and the conversions
to Christianity are only apparent. We meet in the Tem
ple of the Saviour a little Tcheremisse woman clothed in a
costume which would delight a painter, a chemisette finely
embroidered, and heavy strings of sequins on her head. She
goes and burns devoutly a candle before the reliquary of St.
Varsonophie, and takes a purse out of her bosom to pay for
it. Though a Christian in name, her paganism is scarcely
different from that of her forefathers. It may be answered,
it is true, that it does not differ very much from that of the
orthodox before whom at this very moment the miraculous
image of the Virgin is being exhibited. A month ago this
image arrived in town from a neighboring convent, and it is
now making visits. The priests carry it in a carriage to the
houses of the sick, and of the families of the rich merchants
who are anxious to have the honor of housing it for a day.
The citizen of Kasan who holds any position in commerce
is bound for his own sake and for the sake of his customers
to receive the visit of the relic. Our innkeeper, a French
Catholic, submitted himself like the others to this obligation,
which costs dearly. In her monthly journey the travelling
Virgin makes some thirty to forty thousand rubles.
Lower down on the river is Samara, which the Russians
call " the American town." It grows visibly since the open
ing of the Orenburg railway, which here joins the Volga, and
brings the merchandise of central Asia. This conglomera
tion of docks, warehouses, and hasty constructions of wood
and brick in the midst of fields of dust, where you sink in
up to the ankles, does indeed make us think of the cities
that spring up as it were by miracle along the railroads in
western America. There is not an old building, not a prom
enade, not a single tree in the town ; nothing but hotels, pub
lic offices, banks, long and broad rectangular avenues, and
sunburnt squares. The business men come here for a few

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 67
weeks, pocket rapidly their profits, and spend a part of them
in pleasure haunts ; it is the gross, feverish existence that
men lead in the gold-fields. Farther still to the south, and
one day's journey above Astrakhan, the town of Tsaritsin
offers the same characteristic ; it is the centre of commerce,
between the Volga and the Don.
Here we leave the steamer. Our travelling companion
has to change boats, and get on a canal which puts the two
rivers in communication, in order to reach his domains in
the country of the Don Cossacks. What domains ! Instead
of describing them to you, it will be sufficient to ask you to
read in the Bible the details given us about the existence of
Abraham and of Laban. Our Cossack friend owns an estate
twenty-five versts long, where he cultivates annually 30,000
acres of wheat; a stud farm with 500 horses; 1,000,000 sheep.
As the owner of these flocks was travelling one day in Ger
many he heard a dispute between two cattle-breeders, who
were contesting which was the richer of the two, and count
ing up their thousand heads of cattle. " I," interrupted the
Russian — " I will bet that the dogs of my flocks are more
numerous than all your sheep put together;" and the Cos
sack Abraham won his bet. But he has one advantage over
the antique shepherds of Mesopotamia: he possesses five
coal-pits, which produce annually ten million pounds of coal.
In a valley between the yellowish undulations of the steppe,
where the pasturage and arable land of our friend stretch
away to infinite distance, we find the centre of a big busi
ness enterprise : houses, farms, mills, orangeries, aviaries,
and immense stables — lordly creations of the father of our
host. Together with the riches of the patriarchs he has
their simplicity of life : his dwelling is modest, and — a char
acteristic detail of old-fashioned Russian manners — you pen
etrate into the salon through a sort of anteroom, where the
serving-maids are busy sewing and embroidering. Thus it

68 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
was formerly in the houses of all the seigneurs, and, if we
may believe Homer, in the atrium of the Greek kings.
But we need not introduce you into this Cossack home.
We will describe rather a house which represents more
exactly the average type of rural life in Russia, and this
house we shall find in the heart of the empire — for instance,
in the fine province of Ukrania. Let us take leave of the
traveller who has guided us along the Volga, and transport
ourselves by means of some magic wand to the regions of
the " black lands " of Kharkov or of Poltowa. The climate
here is temperate, and agriculture flourishes. Fine houses
are numerous, and there will be no lack of families who will
gladly offer us hospitality. Here is a family, we will sup
pose, which leaves the train at some station between Kiev
and Kharkov. Let us join our destinies to theirs.

X.
Svertchkof has painted in genre pictures, and Tolstoi
with his realistic humor in his story of the Trois Morts, this
typical scene — the departure of a rich country lady. An old
lady gets into her chaise, supported by obsequious and very
awkward footmen, whose liveries are the worse for long
wear. During the last hour these footmen have been stor
ing away in the vast vehicle almost as many objects as
Noah's ark could contain, or the first corvette that ever
started to sail round the world ; valises, bags, shawls, baskets,
bottles, boxes of tea, boxes of cigarettes, utensils of all kinds,
bird-cages, and, above all, pillows of all forms and dimensions.
At last La Generate is settled in this ambulatory storehouse.
After entering, for half an hour she worries the station-mas
ter, who stands respectfully at the door, about trifles that
have got lost or mislaid. At last everything is ready, and
she addresses to the coachman the traditional words, "A la

L

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 69
grace de Dieu." The coachman, dressed in a black padiofka,
with a peacock's feather in his hat, devoutly makes the sign
of the cross, and starts his horses. A postilion no taller than
a boot is perched on one of the leaders; the chaise jolts in
the terrible ruts of a Russian road, which can hardly be dis
tinguished from the neighboring fields. It is followed by the
tarantass, a vehicle without springs, in which the servants are
piled up together with the rest of the baggage. The equi
pages run straight ahead without regard to uphill or- down
hill ; the only prudence exercised is to avoid bridges. Pro
vincial bridges have a bad reputation. However rapid the
stream may be, it is better to go to the right or to the left
along the bed of the river than to brave the uncertain planks
that cross it. Thus La Generale, after two or three changes,
where her own horses await her, will traverse the forty, sixty,
or one hundred versts which, as a rule, separate her house
from the railway station.
The road stretches over silent and empty plains, where
the lines of the horizon retreat incessantly before the eyes,
without changing in aspect, like the waves in the open sea.
It is indeed a sea — a sea of wheat with its golden ears undu
lating as far as the eye can see. Nothing in our thickly
populated country districts can give an idea of the profound
stillness of the Russian steppes. At long intervals you come
across a peasant seated in his telegue, or astride of his droghi
— a primitive cart made of a beam placed on two axles. A
few versts farther north we leave the last village of Greater
Russia, with its black and low cottages built of pine trunks
and wattling. As the traveller advances into Ukrania, the
houses of Little Russia assume a more comfortable air, with
their whitewashed walls. The keeper of the inn where we
stop was formerly a serf of La Generale; liberated before the
emancipation, he has made a small fortune. Now his two
sons are beginning to learn Latin, with a view to obtain di-

j0 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
plomas at the gymnasium of Kiev. At the door one of these
boys, in long black coat, black boots and cap, is playing on
an accordion. The other is absorbed in a volume of the
poems of Nekrassof.
Here is the town of the district, announced in the dis
tance by two white patches, the church and the prison, the
only important monuments it possesses. It has a popula
tion of- 12,000 or 15,000 souls, and in Europe would scarcely
deserve the name of a big village. It is almost entirely
composed of peasants' huts, scattered among clumps of wil
low and poplar trees. Around the bazar are a few one-
story houses, with wooden galleries on one of the facades ;
in all the windows are pots of geraniums. These houses are
occupied by the twenty or thirty families which form what
we should call the bourgeoisie — the doctor, the lawyer, the
postmaster, the bank clerks, the personnel of the tribunal,
the functionaries of the Zemstvo, or district council, and two
or three large commission merchants in the grain trade.
This aristocracy is lost in a mass of peasants, as its houses
are lost in an ocean of cottages. It is the symbolic image
of the empire. No one cari tell where the town begins
and where it ends, so inorganic is it with waste and dusty
spaces, mixed up with fields and gardens. Outside the town
you find the shoeing forges, which are relegated to a safe
distance for fear of fire, and a regiment of windmills in the
fields. When you have seen one of these district towns you
have seen them all, for all over Russian territory they resemble
each other.
The carriages plunge once more into the corn-fields or
into the shadow of a birch wood. This latter is rarely met
with in the " black lands," which are almost entirely cleared
and cultivated. Farther on to the north you often travel for
a whole day through an ancient forest, in which are stagnant

THE CARRIAGE OF MADAME LA GENERALE.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 73
marshes covered with dazzling flowers — wild roses, anemones,
orchids, floating islands of orris and of water-lilies. At last
we arrive in front of the mill which turns on the river. The
Jew farmer salutes and bows to the ground. The peasants
that we meet on the road, with their familiar faces, greet
La Generale with a respectful " Good-day, little mother." On
the hill a flag floating from the top of the turret marks the
house of the seigneur; a few more steps and the horses rush
at full gallop into a large court-yard surrounded with build
ings and dependencies.
Fifty or sixty persons — men, women, and children — are
drawn up on the steps awaiting the arrival of their mistress.
These are the families of the " court," for the seigneur has
his court just like the Tsar. These families, employed in
his immediate service and living on his liberality, constitute
the aristocracy of the village. Serfdom has disappeared, it is
true, but its manners and the obligations it has left still sur
vive. It was impossible to dismiss in one day these patri
archal dependents and this world of do-nothing servitors.
For that matter, it is indispensable to have in one's house
in the depth of these solitudes a representative of every
trade. The chateau is like Robinson Crusoe's island, where
a whole civilization has to be created. In this existence, or
ganized in an exactly opposite manner to that of our West
ern life, there is no carpenter, no wheelwright, for the com
mune, but the seigneur has his own carpenter and his own
wheelwright, who work for the village when occasion requires.
There are besides cooks, bakers, gardeners, and innumerable
stablemen, for the post service requires twenty-five or thirty
horses to be kept for the relays ; here is the cabinet-maker,
Plato, the locksmith, Archippus, and the cooper, Feodor —
simple mujiks, naturally industrious and handy, who have
quickly learned to fashion with their hatchets all the objects of
furniture for the house. These important personages have

74 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
their wives in the hierarchy of chamber-maids and seam
stresses. There would be no end to the enumeration of the
holders of sinecures: the day watchman, and the night watch
man, who walks about until morning shaking his rattle in
order that his mistress may sleep in security, the guardian
of the apple orchard, the boatman, the fisherman, and the
man who heats the baths, etc. The painter has the high situ
ation which is due to an artist, but we have never seen him
occupied except in preparing smoked glass to look at an
eclipse of the sun. The old rascal is always drunk, but if
some one suggested to the good lady to dismiss him, she
would swear that the house could not get along without this
indispensable servitor. Finally there are those who are there
because they are there ; born in the court, they contribute
to fill it with young people, who in their turn, when they are
threatened with possible eviction, will assert their hereditary
rights. All these people pay their tribute of gratitude by
kissing the hands of the benefactress as she gets out of her
carriage. From one end of Russia to the other the type of the
seigneur's dwelling varies but little. It is built of wood and
bricks, with a flight of steps in front, and is surmounted by
an attic roof of zinc, flanked by a conical turret. When the
seigneur is rich and able to spend money on repairs, the
building is dazzlingly whitewashed, but generally the mort
gages of the district bank play havoc with the seigneur and
his house, as may be seen by the cracks in the brickwork,
and by the wild-oats that grow with the thistles on the steps.
Behind the house is a court planted with lime-trees, and con
nected with the high-road. In front of it is an orchard and
alleys which descend gently towards the pond — the still, stag
nant pond. Sometimes this pond is advantageously trav
ersed by the river which crosses the property.
In the interior the principal room is a large hall, serving

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

75

as a vestibule, salon, and dining-room. Sometimes you see
here a few pieces of furniture of Empire style, which were
brought here from Moscow long, long ago ; in one corner is
an old clavecin — a relic of another age. On the white walls
hang old portraits : beneath a veil of soot and bitumen gri-

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a;1 i
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AROUND THE "SAMOVAR.

mace the naively terrible features of the hetmans to whom
the estate formerly belonged. Under the eyes of these old
ancestors the long table is served for supper, and for the long
evening watch which will follow. At one end of the table
thrones the samovar. In Russia we might translate by this

76 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
essentially national word our own expression of fireside, with
all the ideas that the word symbolizes. The Northern man
who hides his fireside behind the uninviting walls of a stove
does not find, as we do, his domestic centre around the chim
ney-piece. His household god is the machine that is always
boiling and singing, the source of light and heat, which pours
out incessantly during the long winter days the comforting
drink. Around the table where the samovar sings is grouped
a large family, another word which in the provinces of Rus
sia must be taken in the old and extended sense which it had
formerly in Europe also. Next to the children and grand
children, seated at the side of the ancestor who presides at
one end of the table, follow a whole patriarchal clan of semi-
servitors — a sort of adopted relations who are not exactly
servants. Among them are old maids of noble birth, without
fortune, daughters of officers who have been killed in battle
under the orders of the master of the house, who pay for
their lodging and food by some slight superintendence over
one of the branches of the household. One of these old
maids takes charge of the samovar; nymph of this brazen
fountain, she has put her whole soul in it, and all her facul
ties of thought and love ; her life has never had any other
occupation than to calculate the exact amount of sugar and
boiling water to be put in the glasses from morning until
night. Silent and timid, her little eyes are accustomed to
anticipate the desires of her benefactress in a look ; poor
sacrificed creature, no man has ever asked her for anything
but a little cream. Next comes the regiment of stewardesses
in office, and all those whom the affection of the mistress
liberated in the time when serfdom was still in existence;
then there is the old retired steward and the steward who has
taken his place ; the district doctor, sometimes a big farmer ;
a familiar and cordial company of honest and good people,
who would be equally surprised, both benefactress and de-

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 77
pendents, if they were asked at what point in the common
table the bond of blood ends and the bond of obligation be
gins. The interminable country supper comes to an end
at last, and each one rises from his place and goes and kisses
respectfully the hand of the ancestor, thanking her for her
bread and salt.
During the whole season the greater part of the day is
passed around this table. The neighbors within a radius of
twenty-five or thirty versts take their seats there, and they
are invited to remain until evening, and the conversation
turns on the price of crops, the interests of the province, and
the tardy news from Petersburg. The post arrives only two
or three times a week ; a postilion brings from the town a
bundle of newspapers that are already old when they arrive.
In their turn, our people have the six horses harnessed to the
post-chaise and pay a visit to some exactly similar house,
where they will find exactly the same table, the same faces,
and the same subjects of conversation. Morning is employed
in surveying the fields or settling accounts with the steward,
and at night the family gathers on the steps beneath the
admirable sky of the Ukranian night, and remains there un
til a late hour, listening to the songs of the peasants sitting
at their doors all along the principal street of the village.
These people seem to have laid in a supply of sleep during
the winter. At harvest-time they rise at day-dawn, and yet
they pass a part of the night singing in chorus slow mel
odies, and always sad love-songs, that drag along in the same
minor key, and end in a wild howl like the call of wolves.
The smallest incident is an event in this monotonous ex
istence ; the arrival of the peddler is a fete ; he is generally a
Hungarian or a Pole from Warsaw. He stops his lean horse
and his telegue in front of the gate-way, and enters bent
double beneath the weight of the heavy pack, which is always
of the same model. He spreads out his treasures, surround-

78 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ed by the girls of the court, housewives, and children, their
looks enlivened with curiosity and covetousness. All hands
plunge at once among the ribbons, the embroideries, the
handkerchiefs of printed cotton, the bead ornaments, the toys,
and the almanacs. This man is the only bond of union
between industrial civilization and the Russian village. For
the inhabitants of the steppe whom he supplies, his pack is
the resume of all the luxury and elegance of fabulous Eu
rope. Another day it will be the Jewish musicians who have
come to town for the marriage of one of their brethren. They
make a halt at the chateau and play some operatic airs on
their fiddles and flutes. The young men are ugly and dirty ;
the old men present the superb type of Rembrandt's models.
The Jew only becomes handsome when his beard becomes
white. These unfortunate creatures wear an expression of
terror and supplication ; only a few weeks ago the people pil
laged their shops in the chief towns of the district.
'Once a year the Marshal of the nobility gives a dinner to
his electors, the nobles of the district. This is an unparal
leled opportunity for studying the provincial gentry. All cat
egories are represented in the britchkas and tarantasses which
bring from their homes the seigneurs and country gentlemen.
From a psychological point of view these categories may be
reduced to two welLmarked and characteristic types; one,
the old one, is what Russian literature calls "the man of
1840," whose figure is so strongly sketched in the novels of
Gogol, Goutcharof, and Tourguenief ; kind-hearted and dissi
pated, he mortgages his land and squanders his wealth ; he
hates to reflect, and is a slave to his caprices. The other,
the man of the new generation, is more serious, better in
formed, and interested in the problems of the day ; he is
clear-headed, and has an object in life ; he follows patiently a
career, or cultivates his land with ideas of his own ; in every
thing he accepts that struggle which is the condition of more

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 79
intense social life, instead of allowing himself to float down
stream like his older neighbor. Finally, as man is not per
fect, he has pretensions in politics.
Among the Marshal's guests we notice the functionaries
of the town in vice-uniform, with the cross of St. Stanilas
— the excise inspector, the justice of the peace, the procura
tor, and the Ispravnik, a sort of military prefect, who com
bines in his hands all the administrative powers. After the
first glasses of champagne and a toast to the Emperor, the
tone of conversation mounts noisily. The coming elections
to the Zemstvo are talked over, and all the measures of this
assembly are ruthlessly criticised. " The Zemstvo is no good,"
say half the guests, " because its attributions are too extend
ed." " It cannot do anything because its powers are too re
stricted," urges the other half; and with much eloquence they
reform the abuses of which each one takes advantage in his
every-day life. The discussion raised by these favorite themes
would never finish, if the sight of the card-tables did not close
them as if by magic. This puts all these people at one, and
from then until daybreak they will be busy dealing their cards
and chalking down their scores.
Often the fete is completed by a wolf battue. Through
the intermediary of his police-officers, the Ispravnik has sum
moned into service peasants from the neighboring villages.
The mujiks arrive with their dragging step — the step of
men who are in the habit of laboring beneath burdens and
walking behind the plough. They are armed with staves,
and some of them with antique guns, repaired with string,
dating at least from the war of 18 12. Beaters are placed
around one of those vast woody marshes, covered with inex
tricable thickets of alder and birch trees about the height of
a man. A litter of wolves has been discovered. The peas
ants enter the forest together, preceded by the " howler,': an
old poacher, who imitates with rare precision the howls of

80 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
wild beasts. The cries of the beaters alone indicate their
approach. From time to time you see one of them in the
clearing ; then he plunges up to his waist in mud, and works
his way through the close underwood like a wild beast him
self, with his touloupe all torn, his fur bonnet, and his hairy
face. The shooters are placed on one side of the marsh ;
the young wolves come out one by one or with their mother.
Shots resound, some victims fall, and then you should hear
the joyous shouts of the mujiks, as they feel the fallen beast
with their hands. You should hear the epic apostrophes
which they address to it, breathing all the hereditary hatred
of the peasant against this terrible pillager, who almost every
night steals a sheep, a calf, or a colt. The spoils of the chase
are loaded on a telegue, buckets of eau-de-vie are distributed
to the beaters, and the Nimrods of the district return home,
telling stories of the high deeds of former years.
The Russian hunter, if we had leisure to follow him,
would introduce us to many picturesque and varied scenes.
In winter he goes into the forests of the north to hunt the
bear and the elan. In summer he shoots over the marshy
country where wild-fowl abound, or hunts the fox and the
hare on the plain with his big greyhounds. All those who
have read the novels of Tolstoi and Tourguenief will remem
ber the admirable descriptions of these writers, who were
themselves hunters. We could only repeat what they have
said and in a less felicitous form.

XI.
At the doors of the seigneur's house the peasants form a
little world of their own. Let us take a glance at their ob
scure and laborious life. The emancipation of the serfs has
broken all bonds between the peasant and his former master.
The village community — the Mir— governs, judges, and taxes

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 8 1
itself outside of all control ; it is almost omnipotent in the
sphere of its direct interests ; it has no relations except with
the Ispravnik of the district capital. But the villagers, thus
brusquely left to themselves after centuries passed in leading-
strings, are incapable of managing their affairs wisely. The
Staroste, or Mayor, whom they elect is incapable of keeping

HARVESTING.

accounts ; thus it happens that the clerk of the tribunal steps
in and makes himself the true master and the scourge of the
commune. He is generally a scribe with doubtful antece
dents, a son of a priest, or a subaltern clerk in the civil and
military bureaus. This personage takes in hand the manage
ment of the municipal interests, and exploits them for his own
6

£>

82 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
advantage. From one end of Russia to another you hear
nothing but complaints against this parasite.
It is a fact generally known that the land is possessed in
common by the Mir. The kinds of cultivation vary very
little; the fertile parts of the empire form one immense wheat-
field. The consequence is that the labors of this human
ant-colony have a regular and collective character, which ex
cludes all individual initiative. Everything is massed to
gether — land, wheat, and men ; it is a joint-stock company
working on an infinite scale. The economist may lament
over it, but the painter rejoices in it, for he finds in this
grand picture of agricultural life the souvenir of the pastoral
tribes and of the nomad peoples, who sowed with thousands
of arms the fields of the annual forward stage.
In contemplating these very primitive scenes, he may
imagine himself turning over the illustrations of an old
Bible, representing the labor of the first man on the new
earth. The costumes complete the illusion — above all, those
of the women of Ukrania, who seem to be performing a bal
let rather than accomplishing a laborious task, when the hay
or corn harvest gathers them together by the thousands.
They are so graceful and supple in their movements, in their
short skirts embroidered with wool, leaving the leg bare up
to the knee, with their wreaths of corn-flowers and poppies
on their heads, and their long plaits terminating in a sun
flower. The successive phases of a harvest in the centre of
a large Russian farm may be compared to the episodes of an
immense decorative fresco. On the August evenings the
cart-loads of sheaves come down the hills towards the steam
threshing-machine intrenched among the ricks. On the roofs
of this city of thatch the women stand in the purple dust
that the machine produces in the light of the setting sun,
and the thresher puffs and rumbles as it absorbs the straw
that serves for fuel, and turns out the grain in torrents. This

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 83
is indeed life in its intensest form, but a life with movements
so grave and so harmonious that it does not disturb the au
gust calm of the surrounding nature any more than the litur
gical ceremony interferes with the peaceful tranquillity of a
church. The people of the country districts are very deeply at
tached to the religious and agricultural Jetes, which return at
stated intervals for the distraction of their humble existence.
Such are the blessing of the fruits in August, and the bless
ing of the seed-time in September. The priest advances in
the ploughed field, cross in hand, guiding the ploughs, and
the sowers scatter behind him the new grain. On St. John's
Day large bonfires of weeds are lighted on the hills and burn
all night. The peasants dance and leap over these fires,
singing at the same time their wild melodies. In vain has
the police tried to prevent this dangerous custom, for fire is
the perpetual enemy that continually keeps these poor peo
ple in a state of alarm. Fire is the true seigneur of the
Russian land, the cruel tsar incessantly traversing and ruin
ing the country. We have rarely ever been travelling- at
night in the country districts without perceiving on the hori
zon the flames of a fire. The villages give one the impres
sion of being piles ingeniously prepared for their natural end.
Crowded one against the other, the wooden houses with their
thick roofs of thatch are surrounded by ricks of straw, and
connected by lines of sheds, while wattled palisades envelop
the whole village like a net with meshes of fine wood. After
the long summer droughts this agglomeration of branches,
old beams, and straw dried by the sun is as inflammable as
tinder. Fire is continually breaking out somewhere. Often
it is started out of vengeance, for no crime is more common
in Russia than arson. It is a moment the dramatic horror
of which can never be forgotten. The tocsin sounds from
the neighboring church ; people run in from the fields in

84 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
terror, and hasten aimlessly and in disorder; they are so
confused that it is impossible to direct them ; women and
children stand before their doors weeping and shouting ; the
girls sob rhythmically in the usual tone of their songs, so
shrill and so sad. Each one drives out his cattle and re
moves his poor furniture from the house; the priest goes out
of his house with the holy images ; the Jew innkeeper, all
trembling, hurries away, bending beneath the weight of two
enormous loaves of sugar. The broad curtain of flame rises
heavenward ; the blocks of huts and sheds fall in ; the line
of fire spreads and advances like an intelligently led army.
After a struggle of a few moments the combatants no longer
offer any resistance. The poor peasants feel completely dis
armed in presence of their tyrant ; there is no water. In a
single hour the village is swept away like a field of dry grass.
The fatalist resignation of these people rapidly regains the
upperhand. When night has come each one will be scratch
ing among the ashes of his house, trying to find a bit of car
bonized wheat. All they say is, " God has visited us." And
then they proceed to rebuild the village, so as to be ready
for the next visit.
The fair which is held each year in the district town is
the rendezvous where one can best study the Russian peas
ants. They congregate there from all the surrounding coun
try. Processions of little carts wind along the roads, and take
up their position on a vast open space at the entrance of
the town, which resembles the encampment of one of those
hordes which in former days brought the ancestors of our
mujiks from the plateau of Asia. Men and women dressed
in their finest clothes circulate with wondering eyes among
the tents where the peddlers sell Moscow printed cottons
and cutlery from Toula, the Russian Sheffield. The objects
of trade are few and always the same, for the inventions of
fashion offer no attractions, except for civilized societies ;

MUJIK SOWING.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA. 87
primitive people — the slaves of habit — are afraid of novelty.
Cattle, telegues, strings of big boots, scythes with pious mot
toes engraved on the blades, such are the objects that the
peasant comes to the fair to buy. He also takes home with
him a barrel of tar. Congregations of men in every country
have characteristic odors, which return to us with the image
of them called up in the memory. In Russia it is this odor
of tar. One wonders what can become of all that pool of
black pitch which is attached to their boots and clothing, and
which might start an opposition to the waves of Lake As-
phaltites. When the carts resume their route towards the
village at night their drivers have not a very stable bearing,
for there have been long and frequent visits to the inns at
the fair.
We have said above that the life of the peasant has no
point of contact with that of the seigneur since the emanci
pation of the serfs. The two classes, ruled by different stat
utes, dwell together in the same place almost without know
ing each other. There is wanting an intermediary to bring
them together. This intermediary ought to be the priest. A
few words will explain why this task is beyond his strength.
Question any one of these churchmen that you meet along
the roads, leaning on a long staff, with their shaggy hair
floating over their shoulders, wearing a long cassock discol
ored by the dust — sometimes greenish, and at other times
mauve or cinnamon-color — here, with few exceptions, is the
history of this priest. Generally he is himself the son of a
priest ; sometimes he comes of a family of shopkeepers or
rich peasants ; he has passed six years in the diocesan sem
inary, where he has been taught theology, the Scriptures, and
the Slavonic language, together with a very little Greek and
Latin. At the end of this course of study he has received
sacred orders. If he has not passed the final examina
tion successfully, he remains his whole life in the two lower

88 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
clerical orders — either deacon or psalmist. As soon as he is
ordained, the young preacher must get married, for this is
the indispensable condition of obtaining a curacy. Generally
he seeks his bride in the priestly families of his acquaintance,
and when there is no bride available he sets out on a journey
to hunt for an heiress — that is, the daughter of one of his col
leagues who will bring him a dowry and good parish, where
he will be the coadjutor and afterwards the successor of his
father-in-law. The Russian clergy forms a veritable tribe of
Levi ; the foreign elements which are recruited in it are rap
idly assimilated by marriages contracted within the corpora
tion ; it thus preserves the character of a closed caste, sep
arated from the other classes by its spirit, its traditions, and
its hereditary interests.
Another cause enables it to maintain this character —
namely, its social isolation, the rigor of which no description
can exaggerate. In his country parish the priest is lost be
tween two distinctly marked off worlds — one which he does
not wish to know, and the other which does not wash to know
him. These are, on the one hand, the peasants, poor primary
beings bent over the soil, all alike, all on the same level, " the
great mass of the people," as the Russian expression so very
well puts it. When once the threshold of the church has been
passed the pastor is a stranger to them, through his rudimen
tary education, through his sense of his little dignity, and
above all, on account of his quality of functionary, and by the
embarrassment, not to say hostility, which is created between
them by their pecuniary relations. On the other hand is the
great and the small nobility, which keeps the priest at a dis
tance. In general, and barring exceptions, it may be said
that the priest is not admitted to the chateau unless he is
summoned there to fulfil the duties of his office. He is
rarely ever invited to the family table, and no friendly inter
course ever grows up. In the minds of the most religious

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

89

persons there takes place an habitual compromise between
their respect for the function and their contempt for the
functionary. You will hear a pious old lady crying up or dis
paraging the merits of " her priest," but the moral nature of
the man is never taken into account; everything is reduced
to one point — that is to say, "he officiates well," or "badly";
in other words, he looks well personally, or sings in tune, or
he celebrates the ceremo
nies with proper intona
tions and noble gestures.
He is chosen as if he were
a sacred maitre d'hbtel
from whom is demanded
good manners and elegant
service. The young Levite
shuts himself up in his
house on the thirty-five
acres of land that the
commune allows him, and
which he has to share
with his deacon and his
psalmist. Meanwhile, the
family increases rapidly,
the education of the boys
has to be provided for at the seminaries, the girls want
trousseaux, without counting the relations on both sides who
have to be helped. The salary paid by the State varies from
one to two hundred rubles ; the only serious source of in
come for the priest is the occasional receipts, such as the
small sums charged for the administration of sacraments.
The priest taxes his parishioners ; he drives a bargain for
a funeral or for a marriage ; hence arise regrettable inci
dents and greediness in pecuniary matters, and sometimes the

OFFICIATING PRIEST.

90 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
refusal of the sacraments when the person dying is unable
to pay, and in consequence there exists a singular contradic
tion in the mind of the peasant as well as in that of the sei
gneur. While submitting with veneration to all religious ob
servances, the mujik, nevertheless, considers the minister a
scourge, and looks upon him as one of the too numerous in
carnations of the taxation system. These relations are not
calculated to develop in the priest apostolic sentiments tow
ards his flock ; he endures their contempt, and patiently puts
up with his misery ; but every spring is soon broken in the
soul of this man. He has not even the stimulus of ambition,
for the episcopate is almost exclusively recruited from the
ranks of the " black clergy " of the monastic and celibate
category, and those monks who issue from their monastery
to put on the bishop's mitre have on their side also an aris
tocratic disdain for the " white clergy," for the humble secu
lar country priest. For some years the Holy Synod has
been studying the means of remedying this deep wound in
the Russian organism, but the means are not easily attained.
The empire is not rich enough to weight its budget with the
many millions which would be necessary to improve the
materia] situation of the clergy ; and then, if new laws were
made, it would require a long time to change manners which
are so deeply rooted. XII.
We should obtain but an imperfect idea of the social life
of a people if we did not enter the churches, particularly in
Russia, where religion absolutely governs the heart and the
whole life of the popular classes, and where it still has great
empire over the exterior habits of the upper classes, if not
over their sentiments. Faith is ardent and unquestioning in
all the members of the congregation assembled between the
pine-wood walls of this country chapel, where the peasants

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

91

incessantly bow the knee as they devoutly kiss the pavement.
If any of them leave the chapel, it is to found a sect of the
Rascol, still more rigid. Faith is still living in the hearts of
the merchants who gather in this Muscovite oratory before
these altars, covered with gold and silver, thanks to their
liberality. They prostrate themselves ; they pour into the
boxes princely offerings for the propagation of the faith
among the infidels ; but how many believers are left in the
aristocratic and official society which mounts the steps of
the temples at Petersburg? Here religion is only a uni
form ; all wear it ; etiquette requires it to be worn ; and the
court will allow no joking in this matter. The freethinkers
are obliged to conform, like the libertines under Louis XIV.
They are bound to do their devotions publicly at Easter;
the law of the empire exacts this much ; but otherwise the
Orthodox Church is not troublesome. More of a formalist
than a theologian, the Church troubles itself very little about
the secret thoughts and consciences of its children provided
its rights are respected. The spirit of this Church is mani
fested in the manner of praying ; the ceremonial occupies a
larger place than mystic effusion. But it must be confessed
that for the pomp and brilliancy of its ceremonies the Rus
sian Church is without an equal in the world.
Let us enter the cathedral of St. Isaac at Petersburg
on Easter night, or that of the Saviour at Moscow. What
ever can produce an impression on the senses of man is
put into action ; the incalculable riches of the treasures that
cover the walls and pillars — lapis lazuli, malachite, diamonds
strewn in profusion over the images — the mystery of the
ceremonies that are being celebrated behind the Iconostase
which rises between them and us, its wall all peopled with
saints in their gilded robes ; the number and the magnifi
cence of the officiating priests ; the hieratic majesty of those
old men with their long white beards and colorless faces,

92

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

who move in procession or remain motionless beneath their
tiaras and their brocaded robes ; the harmony of the songs,
with their low, awe-inspiring bass notes, and their celestial
choruses of soprani so marvellously trained; the solemn
piety of the people; the constant union of religious and
national sentiment in those repeated invocations that are
addressed to the Lord for the imperial family ; the perfume
of the incense, the smoke of which rises to the roof ; the daz
zling brilliancy of the thousands of lights reflected on the
gilding and the marble, which give the same fantastic life, in
the shadow, to the figures of the saints painted on the fres
cos and to the pale archimandrites who pass beside them.
Everything that the worshipper sees, hears, feels, or dreams,
plunges him into an ecstasy without end. During this East
er night the lamps and torches are extinguished at the be
ginning of the service ; then, when midnight sounds, the bells
ring out on the air a tempest of joyous peals ; garlands of
light instantly blaze forth under all the dome ; the doors
of the Iconostase open ; the pontiffs appear and strike up
hymns of joy, which are taken up in chorus by all those pres
ent. Each one hurries out to communicate the sacred fire
to the innumerable candles that are waiting outside ; people
embrace each other in the streets, with the obligatory salute,
which on that day takes the place of the usual greeting,
" Christ is risen ; he is truly risen." Besides these grand
ceremonies, the marriage and burial services ought to be
seen in a Russian church. The finest songs and the most
impressive rites are reserved for the starting-point and for
the termination of human life. We will seize this opportu
nity to say a few words on the most important of social insti
tutions.

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

93

XIII.
The Russians generally marry quite young in the upper
classes, and among country people even at an earlier age ;
and to the honor of this society be it said, love marriages
are the rule, and marriages for money are very rare ex
ceptions. Dowry-hunting and marriages of interest have
not yet made their appearance in Russian manners. Girls
of high social position readily marry young officers of the
Guard, who furnish the largest contingent of dancers to the
balls of Petersburg. During the carnival fetes the two ar
mies, the army in petticoats and the army that wears ep
aulets, learn to know each other thoroughly. Friendships
spring up, the young man pays court, and one day, without
having consulted anybody, two fiances come to ask of the
parents a blessing, which is never refused. The Church
does not marry during Lent, so they have to wait until East
er week. Fashion demands for the celebration of the cere
mony the chapel of some private house, if the couple has not
sufficiently lofty relations to secure the chapel of the palace.
A family that respects itself ought to have at its wedding as
honorary father and honorary mother, if not the Emperor and
the Empress, at least a Grand-Duke and a Grand-Duchess.
The honorary father gives the holy image, which some little
child related to the families carries in front of the fiances.
They enter the church, followed by all their friends in gala
uniform. The ceremony begins ; it is very long and compli
cated, with many symbolic rites ; a small table — a sort of
movable altar— is placed in the middle of the oratory ; the
couple is separated from it by a band of rose-colored satin ;
when the priest calls, they must advance, and the first who
sets foot on the band, whether husband or wife, will be the

94 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
one who will impose his or her will in the household. This
is an article of faith for all the matrons, who watch them at
that moment. On the table is placed the liturgical formu
lary, the candles which they must hold, the cross which they
will kiss, the ring which they will exchange, the cup of wine
in which they will moisten their lips, and which is called in
the Slavonic ritual "the cup of bitterness." Pages relieve
each other to carry with out-stretched arms two heavy crowns,
which must be held above the heads of the fiances while the
ceremony continues. At the decisive moment, when the
priest is pronouncing the words that bind them together, the
couple walk three times around the altar, followed by the
crown-bearers ; until the third turn is completed there is time
to turn back ; after that the die is cast, the couple are united
for life. Thereupon the singers strike up in their most stri
dent voices the joyous hymn, " Let Isaiah rejoice," but no
one has ever been able to explain why Isaiah should rejoice
when an Orthodox man marries an Orthodox woman. The
bride and groom then go and prostrate themselves before
the Virgin of the Iconostase, and kiss her filigree robe, after
which they pass into the neighboring salon, where they gayly
clink glasses of champagne, while the invited guests receive
boxes of sweetmeats marked with the monogram of the young
couple. In the villages the marriage ceremony is celebrated
in a simpler and more expeditious manner, especially when
the mujiks have only a few rubles to give to the priest. A
simple gesture, a few words, and a few minutes suffice to bow
beneath the yoke her who is about to begin her hard appren
ticeship of wife and mother in the humble peasant's home.
In the evening the young people assemble in a barn or some
shed, the fiddler scrapes his bow over an instrument which
he has made with his own hands, girls and boys join hands
and dance around. In the middle of the circle a young man
dances the Kazatchok, or Cossack dance ; he bows his legs,

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

95

rises with a bound, strikes the ground loudly with his boot-
heel, and then suddenly he springs forward to the girl of his
choice, kisses her, and puts his cap on her head, whereupon
she steps into the circle, and mimics with her whole body a
dance similar to that of the almehs of the East.

THE "KAZATCHOK," OR COSSACK DANCE.

And now from this nuptial dance let us pass to death.
Is it not with death that we must finish this picture of so
cial life as well as of all other manifestations of life ? The
death of one of his relatives occupies the Russian very much,
whatever his condition may be, but in his eyes it has the

96 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
signification of a function which it is proper to accomplish
with all desired regularity and decorum. Among this fatalist
people death does not awaken lugubrious ideas. The de
parted soul still has a right, during a few days, to the society
of his friends. At Petersburg it is usual to have printed in
the newspapers in a special column the decease of one's rela
tives and the hours of the panichidas. Let us retain this
word; it plays a great role in the existence of those who
have nothing to do. It is the name given to the funeral
prayers which are recited twice every day over the body of
the deceased during the time it remains exposed in the sa
lon, with the face uncovered, between candles and flowers.
Those who have known the deceased, and sometimes others,
come to these ceremonies, which constitute a meeting-place
where one can hear the news, for there is always found in
the company some important persons. Each group talks
about its own affairs. We might even venture to say that
some people are bold enough to find in these circumstances
an occasion to meet certain persons. Conversation goes on
at one end of the room, and very little attention is paid to
the corpse, over which the deacon mutters his slow psalmody.
On the day of the funeral the cortege proceeds towards the
Laure of St. Alexander Nevsky or the Convent of the Vir
gins. Families of position have their burial-places in one of
the two cloisters. At a funeral, as at a marriage, a member
of the imperial family is de rigueur. Each one tries to catch
his eye, while the songs of splendid sadness arise around the
catafalque, smothered in a mass of green shrubs. No em
blems of mourning sadden the walls of the church. After
the absolution the parents come and kiss for the last time
the hand of the deceased ; the followers disperse, impreg
nated with the special odor of death in Russia — an odor
composed of incense and burning wax — and compliment
each other on the fact of a man of so distinguished a rank

SOCIAL LIFE IN RUSSIA.

97

having departed from this world with all the honors due to
his tchine. The satirist Nekrassof pretends even that rich
people prefer to die in the winter in order to have fine obse
quies in town, so that " the worm in the icy earth may not
crawl so soon over their remains."
Let us return to the village now as we did after the wed
ding. This time again it is simpler. Marsh fever has car-

A MUJIK S FUNERAL.

ried off the peasant; the body is placed on the table from
which the dinner has just been removed ; it is washed and
dressed ; the carpenter nails together four planks, not very
good ones ; the pope is sent for, and arrives with his old sil
ver cross, and bargains for the price ; if the family has means,
hired weepers howl all along the road to the church ; the
7

98 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
cortege comes out again after a summary benediction. The
last funeral that we saw was one September evening, at the
hour when the flocks of the commune were returning from
the pasturage. The oxen and horses caused a cloud of dust
to rise over the high-road all gilded with the oblique rays of
the setting sun. The corpse departed among those familiar
animals as if it were returning to the fields ; the cloud of
dust formed a radiant nimbus around it ; the air was calm ;
the peacefulness of the evening indescribable ; the verses of
the psalmist carried to a great distance in this limpid atmos
phere; it seemed as if they must have been audible to the very
extremities of the steppe. The group of peasants ascended
the hill, and left its burden in one of those cemeteries so
badly kept in Little Russia, without fences, without flowers,
and indicated only by a few broken crosses which lie on the
leprous grass. The ceremony was finished so quickly that
it was still daylight when the followers met in the isba for
the funeral repast around the barley-cake and the raisins.
Who was dead ? " A soul," as people used to say ; one
of the mujiks — Ivan or Piotre. In the court no one was
able to tell you. One of the innumerable bubbles that ap
pear for a moment on the surface of the great Russian marsh
had broken ; that was all. What did it matter ? Thousands
of others were rising at the same moment from the life which
was fermenting in that immense and obscure reservoir of the
future.

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.
By the Vicomte EUGENE MELCHIOR DE VOGUE.

" T 'X 7E are come to the uttermost limits of the earth, to
V V the country of the Scythians, to an inaccessible
desert." Such is the picture of the Caucasus given by old
yEschylus in the first verses of the Prometheus Botmd: a
chaos of rocks piled upon precipices at the very extremity
of the terrestrial plains ; a mysterious Calvary reared on the
borders of the firmament for the torture of the heroic crim
inal — of the first man who attempted to shake off the tyran
ny of the gods. And the imagination of the tragic prophet
peoples these solitudes with symbolic figures — Strength and
the Forces of Nature — which are conjured to overpower the
rebellious mortal, and to drown his laments in the noise of
their imprecations, to which the distant voice of the Ocean
responds. How admirable the poet's divination ! The impression
conveyed by the philosophical landscape in which he lays
the scene of his drama came back to me completely, after
many long days of journeying in the interminable Russian
steppe, the evening when I saw rise before me that wall
which seems to close in the world. Some days afterwards,
when I examined at the staff-office at Tiflis the relief map of
the Caucasus, I found in it, if I may so express myself, the
scientific transcription of ^Eschylus's vision. To our modern
7*

102 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
eyes, more widely opened over the globe, the Caucasus no
longer marks the limits of the earth; but it constitutes the
central knot where is the meeting -place of the vast plains
of Asia and Europe, of the secondary chains that spread
across these plains, and of the human races disseminated
over the two old continents. It requires long efforts in order
to discern on the relief plan a rational structure in this inex
tricable labyrinth of mountains, valleys, lakes, and rivers. It
looks as if Asia and Europe, dashing against each other with
their whole weight on this isthmus penned in between two
seas, had entangled their antlers like two stags in combat.
And this geological chaos is the faithful image of the chaos
of species, races, religions, and languages. On a superficies
almost equal to that of France, on the various levels of these
terraces, which rise from the banks of the Caspian and the
Black seas to heights of 17,000 feet, you see all the produc
tions of the globe as they might be displayed by samples on
the shelves of one of our Universal Exhibitions ; from the
tropical flora of the gardens of Soukhoum and the marshy
forests of the Lenkoran, to the Alpine flora that shivers above
the pine-trees against the glaciers of the Kazbek. You find
there all ethnographical types, the primitive models upon
which the infinite variety of human visages has been mod
elled — some beautiful as Greek gods, others scarcely rough
ened out of their animality. One page would not suffice for
the mere enumeration of the names of the distinct nations
and tribes settled from time immemorial on the slopes of the
Caucasus, or abandoned there by the great migrations that
have passed into Europe. In the course of a single day's
journey you hear the most widely different idioms. Strabo
in his day calculated that seventy languages were spoken in
the markets of Colchis, and modern philologists do not con
sider this figure exaggerated even at the present time. The
Caucasus limits the domains of the two great religions that

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 103
come and expire at its feet while struggling for the posses
sion of its inhabitants ; but between Christianity and Islam
ism we find traces of all the primordial forms of worship —
pagans, fetichists, and adorers of fire.
/Eschylus obeyed a mysterious presentiment when he
assembled in these lofty retreats Strength and the Forces
of Nature. Everything here reminds us of their presence.
But nowadays Prometheus reacts against them ; he contends
with them, and his turn has now come to reduce them to
slavery. The Russians have spent a century in conquering
the Caucasus ; they have had total and peaceful possession
of it only within the past twenty-five years ; and already we
can foresee the marvellous use which civilized man will make
of this land. In its bosom it hides all the metals, thermal
waters, and lakes of mineral oils ; it bears all fruits, and all
kinds of harvests, with incomparable fecundity. Placed at
the junction of the great commercial routes and sea-highways,
it will one day be the richest emporium of the Old World ;
the industry of the West will become tributary to this rich
mine, while its vineyards and its virgin forests will prove to
be formidable competitors against our exhausted agriculture.
At the same time that it will yield material treasures to
those who work it, this country will also furnish precious
spiritual acquisitions. How many revelations does it prom
ise to science and to all the sciences ! The Caucasus is a
book that has not yet been read. With the exception of
a few observations by ancient travellers, almost nothing is
known about it ; even in- Russia there does not exist any
publication devoted to a general study of it. The first thing
that ought to be done by the Imperial Government, and by
the academies of Petersburg, is to organize a scientific mis
sion on the model of that memorable Egyptian commission
which Bonaparte formed for the purpose of noting all the
curiosities of the valley of the Nile. After a few years of

I04 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
methodical labor it could draw up a general inventory of the
conquered country. No contribution would be more useful
to human knowledge. The Caucasus certainly guards the
secret of many problems in the physical and natural sciences,
and the key of many obscure or controverted questions in
the history of races, languages, and religions. An attentive
inspection of its inhabitants would enable us to reconstitute
in miniature the figure of the Indo-European world from the
very remotest epochs which have still their representatives
here. The reader does not expect that I am going to undertake
this study in a few pages, or that I can give him a connected
description of the Caucasian regions, so extensive and so dif
ferent from each other. I must confine myself to calling up
at random, among the souvenirs of a six weeks' stay, the as
pects and sights which struck me most keenly — those which
the eye recalls with most pleasure on those evenings when
the traveller revives the vanished dream, and unfolds the
map that is engraved in his brain, together with the living
images of men and things.

I.
The railway system of southern Russia ends at Rostov,
on the Don, whence it shoots out a long branch to the foot
of the Caucasus, over a distance of 435 miles across the
Ponto-Caspian Isthmus. Rostov is the last Russian town
properly so called ; it guards the estuary of the Don which
becomes insensibly the Sea of Azof. Everything is ready
there for a great commercial port like Bordeaux or London.
Imagine to yourself these towns at the time when our an
cestors had not yet conquered the elements, and when the
Thames and the Gironde, still free from dams and quays,
spread out over the surrounding country, covered with primi-

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

107

tive boats and fishermen's huts. The railway crosses the
immense river on a succession of jetties and bridges of stone
or of wood. It was the month of May when I passed, at the
time of the floods. From the middle of this broad arm of the
sea the horizon revealed no land worthy of the name. Our
locomotive seemed to be shipwrecked in some dilurian pas
sage — a striking, image of that colossal Russian nature where
the violence of the elementary forces cannot yet be mastered
by the effort of man.
On leaving the water, the train enters a bare and flat
steppe, where Cossack shepherds pasture their flocks. Dur
ing a whole day nothing arrests the eye which follows the
play of the pure light on this ocean of flowery grass. It
seems as if some magnificent hand had stretched out a car
pet of verdure without a single crease up to the first terraces
of the Caucasus. At last the white peak of Elbrouz appears
in the distance in the clouds, the advanced sentinel of the
mountains. The public gathered together at the railway
stations present a medley of new types and costumes. The
bottrka of the mountaineers, that long- mantle of goats' hair
which they wear so nobly, is mingled with the tunics of the
Cossacks. The martial-looking fellows who handle the bales
of merchandise carry guns slung across their shoulders, and
waistbands bristling with damascened poniards. We pass
the Kouban and then the Terek, rivers on whose banks the
Russians have fought so many battles. These two names
symbolize a whole world of picturesque poetry and warlike
legends, to become acquainted with which we must read
Lermontof, the poet of the Caucasus, whose genius has given
a soul and a voice to these solitudes. In the verses of the
" Demon," as well as in the romantic tales which he has
grouped under the title of A Hero of Our Time, the Musco
vite Byron has embodied the whole epopee of the conquest,
and, over and beyond these souvenirs, the whole feudal his-

108 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
tory, and all the pleasing or terrible aspects of that Caucasus
where he lived his adventures and his amours until he was
shot in a duel at the age of twenty-eight. Never, perhaps,
has our world seen a richer imagination and a more violent
soul ; never were cries of passion fixed in strophes of more
ardent melancholy. These mountains do not reveal them
selves in all the intensity of their reality to the traveller un
less he asks of their echoes the verses in which Lermontof
has vied in power with their torrents and their storms.
Here are the mountains rearing their walls perpendicu
larly above our heads ; the chain runs towards the right
to the Black Sea, and towards the left to the Caspian : on
this side it envelops the gorges of Daghestan, that wild and
difficult country where Schamyl so long resisted the invader,
with the aid of those Kevsoures who still wear the coat of
mail and carry the arms of the Middle Ages. The train
stops in the station of Vladicaucaz, a big straggling village,
where the Russians have concentrated their administrative
and civil services on this side the mountains. There is a
project of a tunnel through the chain to carry the train to
Tiflis — a costly and difficult undertaking, for the subterra
nean track would measure no less than eleven and a quarter
miles. Some engineers propose another plan, which, by ris
ing more to the west in the valleys, would permit the reduc
tion of the length of the tunnel to less than five miles. At
present, on leaving Vladicaucaz you follow the fine military
road which the Russians have made for the use of their regi
ments on the southern slopes, and which takes you to Tiflis
in twenty-four hours. I do not think that there is a more
picturesque and grand passage in Switzerland or in the Ital
ian Alps.
I jump into a light carriage drawn by four horses. My
driver, a Cossack, draped in his bourka, is armed with a mag
nificent bugle, the use of which I cannot divine. We rise

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

109

rapidly up the gorge of Dariel, the Thermopylae of the Cau
casus, the bloody road of the debuts of the conquest. Night
falls suddenly, augmented by a storm which opens upon us
the sluices of heaven. A veil of fog fills space, but our ride
in the mountain becomes all the more fantastic on that ac
count. At full speed we rush along the unsafe road, across
swollen cascades which the horses jump bravely. Sheets of

PLOUGHING THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES.

mist float over our heads ; from time to time, through a rent
in them, we perceive the black bar of the overhanging walls
of rock. At our feet the Terek roars. Sudden apparitions
stretch out their arms in the fog ; these are oak-trees or pop
lars. My Cossack puts his bugle to his lips, and blows a
blast that the echoes repeat: I now understand the use of

IIO THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
his instrument. It warns the carriages that are coming at
full speed in the opposite direction around the sharp bends,
and it makes those which we pass clear the way. At the
sound of this trumpet of doom terrified phantoms flee before
us, Tcherkess horsemen of spectral mien, clad in bachlik or
bourka, herds of horses that are returning to the plain, heavy
Ossete carts, with whole Mussulman families concealed be
neath their canvas awnings. We still mount higher and
higher; the darkness grows thicker in this sort of funnel,
as it were the walls of a well, and meetings become more
rare. Below us the torrents roar deeply; on the peaks the
snow presents, confused white masses ; torrents and snow
reverberate a diffused brightness ; you feel that there is a
pale fragment of moon somewhere behind the clouds. At
the post stations where we stop to change horses two sounds
alone trouble the majestic silence : the rush of water and the
wind that roars through the gorges — " the Russian wind,
come from the steppe, folding its cold wings," as Lermon
tof says. We cross precipices at a gallop over frail little
bridges. The air# becomes stinging, sharpened by the cold
of the neighboring snows. The storm increases in violence,
and obliges us to halt at the inn at the Kazbek Pass, and
wait there until dawn.
Day breaks in a bright sky cleared by yesterday's rain.
It seems as if one could stretch out one's hand and touch
the first glaciers of the Kazbek, that giant of the Caucasus,
which lifts its bald head more than 16,000 feet high. Last
night an old Georgian told me the legend of the Great Bear.
In the olden time, at the foot of the Kazbek there was a her
mitage, where lived seven very holy monks who ruled the
whole world. God provided for their food and for all their
wants. Now, it happened that the curiosity of a young girl
of the village of Gerghet, the ruins of which are to be seen
near the station, lost these recluses. Women were forbidden

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

I II

to approach their retreat ; but this girl, desiring to know
what kind of life the seven hermits led, disguised herself as
a hunter of chamois, and went to knock at their door, at an
advanced hour of the night, to ask for hospitality. As they
refused to let her in, she threatened to proclaim everywhere
the uncharitableness of the monks. The old men did not
yield ; but a young monk interceded in favor of the stranger ;
his prayer was heard, and the false hunter obtained permis
sion to pass the night in the hermitage, at a distance from
the saints, but still not very far from her young intercessor.

MTZCHET.

Now, this latter felt in a dream the presence of a woman,
and the next day when the saints waked the Lord had tak
en back from them all his gifts. They found themselves de
prived even of the sunbeam on which they were in the habit
of hanging and drying their clothes. At last, by dint of sup
plications, they obtained pardon, and God took them up to
heaven ; and since then, in the form of seven stars, they turn
without rest around the summit of the Kazbek; the smallest
star is that of the youngest of the seven holy men ; at night
you see it bending over the ruins of Gerghet.
As we advance along the road, cut across an amphitheatre

112 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
with walls of granite and basalt, I notice several of those
half-ruined villages dominated by a square tower. Here was
the refuge of a small Christian feudalism which through
out the Middle Ages defended itself in these haunts against
Mussulman invasions and against the Persians, who were
masters of the southern valleys. The descendants of these
Georgian clans till the poor mountain fields with a primitive
plough ; they dwell in huts built of stones without mortar
or plaster, and so low that they can hardly be distinguish
ed from the rocks with which their brown color confounds
them; a miserable race, which has been hunted down for
centuries, now by the enemy from the south, and now by the
enemy from the north, and which hides its dens with the
instinctive ruse of the wild beasts. We round the foot of
the Baidar, and every vestige of human life disappears ; the
first rays of an invisible sun fix a little pale gold on the sum
mit of the walls of ice. Before reaching the Goudaour Pass,
7400 feet, the road plunges into a trench cut right through
the snow; the eye sees nothing beneath the heavens but
this white sheet stretched from one peak to the other.
While we are changing horses at the Goudaour station
I dip on my right and on my left in the two rivulets that
trickle from the partially congealed snow. The first will
join the Terek and water our Europe; the second will go
to form the Aragva, which runs in the valleys of Asia, which
we see spread out before our eyes. Another step and we
are in a new world. From this point the descent begins ; at
the commencement it is very steep; the road goes down. in
innumerable zigzags, which, however, does not prevent our
little horses rushing forward with the swiftness of a whirl
wind. How we reach the bottom without breaking our bones
a hundred times is the concern of Allah, the god of this side
of the mountains, the god of the fatalists.
The ravine of the Aragva widens, the air begins to feel

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

"3

milder, the slopes, so bare on the northern side, become cov
ered with dark forests. Beyond Mlety the torrent becomes
a well-behaved river, and the road that follows its course
imitates its example. In the broad valley the eye is ravished
by delightful views : villages daintily sheltered in the midst
of walnut-trees centuries old, orchards of almond-trees and
apple-trees laden with blossom. In twenty-four hours we

-'^£&&_-*o^

RUINS OF CASTLE OF QUEEN TAMARA.

have gained two months on the calendar of the seasons. Yes
terday, in Russia, spring had hardly begun; here it is already
nearly at an end, and the air of Asia is sweet to breathe.
Here are Passanaour and Ananour, charming villages buried
in nests of verdure, which one might mistake for hamlets of
the Italian Tyrol, were it not for the Oriental types of the
natives and the little Georgian churches so characteristic in
8

ii4 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE- k
style. It is at Mtzchet that we can best study the invariable
architecture of the religious edifices of the Caucasus. But
I must not weary with technical descriptions my reader who
is already fatigued by the effort he has made to pronounce
this rugged assemblage of consonants, which will give him
a singular idea of the conformation of Iberian throats. Nev
ertheless, it is a very pretty dead town, this Mtzchet, the an
cient capital of Georgia. Here reigned King David and
Queen Tamara, that Queen of Sheba of the Caucasus to
whom is attributed indiscriminately the whole treasure of
the local legends. She lived in the twelfth century, very
much dreaded by her neighbors, the disloyal Persians, and
famous as far as Jerusalem ; she gathered all the Caucasus
under her sceptre, gave it just laws, and covered it with
those cathedrals whose elegant lines we still admire. At
least that is what is said about her by the noble Georgians,
who speak of this golden age with a sigh. I imagine, how
ever, that Tamara owes the best part of her glory to the
circumstance that near her throne flourished Rustaveli, the
great poet of the nation. He sang the praises of his protec
tress as poets are wont to sing the praises of a beautiful
queen. The deserted monasteries and the dismantled castle of
Mtzchet are reflected in the waters of the Koura, which here
receives the Aragva and carries its tumultuous waters to the
Caspian, along the great central valley between the Caucasus
and the Anti-Caucasus. The road opens out into this val
ley and turns westward, and soon we perceive the houses of
Tiflis clinging to the sides of the hills on both banks of the
Koura.

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

H5

II.
You have seen on the shores of the ocean pebbles piti
lessly rolled by the ebb and flow, worn and deformed by the
play of the waves ? Such is the history of Tiflis. An old
and venerable city, for it can show churches that were found
ed in the first centuries of our era, it has always been the
victim of its geographical position. Each time that the tide
of Islamism poured over the mountains of Armenia, Tiflis
was swallowed up and destroyed. Then its Georgian mas-

THE OLD CITADEL AT TIFLIS.

ters would recover it for a while, only to yield it up once
more to a new flood of Mongolians, Persians, or Turks. The
last total destruction dates a century back ; it was the work
of the Shah Aga- Mohammed- Khan. Since then another

Il6 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
wave from the north has taken it, and remade it after its
own fancy.
At the present day Tiflis is a hybrid town, half Russian
and half Oriental. In the centre of it the victors have built
a palace, a museum, barracks, boulevards, lined with hotels
and shops, which vie with those of Moscow. The moment
you return to the faubourgs you find yourself in the East
again. In the narrow tortuous streets are to be seen the
native industries, with the aspect and usages that each one
faithfully preserves throughout Asia. Each trade has its'
street. Here the jewellers, working in the open air, in their
little stalls, at a bench, where they set turquoises in silver fili
gree ; there. the sword cutlers and gunsmiths, squatting in
their niches behind a heap of iron, invite you to buy old Per
sian shields, Khorassan blades, poniards of nielio-work from
Trebizond, long Kourd guns with the stocks inlaid with moth
er-of-pearl. Beneath the damp vaults of the bazaars Arme
nian clerks . unfold the silks and gauzes of Asia Minor, and
Carpets from Kirman and Bokhara, piled up in heaps on the
floor of a back shop, where the Persian dealer smiles at you
in his dyed beard. Tiflis is the principal market for Oriental
carpets. Here you find a finer selection and less unreason
able prices than in the bazaar of Constantinople.
You go back into the street, and your carriage is stopped
by a team of camels, which sway along or kneel down be
neath their heavy burden of bales of cotton. Drivers and
passers talk back at each other in all languages. The camels
draw off to one side to give passage to a Tcherkess horseman,
who manages with graceful ease his thorough-bred Kabarda.
A Tatar is going to the bath-house mounted on his donkey;
he fingers his chaplet of amber beads as he passes near a
pope, who is bargaining for a silver-gilt icon in front of a
goldsmith's window. A Russian officer, correctly buttoned up
in his green tunic, stares out of countenance the Georgian

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

117

women who glide along like phantoms — Christians whom
long accustomedness has fashioned to Mussulman manners.
They are enveloped in long white veils, hanging down from a

f

MARKET SCENE AT TIFLIS.

velvet cap worn over the long black braids of hair that frame
the sculptural lines of their faces and their great black eyes,
whose brilliancy is heightened by the dull paleness of their
complexions.

n8 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
The population of Tiflis helps one to understand what I
said above about the Caucasus, that it is the meeting-point
of all the races of the Old World, if it is not even the starting-
point of many of them. In order to obtain a concrete vision
of this fact we must climb one of the hills that surround
the town and look at the forest of steeples, as various as the
souls whose aspirations they symbolize. Here are the Greek
cross over a gilded cupola rising above the green sheet-iron
roof of an orthodox church ; the octagonal spire of sculptured
stone, surmounted by a reversed extinguisher, which invari
ably crowns the Byzantine churches of the Georgians ; the
square belfry of the Armenian cathedral ; the Roman cross
on the gable of a Catholic chapel ; and, finally, in the Tatar
quarter, the humble minaret whence the imam still calls the
faithful to prayer.
If we make abstraction of the foreign elements brought
by the invasions, and if we neglect the local tribes of less im
portance, two native races remain in presence in the Cau
casus, and vie with each other for the preponderance, namely,
the Georgians and the Armenians. At Tiflis, out of a popu
lation of one hundred thousand souls, the Georgians are esti
mated at 22 per cent, and the Armenians at 37 per cent. In
the town itself the Georgians are in the minority, for they are
essentially rural people and unskilled in commerce. They
occupy the southern slopes and the valleys of the great Cau
casus chain, where they represent the agricultural and mili
tary class that has remained faithful to feudal manners. Al
most all the nobility of the country is Georgian, and very
proud of its blood ; for that matter, every Georgian calls him
self noble, and even in the lowest conditions of life you find
some of them bearing the title of prince. In the Caucasus
there is an inexhaustible stock of jokes about the postilions
who salute each other gravely by the title of prince when
they relieve each other in the saddle. This aristocracy now

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

II9

serves in the Russian regiments, but it speaks with regret of
the past, when it was master of the country, and endeavors to
maintain its old traditions of idleness and luxury, which are
difficult to reconcile with our iron age. Still, some of them
succeed in continuing these traditions, thanks to the heredi
tary attachment and submission of their vassals. Most of
them get poorer and poorer every day ; these Don Quixotes
of the mountain drag.
along in their villages
an existence of haugh
ty misery like that of
the hidalgos of Castile,
with whom they have
more than one point
of resemblance. The Armenians
come from the south,
from the plateaux of
the Anti -Caucasus,
where is the cradle of
their race, between
Van and Erivan. Near
this latter town is the
holy monastery of Ech
miadzin, the Armenian
Rome. In this con
vent, with which all the traditions of this Christian family
are connected, is enthroned the Catholicos, the patriarch
who is appointed with the approval of the Tsar, and who
makes himself obeyed by all the sons of the nation scattered
over Russia, Turkey, and Persia. In comparison with the
Georgian aristocracy, the Armenians form what we should
call the middle class : very industrious and sharp-witted, they
excel in all kinds of business ; the proverb says that one Ar-

TCHERKESS HORSEMANSHIP.

R>%.

120 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
menian is a match for two Jews. In their schools the chil
dren show remarkable aptitude for learning. The race is
robust, and built for the hard work in which the lower class
is employed. At Tiflis you find them exercising the most
various professions, from that of shopman up to that of bank
director. Capital is getting concentrated in their hands. It
is easy to see to which of these two races the future belongs
in this struggle of the cigala against the ant — a keen strug-
oo o o o
gle, which finds expression in a latent rivalry in the adminis
trations and local councils of the Caucasus. The Armenians
boast several families of mark ; they have given to Russia
some illustrious generals, like Lazaref and Loris Melikof.
Muscovite diplomacy finds its account in this rivalry, which
enables it to settle its domination over the two subject races
by constituting itself the arbiter of their competitions.
As for the Tcherkess or Circassians of Daghestan and
other Mussulman districts, successive emigrations have di
minished their number; all those whose humor could not
brook dependency have passed into Turkey. There remain
only the agricultural and peaceful tribes, irregular militia
soldiers who have rallied to the Russian flag without dissimu-
O
lation or arriere-pensee, as was made evident in the war of
1877, when these splendid horsemen fought without hesita
tion side by side with the Cossacks against their co-relig
ionists of Stamboul.
In this countiy, where monasteries for men are so numer
ous, there is only one convent for women, that of the Arme
nian Community of Sour Stefanos, or St. Stephen. This
pious retreat is picturesquely situated on an eminence in the
very heart of Tiflis. The church, which is very old, opens
on a terrace planted with trees, a silent spot commanding a
view over the mountains. On entering this sanctuary I felt
the sensation of a sudden return to the most distant past.''
On the steps of the altar where the priest was officiating two

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 121
women filled the office of deacons. Six other nuns were
drawn up in a circle in the choir ; they wore rich sacerdotal
vestments — such as are reserved everywhere else for the clergy
alone — violet, green, and scarlet chasubles and dalmaticas, over
which hung the white veils that covered their heads. They
were chanting the litany in their guttural tongue. At the
back of the .church, around the abbess, a Princess Argoutin-
ski, the rest of the community was enveloped iri severe black
veils. What one could see of the faces of those aged re
cluses revealed hieratic, rigid, and pale features, such as are
no longer to be seen except in old images. Everything in
this place seemed to bear witness that no change had been
made in the ceremonies, in the faces, or in the souls, since
the days of Gregory the Illuminator, the apostle who found
ed Armenian Christianity in the fourth century. And these
women, who took part in the celebration of the mysteries,
seemed like deaconesses of the time of St. Paul, the hand
maidens who were tolerated by the primitive church.
Among the Georgian sanctuaries the most ancient and
the most interesting is the Cathedral of Sion, where are ven
erated the relics of St. Nina, the patron saint of the Ibe
rians. The Chapel of St. David, on the mountain against
the side of which Tiflis is built, attracts a great number of
pilgrims. On Thursdays the girls who are impatient to get
married go up to St. David with a hank of thread and a
little stone ; they tie the thread around the oratory, iri the
form of a rotunda, and fix the stone against the wall. If the
stone sticks their wishes will be fulfilled. The wall being
very damp on one side, where there is a spring near, it often
holds the sign of matrimonial hopes. Tradition asserts that
the Church of St. David has been entirely built with these
stones ; if such is really the case, the Caucasian girls have
always manifested a strong aversion to celibacy.
The religious edifices alone testify to the antiquity of

I22 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Tiflis, ravaged and mutilated by so many invasions. After
visiting them, and after feasting his eyes on the kaleidoscope
of the bazaars, the traveller finds nothing more to retain him
except the kindly hospitality of the Emperor's lieutenant,
Prince Dondoukof-Khorsakof, who governs this kingdom
from the recesses of a palace built by his predecessor, Baria-
tinsky. In the Moorish halls of this building the luxury of
Persia combines its seductions with the luxury of the West
around fountains whose fresh waters babble beneath roses.
Let us escape from this Capua. More curious spectacles
await us in the interior of the provinces. Let us take the
train for Bakou. • III.
Tiflis is midway on the railway that cuts the Caucasus
in its whole width, and puts the two seas in communication —
the port of Batoum on the Black Sea with that of Bakou on
the Caspian. As we leave the capital in the latter direction
the eye is at first ravished and then desolated by the chang
ing aspects of the land. The track follows the Kour, which
rolls its broad sheet of water majestically through wild for
ests and rich tilled soil, while two chains of snowy ridges
stretch away out of sight in the distance, the Caucasus to the
left, the mountains of Armenia to the right. Soon we leave
the river, which goes to join the Araxes towards the south;
the plain gets broader and barer ; tall cages, built of planks
perched on four tree-trunks, rise in the midst of the rice-
fields like watch-towers. The inhabitants of the villages,
who are all Tatars in this region, take refuge at night in
these aerial nests ; the marshy land is so unhealthy that it is
dangerous to sleep there. In spite of these precautions the
peasants whom we see are devoured by fever; their ema
ciated visages remind us of those of the inhabitants of the
Roman Campagna. After leaving Hadji-Caboul, the station

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 123
in Moorish style where a new line branches off — " the Tehe
ran line," I am told by the engineers who are building it,
and who hope to carry it into the very heart of Persia — we
enter an African landscape, sad and luminous. The mount
ain chains become lower; they are now simply cliffs of gilded
sandstone festooning against a crude blue sky. At their

MOSQUE AT BAKOU.

feet the desert, a sandy expanse, covered here and there
with a rose carpet of flowering tamarisks. Herds of camels
browse on these shrubs, under the guard of a half -naked
shepherd, motionless as a bronze statue. The fantastic sil
houettes of these animals are increased in size and changed
in form by the effect of the mirage, which displays before

I24 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
our eyes, in the ardent haze of the horizon, lakes and forests.
From time to time we meet a petroleum train, composed of
cistern trucks in the form of cylinders, surmounted by a fun
nel with a short, thick neck. When you see them approach
ing from a distance you might mistake them for a proces
sion of mastodons, vying in shapelessness with the trains of
camels which they pass. The sun burns in space. Yonder
a green band glitters beneath its rays ; it is the Caspian.
We turn around a hill, and behold ! on this western shore, in
this primitive landscape, which seems like a corner of Arabia
Petraea, a monstrous city rises before our eyes. Is it once
more the effect of mirage, this town of diabolical aspect,
enveloped in a cloud of smoke traversed by running tongues
of flame, as it were Sodom fortified by the demons in its
girdle of cast-iron towers? I can find but one word to
Odepict exactly the first impression that it gives : it is a town
of gasometers. There are no houses — the houses are rele
gated farther away on the right, in the old Persian city —
nothing but iron cylinders and pipes and chimneys, scattered
in disorder from the hills down to the beach. This is doubt
less the fearful model of what manufacturing towns will all
be in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, for the moment,
this one is unique in the world; it is Bakou — the "Town of
Fire," as the natives call it; the petroleum town, where ev
erything is devoted and subordinated to the worship of the
local god.
The bed of the Caspian Sea rests upon a second subterra
nean sea, which spreads its floods of naphtha under the whole
basin. On the eastern shore the building of the Samarcand
Railway led to the discovery of immense beds of mineral oil.
On the western shore, from the most remote ages, the magi
used to adore the fire springing from the earth at the very
spot where its last worshippers prostrate themselves at the
present day. But, after having long adored it, impious men

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

125

began to make profit by it commercially. In the thirteenth
century the famous traveller Marco Polo mentions " on the
northern side a great spring, whence flows a liquid like oil.
It is no good for eating, but it is useful for burning and for
all other purposes ; and so the neighboring nations come to
get their provision of it, and fill many vessels without the
ever-flowing spring appearing to be diminished in any man
ner." The really practical working of these oil springs dates
back only a dozen years. At the present day it yields two
million kilogrammes of kerosene per annum, and disputes
the markets of Europe against the products of Kentucky
and Pennsylvania. The yield might be increased tenfold,
for the existing wells give on an average forty thousand kilo
grammes a day ; and in order to find new ones it suffices to
bore the ground, so saturated is the whole soil with petro
leum. C. Marvin {The Petroleum fndustry in Southern Rus
sia) compares the Apsheron peninsula to a sponge plunged
in mineral oil. The soil is continually vomiting forth the
liquid lava that torments its entrails, either in the form of
mud volcanoes or of natural springs. These springs over
flow in streams so abundant that it is hopeless to store their
contents for want of reservoirs. Often they catch fire and
burn for weeks ; the air, impregnated with naphtha vapors,
is then aglow all round Bakou.
The engineers with whom I conversed differ in their con
jectures as to the formation and distribution of the beds of
oil. Some are of opinion that there is a veritable subterra
nean lake ; others think that the petroleum filters below the
ground in isolated rivulets, which may be compared to the
lodes of mineral mines. According to the theory of the
learned Professor Mendeleref, naphtha is not a material con
stituted during other geological epochs, and therefore of in
variable quantity, like coal, for instance. The formation of
this product, under the action of certain chemical causes, is

I26 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
an incessant phenomenon. If this hypothesis be true, the
exhaustion of the wells is never to be feared. I must say,
however, that the proprietors of Bakou are unanimous in
their observations : of late years it is necessary to dig the
wells deeper — on an average one hundred to one hundred
and twenty metres. Sometimes repeated borings remain
without result, though only a few steps distant from a con
cession where a luckier rival has " struck " an abundant
spring at the very first essay. Rash speculators ruin them
selves, and others grow rich just as suddenly. Indeed, the
"oil fever," such as it was described to me, equals all that
is related about the "gold fever" in California.
The manager of a works kindly took me to visit, at a few
miles from Bakou, the two great centres of extraction, Bola-
Khani and Sheitan-Bazaar, or the Devil's Bazaar, in Tatar
language. Strange suburbs of a strange town ! Before you
get near to them your throat and nostrils are seized by that
pungent odor which fills the atmosphere, and pursues the nav
igator on the Caspian Sea long after he has left the port.
On the leprous and accursed earth even the most hardy
herbs have perished. There is nothing but sand, and at every
step pools of greenish-brown liquid, in which the workmen
run barefooted and the camels slip about clumsily. Here and
there are tanks and canals to collect the petroleum — metallic
mirrors that reflect sadly sad pictures — hundreds of pyram
idal cages of blackened wood-work, each of which contains
a pump that is working at the orifice of an oil-well. The
telephone notifies us that a spring has just opened at Bola-
Khani. and I am taken to see it. The liquid column rises
to a height of twenty metres with terrible impetuosity, car
rying along with it both sand and stones. Its force is so
great that in a few hours it wears away the rails and the
heavy iron cap by means of which an effort is made to hold
it down. It falls in cascades of russet gold in the sunlight.
c5 O

X

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

127

A match would convert the
fountain into a pillar of flame
that would set the whole hori
zon ablaze.
All the workmen employed
are native Tatars. The direc
tors are inexhaustible in their
praises of them. " Our Rus
sians," they say, " are excellent
workmen when they please ;
but with them we should have
to deduct at least one-third of
the year's work, and to put it
to the credit of innumerable
fete-days and drunkenness."
The Tatars do not quit work
on fete-days, neither do they
drink wine. Sober, vigorous,
and obedient, they have not
their equals for this kind of
work, which demands regular-

-¦?^ V

iJfifl

I

BAKOU — PETROLEUM WELLS — THE BLACK CITY.

128 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ity rather than intelligent initiative. At the well's mouth,
the man who works the extracting apparatus, every five min
utes, when the bucket rises full of petroleum, has simply to
pull out a pin that opens a valve through which the oil runs.
The task is very simple, but it requires perpetual attention,
without a moment's distraction, during the fourteen or fifteen
hours of the day's work. This workman seems like a human
spring. I examine him : his eyes reveal a motionless thought
restricted to his work ; when they meet ours there is no ex
change of common ideas between the Eastern man and our
selves. His entirely mechanical soul serves the marvels of
civilization without understanding them and without loving
them, with a sort of animal resignation in presence of their
mystery. To judge from the gravity and melancholy nobil
ity of his physiognomy, one might mistake him for a captive
turning the mill in the house of the victor; but one can
scarcely believe that the two are of the same kind — the
empty, obscure brain of the child of Allah, and the brain of
the engineer who enslaves these forces and who resolves
these problems.
We go to Bola-Khani to see the Temple of Fire, half in
ruins. Oh, irony of things ! The venerable sanctuary of the
Guebres is at the present day enclosed in the buildings of a
works where the god is refined and manufactured for sale.
The last priests who celebrated here the antique ceremo
nies died a few years ago. The history of this chapel is an
epitome of the history of the intellectual cycle traversed by
humanity. The mineral liquid, collected on these plateaux into vast
reservoirs, is conveyed through pipes to the distilleries of
Bakou. We visit in all its details the establishment of Mr.
Nobel, the Russian petroleum king, where we witness all the
successive transformations of naphtha. We may almost say
that it manufactures and purifies itself; its residues serve as

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 129
fuel in the furnaces, and also in the boilers of the locomotives
and steamers that carry it to distant parts ; while its coarsest
oils are used to lubricate machinery. Besides kerosene or
lamp-oil, the distillation gives a variety of other products,
such as vaseline, coloring matters, and, in the highest stage
of refinement, fine comestible oils. I am invited to taste these
latter, and when I shrink from the ordeal with horror, I am
met with the astounding revelation that petroleum is being
more and more largely used instead of olive-oil in the prep
aration of canned provisions, and especially sardines. So I
promise myself never to eat any more sardines in Russia.
The kerosene, stored in those cylindrical reservoirs which
give such a strange aspect to the town, is decanted for trans
portation into the cistern-boats of the Volga, and into the
trucks that are crowded along the railways like a great herd
of elephants. There is a scheme for building a subterranean
channel to convey the petroleum over to the other side of the
Caucasian isthmus, to the port of Batoum, so that it might
be loaded directly on the Black Sea boats.
At some distance from the commercial town of Bakou
the old Persian city rises in terraces up the hill-side at the
other extremity of the roadstead. There you see once more
white walls and a few plants in the public garden, but the
atmosphere is still thick with the same overpowering stench.
Since the opening of the Samarcand Railway, on the oppo
site shore of the Caspian, the movement of the steamers
bringing merchandise from Central Asia has increased the
animation of the port of Bakou. In the evening I am offered
the favorite amusement of the inhabitants, which consists in
rowing out for some distance in a small boat and " setting
the sea on fire." In calm weather the waters of the Caspian
allow large patches of petroleum to rise to the surface, and
these sometimes form a continuous film over the waves. A
lighted candle suffices to set the horizon on fire, and the sea
9

130 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
blazes in the darkness around the boat like an immense bowl
of punch. Such is the diabolical pleasure in vogue in this
vent-hole of the infernal regions. Of the traveller who leaves
Bakou may be said, as the Florentine children said of Dante,
" There is he who has come back from hell." While the
night train bears him away, the persecuting odor pursues him
for hours, and his eyes are filled with the glare of flames
against which the iron towers of the Town of Fire stand out
in black silhouettes like the shell of an apocalyptic smoke-

snorting monster.

IV.

Another world — the earthly Paradise ! I left the Tiflis-
Poti Railway at the Koutais junction line, along which I fol
lowed the upper valley of the Rion — the Phasis of the ancients,
the river in which they used to dip the fleeces of ewes in
order to collect pepites of gold. As it runs towards the Black
Sea, the Rion waters, on the western slopes of the Caucasus,
Imeretia and Mingrelia, provinces which were formerly sub
ject to the kingdom of Georgia, obedient to that State when
it fell into firm hands, but generally in rebellion against it.
Koutais was the capital of Imeretia. It is now one of the
most important and certainly the most ravishing town in the
Caucasus. Its houses are dotted about between gardens on
both banks of the Rion, in an amphitheatre of lofty mount
ains crowned by dazzling glaciers ; in the distance the river
winds in bluish-silver loops along the valley, and fertilizes
rich cornfields, vineyards, and fruit orchards, above which,
on the slopes, are forests. At the time of the year when I
passed through the country this lake of verdure was literally
covered with flowers. Along the roads curtains of climbing
roses hung from the branches of the poplar-trees ; in the gar
dens which surround and encroach upon the various quarters
of the town, white clumps of paulonias and magnolias cast

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 131
their shade over fields of tobacco and millet; but the one
dominant note in the country is vermilion ; the land is over
spread with wild pomegranate-trees in full bloom ; whole hills
present to the eye one vast dome of flame-colored red. It is
the most radiant feast that my eyes have ever seen in the world,
and the softest light that can fall from an indulgent sky.
In this flowery landscape imagine a people of gods and
goddesses. The human race has retained here a perfection
of form and a nobleness of bearing which it has lost ev
erywhere else. Beauty is not the exception but the rule.
From the day-laborer who breaks stones on the road up to
the seigneur who is a descendant of the ancient princes,
every man that you meet is a walking statue of Olympian
Jupiter. The bachlik, or cloak of goat's hair, whose folds are
draped in a hundred different and always graceful styles
over these sculptural heads, adds still more to their natural
expression. Most of these Georgians have blond hair, blue
eyes, a nose like an eagle's beak, and straight foreheads. No
words can render the fire of their look, the proud dignity of
their bearing, even when they are dressed in rags. On Sun
day, in the public garden at Koutais, where the fashionable
people assemble, I could not tire of watching as they passed
this population of animated statues. The men are draped
in a black or brown tcherkeska, or long tunic, which falls over
their boots, and might suggest the Roman toga were it not
for the cartridge pouches, and the silver niello waistband
from which hangs a poniard. It seemed to me that I was
contemplating the ancient masters of the world gravely dis
cussing in the forum. In the women the marmorean lines
of the features hold until an advanced age, and increasing
years are betrayed only by a le'ssening of the brilliancy of
those large liquid eyes which glitter beneath the white veil
in the warm paleness of their complexions. I may perhaps
be allowed to corroborate my own testimony by that of the

132 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
old traveller Chardin : " The blood of Georgia," he says, " is
the finest in the East, I may even say in the world. I have
not remarked an ugly face in that country in either sex ; but
I have seen some that are angelic. Nature has lavished
upon most of the women charms that are not to be seen
elsewhere. I consider that it is impossible to look upon
them without loving them. More charming faces and finer
figures than those of the Georgian women cannot be paint
ed. They are tall, easy in their movements, not spoiled by
too great plumpness, and extremely slender-waisted. How
ever few clothes they may wear, you never see any hips.
What, spoils them is that they paint their faces, the most
beautiful of them as well as those that are less so." Unfort
unately, this last trait is still true.
In order to understand why this nation, although over
whelmed with all the gifts of nature, has remained the most
backward of the whole Indo-European family, we must read
the whole of Chardin's very curious and dramatic narrative.
This excellent observer visited Mingrelia and Imeretia in
the reign of Louis XIV., was a prisoner there, and escaped,
safe and sound, by a miracle. The social condition which
he depicts is that of the first Merovingians ; sometimes even
it makes one think of the negro kingdoms of Africa, for the
lords obtained their principal revenue from the slave-trade ;
they sold their peasants to the Turkish corsairs and their
own daughters to the harems of Persia ; when the human
merchandise fell short on their depopulated estates, they
even sold the priests. For that matter, these priests were
only Christians in name ; all their knowledge was confined
to muttering a few prayers when they were not drunk. The
mind is confounded by the details which Chardin gives of
this feudal anarchy, and of the cruelty and grossness of man
ners at an epoch so near our own. Here, at Koutais itself,
he is received by an old blind king, who tells him a touch-

GEORGIAN PRINCES.

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

135

ing story of his misfortunes. Like most of his predecessors,
he has had his eyes put out, at the instigation of his wife,
the beautiful Darejane, and of the bishop Janatelle, who live
openly together. Darejane invites the traveller to Homeric
feasts ; pigs and oxen are brought in whole on litters ; each
guest goes and cuts off the piece that pleases him, and
plunges his bowl in a caldron full of boiled millet; the
grandees and the clergy gorge themselves with meat, and
drink from daybreak until sunset. Chardin turns back to
the history of the years which preceded his arrival. It is
nothing but one of murder, pillage, and barbarous tortures
inflicted upon the vanquished "by the victors of the moment.
These blind kings, when their faction restores them to the
palace of Koutais, have their servants guide their hands
while they tear out the heart of the rival who had driven
them away. Step-mothers strangle their children in order to
secure power for their favorites. In these intrigues the prin
cesses play a great role. According to the caprices of their
passions, or the interests of their parents, they pass from the
bed of the Prince of Mingrelia to that of the Prince of Ime
retia, and from the latter to the harem of the Persian viceroy
at Tiflis, the arbiter who always furnishes the instrument of
vengeance, beyond which there is no appeal. When reading
Chardin's pages about the furious misconduct of Darejane,
we recognize in her a sister of the French queen Frede-
gonde ; and this took place only two centuries ago ! By
virtue of what prodigy have external beauty and gravity
been able to remain intact, in a race so long tried by all
kinds of depravity and excess, and by every misery that be
longs to the most savage tyranny?
From the little that we know of its history, Georgia offers
a unique phenomenon in the Christian world. It has marched
backward in relation to our civilization. Evangelized in the
fourth century, before Gaul, it was comparatively prosperous

136 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and cultivated in the tenth century, at a time when our an
cestors were in the thick darkness of the Middle Ages. At
tached to the Byzantine Empire, it reflected the final great
ness of its Greek doctors ; in those days Plato and Aristotle
were translated into Georgian. Overpowered afterwards by
the Turks and Persians, this people ingrafted Mussulman
vices on Byzantine vices, and fell into the worst barbarity at
the very moment when Europe of the Renaissance was en
tering upon modern life. How can we doubt that this coun
try has had its era of power and intellectual culture when
we see at Koutais the remains of its admirable cathedral at
tributed to the ninth century?'* This monument is compara
ble to the most imposing edifices of the Christian West, so
far as we can judge from the grand arches that are still stand
ing, and from the columns and capitals that strew the ground.
At the present day it is the most poetical of ruins. Giant
linden-trees raise their branches as high as the remains of
cupolas suspended in space ; broad expanses of walls are cov
ered with the foliage of fig-trees and the roseate snow of
paulonias. I climb over a breach and penetrate into the
vast nave ; a flock of wood-pigeons rises from the shrubs that
have taken root on the summit of the arches; a band of
children, just escaped from school, play noisily between the
tombs scattered over the square in front of the church. On
one of these tombs a rope-maker who works in the neighbor
ing street has made his bed with a Tiflis carpet and two pil
lows; he sleeps tranquilly on the gravestone, as if he were
trying the great rest that the other has found below it. At
a few steps from the cathedral, on the edge of that acropolis
of rock that commands the Rion and the whole valley, ves
tiges of ramparts and of towers mark the site of the ancient
citadel. Here was laid the scene of those tragedies related by
Chardin, and enacted by queens so beautiful, says the travel
ler, " that they are assuredly guilty of all that one can feel for

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

137

them; for to see their passionate, tender, and languorous eyes
one would say that they look only to ask love and to give
hope." On this spot, reddened by the blood of so many mur
ders, a field of pomegranates displays its bouquets of garnets
and of rubies.
Russian rule has restored order and security in Imeretia
as well as in the rest of Georgia. Nothing is needed but
work in order to make this blessed country a gold-mine once
more. But is the native race capable of this effort ? We
have seen above how at Tiflis the Georgians leave all the
work and all the profit to the Armenians. The traditions of
idleness and carelessness are too inveterate in the masters of
these rich territories. I conversed with some of the nobles
of the country ; they do not attempt to conceal either their
regrets or their hopes ; alone of all the Caucasians they are
not reconciled to the new order of things. Some of them
imagine that under favor of an offensive return of the Turks,
supported by England, they might recover what they call
their old independence; that is to say, the faculty of selling
their services alternately to their Muscovite or Mussulman
neighbors. Awaiting the realization of this dream, they go
to Petersburg and run into debt for a few years in the regi
ments of the Guard, and then they return to their estates and
live on boiled millet in the midst of a few ragged vassals, who
gallop and prance behind them when they go to pay a visit
to the Governor. The growing industries of the country
are founded by foreigners, especially English, German, and
French, who come to turn the timber to account. One of
my compatriots has established a champagne wine manu
factory at Koutais, where he transforms into a sparkling
liquid the rough wines of Kakhetia, which are brought to
him in buffalo-skins ; his products can bear comparison with
the best marks of Epernay.
I went to visit the monastery of Ghelati, twenty-five versts

1 38 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
to the north of Koutais, in the mountains. It is the object
of great veneration in the country, and all the national souve
nirs are connected with it. Built in the twelfth century by
King David, Ghelati preserves the archives of Georgian his
tory in the frescos which decorate the walls of its churches.
The style of these paintings well shows the double influence
under which everything in the Caucasus has been modelled — '
a Byzantine influence and a Persian influence. In these stiff
processions of monarchs and of holy personages you might
imagine the figures to be from Ispahan, and drawn by a
painter from Mount Athos. They contain the authentic (?)
portraits of Queen Tamara, of David the Restorer, of Bagh-
rat, King of Kings. Inscriptions in Georgian characters re
late the glory of these princes on the walls, and on the tomb
stones that cover their ashes. At the end of a cave carpeted
with ivy, which was once a chapel, two iron gates of fine Arab
style are still standing ; David took this trophy with his own
hand from the Mussulman fortress of Derbend, and, like a
second Samson, carried it back to the sanctuary where he
wished to rest. The monks show in their Treasure precious
goldsmith's work, cloisonne enamels, old manuscripts adorned
with miniatures; their confused narratives summon up before
us long centuries of legendary history certified by each of
the stones that shelter us ; and a strange sensation it is,
this sudden discovery of a history that is more cryptic and
more unknown than that of China. In the field of the past
which is familiar to us, the astonished mind sees it rise like
a new island in waters which we thought we knew thor
oughly. However, I listen to my guides with inattentive
ears ; these dead things are in the wrong, by the side of the
living magnificences of nature, which, with its foliage and its
blossoms, enchants the crumbling buildings of the monastery,
and spreads out in profusion pictures worthy of Claude Lor-
rain in the midst of a most admirable panorama. The monks

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 139
offer us their frugal meal of eggs and corn-cakes on the bal
cony of the refectory overhanging a precipice ; they are only
few in number in the impoverished house. In vain I try to
extract from their ignorance and mental torpor some precise
information. These ambulant images, that look as if they were
faded, with their white beards, their mitres of felt, and their
black veils, are just as hieratic and as far removed from us
as the icons before which they swing the incense-burners —
fossil remnants of a little world that is slowly dying away in
this Eden, where Nature is waiting for new men to whom she
can offer her inexhaustible maternity.

V.
In order to control Chardin's testimony about the coun
try where he suffered so much misery, it is not necessary to
reconstitute in imagination a picture of obsolete manners ; it
is enough to look at Mingrelia as it actually is. In these
districts of difficult access, between the precipitous mount
ains of Svanetia, the impracticable marshes of Abkazia, and
the desolate shores of the Black Sea, on the banks of the
Ingour and the Chodor — swift torrents which can be forded
in winter, but which bar the roads in spring, when their over
flowing waters inundate the valleys — the feudal Middle Ages
defend themselves successfully against civilization. It is the
last corner of Christendom where we still find them com
pletely armed with their hospitable virtues and barbarous
practices, their childish ideas and audacious characters, their
social code and their superstitions. The territory of Min
grelia is at least as fertile as that of Imeretia ; the vigor and
the quick growth of the vegetation surpass anything that we
know in Europe ; but, with the exception of some corn and
tobacco fields in the lower plains, this prodigious land still
sleeps beneath a mantle of forests, interrupted here and there

140

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

by marshy moors, where herds of buffaloes pasture. The
forests abound in game of all sorts — bears, chamois, wild-boars,
pheasants. The Ingour and the Chodor are rich in exquisite
fish ; among others, sterlets and sturgeons equal in size to
those of the Volga. The greater part of the land — two mill
ion acres — belongs to the Dadian princes who reigned for
centuries over the country ; but this paradoxical fortune
brings in next to nothing to its possessors. Their mother,
the last Dedophale — such was the old title of the princesses
of Mingrelia — •definitively yielded her sovereign rights to Rus
sia only in 1857. The present chief of the family, the Prince
Nicolas, is general in the guard at Petersburg, and he was
mentioned as a candidate for the throne of Bulgaria. His
sister resides alone at Zougdidi with her husband, the Prince
Achille Murat. What a singular caprice of destiny was this
which brought here the grandson of the King of Naples ! For
my part, I can only bless this sport of history, inasmuch as I ,
am indebted to it for charming hospitality at the hands of this
Parisian of illustrious name exiled on the banks of the Ingour.
Murat comes to meet us, accompanied by a numerous
escort of armed horsemen. " Are those your servants ?" I
asked him. " No," he replied ; " they are the former vassals
of my mother-in-law. The change of regime has not been
able to break their attachment to the daughter of their suze
rains." In this cortege there are several authentic princes.
The most fortunate of them lives on his salary as under-
chief of the Russian police ; others are reduced almost to
mendicity. As we enter Zougdidi a part of these horsemen
dismount ; they are the big shopkeepers of the village, who
are returning to their counters. The capital of Mingrelia is
really only a straggling village of four or five hundred souls.
At the end of an avenue of plane-trees and mimosas rises
the Moorish castle of the seigneurs, overlooking a fairy-like
park, in which the old Prince Dadian planted trees of all the

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

141

known kinds. In this favorable climate they have attained
in thirty years proportions that would make their brothers
in other countries look sickly beside them, and under their
shadow run clear streams of water through groves of rhodo
dendrons, azaleas, and other many-colored flowers.
The Prince and Princess Murat have abandoned the old,
broken-down house, and installed themselves at some dis
tance away in a Parisian chalet, where all the objects and
the elegant luxury carry one's thoughts to the banks of the
Seine. I listen to the narratives of my hosts and of the de
pendents who come and sit respectfully at their table, and I
ask myself if this is not all a dream. After having chatted
with a gentleman who is treated by all present with particu
lar distinction, I find that he enjoys universal consideration
as a great horse-thief. Stealing horses is par excellence a
national institution. The prestige of a Mingrelian is meas
ured by his audacity and skill in this sport. Your vulgar
morality is of no account here ; the disgrace is for the man
who cannot procure for himself a mount by climbing at night
over the palisades of an enclosure and escaping the gun
shots of the owner. Horses are not the only booty sought
in these nocturnal expeditions. The abduction of a girl,
slung across the saddle, was formerly the only approved
method of concluding a marriage, and it is not yet entirely
abandoned. On my arrival I made the acquaintance of a
prince who is a friend of the house, and of one of the im
portant merchants of Zougdidi ; these two men of ripe age
were receiving congratulations upon their beginning house
keeping: both of them had just married girls of thirteen.
An old woman comes up to the princess and asks for
some flowers out of the garden for a sick person. I am in
formed that there is not a single doctor in the whole country,
because he would die of starvation from want of patients.
The Mingrelian has confidence only in some sorceress who

142 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
knows magic incantations. In the gravest cases, when the
patient is suffering from small-pox, typhoid fever, or a wound
inflicted by a fire-arm, the treatment is the same. The sor
ceress covers the part affected with fresh flowers incessantly
renewed ; she speaks words over the bed ; she orders the pa
tient to have brought to him all the food and all the drink
that he may desire. The religion is as primitive as the
medical science. The sign of the cross and genuflections
before the icons of the Virgin barely disguise a very vigor
ous paganism. I am shown on the neighboring mountain a
chapel dedicated to St. George, and held in high esteem
by the devout. On the saint's fete-day the inhabitants of
the surrounding parts are summoned by blasts blown in a
trumpet of red copper. They climb up the hill dragging be
hind them cattle, which they sacrifice in the very sanctua
ry itself — a calf, a kid, a ewe, according to the worshipper's
means, according to the burden of larceny that he has on his
conscience, or to the difficulty of the thieving operation that
he has in view; for the Mingrelian's prayer is generally to
implore the protection of Heaven in these hazardous en
terprises, and this St. George is precisely the patron of the
horse-stealers. After the holocaust, a feast is held in front of
the church, with libations, dancing, and songs.
The Sunday after my arrival I heard these songs and
witnessed the dances on the square of Zougdidi. Prince
Murat had kindly asked the inhabitants to organize in honor
of the stranger a tomacha. (Throughout western Asia this
Persian word has been borrowed to designate the popular
fetes that have been copied from those of Persia.) The mu
sic does not differ from the sad and drawling tunes common
to all these peoples. The theme of the songs is the laments
of lovers or the prowess of warriors ; often the words are
merely onomatopoetic and devoid of sense. The dance, accom
panied by the rhythmic sounds of a guitar and a tambourine,

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

*43

is the famous Lesghienne. Boys and girls form, first of all, a
general round, holding each other by the arms and clapping
their hands ; little by little the old men with white beards
join in, and they are not the least lively in their movements.
Then isolated couples break off; the man and the woman
turn slowly with graceful bendings of the whole body ; the

THE LESGHIENNE DANCE.

man moves round his partner, waving a bare sabre with gest
ures that express at one time the action of defending her, at
another time that of ravishing her. The fete ended with the
favorite Mingrelian amusement, a game of ball, which might
more fitly be called a battle. The town is divided into two
hostile camps which have old revenges to take upon each
other. The ball is thrown in between the two armies ; all

I44 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
those who have a horse spring into the saddle, while the
plebeians follow on foot ; cavalry and infantry rush furiously
into the melee, each one trying to carry off and keep the
trophy of victory. At the end of the day victors and van
quished are with difficulty separated, equally covered with
blood and bruises. The game rarely ends without serious
wounds, and sometimes several of the players are carried off
the field dead.
But the supreme pleasure — that which my hosts wished to
show me as the most curious spectacle which can be seen in
Mingrelia — is a fine funeral. It had just happened that quite
a rich man died in the town of Gory, a few leagues away.
Alas ! I was obliged to leave in four days, and I was asked
to wait at least a week. The family keeps a corpse, accord
ing to the condition and fortune of the deceased, ten, twelve,
fifteen days, and even longer; friends from distant parts must
have time to put their urgent affairs in order and to arrive at
the spot. When a sufficient crowd is gathered in the house
of the deceased the tragedy of the funeral begins — a verita
ble dramatic representation, with hired or voluntary weepers,
dialogues, eloquent speeches, and soul-stirring cries, like those
of the voceratrices of Corsica. When all the actors and ora
tors are tired out, the dead man is buried and holocausts are
sacrificed to his manes ; then the gayety begins around a
banquet worthy of Pantagruel. Cattle are slain, buffalo-skins
full of wine of Kakhetia are tapped, and eating and drink
ing continue until the guests roll under the table — that is to
say, on the grass, where they squat in front of the victuals.
The commemorations of one month after the death, and
of the anniversary of the death, are the occasion of similar
pathetic scenes and festivities. People still talk at Zougdidi
about the funeral of the Dedophale, the Dowager Princess
Dadian, who died a few years ago. After waiting three
weeks, eighty thousand people were assembled in the courts

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

M5

of the castle, and the cries and howlings could be heard for
several miles around. The banquet continued for three whole
days, and entire herds of oxen and sheep were slaughtered
before the roasting-spits of the cooks.
Although serfdom was officially abolished twenty years
ago, there has been little change in the relations between the
three castes — serfs, freeholders, and noble tenants : these last
attached by the bond of vassalage to certain powerful fam
ilies, which are in turn subordinated to the Dadian family.
This bond is often strengthened by a custom peculiar to this
country — namely, adoption by suckling. When a woman
finds it to her interest to adopt a child thus, she gives him
her breast once, even if this child is already a grown man ;
and on and after that moment the adopted person is attached
to his fictitious nurse by a bond of duty which, in a Min-
grelian's conscience, is more imperative than the duty of a
son towards his mother: he will serve her and defend her
in every circumstance, even against his own kith and kin if
necessary ; otherwise he would incur public opprobrium.
I have selected only a few traits which will give the reader
a glimpse of these singular manners and customs. But how
many pages I might still write if I were simply to note the
conversations heard at the Princess Murat's ! Everything
was new for me, if the word new is appropriate to the unex
pected resuscitation of passed centuries, such as history-books
have made us imagine them to have been. I shall never for
get those conversations, prolonged far into the night ; first of
all, at the full table, where our healths were drunk in turn
with a Georgian refrain which all the guests took up in cho
rus, and afterwards on the veranda, in the air smelling sweet
with the perfume of azaleas. On the horizon the gigantic
mimosas reared their slender foliage against the lilac twilight
sky ; night came on, warm and pure ; the timid entrance of
the first stars gave the signal to a swarm of fire-flies, that rose
10

146 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
from the garden, fluttering in myriads through the darkness,
and sometimes settling on our heads, forming in the hair of
the Mingrelian ladies an ornament of animated diamonds.
When Murat's escort of princes and horse-thieves — an
escort doubtless very little different from that which rode
behind his grandfather in Calabria — took leave of me with
friendly hurrahs on the Senaki road, I had already sufficient
ly got rid of our thin surface-coating of civilization to be able
to do justice to the good sides of the patriarchal state. I re
gretted these excellent people, so affable, so obliging, so hos
pitable, and whose only shortcoming is to be a little hasty
with their poniards, and to have other notions than ours
about other people's property. And yet — who knows? — these
horse-stealers would perhaps be very much horrified by the
queer tricks of our racing-men, and by the operations of our
stock speculators. The whole question resolved itself into
getting accustomed to the kind of thievery in use in each
country. It seemed to me as if I had suddenly jumped over
an interval of several centuries when I saw at Senaki station,
under the wires of the Anglo-Indian telegraph, the locomo
tive getting up steam to take me to Batoum.
It is all the same, picturesque in its way, the Turkish
town that has hardly been modified at all for the past ten
years, since its annexation in 1878. From the top of the min
arets the Muezzin continues to invoke Allah, who has fallen
back upon Stamboul. They are picturesque too, and quite
like the Kourdes of Erzeroum, these mountain Lazes, Geor
gians that have been converted to Islamism since the seven
teenth century, who ply their slender caiques on the rapids of
the Tchorok. This torrent springs from cataract to cataract
through the wildest gorges imaginable; the Lazes boatmen
offer their canoes to the tourist in search of emotions, and
carry him over the reefs with the swiftness and precision of
an arrow. But at Batoum we are constantly being reminded

THROUGH THE CAUCASUS. 147
of the realities of the present time. The hills and the beach
bristle with forts and ground batteries ; military engineering
is sparing no pains to transform the old port of the Sultan
into a maritime stronghold of the first order, which will com
mand the southern shores of the Black Sea. And in the
commercial roadstead we find once more petroleum from
Bakou, in the vast magazines of the house of Rothschild,
where it is put up in cans, and in the floating tanks in which
it is transported to Odessa.
A steamer bound for that town has taken me on board.
During twenty- four hours I have been passing along the
western flanks of the Caucasus, which are rugged and de
serted on this side, as soon as you pass the mouth of the
Rion, Poti, and Soukhoum. The steamer stops at Novoros-
sisk, another military port projected on the northern coast,
at the terminus of a railway which the Russian Government
had just brought to this point, and which connects with the
great track from Rostov to Vladicaucaz. At present, a village
and a few custom-house officers' cabins are all that you see
on this beach, where the ukase of the Tsar will bring into
existence in the course of a few years a fortress that will vie
with Sebastopol. Then the steamer makes for the Crimea,
whose mountains rise before our eyes in the haze, while the
summit of Elbrouz vanishes behind us below the horizon.
Adieu, world so old and yet so new, which has presented
to my eyes the images of our most remote ancestors, and
where our sons will certainly find a second California ! Adieu,
ancient Prometheus, still half enchained beneath the too
heavy burden of original fatalities ! These lines will convey
your salutation to Prometheus Unbound, to the modern and
audacious man, master at last of all the elementary forces,
who moulds and fashions to his will, in a world born yester
day, those young sisters of the Caucasus, the Rocky Mount
ains and the Cordilleras.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.
By THEODORE CHILD.

WIRBALLEN is one of the doors through which the
traveller is admitted to the Russian bird-cage. At
this vast frontier station he receives his first impressions of
the empire of the Tsars, and acquires the certitude that he
has lost his liberty of movement and action. Before he and
his baggage can pass the guarded door that leads into the
restaurant — a gay and hospitable room (as it were, the bait
of the bird-trap) — he must satisfy the suave inspector that his
passport is duly visaed. Then he passes, and the European
door is closed, and remains closed until the native authorities
may think proper to affix to the passport other visas and
stamps, at sight of which frontier gendarmes will open the
bars and set the captive free. Henceforward he may live on
Russian territory for six months, with no other obligation
than that of reporting himself to the police and having his
passport stamped at every fresh halting-place. As for com
munication with the outer world, he must be content to trust
to the good pleasure of the censorship, whose employes will
read his letters, confiscate his newspapers, or deliver them,
after many days, mutilated by vengeful scissors, or at least
maculated by big patches of obliterating ink. There is noth
ing to be said or done by the ordinary mortal. Russia is an
autocratic country.

!52

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

We have become
prisoners — voluntary
prisoners on Russian
territory. Our first
thought, now that the
tiresome formalities of
baggage and passport
examination are over,
food and drink :
bouillon, wine — "and
chicken," suggests a
polyglot waiter. "Yes,
chicken ; cold chick-

THE ADMIRALTY SPIRE AND GARDENS.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

153

en." " Korosho," replied the waiter, relapsing into his native
idiom, and meaning that it was "all right." Unfortunately
it was not all right ; the chicken was even smaller and more
diaphanous than those starveling and emaciated delusions
which the Germans call " Hamburg chickens " ; indeed, hav
ing no fleshly, bony, or even cartilaginous consistency, but
being mere skin and incipiency, it had been inflated and
stuffed with bread and green herbs in order to make it the
counterfeit presentment of a plump, succulent, and winsome
chicken. Was this chicken put in our path as an omen ?
Was its thin varnish of good looks and its primitive under
lying mass of common bread and rustic herbs to be taken as
a symbol of the civilization of the great Russian empire ?
This chicken, whether emblematic or merely inadequate,
provoked reflection. However, the calls of hunger having
been satisfied, we rolled a cigarette and proceeded to look for
character. The waiters were dressed in the evening uniform
of civilization — black trousers, swallow-tail coat, and white cra
vat : this was disappointing. The travellers, men and women,
wore ordinary European costume : this was to be expected.
The buffet was laden with bottles bearing the labels and
insignia of the most illustrious vintages of France and Ger
many, together with flasks of vodka and various kinds of
brandy, and dishes of caviare, raw herrings, pickled fish, salt
ed cucumbers, and cold viands — the whole comprised under
the generic name of zakouska. In the middle of the buffet
was enthroned a monumental samovar of burnished brass,
beneath which a gas lamp burns and keeps up a constant
supply of hot water for tea-brewing. In one corner, faithful
sentinel, surrounded by piles of small baggage, stood a mujik,
which name is applied to porters, servants, laborers, and to me
chanics and rustic men in general ; he wore a round visorless
cap of astrakhan, a long black closed coat, loose baggy trou
sers, and boots up to the knee. Other mujiks, simple baggage-

154

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

handlers, wore red cotton shirts outside the trousers like a
blouse, with a belt round the waist. The mujik sentinel had
a faded blond beard of a peculiar dusty yellow hue, gray eyes,
rather flat features, and a gentle, resigned expression like that
of a very submissive and not over-intelligent dog. In one
corner of the restaurant waiting-room was a gilded iconostase,
through the apertures of which we perceived the brown face
and hands of some saint painted in the traditional primitive
Byzantine style, with large staring eyes, oval visage, and fin
gers folded in symbolic fashion ; in front hung a sacred lamp,
and before it on the floor glittered a massive candle-stand, all
ablaze with flickering white tapers, which the faithful keep
constantly renewed. Many of the passengers bought a slen
der taper from the attendant, lighted it, and bowed and pros
trated themselves before the image, with many prayers and
signs of the cross, doubtless soliciting the protection of the
saint during the coming journey.
At last the Russian train steams into the station, the
doors are thrown open, and, under the watchful eyes of smart
gendarmes and military-looking conductors, we settle our
selves in a roomy and very comfortable sleeping-car. A
peculiar and soft ringing of bells announces the departure of
the train ; the engine whistles ; some of our fellow-passengers
make the sign of the cross, and so we start on our journey
from the frontier to Petersburg, a distance of 560 miles. It
is late ; the car is dimly lighted with candles ; our beds are
soon rigged up, and we fall asleep musing over our first im
pressions of Russia, which for the present consist of visions
of gendarmes, tall boots, red shirts, samovars, genuflections,
and religious images.
When we woke the next morning we looked out upon the
country with all the curiosity attendant upon a first visit. It
was not white and snow-bound, for we had chosen to visit
Russia in the summer, and we were now in the month of

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

155

July; nevertheless, the landscape was distinctly Northern and
morose, as if saddened and worn out by the long and ter
rible struggle that vegetation here has to sustain against
the icy winter. Hour after hour we gazed upon plains that
stretch away brown, monotonous, and without character tow
ards a horizon whose platitude becomes irritating. From
time to time we traversed a forest of pine varied with silver

THE FORTRESS, AND CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.

birch, and at very rare intervals we saw a village, composed of
a score of cottages built of logs and surrounded by poorly tilled
fields, and near the village was a level crossing, where, as the
train passed, strings of telegues— primitive four-wheeled carts,
drawn by dusty, nervous little horses, and driven by hirsute
peasants — were waiting in the rough road to continue their

156 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
route. The stations, built on a uniform plan, presented the
same feature all along the line — vast roomy buildings with
well-supplied buffets. On the platforms we notice with inter
est the officials in military uniforms ; the train conductors
with tremendous boots, astrakhan caps, belts, silver cords and
trimmings, and many with military medals on their breasts ;
the gendarmes with their red caps bound with black astra
khan, and surmounted by white brush cockades ; the crowds
of natives, all, even the small boys, wearing long boots ; the
peasant women dressed in red cotton skirts, with long pink
camisoles, their dusty blond hair smoothly combed in ban
deaux, and their heads tied up in bright-colored kerchiefs ;
the swarms of little brown children who offered us minute
bouquets of corn-flowers and forget-me-nots, the pale flower
of these wan Northern countries.
At last this monotonous journey came to an end, and we
found ourselves comfortably installed in an immense hotel at
St. Petersburg. In Russia, we may say once for all, every
thing is on a vast scale ; the country, the distances, the towns,
the streets, the palaces, the rooms, the stoves, the sofas, are
all immense. Our hotel was colossal ; the lobbies seemed to
be miles long; the ceilings were so lofty that one needed a
telescope to distinguish the design of the cornice ; in the cor
ner of the bedroom was a porcelain stove that towered up
out of sight, dotted with great brass eyes, which in winter
shoot forth streams of welcome heat ; the massive double
windows were closed, and only one small pane open to ad
mit fresh air, for ventilation, we found, is little appreciated in
Russia, and in spite of long habit the Russians are more sen
sitive to cold than the inhabitants of temperate and South
ern climates.
While we were inspecting our room and unpacking our
valises a waiter entered and handed us a letter. It was from
a Parisian friend. " How lucky you are," he wrote, " to be

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. j^y
at Petersburg. I know not why, but the Russia of my child
hood used to be quite white with snow in all seasons of the
year. The Russia of my dreams is the same, and in imagina
tion I see it all frozen even in the month of August. Trav-
ellers, who have always been arrant humbugs, affirm that this
is not the case, and that Moscow is as hot as Marseilles.
There are matters about which I do not wish to be enlight
ened, in order that I may be able to envy your lot while I am
frizzling here in my attic. The thought that at this very
moment you may be freezing and breathing on your fingers
procures me an agreeable sensation of coolness. I imagine
to myself how you must look as you read my letter, seated in
front of a big fire, wrapped up in furs, all ready to start out
bear-hunting or seal-fishing. Were there ever any seals at
Petersburg, and are there still any bears there ? How do
you get on with the Samoyedes for neighbors?"
We confess that although we had carefully studied the
tables of mean summer temperature in Russia before deter
mining to cross the frontier, we still had, like our Parisian
correspondent, a vague and lingering idea that St. Petersburg
ought to look somewhat arctic and icy even at midsummer.
The St. Petersburg of our dreams had, it is true, neither form
nor color ; but the name always called up the associated ideas
of bears, ice, snow, fire, and sleighs. It was past nine o'clock
when we finished reading our letter, and yet it seemed to
be broad daylight ; we looked out through the window and
saw neither ice, nor snow, nor sleighs, nor furs, but simply
tram-ways and droskies and promenaders in ordinary cos
tume ; and so, without further hesitation, we sallied forth,
reached the great Nevskoi Prospekt, and noting as a con
spicuous landmark the slender white fire watch-tower, with
its cockade of signal masts and rigging, we strolled along
boldly to explore the town, trusting to instinct to find our
way to the river.

158 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
In the distance at the end of the Nevskoi Prospekt we
saw a slender spire rising elegantly from a square tower, and
terminating in a golden point surmounted by a crown and a
weather-vane in the form of a ship. This proved to be the
spire of the Admiralty buildings, which are surrounded by
gardens planted with luxuriant trees and full of bright flowers.

ON A CANAL, ST. ISAAC S IN THE DISTANCE.

Crossing the gardens through a crowd of silent promenad-
ers in long overcoats, we reached the quays of the Neva and
the Palace or Dvortsovy Bridge (of boats), and the panorama
of St. Petersburg lay before our eyes in all its splendor and
greatness. Whichever way we look we see churches, pal
aces, huge architectural masses; the long lines ofthe massive

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

159

granite quays are broken at intervals by half-moon buttresses,
by majestic flights of steps descending to the water's edge,
and by the picturesque landing-places of the steamers ; par
allel with the quays run continuous facades of palaces. To
the left, as we stand on the bridge looking seaward, is the
Admiralty spire, and in front of it, on the site of the old ship
yard, the Italian Opera, in pseudo-Moorish style, and half a
dozen fine palaces, flanked by the two immense arches of the
old Admiralty buildings ; then in the garden beyond, pranc
ing on a huge granite rock, is Falconet's bronze equestrian
statue of Peter the Great, with the proudly laconic inscrip
tion " Petro Primo Catherina Secunda"; behind, rising out of
a bed of trees, is the gigantic gilded dome of the Cathedral
of St. Isaac ; beyond is the corner of the Senate buildings, and
then the long series of buildings forming the English Quay,
above which rise here and there the crosses and gilded cupo
las of innumerable churches. On the opposite side of the
river, on the island known as Vassili-Ostroff, are larger build
ings, belonging to the Exchange, the University, the Milita
ry Cadets' School, the Academy of Sciences, and the Acad
emy of Arts, the last with a facade on the Neva 400 feet
long, and surmounted by a cupola on which is seated a colos
sal Minerva. On the parapet in front of this building are
two rose granite sphinxes brought from Egypt. If we turn
round and look in the opposite direction of the stream, the
panorama is equally grand. To the right is the ponderous
mass of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage, and beyond
that the Marble Palace, near which the floating Troitsky
Bridge crosses the river and leads the eye to the opposite
island and the Fortress, from the midst of which rises the tall
spire of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, more than
300 feet above the level of the ground; while to our left, at
the end of the Palace Bridge, is the Strjalka, or point of the
Vassili-Ostroff, which is decorated in a grandiose architect

160 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ural manner. The granite water- walls of this point are pro
tected against the winter rush of floating ice by a number of
piles and wooden spurs, and at each angle of the esplanade
rises a rostral column of rose-colored granite ioo feet high,
decorated with prows of ships and anchors in bronze, sur
mounted by three Atlantas that support a hollow sphere or
fire-basket of brass, and resting upon a pedestal adorned with
seated statues. Between these two columns is centred the
pseudo-Greek facade of the Stock Exchange, which, like that
of Paris, is a vague counterfeit of the Parthenon, with Doric
instead of Corinthian columns.
But that which harmonizes the whole panorama and makes
it more wonderful than words can tell, is the indescribable
Northern twilight, which, during the first few days after we
arrived at St. Petersburg, lasted in all its brilliancy till nearly
midnight. It is hard for those who have not seen this phe
nomenon to form an idea of the tints which color the crepus
cular sky in these latitudes. The sun disappears; the red glow
of sunset fades, and yet does not quite vanish ; it seems to
persist vaguely, as it were filtered through the veil or prism
of some unknown atmosphere, which resolves it into shades
of turquoise and apple green, passing into delicate rose, lilac,
steel blue, and mother-of-pearl; while later on the warm
glow vanishes entirely, and a strange milky, opaline, and
iridescent whiteness suffuses the sky with a light that is
neither sunlight, moonlight, nor starlight, but an immaterial
silent dream -light. The source of this light, it will be re
membered, is of course the western horizon, and its rays
strike obliquely upward and touch only very elevated points,
like the cross on the summit of the Isaac Cathedral, for
instance, which, together with the angel on the top of the
Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, catches the first rays
of the rising and the last rays of the setting sun.
Now imagine the fairy spectacle that is spread out before

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

161

our eyes. The buildings along the eastern quay of the Neva,
the Winter Palace, the Admiralty, and the Isaac Cathedral,
rear proudly their golden domes and their ochre or white
facades, all roseate with the refracted light of the luminous
western sky; while the buildings on the opposite quay form a

ST. ISAAC S CATHEDRAL.

nocturne all the more brilliant as the moon has risen to shed
her rival light upon the scene. In the distance the waters of
the Neva flow deep and strong, with a surface as of oxidized
silver, which is ploughed up roughly by furious little passen
ger steamers that struggle against the current with straining
1 1

162 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and raging engines, and more gently furrowed by dusky tug
boats that pull slowly along immense lighters laden with
wood ; the landing-places of the river steamers are gay with
plants and flowers, and gas jets that burn dimly yellow in
this vivid twilight ; over the parapet of the bridge are slung
big red lamps to mark the safe channels, and along its wood
en road-way the droskies and tram-ways dash to and fro
with a roar of hoofs and rapid wheels — the only sound, to
gether with that of the puffing steamers, that breaks the still
ness and assures us that we are really on this dull, progress
ive earth, and not in some enchanted dream-land. And yet as
we look towards the Fortress we are so impressed with the
marvellousness of the sight that no ringing and rattling tram
way can disturb our reverie. From the leaden waters the
Fortress rises in a dark blue -black mass whose outline has
lost all modelling, and yet retains a soft but distinct silhouette,
above which the pyramidal slender spire of the Cathedral of
St. Peter and St. Paul rises against a sky of rich rosy gold,
very strong on the horizon line, and then paling away grad
ually by most delicate transitions until the golden yellow
passes into amethyst and finally merges into the cold, lunar
blue of the firmament, in which only a few stars are visible, so
bright does the crepuscular glow remain.
The hours of the evening twilight are those in which St.
Petersburg can be seen as a monumental whole to the best
advantage. Then indeed the quays and the streets are clothed
with poetry as with a veil, the whole city floats on the silver
waters and hangs in the golden heavens ; then indeed the
poor buildings become gorgeous palaces, because Nature has
arrayed them in her choice selection of brilliant tones and
delicate tints, changing their blatant and paltry stucco into
the splendor of beryl and chrysoprase ; for it must be con
fessed that with few exceptions the temples and palaces of
St. Petersburg are in truth poor buildings, mere huge coun-

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. 163
terfeits of great prototypes. That deceitful chicken which
we ate at Wirballen was, after all, an omen and a symbol of
what Russia held in store for us.
Let us begin with the few exceptions, of which the first
shall be the Isaac Cathedral, a truly imposing and magnificent
building, whose dome is visible from all points, even from the
entrance of the Gulf of Finland, as it were a golden mitre
crowning the silhouette of the capital — a happy image sug
gested by Theophile Gautier. The Church of St. Isaac is
of recent construction; it was begun in 1819 and finished in
1858. Few if any religious monuments of such proportions
have been erected with such prodigious and uninterrupted
celerity, with such complete unity of style, and with such
absolute finish both inside and outside. The architect of
St. Isaac's, a Frenchman, by name Richard de Montferrand,
aided by the irresistible will of three successive emperors,
had the privilege of seeing the execution of his plans begun
and terminated exactly as he conceived them, and neither ma
terial obstacles nor pecuniary difficulties were allowed to ham
per him for a moment. The Tsar commanded, the architect
conceived, the artisans and artists worked, and the people paid.
Like the whole town of St. Petersburg itself, and also like
St. Mark's at Venice, St. Isaac's was created in spite of the
elements : in order to make a firm foundation, a whole forest
of piles was sunk in the swampy ground on the Neva bank.
Like St. Petersburg and like St. Mark's, it was built with
materials brought from afar at great cost, for the marshy
islands on which Peter the Great built his " window looking
out into Europe" are poor and helpless in themselves, and
produce not even stones, so that in order to secure pave
ments for the streets the autocrat for years levied a tax in
kind of so many stones on every ship and cart that entered
his new town. When we look upon St. Petersburg, which
may well be called the Northern Venice, floating like a fleet

^4 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
of richly and heavily laden barks in the midst of a vast body
of water, with the waves ever playing feloniously about its
artificial foundations, we cannot but marvel at the untiring
labor and energy which the will of one man could call into
play, and also at the wonderful result which that- labor has
achieved. St. Isaac's is extremely simple in conception : externally
there is little or no ornament visible ; the impression is pro
duced by stupendous proportions and richness of material.
The cathedral, of which the foundations measure 364 feet by
315 feet, is in the form of a Greek cross; that is to say, a
cross with branches of equal length. The first impression is
most impressive ; the immensity of the pile awes the specta
tor, and the splendor of the materials employed relieves the
simplicity of the architectural lines, which otherwise might
seem too severe and too coldly classical. This colossus of
granite, marble, bronze, and gold strikes one at once by its
unsparing and indestructible magnificence ; its walls and its
adornment are made of what is most massive and eternal
on earth. The facades of the edifice face, the one towards
the Alexander Garden and the Neva, the other towards the
Isaac Square, while the lateral facades front on broad streets,
so that the whole monument is completely isolated. The
facades correspond to the arms of the Greek cross of the
plan, and in each one are portals preceded by superb peri
styles surmounted by friezes. Over the peristyles and at
twice their height rises the chief and central cupola, of ele
gant Byzantine proportions, higher than it is wide. The
diameter of this cupola, constructed of cast and wrought
iron, is 66 feet, and its height 296 feet, and it is supported
by a colonnade of twenty-four Corinthian pillars of smoothly
polished Finland granite, about thirty feet high, and weigh
ing each sixty-four tons. From the centre of the cupola,
the copper covering of which is thickly gilt with sheet-gold,

SERVICE IN ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. 1 67
there rises an elegant lantern surmounted by a golden cross,
the summit of which is 336 feet from the ground. Four
smaller cupolas, miniature reproductions of the greater one,
are placed at the corners of the cross, and complete the
simple harmony of the whole, which is, in a way, a happy
synthesis of the churches of St. Peter's at Rome, the Pan
theon and the Invalides at Paris, and St. Paul's at London.
Our illustration will enable the reader to form an idea of
the grandeur of the architecture of St. Isaac's, of the charm
that it owes to the perfect symmetry of all its parts, and of
the magnificent sobriety of its exterior decoration, composed
exclusively of bass-reliefs, groups, and statues of bronze. But
no illustration can give an adequate idea of the grand pro
portions of the details of the architecture, worthy of the
gigantic conceptions of ancient Egypt. The edifice rests
on a basement composed of three courses of granite laid
stepwise, the topmost of which serves as stylobate or sub
structure for the columns, prodigious monoliths of red pol
ished Finland granite, each sixty feet high and seven feet in
diameter. Supporting the four peristyles of the cathedral
there are no less than forty-eight of these monoliths, each
with a base and a rich Corinthian capital of bronze, the
whole perfectly pure in line, elegant in proportion, and pol
ished like a mirror. Next to Pompey's Pillar and the Alex
ander Column, which we shall notice further pn, these are
the largest monoliths that the hand of man has hewn out,
turned, and polished into mute yet eloquent expressions of
strength and durability. St. Isaac's seems truly to have been
constructed for all eternity; it is a monument that will break
up only with the breaking up of the earth itself.
After musing a while amid these monstrous columns,
let us follow the pious crowd, doff our caps, and enter the
church through the gigantic bronze portals that sadly dwarf
the famous doors of the Baptistery of Florence. The floor

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

KASAN CATHEDRAL.

of the cathedral is of polished
marble of various colors ; the
walls in the spaces between the
columns and the pilasters are
faced with white marble panelled
with porphyry and marbles of
various colors, and relieved by
niches in which are placed paint
ings or mosaics ; the rosaces, soffites, brackets, and consoles
are of gilt bronze ; the ninety-six columns or pilasters are of
fine gray marble veined with rose ; eight columns of mala
chite thirty feet high, with bases and Corinthian capitals of
gilt bronze, together with two lapis lazuli pillars, adorn the '
iconostase, or screen, which is enriched with gold ornaments,
mosaics, and inlay of precious stones ; the walls, the roof, the
ceiling of the dome, the sanctuary, and various chapels are
adorned with paintings, mosaics, metal-work, colossal garlands
of gilded angels, and wealth of all kinds of ornament, that glit
ter magnificently in the dim, mysterious light of the interior.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. 1 69
Service is being celebrated. In front of the golden doors
of the sanctuary a space reaching far enough to include the
ambo or dais just beneath the cupola is railed off by means
of a portable wooden balustrade, around which the worship
pers are gathered thickly, spreading out on all sides, so that
the vast church is full, with the exception of a space for cir
culation on the perimeter of the congregation. There are
no seats; the worshippers stand up bareheaded — a brown
crowd consisting almost entirely of men, mostly of the lower
orders, clad in rusty clothes, with tall boots, red shirts or
white shirts embroidered with red and blue thread, the collar
buttoned at one side of the neck or buckled with a silver
brooch, and over the shirt, worn, as usual, outside the trou
sers, a long black or russet coat, with skirts plaited closely
round the waist. Among the faithful are comparatively few
women or children.
The golden gates of the sanctuary are thrown open, re
vealing at the back an immense glass window, on which is
painted a colossal Christ enthroned in gold and purple, and
raising his right hand with the gesture of benediction, ac
cording to the Byzantine tradition. Nothing can be more
splendid and impressive than this translucid image of the
Saviour illuminated with golden rays, as if the arcade of the
iconostase really opened into heaven itself. In the sanctu
ary and around the entrance deacons and subdeacons — tall
men with cascades of yellow wavy hair parted in the middle
and floating over their shoulders, and beards hanging down
to their waists — Nazarenes whose heads no razor has ever
touched — officiate, clad in gorgeous red dalmatics brocaded
with gold and silver, and intone the service with miraculous-
ly strong, deep, and soft bass voices. The priests, escorting
the Metropolitan, who is distinguished by his Oriental mitre
glittering with precious stones and miniatures, pass in and
out of the sanctuary, whose doors are alternately opened and

170 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
closed in symbolic order. The choir of male voices responds
in rich and simple phrases unaccompanied by any instru
ments, the deep bass tones of the men mingling with the
treble and soprano of the boys, and producing a sweet har
mony unlike any other, modern and yet suggestive of antique
Orientalism, and inclining in its terminal notes towards the
wailing semitones of all so-called barbaric music. Meanwhile
the incense rises thick in the air, tingeing the luminous ob
scurity with clouds of blue smoke, and the worshippers fol
low the liturgical recitative without book, crossing themselves
and bowing incessantly, and from time to time one will kneel
down on the marble floor and abase himself, striking the
ground with his brow; and all this simply, calmly, fervently,
but without ostentation, vain show, or concern about mere
formality. The worshippers come in and go out as they
please; take part in the service as long or as short a time as
they please ; offer as many or as few tapers as their piety and
their purse may dictate. As we stand in the crowd while
the service is going on we feel from time to time a gentle tap
on the shoulder, and on looking round we see a hand pass
ing a thin taper : this is equivalent to a request that we will
pass it on over the shoulders of the crowd to another man,
who in his turn will tap his neighbor's shoulder, and so on
until finally the taper reaches the beadles who preside over
the candle-stands that flicker in front of the major and minor
iconostases. All over the church are sacred images of the
Virgin and of various saints, all painted in the Byzantine
style, set in ornate repousse sheaths of vermeil, with parts
cut away through which the face and hands of the painting
alone are visible, the whole glazed and framed in rich gilt
frames in the Renaissance style. Before each shrine is a
large silver stand, on which a whole forest of tapers is con
stantly burning. Each shrine has its worshippers, and while
the grand service is being celebrated we see a continuous

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. 171
succession of men, women, and children, who mount the steps
in front of the various lateral icons, kiss the hands of the im
age figuratively through the glass, cross themselves over the
breast repeatedly with the thumb and two fingers of the right
hand, bow the knee, touch the ground with their foreheads,
and then descend, make room for others, and go to light
their taper on the particular candle -stand of their favorite
shrine. Often the incidents of this worship at the minor
shrines produce exquisite and touching groups : a mother
first lifting up her baby girl to kiss the image and then
kissing it herself; a mother teaching her babe in swad
dling-clothes to kiss the hands of the divine Child, and
then laying the babe on the marble steps while she her
self performs longer and more serious kissing and genuflec
tions. From the midst of the crowd gathered around the choir
we watched all these details with deep interest, impressed by
the splendor of the background on which these scenes of
simple piety were enacted, enjoying the delicate and mysteri
ous play of light and shade, the novelty of. these pale North
ern silhouettes, and the mystery that veiled and harmonized
all the grandeur and richness of this vast temple. But our
interest was not exclusively of an artistic nature ; the fervent
manifestations of religious feeling which we saw were calcu
lated to make us reflect, the more so when we remembered
how closely the political and the ecclesiastical order are
united in the Russian State. One of the most impressive
portions of the service occurs when the doors of the icono
stase are closed: the chanting then ceases, the incense-burn
ers withdraw, and a moment of silent and breathless expecta
tion ensues : at length the gilded portals of the sanctuary are
reopened, and the Metropolitan, attended by the deacons,
comes forward, carrying the Holy Eucharist, and commences
a long recitative, which is a prayer for the Emperor and the

172

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

members of the imperial family. While this prayer is being
intoned the whole crowd of worshippers is bowed down in
an attitude of the humblest adoration. One feels that in
maintaining his autocratic rule over this prodigious empire
composed of so many nations the Russian Tsar finds the

THE SMOLNI CATHEDRAL.

Church and the prestige of its authority and its liturgic pomp
his strongest auxiliary. The Tsar is the father of his peo
ple, the Lord's anointed, the head of the orthodox Church.
To him all owe cheerful and unquestioning obedience. With
his army on a war footing of two and a half millions of men,

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

173

and the Church at his back to fan the superstition and mys
ticism of the mujiks into religious fanaticism if need were,
the Tsar holds power such as few rulers have equalled and
none surpassed.
After St. Isaac's the Kasan Cathedral in the Nevskoi
Prospekt deserves mention. Built in the form of a cross and
surmounted by a cupola sixty feet in diameter, this church
is preceded by a semicircular colonnade of 136 Corinthian
columns in imitation of St. Peter's at Rome. The aspect
and proportions of the church are very elegant, but its walls
and pillars are simple stucco. Inside, the aspect is richer,
thanks to a colonnade in four rows composed of fifty -six
monoliths of Finland granite thirty-five feet high, resting on
bronze bases, and terminating in Corinthian capitals of the
same metal ; thanks to the splendid silver iconostase, the
immense silver candelabra, the wealth of ritual ornaments in
gold and precious stones ; and thanks also to a certain dis
play of military pomp consisting of trophies of wars against
the Turks, the French, and the Persians, and of the keys of
many fortresses that are suspended against the pillars.
More peculiarly Russian is the Smolni Cathedral and
Convent, situated at the end of the Voskresenski Street, on a
slight elevation round which the Neva bends to the west.
Cathedral and convent, the latter an educational establish
ment for the daughters of military officers and civil servants,
form a vast pile of buildings, designed by Count Rastrelli in
the middle of the eighteenth century, and approached from
an immense open Place of proportions such as one sees only
in Russia. The cathedral, in the shape of a Greek cross, set
in a fine garden planted with birch and lime trees, and peo
pled with tribes of cawing rooks, forms the centre of the pile,
while the convent buildings describe a rectangular figure
around the cathedral, repeating in their ground-plan the form
of the Greek cross, and enclosing the whole, with the excep-

174 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
tion of the court-yard communicating with the Place. This
court-yard is surrounded by a high and beautiful grating, the
pillars of which are wound round with wreaths of vine leaves
and flowers in wrought -iron. Built in ornate Italian style,
the cathedral rises with elegant proportions, a brilliant white
mass set off against a background of verdure, and crowned
by five bright blue cupolas spangled with gilt stars. The in
terior is white and gold, and the walls have been left in all
their architectural simplicity, the marble surfaces being un
polluted by banners, trophies, or spoils of war, as is the case
in most of the churches of the capital. The bells of the
Smolni Cathedral are famous, and our ears retain a charm
ing souvenir of the vesper chimes heard from beneath the
trees in the shady garden in the calm of a late summer after
noon : one heavy bass bell tolled rapidly, while two octaves
of small bells, rung by hand, chimed in high keys a sort of
wild and sprightly mazurka resembling closely the air of one
of the Russian national dances.
The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Fortress is
remarkable for the elegance and height of its gilt spire, which
was designed by Balles, a Dutch architect, in the middle of
the last century. In this church, beneath the floor, are bur
ied all the sovereigns of Russia since the foundation of St. Pe
tersburg, with the exception of Peter II., who died and was
interred at Moscow. The side aisles are entirely taken up
with white marble tombs marking the sites of the graves,
each adorned with a gold cross, gold corners, and splendid
funereal accessaries, and embedded in palm-trees, growing
plants, and flowers that bloom sadly in the faint white light
of innumerable burning tapers and lamps. The walls and
pillars of this church are covered with military trophies —
standards, flags, keys of fortresses, shields, and battle-axes
captured from vanquished foes ; while the sanctuary is richly
adorned with pictures and icons set in gilded architectural

THE WINTER PALACE.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

177

framework gorgeously decorated in rococo style. The tombs
are guarded by subaltern officers belonging to the garrison
of the Fortress, and are constantly visited, especially the tomb
of Alexander II., by the faithful. We saw men, women, and
children of all classes, mujiks, common soldiers, and dashing
generals, thread their way between the palm-trees to the mar
tyred Emperor's tomb, kiss the cross on the marble slab, fall
on their knees, and offer a prayer.
It is needless to mention in detail any more of the
churches or convents of St. Petersburg, which are naturally of
recent date, and as a rule more remarkable for the richness
of the materials employed in the decoration of their iconos-
tases and interior accessaries than for their exotic character
or architectural beauty. When we reach Moscow we shall
find more appropriate occasion for talking about Russian ec
clesiastical and decorative art. St. Petersburg, it must not be
forgotten, is entirely a modern town, built after the flourish
ing period of Russian art had come to an end, and when, by
order of its Tsar, the Russian nation had begun systemati
cally to ape its Western neighbors. In the great churches
of St. Petersburg the hieratic prescriptions of orthodox Rus
sian ecclesiastical architecture are observed only to a mini
mum extent.
The palaces of St. Petersburg present man}' of the struct
ural peculiarities that we have already noticed in the church
es ; they are all more or less imitations and enlarged copies of
Western models, and, with one or two exceptions only, they
are stuccoed. The initiative of the Russians in art and in
civilization is limited. Hitherto they have displayed greater
aptitude for copying than for original conception, and even
for their copies they have had recourse to Western artists,
particularly to Italian architects like Quarenghi, Rossi, and
Count Rastrelli. The latter is responsible both for the out-
12

IjS THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
side and the inside of the Winter Palace. This enormous
structure was begun in 1732, finished in 1762, partly burned
in 1837, but rebuilt in 1839 from the original drawings. It is
a broad rectangular block, four stories or about 80 feet high,
with a frontage 455 feet in length and a breadth of 350 feet,
one facade parallel with the Neva, the other looking towards
the Admiralty, the third facing the vast Alexander Place,
and the fourth (blind) facade backing up to the adjoining
Hermitage Palace, with which it communicates by means of
a covered bridge. The proportions of this palace are not
commendable ; the style of architecture is very bombastic
rococo ; the decoration is overcharged with statues, carya
tides, flower-pots, grenades, and trumpery accessaries; the
cheap stucco surface of its facades — mercilessly broken up
by pilasters, water-spouts, and windows, so that the eye no
where finds repose — is washed with a brownish red terra
cotta color picked out with a lighter tone of yellow. The iron
roof is painted red. The outside of this palace is absolutely
without charm or merit of any kind ; its only claim to no
tice is its immensity, which, by -the -way, according to Rus
sian notions, is a very considerable claim. The interior is
a saddening example of the bad taste which seems to char
acterize crowned heads of all nations, whether the Russian
Tsar, the Turkish Sultan, the German Emperor, or the Brit
ish sovereign. In previous wanderings in foreign lands we
had visited many royal palaces, and thereby polluted our eyes
with painful and aesthetically corrupting spectacles. It was
therefore with dread rather than with curiosity that we en
tered the gates of the Winter Palace after having obtained
the permission to visit, no longer willingly granted. Our
direst anticipations were fulfilled: the interior of the Winter
Palace is abominable. The ornamentation is for the most
part in rampageous rocaille style, bright burnished gold on
bright whitewash or white imitation marble. Our pen abso-

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

179

lutely refuses to describe the sham splendor of the imperial
apartments, with their modern French polished furniture and
vile wood-carving, their massive screens glazed with purple
glass, their wall-hangings of yellow and white or rose and
green satin. The malachite room, the Pompeiian room, the
Mauresque bath-room, likewise failed to transport us with
admiration. The corner that pleased us best was Peter the
Great's throne -room, whose walls were hung with soft red
velvet embroidered with golden
eagles. The St. George's Hall,
a parallelogram 140 feet by 60
feet, adorned with Corinthian col
umns of real white marble with
gilt bases and capitals, is also a
fine room, perhaps the finest in
the whole palace. The White
Hall, the Golden Hall, and the
Nicholas Hall are chillingly white
show-rooms, which require the
animation of the court ceremo
nies and balls, and the glitter
' o
of lights and diamonds, in order
to give them a pict

uresque interest
Finally, we
notice the
state en
trance to
the palace
from the

Neva
Quay,
called

&#¦

THE WINTER PALACE — AMBASSADORS STAIRCASE.

180 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the Ambassadors' Stairs, of white Carrara marble, and the
vestibule, richly decorated and gilded with Renaissance or
naments and statuary. This staircase, together with the St.
George's Hall, are the only two parts of the Winter Palace
that present an aspect of real grandeur and majesty.
The adjoining Palace of the Hermitage, likewise of stuc
co, colored in two shades of cafe au lait was built between
1840 and 1850 by a Munich architect, Leopold von Klenze,
in a sort of Greek style. It forms an immense parallelo
gram, 512 feet by 375 feet, with two large courts. One main
facade fronts along the street called the Millionnaja, where
is the entrance, under an imposing vestibule supported by
ten colossal Atlas figures twenty-two feet high, carved out of
dark gray granite. In niches along this facade, which is col
ored to imitate stone, are statues of eminent artists cast in
zinc to imitate bronze. Entering the palace, we find our
selves in a noble hall, the roof of which is supported by six
teen monolithic columns of Finland granite terminating in
capitals of Carrara marble. The stairs, in three flights, are
of real marble, but the walls on either side are of yellow imi
tation marble. The reader has already been warned that St.
Petersburg is perhaps unique in the world for the strange
mixture it offers of sham and real magnificence. The rooms
of the Hermitage, in which the pictures and other collections
are lodged, are for the most part sumptuously decorated and
adorned with gigantic candelabra, vases and tables of mala
chite, porphyry, or jasper, and many splendid pieces of French
furniture of the eighteenth century. The seats, too, are not
vulgar benches covered with red velvet, which we expect to
find in museums, but gilded sofas and chairs, with curly and
convoluted frames and rich damask upholstery rather the
worse for wear. The attendants also are very magnificently
attired in the livery of the court, and follow the visitor round
and re-echo the creaking of his boots over the polished

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

181

IN THE HERMITAGE PALACE.

parquet floors with a dogged persistency that prevents him
effectually indulging in quiet reverie in presence of some
masterpiece after his own heart. The court flunkies do not

182 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
actually request you to " move on," to use the words of the
British policeman, but they wait for you so ostentatiously
that you feel it would be impolite and uncharitable on your
part to keep them standing too long. In the arrangement
and hanging of their treasures, and especially in the admis
sion of the public to enjoy them, the Russians have yet much
to learn from the liberal traditions of European museums.
Unfortunately their autocratic traditions are likely to per
petuate for many a long year the semi-barbarous mistrust
fulness of the existing regulations of the Hermitage. As a
favorable specimen of the interior decoration of these impe
rial palaces we give a view of one of the rococo rooms in the
old Hermitage Palace.
Of the remaining palaces of St. Petersburg it is needless
to say much in detail. Monumental St. Petersburg must be
enjoyed as a whole ; its churches and palaces must be seen in
their environment, whether of vast open places, gardens, parks,
lake, or river, and considered as masses and silhouettes in a
vast ensemble; when isolated and examined one by one, their
originality, such as it is, becomes diminished and obscured,
while the cheapness and paltriness of the material structure
reveals itself to their prejudice. This remark applies to the
red Anitchkoff Palace, in the Nevskoi Prospekt, where the
Emperor now lives — an immense stucco pile, built by Ras-
trelli in 1744. In the ensemble of the street vista the palace
produces a striking effect, but if isolated from the surround
ing Alexandra Square, the neighboring Alexandra Theatre,
the masses of tall trees, and the perspective of the broad
Nevskoi, with (in the distance) the Anitchkoff Bridge and
Baron Klodt's well-known colossal bronze groups of slaves
and wild horses, the mere palace by itself is a poor and unin
teresting structure, remarkable only for its size.
More interesting is the neighboring palace, now inhabit
ed by the Grand-Duke Sergius, decorated with tasteful orna-

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

183

v»

ANITCHKOFF PALACE.

ments, caryatides, and delicate
wrought -iron balconies, of good
eighteenth-century workmanship.
Very elegant too is the new Mi
chael Palace, built by Rossi be
tween 1809 and 1825, in Tuscan
style, situated a few steps from the Nevskoi Prospekt, and
yet surrounded by a beautiful park with lakes and gardens.
Near by is the old Michael Palace, now an engineers' school,
likewise cradled in surroundings of wood and water, the
unexpected distribution of which constitutes the charm and
originality of St. Petersburg, a city of islands and canals.
Let us, then, leave to the guide-books and to tourists all
attempts at systematic sight-seeing, and let us wander over
the vast Northern Venice, with the aid of a swift drosky, as

184 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
caprice and chance may direct, glancing here at a garden,
there at a palace, again at some felicitous landscape of water,
verdure, and sky framing a dainty eighteenth-century pavil
ion like the pretty Jelaginsky Palace, which Rossi built in
181 7 as a summer residence for the Empress. We will start
from the front of the new Michael Palace, cross the Champ
de Mars, and stroll through the Summer Garden, whose
beautiful overarching avenues are decorated with quantities
of classical busts and statues, mostly nude or very scantily
draped. What can these wan marbles say to these rude
sons of the North ? What business has this skittish and un-
draped Diana in the country of the Samoyedes ? More in
keeping with climate and people is the bronze monument of
Kriloff, with its pedestal adorned with high reliefs of all sorts
of birds and animals, the heroes of the fabulist's apologues.
It is late afternoon ; the garden is full of promenaders ; but
the only sound you hear is that of the gravel cracking be
neath their feet. The Russians are strangely silent.
We leave the garden at the other end, and find ourselves
on the Court Quay, admiring the handsome gilt iron railing
fronting the Neva, and the beautiful votive chapel erected by
public subscription on the spot where Alexander II. stood
when his life was attempted by Karakozof in 1866. Over
the principal portico is a text in Russian letters of gold :
" Touch not mine anointed." Turning leftward we approach
the Troitzkij Bridge, note the so-called Marble Palace, which
happens to be built of granite, and cross the river, admiring
the brilliant panorama of the quays, the Fortress and its ca
thedral, the Strjalka, or point of Vassili-Ostroff, and the maze
of shipping glittering with the powdered gold of the late
afternoon sunlight. We are now on our way to the famous
islands of the Neva, the great summer resort, the Bois de
Boulogne and the Thiergarten of the St. Petersburgers. We
traverse the fine Alexandrowski Park, and then follow — one

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

I85

PALACE OF THE GRAND-DUKE SERGIUS
AND ANITCHKOFF BRIDGE.

thinks for miles — a
long, very long, straight
road, lined with villas
and gardens, and occa
sionally interrupted by
a canal or arm of the
Neva, across which is
thrown a wooden bridge,
protected by inscrip
tions in Russian, German, and French, forbidding smoking
under heavy penalties. At first the houses are rather paltry;
some of them have raised platforms inside the gardens, on
which the inhabitants sit drinking tea and watching the pass
ing equipages. In several gardens we espied with surprise
and pain those silvered globes with which the Parisian bour
geois delight to adorn their gardens at Asnieres or Suresnes.
The interiors, as seen through the open windows, look neat,
clean, and unartistic. Here you see a school-boy learning
his lessons at the end of the family table, and there pater
familias struggling with the recalcitrant cork of a beer bottle

1 86 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
— just such scenes as you might behold in more western
countries. At frequent intervals are traktirs, or restaurants,
where you see groups of men sitting at a table with a teapot
between them, and contentment depicted on their counte
nances. Soon, however, we leave behind this more demo
cratic suburb, and as the trees become thicker the villas be
come rarer and more elegant. Most of them are built of
wood and decorated with rough fretwork. Some have beau
tifully kept gardens and lawns sloping down to the water's
edge, where yachts and skiffs wait, moored near neat bath
ing-pavilions. The views as we cross the bridges are lovely;
the thickly wooded landscape spreads away soft, calm, and
impressive ; the trees — birch, elm, and fir — form an undulat
ing curtain along the horizon, which is broken here by the
bulbous gilded cupola of some distant church, there by some
garden temple with white columns supporting a flat dome-
shaped roof painted bright green, and there by lofty and fan
tastic wooden gables of one of the island restaurants and
pleasure-grounds, like Arcadia, Livadia, or Bavaria.
To the river-banks, however, are moored sea-going schoon
ers, and following the stream of droskies we soon come to
the open water of the Gulf of Finland. The finely kept and
well-watered roads of brown earth are traced out by lines of
short posts spotlessly whitewashed; they lead us now through
the charming gardens ofthe Jelaginsky Palace, with its white
and yellow walls and pale green roofs, and now through
meadows dotted with lakes and trees, amid which men in red
shirts are busy haymaking; and so we reach the semicircu
lar drive that girdles the famous Point, the summer rendez
vous of fashionable St. Petersburg. On one side is the land,
the neatly sanded drive, with at regular intervals a score of
benches painted pale green, and on the other a palisade of
posts and ropes, at the foot of which the channels of the Lit
tle Neva unite and flow into the Gulf of Finland. The drive

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

I87

MICHAEL PALACE.

is crowded with droskies,
caleches, and carriages driv
en by coachmen in the tra
ditional costume of their
class; but neither their pass
age nor the salutations of
the promenaders disturb
the soothing calm of the
scene. There is no roaring tide, no restless wash of water,
no rank smell of sea-weed, no ugly fishermen, but simply an
expanse of rippling water glistening with the golden sheen
of the declining sun, a sky of hard northern blue-gray, trees
of rich green tone forming dark masses, round which the
shades of evening begin to gather.
On the islands are several water-side restaurants, where
you may dine and prolong the pleasure of contemplating
the twilight effects ; and after dinner Arcadia offers varied
amusements of a dull and drawn-out nature, which last until
two or three o'clock in the morning; for in summer and in
winter alike the Russians love midnight pleasures and the

1 88 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
/
swift late drive home through the moonlit landscape. " In
summer and in winter alike," we have said ; and yet, when
we see how smiling, soft, and peaceful is its summer aspect,
we can hardly imagine that this city of palaces, gardens, and
silvery rivers can ever become, for six months at a stretch, a
desert of inhospitable snow, ice, and hyperborean cold.
If we continue our wanderings into the environs of St.
Petersburg, to Gatschina, Tsarskoe-Selo, Oranienbaum, and
Peterhof, where there are imperial palaces, we shall be struck
still more strongly by the beauty of the parks and gardens,
and the happy distribution of woodland and water, the whole
studded with pleasant summer colonies and villas. The parks
of Peterhof are particularly fine, and the palace, situated on
an elevation, overlooks a green plain of tree-tops, with, be
yond, the waters of the Gulf of Finland and the port and
fortifications of Cronstadt. The palace is one of the numer
ous feeble imitations of Versailles that are scattered all over
Europe; it was built by Peter the Great in 1720, from the
plans of a French architect named Leblond, and in spite of
additions and minor alterations it remains much as Peter
left it ; even the original yellow color, picked out with white,
is renewed every year over the surface of its stucco facades.
The Russians seem to take no delight in the patina of age :
every year the whitewash buckets are filled, and the generous
brush distributes its contents over old and new buildings
alike with absolute impartiality. The architecture of this
palace presents nothing remarkable : the front is divided
into five compartments, surmounted by roofs painted green ;
at each end is a pretty and characteristic church, with gor
geously gilded cupola terminating in a gigantic crown, on
the top of which a cross, while from the terrace in front de
scends a cascade decorated with some fifty bronze copies of
antique statues and vases, all thickly gilded in high barbaric

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

189

style ; even the steps over which the water flows are bedi
zened with terra-cotta brackets and bass-reliefs gorgeously
gilt. At the foot of the cascade is a basin, in the centre of
which is a statue of Samson opening the jaws of a lion, out

PETERHOF PALACE.

of whose throat a water-jet rises to a height of eighty feet.
The Samson statue is, of course, gilt like the rest. Any
thing more tawdry than this cascade it would be difficult to
conceive. The interior of Peterhof is not much more interesting

190

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

than the exterior. The vast suite of apartments and recep
tion-rooms forms a long enfilade, generally decorated and fur
nished in the worst possible taste. All the door-cases are
set in heavy frames of gilt rocaille stucco-work; the furniture
and wall-hangings are almost as bad as those of the Winter
O O
Palace ; the only objects worthy of the visitor's admiration
are the bibelots and porcelain, for the conception and beauty
of which the imperial chatelains are not in any way respon
sible. Like most of the Russian palaces, Peterhof looks best
when seen from a distance ; and this holds good also as re
gards the fountains, pavilions, and minor palaces and villas
scattered throughout the park, such as Monplaisir, Alexan
dria, Babygon, the Hermitage, and Marly; they are excellent,
not in themselves, but only as constituent elements in a vast
landscape. The palace of Tsarksoe-Selo is in the midst of a thickly
wooded estate, surrounded for miles and miles by park-like
landscape, varied with grottos, watercourses, bridges, and wind
ing avenues of tall fir, oak, and beech trees. From a great dis
tance you perceive the glittering gilt cupolas of the church,
which on closer inspection proves to be a queer stucco build
ing, colored pale green, picked out with white, while the
wood -work of the windows is painted blue of the shade of
Rickett's darkest and best. The interior of this church is
entirely painted with this same dark blue, and overloaded
with gilt rocaille ornaments. The palace, built in 1744, is
780 feet long; the style is rank rococo, and the back and
front facades are adorned with tortuous caryatides, pilasters,
capitals, brackets, statues, and vases without stint or meas
ure. Originally, it appears, Catherine I. had all these or
naments gilded with leaf-gold — a whim which cost her sub
jects more than three million ducats. This gold has long
since vanished, and now only the dome and cupolas of the
church are gilded. The palace itself, as usual of stucco,

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. I9I
has its walls colored pale green, relieved with white and
yellow; the figures and ornaments are stained to imitate
bronze ; the roofs are painted bright green ; and the whole,
as it stands dazzlingly bright in the sunshine, is not without
originality. A scene-painter might utilize its facade for the
palace of some flighty operetta queen, some Grand-Duchess
of Gerolstein, or a Roi Carotte. In the interior of this pal
ace, as might have been anticipated, we shall find little to
delight us. The permanent decoration is, of course, for the
most part, stucco-work in rocaille motifs ; one very pretty
room has white walls with figures in relief, and delicate stuc
co imitations of Wedgwood plaques with white cameo figures
on pale blue or rose ground. In another room the walls are
incrusted with lapis lazuli, and the floor of ebony is inlaid
with flowers of mother-of-pearl. In another room the walls
and ceiling are literally panelled with slabs of amber, ar
ranged in architectural designs ; a bedroom has walls of
white porcelain and pilasters of purple glass — a fearful spec
tacle; the grand ball-room, 140 feet long, consists entirely of
mirrors and gilding; the walls of the banqueting-room are
gilded up to a height of nine feet ; the " silver room " justifies
its name bv its lavish decoration in that metal. Of such
splendor as this there is nothing to be said ; it strikes the
eye by the grossest means, which are the means that appeal
most directly to the uncultured. The epithet barbaric may
be appropriately employed in such cases as this.
The story runs that when Catherine had finished decorat
ing this palace, and had had the final layers of gold applied
to the ornaments both inside and outside, she invited the
French ambassador to visit it under her guidance. This
courtly gentleman admired each individual gewgaw and mar
vel again and again, and then went out and stood in front
of the palace, looking in every direction as if seeking for
something. "What are you looking for?" asked Catherine.

ig:

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

" Imperial Majesty," replied the ambassador, " I am looking for
the glass-case in which this precious jewel is to be placed."
The palace of Tsarskoe-Selo is a huge toy.
A trifling but curious detail, which struck us in our visits
to the imperial and other palaces : in every room, in one cor
ner under the ceiling, is a religious image, or icon, and in
every room, in a conspicuous spot, may be seen the walnut or
maple-wood spring cuspidor, which is apparently considered
indispensable in all Russian dwellings. From one side of
the box rises a slender tube, inside which is
a rod or piston with a knob at the end. The
rod and tube are about four feet high — just
handy for a tall man. You press the knob,
which causes the lid to fly up and disclose a
sand-box ; then you spit, and then you let go
the knob, whereupon the lid falls with a bang,
and the rest is silence and mystery. We saw
this truly great invention for the first time
in Russia.

ALEXANDER COLUMN AND SQUARE.

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

193

With the exception of Rome and Constantinople, no cap
ital possesses so many imperial palaces as St. Petersburg;
but its palaces and its churches do not suffice to give an idea
of the immensity of the town. We must also visit its broad
and endless streets ; its bazaars that are towns in themselves ;
its canals laden with barges and traversed by steamers ; its
gigantic public buildings, and immense squares that cover
acres of ground, and on which sixty to a hundred thousand
men can find room. Such is the Admiralty Place and its
continuation, in the centre of which rises the Alexander
Column, the greatest monolith of modern times, erected in
1832 to the memory of Alexander I. It is a single shaft of
red granite, 84 feet high and 14 feet in diameter, placed on a
cubic monolithic pedestal 25 feet high, and surmounted by a
bronze capital, above which rise an angel and a cross, giv
ing it a total height of 154 feet. This column, executed by
Richard de Montferrand, the architect of St. Isaac's, is sur
rounded by the chief civil monuments of St. Petersburg, the
Admiralty and its garden, the Winter Palace, the Hermit
age, the Archives, the Foreign Office, and the Etat- Major,
the latter buildings forming a stupendous crescent, with in the
centre an archway decorated with bronze bass-reliefs and a gi
gantic chariot and six horses. During our visit to St. Peters
burg we witnessed on this enormous space an imposing relig
ious ceremony on the occasion of the celebration of the ninth
centenary of the introduction of Christianity into Russia.
After the benediction of the waters of the Neva, the proces
sion, headed by the Metropolitan, the Tsar, the Empress,
the Grand-Dukes, the pages and court officials, and all the
great dignitaries of the Church, accompanied by priests bear
ing aloft banners and holy images, and by singing choirs and
military bands, crossed the gardens of the Admiralty and ad
vanced between serried ranks of troops to the foot of the
Alexander Column, where a platform had been erected, draped
13

194

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

in scarlet. The whole space swarmed with thousands of spec
tators — a characteristic Russian crowd, in which black caps
and long black cloaks predominated — and when the proces
sion appeared in the distance, with the holy icons glittering
in the sun, in a moment every head was bare, and during
the hour that the intonations of the loud-voiced deacons
continued, the spectators incessantly crossed themselves and
bowed, swaying their whole bodies from the waist, and not
contenting themselves with merely bending the neck. The
spectacle was impressive, and so was the stentorian shout of
greeting that rose from the crowd as the Tsar drove away
in an open carriage, with the Empress by his side, holding
herself always a little in front of her husband, as if to shield
him with her body. This curious attitude of the Empress
made us realize the dark side of this picture of autocratic
splendor, and the existence of unceasing anxiety in which
the imperial couple live, always dreading the terrible machi
nations of that intellectual proletariat which pursues its pol
icy of terrorism and assassination with such dogged per
sistency and such mysterious force. In the vast palace of
Gatschina, with its six hundred rooms, we were told the Em
peror and his family live in a suite of six modest chambers,
in order that they may be guarded more effectually by the
thousand soldiers whose armed vigilance watches by night
and by day in the lobbies and surroundings of the imperial
home. The fear of the Nihilists causes all the Tsar's move
ments to be kept profoundly secret. In vain you consult the
newspapers ; nothing is ever announced in advance. If the
Tsar is to arrive at St. Petersburg, nobody knows by what route
he will come or through which streets he will pass ; if the
Tsar has to make a long railway journey, the day of his de
parture is not disclosed, and when the imperial train passes,
the track is lined with soldiers. In the interests of the pres
tige of the empire, it has long been considered that the Tsar

PALATIAL PETERSBURG. 1 95
would do well to visit the Caucasian provinces and the newly
annexed trans-Caspian territories, but the difficulty and cost
of guarding the route has caused the execution of this project
to be indefinitely delayed.
With a last glance at the Nevskoi Prospekt, the pride of
every patriotic Russian, we will conclude our observations on
palatial St. Petersburg. This famous street is remarkable
first of all for its dimensions: it is more than a hundred feet
broad and three miles long. In the middle a line of ungrace
ful iron posts support electric lights ; the pavement is partly
cobble-stones and partly of hexagonal wood blocks ; from end
to end run tram-ways with untiring bells and horses that rush
along at a gallop ; on either side are tall houses, most of them
without character, their facades striped vertically with enor
mous water-spouts, which in wet weather pour torrents over
the legs of the passers. Here and there is a church, a watch-
tower, a chapel with its door surrounded by begging nuns, a
palace, a bridge, and the endless perspective of broad, straight
cross-streets. The sidewalks are lined with shops, for this
long street is at the same time fashionable and commercial,
and the shops are more numerous than the palaces. In
front of each shop door is a marquee, supported by slender
iron pillars, crossing the foot-path to the road-way to afford
shelter to carriage people in wet weather. These marquees
are covered with signs in golden letters; the windows are
arabesqued with Russian characters. The cornices and the
roofs are bedizened with inscriptions, and even the areas
and cellars are adorned with mercantile announcements. On
many shops the inscriptions are also printed in German and
Russian for the benefit of the traveller ; while for those who
cannot read any characters, whether Roman or Slavonic, the
objects sold in the shops are depicted in form and color
on immense panels, where the Russian still-life painters dis
play their skill in designing boots, sausages, pianos, clothes,

196 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
caviare, oxen, ladies' dresses, gloves, and the thousand and one
objects of daily use. Never have we seen such exuberant
and obtrusive sign-painting as at St. Petersburg. The trades
men of the Nevskoi Prospekt are masters in the art of adver
tising their wares, and that, too, in a manner that amazes the
lounger, and has a certain cachet and character.
In this framework — admirably called a Prospect, for the
whole street is calculated to produce its effect when looked
at in perspective, and not when examined in detail — the
whole characteristic movement of St. Petersburg may be seen :
the tram-ways ; the strings of telegues laden with goods ; the
clouds of common droskies, looking like toy carriages ; the
finer private droskies, drawn by splendid long-stepping trot
ters, harnessed so lightly that the beauty of their form is no
where concealed ; the troikas, with their team harnessed
fanwise three abreast; the throngs of silent foot-passen
gers, mujiks, civil servants, officers in long gray overcoats,
women of the lower classes wearing short dresses of pale
green, unaesthetic blues, with gaudily embroidered kerchiefs
on their heads ; ladies in Parisian toilets ; here and there
queer old women who seem to have seen better days, and
who now console themselves by smoking cigarettes as they
lounge in the sun ; mujiks, who in spite of the warmth still
remain faithful to their sheepskin touloupes, and who loaf
along dreamily cracking sunflower seeds, the chewing of
which is a favorite popular distraction ; street hawkers who
sell kvas and other drinks, cakes, sweets, fruit, and flowers;
nurse -maids wearing the national costume and coiffure, a
sort of tiara of blue or red velvet embroidered with big pearl
beads ; priests in long flowing black gowns and tall brimless
hats, sometimes covered with a veil ; Circassians with their
long coats and their breasts stiff with cartridges ; a patrol of
Cossacks ambling along on their small nervous little horses,
with their hay-nets slung from the saddles. Horsemen are

PALATIAL PETERSBURG.

197

rare in St. Petersburg, for the Russians do not appreciate
riding as a pleasure. The great means of locomotion is that
foolish vehicle the drosky, which is the most universal and
characteristic feature in Russian street landscape.
Over the picture which the reader may have formed in
his mind out of the above elements he must be good enough
to pass a glaze of bitumen and shabbiness, and that, too, over
carriages and carts, horses and men alike ; for, as we have
already noted, the Russian crowd is dull -looking, without
gloss or neatness — a pale-faced, untidy crowd, with long,
faded blond hair, yellow beards, and gray eyes, moving silent
ly through the brown streets, and emitting an indescribable
odor of leather and tar combined with stale incense. For
this reason it is preferable to see both St. Petersburg and its
inhabitants in the twilight hours. Then the vistas of street
architecture, and the long perspectives of the canals and river
quays, lose their real hardness of line ; the crudity of the red
or ochre wash with which their stucco facades are painted is
softened; the brightness of the green house-tops is mitigated;
and above the low roofs the eye perceives the distant silhou
ette of a fire watch-tower, the majestic curve of a blue dome
spangled with golden stars, and the gilded bulbous cupolas
of some white Byzantine church rising sharply against the
cold, blue northern sky, and reflecting on one side the roseate
hues of the western twilight glow, which enriches and enno
bles all that is common and paltry, and, leaving visible only
lines and masses — the silhouettes of buildings, the broad per
spectives of streets, the sheeny course of river and canal, and
the resplendent glitter of gilded spires — sheds over the whole
city a harmonizing spell, a veil of crepuscular poetry.

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.
By THEODORE CHILD.

WHEN I started for Russia I announced to my friends,
not that I was going to the land of the Tsars, to St.
Petersburg and to Moscow, but to Nijnii-Novgorod. The two
words had fascinated me by their exotic sound ; for years my
imagination had been busy with these quaint syllables ; often
I had contemplated this vague and distant name on the map.
Years ago the demon of travel had whispered in my ear that
I must visit one day Nijnii-Novgorod, and years ago I had
internally and tacitly agreed to obey the insinuating demon's
orders ; for, as Theophile Gautier has remarked, it is wisest
to offer no resistance to the suggestions of the spirit of travel,
in order the sooner to be delivered from temptation. Hav
ing once internally consented to follow his promptings, you
need no longer trouble yourself about anything ; the tempter
will arrange the rest. In the course of time, under his magic
influence, obstacles disappear, leisure and money and plau
sible excuses are forthcoming, passports get stamped and
visaed without the smallest difficulty, and behold, one fine
day your wildest dreams become realities.
Thus, one evening in the beginning of August, after
a Gargantuan dinner at the Hermitage, we found ourselves
and our baggage installed in a roomy carriage, which jolt
ed swiftly along uphill and downhill several miles, until we

202 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
reached the station of the Nijnii-Novgorod line on the out
skirts of Moscow. A motley crowd filled the restaurant and
waiting-rooms, the floors of which were dotted with piles of
bedding, rugs, and pillows : the Russians are wont to carry
their bedding with them, which is, after all, a defensible re
finement. There were Muscovite merchants, German mer
chants, some Persians and Armenians, a Turkoman, several
Circassians, and in the corners a few shapeless bundles of
clothes which on closer inspection proved to be women. All
these were going to Nijnii, and waiting patiently and silently
under the guard of half a dozen gendarmes with big boots,
curved Oriental swords, and smart scarlet caps bound with
black astrakhan and surmounted by a white brush cockade.
After the due number of bell-ringings, the gendarmes opened
the doors, and there followed a rush towards the train and a
scrimmage for places on the part of the mujiks and porters,
who hurried to the fray laden with bags and rugs, each eager
to retain a good place for his master. There being no sleeping-
cars, we made ourselves fairly comfortable in a roomy chair-
car, having closely watched our travelling companions in order
to catch the trick of unravelling the complex and secret pro
longations and backward tiltings which convert the stiff arm
chairs into very passable beds. By this time the train had
started. The night was moonless and dark ; the long car
was dimly lighted with four candles placed in lanterns hung
on the walls. There was nothing to do but to smoke ciga
rettes, and finally to allow the staid rumbling of the train to
lull one to sleep.
Towards six o'clock the next morning there was a fifteen-
minute stoppage for tea and washing. The tea was taken in
the usual conditions in the buffet; the washing operations were
performed in a manner that struck us as being rather novel.
At different points along the platform were stationed women
of more or less advanced age, each holding a long towel in

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

203

one hand and a water-pitcher in the other, while in front of
her stood a stool or table supporting a brilliantly polished
brass basin and two or three cakes of soap. A tall hirsute
Russian, with his big boots, his long coat pleated round the
waist, advanced, flung his cap on the ground, or passed it to
the woman, who put it on her head as a pledge of payment,
and then held out his hands over the basin. The woman
raised her pitcher and poured water, while with much sput-

FIFTEEN MINUTES FOR TEA AND WASHING.

tering and with rapid, graceless gestures the man swilled his
face, holding out his hands repeatedly for more water, which
the woman reluctantly gave. Then, the ablutions finished,
the man grabbed the towel, wiped himself on a clean corner,
the woman holding it tightly all the time to prevent the
washer getting more than his share. The man tugged one
way and the woman the other in the most serious and yet
the most comic manner, not a word being spoken on either

204 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
side. Meanwhile another customer was swilling himself over
the basin, that glittered in the pale morning sunlight, and by
the time the first had extracted a three- kopeck piece from
the depths of his pocket, the second was ready to begin- his
struggle with the chary towel.
After this incident we proceeded on our way, cleansed
and refreshed, through a green and fertile country, more un
dulating and varied than the parts of Russia we had hitherto
traversed between the frontier and Moscow. The villages,
however, presented the same aspect of squalor and poverty,
and the small towns the same character of uniformity which
strikes the traveller from one end of Russia to the other.
In the construction of a Russian town individual fancy plays
no role. The absence or the rarity of stone accounts for the
almost universal use of wood or brick, and the churches, be
ing built according to the hieratic forms pronounced to be
orthodox by the Greek faith, present no variety of style.
As for the villages, they consist generally of a few dozen log-
cabins lining a single muddy street. At a level crossing our
train stopped a long procession of villagers accompanying a
priest clad in a gorgeously embroidered dalmatic, who bore
aloft a sacred image before which the mujiks were prostrat
ing themselves, while the passengers in our train devoutly
bowed and crossed themselves when they caught sight of the
gilded icon. This image, we may presume, was being car
ried to the log-cabin, or " isba," of some sick peasant, or to a
field where the harvesters needed to be blessed and started
on their labors with good omens. Soon we crossed a broad
gray river, the Oka, one of the affluents of the Volga, and in
another half-hour we were steaming- into the station of Nij
nii-Novgorod, which was crowded with dirty-looking Tatars
who had come to witness the arrival of the train, and who
stood penned in like sheep behind barriers along the plat
form. Gathering our bags together, we bargained for a dros-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 205
ky, and drove along the edge of the fair-ground parallel with
the Oka River, through a brown and dusty street lined with
shops, until we reached the wooden bridge of boats that leads
across the river to the permanent town of Nijnii-Novgorod,
where we hired a " number," as the Russians call it, in Sobo
lef's "nomera" ; and the bed being devoid of sheets or blank
ets, we hired some bedding too, and, all things being consid
ered, we found ourselves fairly comfortable. Sobolef's is not
the_best hotel in the town, but during the fair the influx of
visitors is so great that one must be content with what lodg
ings one may find. Sobolef's " nomera " are clean, airy, and
free from vermin ; his table is abundantly served with fairly
cooked food. The only objection we had against the house
was that not a soul in it spoke or understood any language
but Russian. However, necessity is a good master, and hun
ger, practice, and a phrase-book soon teach the traveller a
useful minimum of any language.
Our lodging secured, we proceeded to fortify ourselves
with a good breakfast, composed of the inevitable sterlet, the
equally inevitable gelinotte and "agourtsis," or salted cucum
ber, which in Russia takes the place of salad; the universally
popular beefsteak, whose name remains invariable in all coun
tries from China to Peru ; a dessert of preserved and fresh
fruits, and a bottle of white Bessarabian wine. Then we
sallied forth to inspect Nijnii-Novgorod, and to compare the
reality with the formless dreams which the name had con
jured up in our imagination. The fair was the chief point
of attraction, but we made no haste to visit it. We had trav
elled many days to reach this spot, whose name had- haunted
us for years, and yet we seemed unconsciously to hold back.
Evidently, now that we were at Nijnii-Novgorod, we should
certainly see the fair: there was no doubt about that point.
Still, there was perhaps a lurking fear — the fear that we all
feel — of seeing our desire accomplished, the vague dread that

206 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
our long-cherished dream may vanish in presence of a less
fascinating reality. Our first walks were therefore devoted
to visiting the old town on the right bank of the Oka River.
Nijnii-Novgorod, situated at the confluence of the Oka
and the Volga, 276 miles by rail east of Moscow, is com
posed of three parts: the upper city, or Kremlin, built on
three hills, rising to a height of some 400 feet ; the lower
town, along the right bank of the Oka and Volga ; and the
Fair and Kunavino suburb, on a flat, sandy tongue of land
between the Oka and Volga, connected with the town by a
bridge of boats 900 metres long and 25 broad. The position
of the town is most picturesque. As we stand on the bridge
the foreground is formed by the bistre waters of the Volga
crowded with boats and barges ; in the middle distance are
the quays and sloping banks, surmounted by the large red
buildings of the lower town, with their white window-frames ;
to the right, midway up the hill, is the vast monastery of the
Annunciation, dating from the thirteenth century, with white
domes and white enclosing walls ; crowning the hill to the
left is the Kremlin, with its capriciously irregular walls and
battlements, from amid which rise bulbous cupolas with gild
ed domes, and towers with conical roofs ; to the left, also in
the lower town, may be seen the green domes of the Church
of the Nativity, built, in a bastard style of Italian Gothic, of
red brick picked out with white stucco ornaments, the whole
very eccentric in form and color ; still farther to the left, be
yond the Kremlin, on the summit of the hill, is an alley of
trees — the Atkos, or terrace — from which may be obtained a
magnificent view of the mighty Volga and the plains through
which it flows ; to the extreme right a few poor wooden
houses try to climb the hill, but soon weary of the ascent, so
that the background of the panorama remains verdant and
tree-clad, broken by three ravines and by various zigzag paths
that lead over the hills, the graceful line of whose crest is inter-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 207
rupted only here and there by the dazzlingly white silhouette
of some tall watch-tower or gold-capped, onion-shaped spire
that stands out sharply against the clear sky. With the aid
of an impetuous drosky we reach the summit of the hill in a
few minutes. Russian horses know no obstacle, and their
only pace, whatever the nature of the ground, is a swift trot,
which in western European towns would cause their proprie
tors to be prosecuted for furious driving. We are now in the
upper town, composed of very broad, irregular streets, lined
with wooden houses and gardens, with now and then a villa
of more solid construction, and at every hundred yards a
church, a chapel, or a dependence of some monastery. Al
though it numbers only 60,000 inhabitants, Nijnii-Novgorod
boasts more than fifty churches and chapels. The streets
are clean and picturesque ; the houses, colored white, red, or
pale green, look very neat; the white churches, with their
clusters of gold or silver domes, are surmounted by the usual
crosses rigged with festooning chains ; over and around the
walls of the Kremlin are luxuriant trees. But in the streets
there is no animation; a few children playing a stray "is-
woschtschik," a beggar, a water-carrier, are all the human be
ings' that are seen. Even around the fountain on the Krem
lin place — in most countries a rendezvous of popular life —
one sees only a few mujiks filling water-barrels by means of
buckets attached to long handles; there are no women at the
fountain, no women in the streets. In Russia, house -work
is largely done by men, and the women, even of the lower
classes, do not show themselves much in public.
From the Kremlin — whose walls, like most of the old ar
chitectural monuments of Russia, were built in the sixteenth
century by an Italian architect, one Francesco, a Venetian —
we proceeded along the brow of the hill to the terrace and
garden of Atkos, beneath whose shady trees we find a hos
pitable cafe, where we may sit and look at the panorama on

208 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the opposite side of the river. At the foot of the hill is the
wharf and quay for the steamers that ply between Nijnii-Nov
gorod, Astrakhan, and Baku, on the Caspian — steamers of
various sizes and descriptions, the finest being very feeble
imitations of the Mississippi palace steamers ; not altogether
without comfortable accommodation, it is true, yet not com
fortable enough to make one eager to pass a week on board,
which is the time they take to run to Baku. To the left we
see the bridge of boats swarming with vehicles and pedes
trians ; above is the Oka, barely visible beneath its burden of
boats, and the rusty-looking Pessky Island, with its iron and
fish warehouses and its stacks and rafts of floated timber ; on
the opposite bank is the tongue of land covered with the
buildings of the fair, above which rise prominently the cupo
las of the Tatar mosque, the old cathedral of the fair, three
watch-towers for the firemen, the Armenian church, and the
new cathedral of Alexander Nevski, beyond which is the
Strjalka, or point at the junction of the Oka and the Volga,
where begin the Siberian quays and the Siberian line skirt
ing the Volga. Below the Strjalka, the Volga, united with
the Oka, sweeps along in a bistre-colored stream, having on
the right bank low hillocks, and on its left a vast alluvial
plain, rich with corn and occasionally dotted with forests,
that stretches away to the horizon, while the river winds
across it like a broad brown ribbon. This is the Mother
Volga, the " Matuschka Wolga," of which you hear so much
in Russia ; and indeed when we follow its course on the map,
and when we examine the products that it concentrates at
Nijnii-Novgorod, we can understand why the Russians speak
of it so affectionately, and why the annual fair at this point
has become so important in Russian commerce. From its
source to its mouth in the Caspian Sea the Volga runs a
course of 2300 miles; the extent of its water-shed is three
times that of France ; by various systems of canals it is con-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 209
nected with Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Balkans ; by a
canal also it is connected with the Dwina, and therefore with
the White Sea ; by its affluents, the Oka and the Kama, it
acquires a total navigable system 7500 miles in length, and
commands vast districts westward towards Toula, and east
ward as far as the foot of the Ural Mountains. The conse
quence is that the Volga is the greatest water-way in Russia.
Above Nijnii-Novgorod the river is navigated by some 14,000
boats, employing 300,000 men; below Nijnii it is navigated
by 8000 ships, manned by 225,000 hands; while on the lower
Volga immense fishing and fish-curing enterprises are car
ried on.
From time immemorial Russian merchants were wont to
meet in the summer with the merchants of the East at vari
ous points on the Volga between the confluences of the Oka
and' the Kama. In 1624 the greatest fair was located on the
ground of the monastery of Jeltovodski, near Makarieff, where
it remained until 18 17, when it was transferred fifty-five miles
higher up the stream, to Nijnii-Novgorod. In order that we
may relieve our minds of too serious thoughts before ventur
ing to explore this famous fair, let us plunge once for all into
the most recent statistics, and sum up briefly its commercial
importance. First of all, the reader must bear in mind that
the Jahrmarka,* as it is called, which takes place annually
from August 5th ¦ to September 15th, is a wholesale fair.
The goods chiefly dealt in are cotton, woollen, linen, and silk
stuffs, which constitute about forty per cent, of the whole ;
next in importance come iron, corn, tea, furs, salt, wine, fish,
pottery, and manufactured goods. About four-fifths of the
whole goods brought to the fair are of Russian origin. The
basin of the Oka River sends agricultural and manufactured
* This name, of German origin probably, dates from the days of the
Hanseatic League.

2IO THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
products ; the basin of the Kama sends metal wares ; corn
and salt are produced in the south-east provinces; fish comes
up from the lower Volga and the Caspian ; Siberia, the Cau
casus, Central Asia, and Persia send a variety of wares ; and
about ten per cent, ofthe total amount of goods are imported
from Asia, namely, tea via Kiachta, Canton, and Suez, raw
cotton and silk, leather wares, madder, and other manufact
ured goods. The chief article of trade is cotton, of which
the price is fixed at this fair ; the prices of raw wool and silk
are also fixed here. Economists will also readily demonstrate
that the- whole iron production of the Ural depends on the fair
of Nijnii-Novgorod. The caravans of boats laden with iron
start from the Ural works in the spring, stay at the fair of
Laishev, which supplies the lower Volga, and then proceed
up to Novgorod in August. The purchases of iron made
at this fair for consumption in Asia and middle Russia de
termine the amount of credit that will be granted for the
next year's business to the owners of the iron-works, who are
largely dependent on this credit. The corn and salt trade,
and still more the whole trade of Siberia and Turkistan, are
influenced by this fair, their success depending entirely on
the conditions of credit which the merchants are able to ob
tain at Nijnii-Novgorod. It thus appears that the fair exer
cises a direct influence on all the leading branches of Rus
sian manufacture. During the six weeks that it lasts it
attracts daily some 200,000 people from Russia and Asia ;
the river is literally laden with thousands of boats; the quays,
extending over a length of ten miles, are covered with mer
chandise ; on the fair ground proper and around it, six thou
sand shops are occupied ; and although no exact and abso
lutely trustworthy statistics can be obtained, it is safe to reck
on the total business transacted at the fair at the sum of four
hundred millions of rubles, or forty million pounds sterling.
The Jahrmarka, as we have seen, is connected with the

ON THE BRIDGE LEADING TO THE FAIR-GROUNDS,

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 213
town of Nijnii-Novgorod by a bridge of boats which is en
tirely removed in winter, and put into position again only
after the ice has disappeared. Like the similar bridge be
tween Pera and Stamboul, this is a favorable point for ob
servation. The view up and down the river comprises the
panorama of the town on one side, and the panorama of
the fair buildings on the other, with between the two banks
the busy Pessky Island and the still busier stream, with
boats plying up and down and across, threading their way be
tween compact shoals of heavily laden barges with pointed
wooden roofs pierced by tall slender masts. All day long
until two o'clock in the morning the bridge itself swarms
with people going to and fro. At each end and in the mid
dle are mounted policemen to direct the traffic, and to see
that no one infringes the rule which throughout Russia pro
hibits smoking on bridges. On the sidewalks, passing to and
fro, is the usual rusty Russian throng, composed of peasants,
mujiks, beggars, and pilgrims, mendicant monks and nuns,
with their black trays marked with a white cross, priests with
their long blond hair, flowing black garments, and tall brim-
less hats. The only novel elements noticeable are the Ta
tar workmen with their marked Mongolian features, high
cheek-bones, brown skins, and shaven heads covered with a
cotton skull-cap. Occasionally, too, you see Persians and
Armenians wearing tall Astrakhan fezzes or voluminous tur
bans, their long garments floating majestically as they walk.
Often you may notice Tatar women, closely veiled after the
Mussulman style, who glide along discreetly, and contrast
strongly with the flaunting German, Russian, and Hungarian
women, who swarm to the fair in the hope of captivating the
merchants. In the road-way pass endless series of telegues
conveying merchandise to the fair, and innumerable droskies
dashing along at a swift trot, and rattling over the rickety
planks with that reckless velocity that nothing can moderate.

214 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
But of human sounds there are none. In any Western coun
try such an agglomeration of moving humanity would pro
duce a great noise like the tumultuous roaring of the sea ;
but Russian crowds are unlike crowds composed of other
elements : they are silent. The only sounds you hear on the
bridge are the rattling and rumbling of the vehicles over the
rough planks of the road-way, the occasional puffing and whist
ling of some river steamer, or a snatch of song wafted across
the water. Something wild and novel in the air catches
your ear, and leaning over the railing, you see below a black
barge moving slowly across the stream, within it four men
pulling oars, while another man pushes against a pole, which
he plants in the bed of the river, and then walks the length
of the boat, leaning his shoulder against the T-shaped han
dle. In the prow sits a venerable old man, and near him
a woman. The old man sings a lugubrious air in a deep
and soft bass voice, and the woman chants the contrasting
refrain of rapid shrill notes with animated gestures. The
scene is striking : it is late afternoon ; the mass of the boat
appears dull black against the background formed of the
sheeny silver -gray water, the russet -brown shipping, and
the higher brown piles of timber on the mud shores of the
Pessky Island. On this soft neutral ground the costume of
the figures in the boat throws warm patches of blue, green,
scarlet, and rose red ; and alternately grave or flippant, dis
creet or importunate, the strange notes of the song and re
frain continue clear and wild as the oars strike the water in
unison and the barge glides slowly past.
At the end of the bridge to the right are some gigantic
ice-breakers, built of whole tree-trunks, somewhat in the shape
of a primitive ploughshare. To the left is a little chapel, gor
geously gilded inside, and lighted with innumerable tapers,
the offerings of rich and poor. Around the door of the
chapel stand mendicant nuns and a swarm of beggars. We

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

215

are now within the confines of the fair — a whole town laid
out in rectangular blocks covering a superficies of more than
a square mile, and surrounded by annexes and dependencies
that encroach upon the surrounding- fields. The old fair
buildings occupy a horseshoe space, forming an inner town,

BARGE ON THE VOLGA.

enclosed on three sides by a canal, and fronting towards the
river Oka. The buildings are one or two stories high, and
mostly of stone. Twelve streets or lines run at right angles
to the river, and six cross lines parallel to it. The central
line is a pretty boulevard planted with shade-trees, having at
one end the quaint roofs of the Chinese row and the imposing

2l6

the Tsar and his people.

mass of the old cathedral, and at the other the residence of
the General Governor, the Government and police offices, and
a square in the midst of which is a kiosk where a band plays
of an afternoon while the merchants and the cosmopolitan
beauties promenade to and fro. On the other side of the
General Governor's residence, on the bank of the Oka, is a
chapel flanked by two square pavilions
surmounted by black and white flag-staffs,
from which float triumphantly the bunting
that announces to all that the fair is open.
Within this inner horseshoe space the
thousands of little shops, store-rooms, and
warehouses bring in to the Government
an annual rental of 300,000 rubles, out of
which there is not very much profit, for
during several months the whole fair
grounds are flooded by the muddy waters
of the Oka and the Volga, and the cost
of repairs and renovation is consequently
very considerable. This inner fair, how
ever, has long been insufficient for the
requirements of the merchants, and so
other shops and warehouses have been
built on either side of the horseshoe, form
ing an outer fair, which reaches on one side as far as the rail
way station, and on the other as far as the Siberian quay,
where enormous masses of merchandise are stored in tempo
rary wooden sheds covered with bark matting. The pecu
liarity of this fair is that very little merchandise is sold by
pattern or sample: the greater part of the goods for sale are
visibly and materially there on the spot.
As we are not bent on business, we need follow no plan
or itinerary in visiting the fair. Let us suppose that we have
just crossed the bridge, and that we are standing near the

ONE OF THE FLAG-
STAFFS.

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

217

little chapel at the entrance of the fair. We are in a broad,
crowded street. One of the first things that strikes us is the
silence of the crowd, which enables us to perceive the sound
of the fluttering wings of the innumerable tame pigeons that
swarm on the pavement, on the houses, and in the shops, and
almost dare to settle on our shoulders. The Russians re
spect pigeons as the symbol of the Holy Ghost, and the pious
give them food, so that they abound everywhere in incalcula
ble numbers. In the dusty road-way are interminable proces
sions of telegues laden with bales of goods and drawn by shag-

RESIDENCE OF THE GENERAL GO.VERNOR.
gy, nervous little horses lightly harnessed, and with gayly
painted "dougas" arching over their shoulders; quantities of
beggars and dirty children ; throngs of mujiks, Tatars, and
nondescript laborers wearing the most primitive costume.
Among these people socks and stockings are rare ; their feet
are swathed in rags bound round with string or rope, and if
not plunged into big boots they are incased in thick -soled
shoes of plaited bark. In a comparatively quiet corner near
the chapel some open-air barbers are combing the shaggy
beards and long hair of mujiks or shaving the heads of Tatars.

2l8 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Here is the Bourse, and in front, at the foot of the steps, is
a horde" of mujiks and Tatar laborers waiting to be hired.
Along the sidewalks are innumerable booths and hand-carts
piled up with eatables, such as salted cucumbers, kvas and
other drinks, dried fish, nuts, sweets, bread, cakes, fruit, and
those inevitable sunflower seeds, which seem to be absolute
ly necessary for the happiness of Russian men, women, and
children of the lower classes. This nibbling of sunflower
seeds is indulged in all the more within the precincts of the
fair, as smoking is prohibited under penalty of a fine of twen
ty-five rubles, and the distraction of cigarettes is therefore
impossible. The brown, dusty, and roughly paved street
stretches away in a straight line ; the sidewalks are covered
by a continuous marquee resting on iron pillars ; the shops
are invariably two stories high only ; the loftier buildings
that vary the perspective lines are restaurants, tea-houses or
traktirs, " nomera," or lodging caravansaries. The pavement
is brown, the dust is brown, the crowd is brown; the telegues,
the horses, the droskies and their drivers, all look equally
dusty and rusty as they move along in the full blaze of the
August sun. And what droskies and what coachmen ! Dur
ing the fair thousands of vehicles come to Nijnii-Novgorod
from all the towns and villages in the vicinity; and even from
as far as Kasan. The forms of the telegue, tarantass, and
drosky are invariable from one end of the empire to the other;
the costume of the "iswoschtschik," or coachman, is also in
variable, being composed of a low-crowned hat with a curled
brim, and a long coat with voluminous skirts hanging with
heavy folds down to the ground. But Nijnii presents unri
valled opportunities for seeing these vehicles in all stages of di
lapidation, and for making comparative studies of coachmen's
costume in progress towards complete disintegration. Gen
erally the "iswoschtschik" at Nijnii has. the folds of his coat
padded and puffed out, so that as he sits on his box, with his

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

219

A CHEAP RESTAURANT.

embroidered girdle tied just below his arms, and his hat pulled
well down over his ears, he presents from behind a depressed
and pumpkin-like silhouette of a most grotesque character.
, Turning to the left, we find parallel with the river a se
ries of booths and shanties covered with ragged awnings.
These are popular restaurants, where the laborers or peas
ants sit at long tables and eat a fair dinner for eight kopecks.
At intervals are the cooking-stoves and barrels of dried and
pickled fish, salted cucumbers, and all kinds of queer food,
that looks more picturesque than appetizing. A few steps to
the right will bring us into the first longitudinal street of the
fair. According to the Oriental fashion, the different trades

2 20 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
occupy each a certain section of the fair, and the first sec
tion we happen to traverse is that of the trunk-sellers, one of
the brightest and gaudiest. Piled up inside the shops and
outside in the street are trunks of all sizes, some painted
with roses and other flowers on a ground of tender green or
blue; others covered with strange arabesques in gold or sil
ver ; others panelled with paillon and sparkling with metallic
reflections ; others trellised with straps of metal and braced
with brass or tin corners; others varnished and lacquered like'
a sultana's mirror. During the fair thousands and thousands
of these tawdry trunks are bought for packing-cases by the
merchants, who cover them with coarse canvas to protect
them, while in use, from scratches, and then, after they have
unpacked their goods, sell them to their townsmen all over
the country. The most ornate of these trunks are bought
by the Persian merchants, who doubtless dispose of them at
a good profit after they have served them to carry home their
purchases. In the next row of shops we find book-stores full
of patriotic volumes, pious treatises, religious pictures, cheap
colored prints of the Tsar and of innumerable saints, horri
ble chromo-lithographs of German manufacture, and various
terrible images devoid of all merit. After the book-stores
come the dealers in brass wares and cutlery from Toula.
Here are samovars of all shapes, sizes, and degrees of rich
ness, basins and pans for various uses, lanterns, ecclesiastical
lamps, incense-burners surmounted by the Greek cross, small
lamps to hang before holy images, mortars and pestles, knives,
edge-tools, and miscellaneous objects. Next we find ourselves
in the sheepskin department, where are sold tunics of all sizes,
called touloupes. The touloupe is a garment made out of the
skin of the sheep, the wool being worn inside and the tanned
skin outside. When it is new the wool is white, and the
leather is of a pale salmon-color, ornamented with arabesques
stitched with black waxed thread. But the mujik is as faithful

It

ON THE BOULEVARD.

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 223
to his touloupe as the Arab to his burnoose : he lives in it,
works in it, sleeps in it in all the warm and dirty corners im
aginable, so that it does not retain its agreeable aspect for
long, but becomes greasy, shiny, varnished, as it were, with a
dark bituminous glaze, rich and juicy in tone, like a picture
of Ribera. Next come dry-salters and dealers in chemical
products of no interest to the ordinary observer. Let us
turn back and make for the General Governor's residence.
In the square in front of this building there are picturesque
fruit-stalls. On one side of the square is a bazaar where you
may buy Caucasian jewellery and metal wares, Siberian am
ethysts and other cut stones, German toys, French perfume
ry, mercery, and all the knick-knacks and trumpery that come
under the heading of " articles de Paris." In the vicinity of
the residence are some of the richest shops of the fair, and
in front of it starts the broad twelfth line, or boulevard, with its
central avenue of shade trees. This is the section of the jew
ellers, the goldsmiths, and the makers of gold and silver icons,
of the dealers in furs, manufactured silks, and fine dry goods.
The arcades on either side of the boulevard are lined with
the shops of goldsmiths, image - makers, and mercers, each
shop-front gayly painted with pictures of the goods that may
be bought inside, while across the sidewalk are slung from
the roof swinging sign -boards covered with inscriptions in
Russian characters. Before each shop, too, there stands a
neat turned wood bench, on which the store-keepers, await
ing the arrival of customers, sit in silent contemplation or in
taciturn communion with their neighbors. Here and there,
at intervals along the arcades, an icon is suspended from the
roof, and before it burns a little lamp ; in every shop you
see an icon accompanied by its lamp ; even in the traktirs
there is a religious image in every room, so that there is as
much bowing and crossing done at Nijnii-Novgorod as in holy
Moscow itself. An example presents itself as we are strolling

224

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

along: at the corner of the boulevard and a cross-street is a
water-tap and a cup attached by a chain ; a thirsty "iswosch
tschik" descends from his box to drink, takes his hat off, puts
it under his arm, crosses himself devoutly, then drinks, re-
crosses himself, puts on his hat, mounts his box, and drives
off. This boulevard being provided with benches, and at in
tervals with stalls for the sale of lemonade and Seltzer, we
may sit under the spreading linden-trees and watch the move
ment. In reality there is not much movement : except along
the wharves there is not much animation at Nijnii; the great
commercial activity remains invisible ; and if we wish to dis
cover where the big bus
iness transactions are ac
complished we must enter
the traktirs where the
mujiks pass to and fro,
clad in white, and carrying
trays laden with glasses
of tea, and where the mer
chants sip the hot bev
erage, holding a lump of
sugar between their teeth,
and exchanging now and
then a few words with ap
parent indifference. The
Russians cannot do bus
iness without the aid of
tea; their commercial ex
change is the nearest
traktir. Along this boulevard, then, we must not look for
commercial animation ; it is, however, an agreeable and pict
uresque spot for observing men and things. Scarcely have
we settled ourselves comfortably in the shade, a little side
ways so as to command a view along the arcades, before we

CHINESE ROW.

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

225

are conscious of a murmuring, humble voice ; it is a beggar,
who is modulating a prayer for alms, and bowing assiduously
— not with the Occidental bow that starts from the neck
only, but with the Oriental bow that bends the whole body
from the waist upward. A few kopecks obtain for us a bless
ing and a few min
utes' peace. Soon,
however, two hand
some young Per
sians accost us in
French, and with in
exhaustible patience
try to sell us tur
quoises. These are
succeeded by a mu
jik laden with gar
lands of dried mush
rooms threaded on
strings, who, in his
turn, fails to tempt
us to trade. Next
we noticed several
women who hurried
along balancing on their shoulders long bow -like yokes,
from which were suspended piles of food receptacles, some
of tin, others of white porcelain, and others of copper — three
piles of reeves, each of six dishes, at either end of the yoke.
These women, whom you see striding along in all directions
through the fair towards noon, distribute dinner to the hun
gry shopkeepers who cannot leave their counters. Now
some Tatar maidens, their heads enveloped in black shawls
embroidered with bright red roses and green leaves, stroll
past with looks that are not guileless. Here is a decidedly
German Gretchen, wearing a bustle and a loud Parisian hat,
15

THE TATAR MOSQUE.

226 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
who inspects us through an impertinent eye-glass ; and, con
trasting with her obtrusive modernity, here are three Per
sians wearing monumental conical fezzes and long garments
of silk — one blue, the other lilac, and the third green of the
tone of young lettuce.
This Oriental apparition was so startling that we rose
and followed the Persians discreetly until they entered a fur
merchant's shop at the other end of the boulevard, where we
found ourselves on the Place in front of the old cathedral,
within the centre a fountain, and on each side the buildings
of the Chinese Row, and in the distance to the left the Ar
menian church, and to the right the Tatar mosque. The Chi
nese Row is so called from the style of its architecture and not
from the nationality of the occupants. It is a series of ware
houses with white walls and light green pagoda-shaped roofs,
decorated with white Chinese figures at the corners. The
warehouses are tenanted by Russian tea merchants ; curious
ly, in the whole Chinese Row there is not a single Chinaman.
This may astonish the reader, who has doubtless heard much
about the Asiatic appearance of the fair. In reality, the fair
of Nijnii-Novgorod is not international but purely Russian;
the majority of the merchants who frequent it come from
Moscow ; the number of Persians, Armenians, Georgians,
and Circassians who visit it is small, and the chief element
of novelty in the crowd is afforded by the Tatars. Never
theless, the types that you see in the streets are varied and
interesting. Tatars with prominent cheek-bones, eyes spar
ingly open, slightly concave noses, thick lips, and yellowish
skin, darkening into a greenish hue where the hair is shaved
on the temples, abound in Nijnii-Novgorod. You see them
hurrying along the streets, carrying steaming samovars ; you
see them beating Astrakhan skins outside the furriers' stores ;
you see them along the wharves unloading mediaeval-looking
craft, with pointed bows, laden with grain, watermelons, hides,

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

227

THE PERSIAN BAZAAR.

wine-skins from the Caucasus, or cotton from Bokhara. The
Tatar is a day- laborer and J ack-of -all-trades, like his Mon-
o-olian brother, the Chinaman, whom he resembles in facial

2 28 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
aspect The Persians are easily recognizable by their long,
oval faces, large, aquiline noses, brilliant eyes, thick black
beards, and noble Oriental looks. With their bright-colored
plain or striped silk gowns and cashmere waistbands, they
contribute a rare note of color to the dusty Russian crowd.
Passing over the canal in the direction of the Tatar
mosque, we come to the Persian section of the fair, where
disdainful and majestic merchants clad in silk caftans recline
upon divans in the midst of their stocks of brocade, silks,
gauzes woven with gold and silver thread, Persian and Da-
ghestan carpets, scarlet cloths curiously embroidered, nielle
mouth -pieces for pipes, nargiles from Khorassan, stools in
laid with mother-of-pearl, chaplets of amber and sandal-wood,
babouches gaudily embroidered with flowers and arabesques,
and all the usual Oriental frippery that has lost the charm of
novelty since Western enterprise has thrown cargoes after car
goes of it into the European and American markets. Hard
by is another Persian section, devoted to the sale of dried
fruits. Here, as usual, are shops with a covered gallery in
front, but the greater part of the merchandise is spread out
half across the street in the open air. In wooden boxes or
bulging sacks are walnuts, dates, raisins, almonds, currants,
pistachios, dried peaches, and other products of the Persian
provinces, all standing open for inspection and sheltered from
dust and sun only by the thick cloud of flies that no assi
duity with whisk or lash can drive away.
Farther wanderings through the streets of the fair might
lead us to the Siberian Line, where we should see bales of
tea packed in hides covered with incised hieroglyphics ; to
the boot department where there are thousands of cases of
gray felt overshoes, some small and dainty enough for Cin
derella's foot, others of gigantic proportions and thickness ;
to the island on the Oka where there are stores of caviare,
live sterlet, and tons of dried and salt fish for consumption

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

229

during the four months of fast which the Greek Church im
poses during the year. On the island, too, are noisy forges
where smiths are working sheet-iron into household utensils.
Elsewhere we see huge piles of Siberian wood bent by steam
for wheels and for those tall bows or "dougas" that form an
essential part of Russian harness. But whichever way we
direct our steps within the fair we shall notice the same
characteristic odor, composed of boots, cart grease, harness,
perspiration, and stale in
cense, and we shall find
the same architectural
type in every street, name
ly, two-story structures of
white stone or red brick
with round -topped win
dows in the upper story,
and on the lower story
open shops sheltered by
a continuous green mar
quee supported by slen
der iron pillars painted
green. At various points we shall notice tall wooden towers
with at their base a fire-engine station, and horses ready har
nessed to rush to the scene of danger at the first alarm giv
en by the watchman on the tower. Yet another peculiarity
that will strike us is the belt of low-roofed, whitewashed tow
ers placed at regular intervals throughout the fair, and sur
mounted by a basket of wire-work such as you see on the
funnel of locomotives in countries where the fuel used is
wood. From this basket there issues a light blue smoke
which perfumes the air with the aromatic smell of burnt
herbs. In each tower is a door always open, and a staircase
descending spirally into the earth. These towers mark the
entrances to the catacombs, or tunnels, as the Russians call

A TUNNEL TOWER.

230

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

them — a vast system of vaulted lobbies or cloacae, which are
flushed by steam-pumps every night, and serve to keep Nijnii
healthy and free from plague or cholera, in spite of the enor
mous concourse of people gathered there during the fair.
Let us now work our way to the outskirts of the fair,
where it abuts on the open plain. Beyond the old cathedral,
picturesquely situated near the canal, which we cross over a
wooden bridge, a long black building of strange form stands
by itself isolated on the plain. It is constructed of roughly
hewn tarred planks, with a broad low roof sweeping down
and forming an arcade along the front, which is pierced by
great oblong black openings. This primitive structure is
the bake-house of the fair, located here in order to diminish
the danger of fire. On the plain also are numerous bath
houses, all built of wood, either in logs or in planks, all
painted in bright tones of green, red, or blue, and planted
there without order or regularity on the brown dusty surface
of the plain, over which a track of boards is laid to facilitate
walking. Beyond the bath-houses are wooden stables, used
for the horse fair ; and then, working back round the canal.
towards the Tatar mosque, we reach a spot wholly devoted
to popular amusements. This corner of the fair, grouped
around a wooden watch-tower, on the top of which you see
the silhouette of the look-out man pacing the narrow terrace
day and night, is one of the most characteristic in Nijnii*
Here from morning until far into the night there are sounds
of music and revelry. In this quarter is the circus, and a
great wooden theatre where Russian drama and gorgeous
ballets are performed. On an adjacent patch of ground — a
brown dusty waste strewn with wood chips, watermelon peel,
herring heads, shells of sunflower seeds, and miscellaneous
debris — the mountebanks and showmen are encamped amid
a fluttering of flags ; and with much braying of trumpets and
thumping of drums the proprietor of the American Panopti-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 23 1
con, the serpent charmer, the unrivalled acrobats, and the .
exhibitors of decapitated yet garrulous virgins, of anatomical
museums, and of other natural and unnatural phenomena, in
vite the silent crowd to enter their establishments, whose ex
terior is painted with the most naif monstrosities, and quaintly
inscribed with colossal Russian letters. On one side of the
mountebanks' enclosure is the old-clothes market, one of the
most fascinating parts of the fair for a painter, while on the
other side is a row of tumble-down sheds and booths, which
ori examination proved to be cheap — very cheap — restau
rants and stalls for the sale of bread, cakes, kvas, sweetmeats,
and salted cucumbers. These shanties and their ragged and
dirty customers would also form very picturesque and dainty
subjects for an etcher or a water-color painter. In this part
of the fair you see simple folks only, mujiks wearing sandals
of woven bark, and dressed very much like the Danubian
peasants represented on Trajan's Column ; others wearing
long boots, baggy trousers, coats with voluminous pleated
skirts, or greasy touloupes of sheepskin, although we are in
mid-August — for the Russians of all classes are very sensitive
to cold, whereas we Westerners imagine that they endure the
most severe cold without suffering ; others clad in red shirts
with over them a loose coat of yellowish felt of most primitive
cut and most primitive material. As for the women, their cos
tume consists of a cotton skirt, a sort of camisole hanging down
to the knees, and a kerchief of some bright color covering their
heads, tied under the chin, and generally stamped or embroid
ered with gaudy floral patterns. Some of these women wear
big boots rubbed over with grease like the men's. Few of them
have any pretensions to prettiness, but often their expression
of gentleness and resignation is not without charm. As for the
men, they look as a rule absolutely imbruted and without a
glimmering of intelligence; their dull, oval, gray, lizard-like
eyes are without expression ; their long hair and beards look

232

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

as if they had been faded
by long exposure, being
neither blond nor brown, but
a dirty-looking yellow, with
out gloss or
luminous-ness ; their
skins, too,
are yellow
ed by the
sun, so that
their faces,
hair, and

THE SHOWMEN.

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 233
beards are almost of the same tone. Experience, however,
has shown us that it is preferable not to examine things Rus
sian too closely or in too brilliant a. light. The stucco pal
aces of St. Petersburg look best in the transparent obscurity
of the long June twilight, which conceals their real poverty,
and envelops their contours in a soft mantle of poesy. So,
too, the most charming vision that we have retained of Nij
nii is that of the fair ground seen from the bridge, with its
low buildings, its fire towers, its huge Nevskoi cathedral, and
its girdle of masts and shipping standing out in soft velvety
blue-black silhouette against the luminous mystery of the Rus
sian summer twilight — that immaterial light that seems to
come neither from sun nor moon nor stars, but to be a new
and independent light-giving ether filtered through an opal
ine veil to change this sad earth into dream-land, and its bur
den of buildings into fairy palaces.
The multitude of tea houses and restaurants scattered
about the fair ground at Nijnii-Novgorod shows that the
frequenters of the Jahrmarka are not of an austere turn of
mind ; but it is not until- night that the amusements can be
seen in • full swing in the various quarters of the fair, and
particularly in the Kunavino suburb, which the guide-books
forbid ladies to visit. This prohibition need not be regretted
by our fair readers, for in these tabooed establishments they
would only hear very wretched music, see very slow and
gloomy dancing, and scarcely be repaid for their trouble by
the privilege of making acquaintance with the very peculiar
refinements of toilet indulged in by Tatar women.
On the whole, the amusements to be found in the fair
struck us as being rather lugubrious, and few of them had
any markedly Russian character. Beginning with the low
est grade, we went one evening to a traktir on the outskirts
of the fair, near the mountebanks' enclosure. It was a square
two-story building, with about sixteen windows in each facade,

•'34

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

all ablaze with lights. Along one facade ran a balcony, over
which women and girls and their swains were leaning and
looking out into the night, while from the open windows is
sued sounds of shrill music. Many female forms flitted in
the shadow in and out of the house, and there was a crowd
standing outside : Tatars with their embroidered skull-caps,
mujiks in red shirts, a few gypsies, and a nondescript mass
of men, women, and children not clearly distinguishable in
the darkness. We paid thirty kopecks, and were admitted
up-stairs into a large room with a rather low ceiling. Half
the room was occupied by a carousal revolving on a disk
sunk flush with the floor. On the horses and in the cars of
this carousal rode maidens solitary or by couples, or maidens
accompanied by their admirers, while other maidens walked
arm in arm around the carousal, which turned very slowly.
We sat at a table for a while and watched this scene : not a
word was spoken, not a laugh could be heard ; the disk re
volved ; the lovers gazed in each other's eyes ; the solitary
maidens gazed into space with an expression of melancholy
beatitude; the electric -light shed a sinister glare over the
faces, and we were on the point of imagining this to be some
strange nightmare, when in another corner of the room a
sound of savage music broke the spell. The players stood
on a dais in a corner of the room, and while some beat drums,
others blew into long wooden trumpets or hautboys of large
calibre. The music thus produced, though very rugged and
primitive, reminded one of the music of the Moors. It came
of that same wild Oriental inspiration which has produced
the songs of the Circassians, the Turks, and the Arabs, and
which still lingers in the mountain homes of Spain. After
this instrumental concert a chorus of mujiks, men and boys,
took their position on a platform in another corner of the
room, standing in a semicircle, with the leader alone in the
middle. Both men and boys were dressed in national cos-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

235

tume — long boots, red- belted blouses or shirts worn in the
orthodox style outside of the trousers, long black coats, their
hair parted in the middle and hanging in shaggy, faded blond
locks on each side. The leader stood with his hands hang-
ing at his sides in a rigid military attitude, and sang a mel
ancholy slow air. Then raising his right hand, he marked
time while the chorus struck up the refrain, the voices being

AROUND THE FIRE TOWER.

sustained by an accordion and a tambourine, and supple
mented in the high notes by a hautboy, which imitated the
human voice in the upper registers. After two or three
songs the concert ended with the national song and dance,
executed by two little boys, who performed the jig steps, the
leaps and standing jumps, the parcours, with crumpled legs
and other acrobatic minutiae of this strange chorographic

236 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
exhibition with much agility and with inflexible seriousness
of feature. Meanwhile, at the tables round the room there
was much drinking of beer, lemonade, and vodka, and fre
quent calls at the bar, where the zakouska of anchovies, ca
viare, watermelon, cold fish, cheese, and the inevitable salt cu
cumber was laid out in what was meant to be tempting array.
The next establishment that we visited was of a higher
class — the Restaurant and Hotel Germania. Imagine a large
saloon, with tables and stalls in the English style, waiters
wearing white cravats and swallow-tail coats, and at one end
a platform and a piano. We entered and took our places at
a table. Around us were men drinking beer and others eat
ing, while some score of women were sitting about or walking
up and down two by two, with their arms round each other's
waist. Some of these women were dressed in Parisian in
door costumes, others wore short skirts, velvet bodices em
broidered with military brandebourgs, and long boots and
spurs a la Hongroise. At a signal from the piano these
women, accompanied by half a dozen men, took their places
on the platform, and with provoking want of animation or
talent sang choruses which sounded like church music.
Then, the chorus finished, one of the girls, holding a square
bit of music-paper in her hand, went the round of the tables
to collect rubles or kopecks for the benefit of the artistes.
Finding this performance rather slow, we went to a big
traktir in the vicinity, where the aspect of the room was
similar. The tables were crowded with men eating and
drinking; the chorus-girls— Russians, Germans, Poles, and
Hungarians — were promenading up and down, while on the
platform a ventriloquist was amusing the public with a set
of manikins. After the ventriloquist a blond girl executed,
with considerable brio and talent, a Russian song, the refrain
of which she accompanied by dancing a violent but not un
graceful mazourka. Not yet satisfied, we visited yet another

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD.

237

traktir, in the hope of find
ing something characteris
tically Russian. This was
a vast establishment, brill
iantly lighted by electricity.
In the hall an army of mu

jiks relieved you of hat and
stick and overcoat; the
staircase was decorated
with green plants and flow
ers ; the concert -room,
which was also the grand
supper- room, was painted n e concert.
and gilded in fine style ;
and. the promenading chorus-girls were dressed in antique

238 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Russian costume of the time of the Boyars, such as you see
in Makowsky's well-known picture of a Russian marriage —
cloaks of scarlet, rose, green, or blue lined and bordered with
fur, dresses stiff with gold embroidery, the neck laden with
strings of beads, and the hair surmounted by a diadem or
hennin of velvet embroidered with pearls. At first sight this
seemed to be what we had been looking for, but on reflection
we pronounced it to be theatrical and incongruous. If the
public had been dressed in national costume the effect might
have been better, but this establishment was above the means
of the red-shirted mujiks ; its frequenters were mainly rich
Muscovites and young clerks dressed in large check suits —
" quite English, you know," for in matters of dress Anglo
mania rages among Russian men to an alarming extent.
The electric-light, too, did not harmonize well with six
teenth-century costume ; and then, to spoil all, a sprightly
little Parisian chanteuse appeared on the stage dressed as a
pert soubrette, and began to warble, first a sentimental ro
mance about nightingales and violets and vernal courtship,
and secondly a martial song, with plenty of drum-taps — rata
plan, rataplan, plan-plan — and military salutes, and march
ing up and down with parade step. Certainly we had not
come to Nijnii-Novgorod to hear "Mile. Therese, of the Con
cert des Champs Elysees." However, when she came round
with her scrap of music-paper to collect her petits benefices,
we could not resist a movement of curiosity, and, passing her
a ruble, we said to her, laconically :
"Eleve de Chariot?" (Pupil of Chariot ?)
" Oui, monsieur ; vous le conuaissez?" (Yes ; do you know
him ?)
"Parbleu." (I should think so.)
" Offrez-moi quelque chose, fe reviendrai."
And without waiting for an answer, the little chanteuse
hurried away on her begging excursion among the tables, but

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 239
soon returned to accept our invitation and tell us her advent
ures. What was this mystery ? the reader may ask. Who
is Chariot ? Why should we be bound to offer refreshments
to this little lady because we happen to know Chariot ? Let
us explain. In the course of our travels in various out-of-the-way cor
ners of the world we have often been surprised to find a
" Mile. Therese, of the Concerts des Champs Elysees " in the
most unexpected places. How did she get there ? This
question naturally suggested itself, and a chance of speech
with Mile. Therese being rarely difficult to obtain, we have
often made bold to interrogate, and almost invariably we have
received the answer, " I am a pupil of Chariot — Chariot in
the Faubourg St. Denis, you know." At first I did not
know ; but by dint of inquiry I discovered that Chariot is a
professor of dancing and deportment, who makes a specialty
of teaching dry -goods clerks how to dance and to behave
themselves in society. Now, all these young gentlemen have
only half an hour at noon, and their evenings after shop-hours,
when they can take their lessons, so that Chariot has to teach
large classes all at once. In order to accomplish this task he
recruits a number of girls, choosing the most graceful of the
burnishers out of the neighboring jewellery manufactories.
These girls dance with the counter-jumpers and teach them
the valse and the quadrille, and in return, when the young-
clerks have gone back to their counters, Chariot sits down at
his piano and teaches the girls a song, drilling them to re
peat parrot -like each note, each gesture, each smile, each
movement of the body. W7hen one of the girls has mastered
a dozen songs, Chariot presents his pupil with a set of two or
three second-hand costumes, takes her to the railway station,
and gives her a ticket to Marseilles, with a list of his corre
spondents, who wilh pass the girl on from town to town until
she has worked her way round the world and back to the

240 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Faubourg St. Denis. The Mile. Therese whom we found at
Nijnii had made the grand tour through Spain, South Amer
ica, Australia, India, and Persia, and her itinerary destined
her to return home by way of Odessa, Constantinople, So
phia, Bucharest, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Belgium.
This Chariot, professor of dancing and deportment, has found
a new way of putting a girdle round the earth — a girdle of
chansonnettes. Visitors who are lodging in the town of Nijnii proper
must leave the fair well before two o'clock in the morning,
otherwise they will find communication interrupted by the
opening of the bridge over the Oka for the passage of boats
up and down stream. So towards one o'clock we bade Mile.
Therese farewell, left the gorgeous halls of the traktir, hailed
a drosky, and drove home. The streets of the fair were not
entirely deserted ; the windows of the tea-houses were still
blazing with lights, and sounds of music and singing were
wafted through the air, while along the arcades the watch
men, enveloped in voluminous touloupes, paced along, shak
ing their primitive rattles in order to give intending thieves
notice of their coming. These rattles consist of two thin
boards about a foot long, four inches broad, and a quarter of
an inch thick, fixed to a handle, with an open space between
them, and at the end a ball attached to a leather thong. This
ball strikes alternately the upper and lower sounding-board,
and creates quite a formidable clatter. As we tore across
the wooden bridge at a furious pace we narrowly escaped
running over a dozen drunken mujiks, some of whom were
stumbling along in fantastic zigzags, while others were sleep
ing peacefully in the gutter. But in Russia, as in other coun
tries, drunkards seem to enjoy special immunity from acci
dents, and they are so numerous that the police could not
venture to interfere with them, the prison accommodation
being ridiculously inadequate for such an undertaking. Nev-

THE FAIR OF NIJNII-NOVGOROD. 24 1
ertheless, although there is plenty of drunkenness to be seen
in the streets of Nijnii-Novgorod, as there is in all Russian
towns and villages, there is no disorder, no fighting, no row
dyism. The mujik seeks in drink not excitement but obliv
ion ; his nature seems to be gentle and melancholy ; and
when in his right mind his favorite amusements — namely,
tea-drinking and singing — indicate a delicate rather than a
brutal temperament. His mysticism and extreme religiosity
also help to save him from the violent instincts of Western
popular degradation. Taciturn withal and not curious, the
Russian lower classes are much given to minding their own
business ; they take no notice of strangers ; with their caps
pulled down over their ears, they stride doggedly along, turn
ing neither to the right nor to the left ; the spectacle of the
street does not interest them. In return, the spectacle of
the Russian . street is itself monotonous and lacking in per
manent interest. This vast fair of Nijnii-Novgorod one
would expect to find full of animation and picturesque inci
dent. In real truth it is neither animated nor picturesque.
Indeed, the picturesque seems to be very little appreciated in
these parts. Take, for instance, the town of Nijnii-Novgo
rod itself: the hill on the bank of the Oka is almost unique
in European Russia as a site for a town, rising in terraces
from the river to the crest, and commanding a view of the
majestic water-way, and of the immense plain beyond that
stretches away towards the horizon, vast as the sea. Strange
to say, the old town is built on the other side of the hill,
whence there is no view. As for the fair, in obedience to
imperial will, it has been located on a sandy flat island which
remains flooded some six months out of the twelve, and which
during the rest of the year is a desert of dust when rain or
assiduous watering-carts do not convert it into a desert of
black mud. The flatness and unpicturesqueness of the fair
ground as a whole is unimaginable by those whose eyes have
16

242 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
not seen it; and both the town and the fair, in spite of
the thousands of people who are there, present that same
vast, empty, and silent aspect which so strongly impresses
the Western traveller in Russia. As you wander through
the silent streets, among the silent people, you wonder if this
is not all a dream, if the land is not enchanted, and the in
habitants under a spell. This impression is all the stronger
at night, when the commercial movement has ceased, and
when the stillness of the streets becomes deeper, while the
tea-houses and restaurants continue to bespangle the dark
ness with their flaring windows, and here and there electric
lights gleam with far-reaching blue rays. Then as you cross
the bridge you distinguish the silhouette of the old hill-side
town dotted with rare lights ; the flat, long, river-side struct
ures of the fair loom up dimly out of the mystery of the night;
to the right and to the left scattered lanterns burn vaguely
like stars on distant mast-heads ; the swift waters of the river
gurgle round the pontoons ; and, issuing in muffled tones
from beneath the black pointed roof of some junk anchored
in mid-stream, the long-drawn wailing notes of a sad chorus
vibrate through the air, heavy with the hopeless monotony of
Russian misery and Russian resignation.
It would be useless to pretend that we left Nijnii-Novgo
rod with regret. Indeed, when once we had fairly satisfied
our curiosity our only desire was to depart ; the charm was
broken ; the period of temptation was over ; the spirit of
travel no longer whispered in our ear " Nijnii-Novgorod" as a
magic password. We began to feel the ennui of lingering
aimlessly among people with whom we had no sympathies,
and amid scenes which several days' observation had thor
oughly graven in our memory. It was therefore with an
ejaculation of relief that we took our seats in the train and
sped back to Moscow. Ouf ! We had got Nijnii-Novgorod
off our minds forever.

HOLY MOSCOW.
By THEODORE CHILD.

ONE morning I went to call on a friend who was staying
at the Hotel Dussaux, and while waiting in the read
ing-room, whose windows were literally hermetically closed, I
overheard some luminous remarks. During the summer, it
must be stated, Dussaux's is the rendezvous of those advent
urous spirits who travel with Cook's tickets, and pay their
hotel bills with coupons ; it is the eastern limit annually at
tained by between two and three thousand tourists, of whom
the majority are Americans. The reading-room at that mo
ment was occupied by a party of men who had evidently just
arrived, and who were laying out a plan of action.
" This is no one-horse city," said one of the men, who had
been studying the map; " it is seven miles long in one direc
tion and nine in the other, and its area must be over thirty
square miles."
" Great Scott ! Then we shall want a week to see Mos
cow." " This book says there are nearly four hundred churches
and chapels," continued the first speaker.
" Four hundred churches ! George !" exclaimed a smart
young fellow with a heavy blond mustache and an air sugges
tive of Wall Street. " I'm sick o' churches. If the author of
that guide-book would inform me where I could get a cock
tail, I should esteem him more highly than I do at present."

246 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
" We have not had even a drink of whiskey since we left
Berlin," added another member of the party. " This is no
country for a white man !"
" Well, we've got to see it, anyhow, now that we are here."
" I suppose we shall have to attach to our persons one of
those chump -headed guides," continued the man who had
been studying the map. " I'll go and see if there is a guide
to be had who can speak English."
" I advise you not to engage the red-headed Jew," broke
in a shrill voice from a distant corner of the room ; " he's a
thief and a fool ! I have had him with me, and had enough
of him, and of Moscow too. You can see Moscow easily in
two days. There's nothing to see besides the Kremlin."
" Is that so ? Well, all the better," replied the organizer
of the party, as he thanked his informant and moved towards
the door, where he was met by a dainty little lady, who lifted
up her voice and said, with misplaced earnestness :
" Say, Gus, are you going out ? Do ask if there is a
candy shop near, and get me some candies."
" How do you ask for candies in Russian ?"
" Take a guide with you."
" Always that chump-headed guide ! What a system !"
This scrap of conversation may be taken as typical of the
sentiments of many people who visit Moscow in the spirit of
the average tourist, bent only upon satisfying an unreflecting
curiosity, and on seeing as quickly and completely as possi
ble all the sights which are indicated, classified, and num
bered by Murray or Baedeker. Of course you can see Mos
cow in two days after a fashion. That there is nothing to
see except the Kremlin is also true, but only from the point
of view of the historian and the archaeologist. Moscow is
not rich in monuments and museums. When once you have
seen the Kremlin, its churches and its palaces, you may con-

HOLY MOSCOW.

247

sider your sight-seeing at an end ; but to our mind it is often
when the obligatory sight-seeing is over that the real pleas
ure of travelling begins. Like Ulysses of old, we wish not
only to see the cities of many men, but also to know the man
ners and habits of the citizens. Evidently, in order to carry
out such a programme thoroughly, we ought to live for
months and years in a country, to associate with the people,
and, above all, to speak their language. Our pretension,
however, is more modest ; we shall be content with rapid im
pressions of the exterior of men and things, with notes of
common life and familiar scenes, with the record of the sen
sations of a disinterested flaneur in the streets and public
resorts of this holy city of Moscow, or, as the Russians call
it, " Moskwa Matouchka," Mother Moscow with the white
walls. In our youth, when we looked at the colored prints rep
resenting the Kremlin and its walls and churches, the name
of Moscow evoked in our minds the vague image of some
fabulously splendid and prodigiously distant city, as it were
a glorious crown of precious stones rising amid a vast desert
of snow and ice.
Of this dream-city the Kremlin was a realization, but the
Kremlin forms only a small portion of Moscow; it is the cap
itol, the citadel, the sanctuary. Outside its walls is the city
proper ; and this, characteristic as it is, by no means deserves
the epithet of splendid, or even the name of a city. It is
rather a colossal village, for it is utterly unlike any European
great town, and lacks altogether the principle of concentra
tion. With the exception of the old inner city, and of a few
streets, differing but little in aspect from those of St. Peters
burg, Moscow consists for the most part of houses one or
two stories high, each with roomy court -yard, garden, and
out-buildings, the whole fenced around with walls or hedges.
The city forms a succession of concentric zones, starting

248

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

&k&

from the Kremlin, which is the oldest part of the town. The
second zone is the Kitai-Gorod, or Refuge Town, built very
irregularly, surrounded with
battlemented walls and tow
ers, and containing the Bourse,
the Bazaar, the markets, and
the principal commercial and
financial establishments, the
whole constituting, together
with the Kremlin, the Inner
Town. Around this Inner
Town, which is bound-
1 ed on one side by the
Moskwa River, spreads
in a half-circle the
Bjeloi-Gorod, or White
Town, whose broad
streets are lined with
tall houses, shops, pub-

ON THE "POKROFFKA," MOSCOW

HOLY MOSCOW. 24g
lie buildings, and palaces, and bounded by the river and the
inner boulevard. The next zone, bounded again by the river
and an exterior boulevard, is called the Zemlianoi-Gorod, or
Earthen City; it is thinly populated, and nearly all the houses
are built of wood. Beyond this outer boulevard are many
vast suburbs, inhabited by the poorer classes, and dotted here
and there with manufactories, spinning-mills, distilleries, tan
neries, barracks, and railway stations. The boulevards around
the Kremlin are laid out in beautiful gardens ; the other
boulevards, of immense width, are planted with shade-trees
and lined with benches. The suburbs abound with immense
open spaces, trees, gardens, and parks, and generally the
whole city presents such a vast and empty aspect that it
seems to have been built in expectation of some multitudi
nous future population, rather than to meet present wants.
Vastness and emptiness are, however, the common charac
teristics of all Russian towns. The system of wooden archi
tecture, and the frequency of fires, are the explanation of the
immensely wide streets and of the isolation of the houses: by
these means the spreading of a fire is limited.
The land on which Moscow is built is a series of undula
tions, so that you are constantly going uphill or downhill,
and discovering new points of view. Seen from any consid
erable height, the panorama of the city presents to the eye a
wavy expanse of verdure and green house-roofs, above which
rise innumerable bright blue or gilt domes, spires, and cu
polas. Outside the walls of the Kitai-Gorod there are no old
buildings in Moscow ; everything is modern, generally hasti
ly built, irregular, and without any particular style. The new
look of everything is increased, also, by the Russian custom
of constantly renewing whitewash, paint, and gilding. Even
the most ancient churches in the Kremlin are freshly white
washed and painted every year or two.
One of the first things that strike the visitor to Moscow

25°

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

is the multitude of unpoetical and noisy horse-cars that tear
along the streets at a furious gallop, and with a perpetual and
generally inopportune tinkling of bells. As the streets are
invariably hilly, the tram-cars are drawn by four and often
six horses, the front teams ridden by postilions. In most
Western countries it would seem natural that a heavy tram-
car should be pulled up a steep hill slowly. The Muscovites,
however, like all Russians, cannot endure slow driving; up
hill or downhill makes no difference ; the horses must run as
fast as they can, their hoofs beating out clouds of sparks, and
clattering over the stones with an ear-splitting din.
Besides its swift tram-ways, Moscow boasts a number of
less rapid but more picturesque omnibuses, which are much
used by the poor people from the outer suburbs. The city
is so immense, and the distances from point to point so enor
mous, that even the very poor Muscovites cannot think of walk
ing; hence the great number of conveyances. The Moscow
omnibus is probably the most primitive vehicle of the kind still
used in Europe; it resembles the coaches depicted in early
mediaeval manuscripts, and consists simply of a double bench
placed on four wheels, and roofed over by flat boards, sup
ported by vertical boards at each end. Some of these omni
buses are painted a gaudy red color, others are yellow, or
green, or Prussian blue, naively bedaubed with flowers and
arabesques. The omnibus, with its motley load of male and
female passengers, its long-haired, brown, and shapeless driv
er, its horses with tangled manes sweeping the ground, long
hair on their uncropped fetlocks, and ponderous, gayly paint
ed dougas arching over their shoulders, is one of the most
grotesque and quaint features of street life in Moscow.
The moment you issue from a house door, or if you mere
ly stop for a second on the narrow sidewalk, immediately a
dozen droskies dash up at full speed, the drivers standing
with the reins in their left hand, gesticulating with their

HOLY MOSCOW.

251

right, and offering their services : "Lswostchik, pafafs gospo-
dine." (Coachman, if you please, sir.) So necessary is the
drosky in the immensity of Russia that it seems to come into
existence spontaneously. Whatever the hour, whether of the
day or of the night, you have only to stand on the side
walk and cry, " Iswostchik !" and you will suddenly see one
before you.
The drosky, which is par excellence the national Russian
vehicle — and a most foolish vehicle, too — deserves a particu-

AN OMNIBUS

lar description, for nothing like it exists in any other country.
Whether private or public, whether belonging to a rich sei
gneur or a frowzy mujik of the humblest category, its form
and construction are invariable: it is a small toy-like open
carriage, very low, and running on four wheels, of which the
hinder are not more than two and a half feet in diameter,
and the anterior pair not more than eighteen inches. The
carriage itself has a seat for the driver and a seat for the pas
senger, the latter without even the most rudimentary support

252 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
for the back, and generally without any protection against the
weather, though at Moscow hooded droskies are not uncom
mon. Over the wheels on each side are splash-boards, which
curve down, and at their junction form a step only a few
inches from the ground. The splash-boards are black : the
color of the carriage is always dark ; the seat is covered with
blue or dark green or black cloth. The front wheels are
without axle-boxes, and the axle-tree projects on each side a
certain distance beyond the hub — for a purpose which we
shall see shortly. The horse stands almost naked between
the shafts : no blinkers hide his eyes ; no saddles and kick
ing- straps conceal the beauty or poverty of his body; the
head-stall is composed of a few slender leather cordlets and
light brass chains ; over his back, perhaps, are thrown a few
dangling thongs of leather, decorated in parts with metallic
scales ; the collar is the only part of the harness that attaches
the horse directly to the carriage. Very rarely do you see a
slender saddle and belly-band. There are no traces; the
shafts are tied to the collar by means of straps wound round
and round, but without rings or buckles or any metallic fast
ening; and at the point of junction of the collar and the
shafts are fixed, by means of the same straps, the ends of the
bow of flexible wood, called the " douga," which arches over
the horse's shoulders, and serves to keep the collar and the
shafts stretched taut, so that they neither pinch nor gall the
horse, and also to carry the bearing-rein. The shafts of the
drosky are attached, not to the body of the carriage, but di
rectly to the front axle ; and for the sake of greater security,
and in order to augment the purchase, an exterior leather
trace runs from each extremity of the axle projecting beyond
the hub, and is attached to the shafts. The reins are half of
leather and half of woollen or cotton, the part held by the
driver being of the warmer material. The Russians drive
holding one rein in each hand, and therefore, as a rule, they

HOLY MOSCOW.

253

have no whips; a lash attached to the end of the reins is
sometimes clumsily brought into use over the horse's hind
quarters, but generally the voice, or the mere raising of the
hand, as if to reach the lash or whip, suffices to quicken the
pace. Such whips as are used by drivers of carriages, sledges,
or telegues are short-handled, like the "nogaik" of the Cos
sacks, and we may note, as an instance of Russian conserva-

ISWOSTCHIK !"

tism, that these whips resemble precisely one found in the
royal Scythian grave-tumulus of Koul-Oba, near Kertch, and
now in the museum of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg.
The Russian coachman is as characteristic as the vehicle
he drives. He wears a low-crowned felt hat, narrowing down
towards the brim, which is curled on the sides and strongly

254

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

curved back and front, and a dark blue, dark green, or yel
lowish caftan, with long plaited skirts reaching quite to the
ground. This caftan is wrapped diagonally around the body,
fastened under the left arm by five hooks and eyes or five
globular silver open-work buttons, and girt with a ceinture
either embroidered with many colors or sometimes inter
woven with gold thread in the Circassian style. A " swell "
coachman should be very fat, and have an immense beard
spreading over his bosom, and wear his hat well pulled down
over his ears. The humbler hireling iswostchik resembles his
greater confrere in silhouette, costume, and general aspect;
the only difference is in cleanliness of person and glossiness
of costume and hat. Among the hireling iswostchiks, too,
are many beardless boys, whose small persons and youthful
faces emerge grotesquely from the uniformly voluminous caf
tan and generous hat which their craft imposes upon them,
and of which it would seem only one size exists. A boy coach
man, sitting on the box of one of these toy-like vehicles, with
just his chin and his nose visible beneath the curly hat that
oppresses his juvenile head, is a truly comic sight. In St.
Petersburg, where the droskies seem to be peculiarly low,
and where there is no splash-board in front, these little driv
ers look especially awkward, as they sit often below the level
of the horse's head, and by an incessant and automatic move
ment of the hands jerk the reins free from the embarrassment
of the horse's whisking tail. Verily the drosky is a foolish
vehicle, uncomfortable withal, and in wet weather simply dia
bolical, as we could demonstrate by many an instance did
we not fear to weary the reader by prolonging this already
too minute description of the Russian national carriage.
The drosky is the every-day vehicle to be seen every
where. In the streets of Moscow you see also very fre
quently droskies harnessed with two horses, one between the
shafts and the other running at the side, attached by a sin-

HOLY MOSCOW.

255

gle trace. But the height of elegance and the quintessence
of Russian " style " is the drosky drawn by three horses, and
driven by a coachman with a cap bedecked with peacock
feathers. Such a team is called a troika, and with its three
horses harnessed abreast and fanwise, it is most picturesque
and full of local color. The middle horse between the shafts
carries a collar and the arched douga over his shoulders ;

THE TELEGUE,

the other two are attached to the collar of the shaft-horse by
a loose strap, and to the vehicle by a single exterior trace.
Four reins suffice to drive these three horses — two for the
shaft-horse, and one shorter rein for each of the side horses.
The shaft-horse trots seriously, with a spanking step, throw
ing out his feet straight before him ; the other two horses,

256 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
whose heads are perpetually pulled round by the shorter sin
gle rein, gallop, the one furiously, the other coquettishly, the
one like a wild horse, the other with graceful bendings of the
neck and gay capricious dancing. The harness is of the
lightest possible kind, mere thongs of leather, thin as string,
adorned with fine chains and ornaments that glitter in the
sun like gold or silver spangles.
The rest of the street traffic of Moscow is mercantile,
and composed of flat drays and telegues and rustic tarantass-
es. The latter is a rough sort of basket or coracle, fixed on
four or six poles, resting directly on two springless axles.
The telegue is the national rustic cart, which every Russian
peasant can hew with his axe out of the ordinary timber that
is always at hand ; it is composed of shafts, four wheels, two
axles, some poles to hold the axles together and to form a
platform, on which is built a sort of long rack or basket of
poles and cross-pieces. To this the horse is attached in the
orthodox Russian fashion with collar and douga; the rest of
the harness is generally heavier and more primitive than it
is for other vehicles. These telegues, driven by yellow beard
ed mujiks clad in brown caftans, pass along the streets often
in endless processions: in Russia you never see heavy loads;
the telegues are light, their load is light, the horses are
small ; and so it requires twenty telegues to transport the
merchandise that would be piled on a single European dray.
The telegue is a most tempting object for a painter, and noth
ing in Russian street life is more characteristic and more
picturesque than this brown, dusty, faded, weather-stained
vehicle, with its horse, driver, and harness equally brown,
dusty, and shabby. In the inner city, in the vicinity of the
Gostiny Dvor, or Grand Bazaar, these long strings of telegues
and commercial drays, the latter with gayly painted dougas,
present a very curious spectacle in the picturesque perspec
tive of the narrower streets.

OLD CLOTHES MARKET, MOSCOW.

HOLY MOSCOW.

259

¦^¦?

¦fT,

The Gostiny Dvor, like that of St. Petersburg and of
the great Oriental cities in general, is a town of itself, a vast
agglomeration of shops and sheds, streets, arcades, and court
yards, that are any
thing but monu
mental, but yet not
without character.
Each street or
" line " has its spe
cialty. Here are
lapidaries and jew
ellers, in whose
shops you see Si
berian diamonds,
amethysts, and tur
quoises heaped up
in dirty wooden
bowls. Here are
the sellers of those
gaudily painted
trunks in which the
peasant women
pack their wedding
trousseaux. In an
other section you
hear a continuous
rattling, as of fire
works or musketry, which proves to be the sound of the nim
ble willow wands of the fur-beaters. The sidewalk is encum
bered with piles of skins and fur coats, which are being care
fully beaten by Tatar furriers, and combed or brushed with
birch twigs. In other lines you find samovars and hardware ;
in another, religious images of all kinds and sizes, some richly
inlaid with topazes, rubies, and precious stones ; in another,

LICENSED BEGGAR.

260

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

silks, cashmeres, Persian and Caucasian carpets ; in others,
silver goods, bales of cotton and wool, chests of tea, felt and
leather boots — in fact everything that Russian humanity can
need. At every street corner, and also in front of many
shops, are suspended sacred images, archaic Byzantine Ma
donnas or brown saints, in frames of repousse silver or ver-
miel, each with a little lamp burning before it ; and among
the hawkers that pass to and fro in the road-way are quanti
ties of licensed beggars
in light-blue caftans, bare
headed, their hair parted
in the middle and hang
ing over their brows, and
in their hands a book en
veloped in a black cloth
embroidered with a silver
cross : these men solicit
contributions for some
church or convent. There
are women beggars also,
mendicant nuns by the
hundred, who beg in the
streets, in the popular res
taurants, and even in the
lowest traktirs, vaunting
the miraculous powers of
some newly discovered sa
cred image, and soliciting contributions for the purpose of
building a church or convent wherein to lodge it worthily.
At a short distance from the labyrinth of the Gostiny
Dvor, which has been the centre of the trade of Moscow
ever since 1596, along the battlemented wall of the Kitai-
Gorod, are the second-hand goods shops and old-clothes fair,
Here may be seen an amusing mixture of trades and mer-

MENDICANT NUN.

HOLY MOSCOW. 26 1
cantile types. The motley crowd of Jewish and Russian
venders, mujiks, women with bright -colored kerchiefs over
their heads, street hawkers, beggars, priests in long black
flowing robes and nondescript hats, and now and again a
chimney-sweep wearing a stove-pipe hat — in this case a truly
symbolical and distinctive mark, such hats being extremely
rare in the empire of the Tsars — presents a characteristic
scene against the background of low houses covered with
sign -boards, and surmounted by domes, belfries, pineapple-
shaped cupolas and pyramidal towers, whose roofs of bright
green faience tiles glisten like fish-scales in the clear sunlight.
The merchants of the Gostiny Dvor are curious types.
Their hair cut straight across the neck, as if the barber had
placed a basin over their heads to guide his scissors, their
ample beards spreading over their bosoms, clad in long dark-
colored coats or caftans, tall boots, and a cap with a visor,
they sit gravely in their shops playing draughts or drinking
tea, while their clerks walk up and down in front praying the
passers with obsequious bows and voluble "pajal's" (if you
please) to enter and buy. If you are tempted, the merchant in
terrupts his game, receives you with many salutations, vaunts
the quality of his goods in exaggerated terms, and reckons up
the cost in primitive style on an abacus. In Russia all arith
metical calculations are made with the aid of the abacus — a
wooden frame across which are stretched rows of wires thread
ed with movable balls of different colors. The abacus and the
glass of tea are the indispensable accessaries of Russian com
merce ; even in the largest and most progressive banks, for
instance, you will see on the desks beside each clerk his aba
cus, and in front of him his glass of tea, which he sips from
time to time. When a merchant has a deal with another
merchant he invites him to accompany him to a traktir, or
restaurant, where he orders a " pair of teapots " {pari tchaiou),
consisting of a large teapot full of hot water, a smaller tea-

262 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
pot with tea in it, two cups and saucers, and two lumps of
sugar, the whole served on a brass tray. The traktirs are all
arranged on the same principle, and consist of series of rooms
with at one end a sort of bar laden with the cold meats, sau
sage, caviare, raw fish, etc., called zakouska, and with many
kinds of brandies and vodka, or grain spirit, in bottles of
various forms, amid which is enthroned a monumental sam
ovar for the supply of boiling water. In the finer establish
ments a mechanical organ is considered indispensable, and
from morning until night this instrument grinds out airs
from Western operas and operettas. The waiters are gener
ally Tatars — distinguishable by their yellowish complexion,
small black eyes, prominent cheek-bones, flat noses, and thick
lips ; they are dressed in white loose trousers, white blouses
with a belt round the waist, and attached to the belt by a
button is a small leather wallet or purse. The tea served,
the two merchants sit at a table, and, holding the lump of
sugar between the teeth, sip the hot tea, cup after cup, pqtful
after potful, till the perspiration literally rolls down their
faces. Meanwhile the bargaining. goes on deliberately; the
faces are mopped now and again with large check handker
chiefs, and :finally, after the teapot has been filled up and
emptied five or six times, and after innumerable glasses of
vodka have been swallowed, the bargain is concluded. In
the traktirs, contrary to a prevalent idea, the Russians drink
their tea out of cups and saucers, holding the latter balanced
on the outs-pread fingers of one hand, while the elbow rests
firmly on the table. In our description of a traktirswt must
not forget, to mention the colored portrait of the Tsar i.nvari-
blyhung on the wall, and in the corner of each room, a sa
cred image with a little lamp burning in front of it.
At sunset the Gostiny Dvor is closed, and the shops
secured by means of iron doors and gigantic padlocks.
Then these old-fashioned merchants retire to their houses

HOLY MOSCOW.

265

in the suburbs, dine copiously on several soups and two
or three kinds of meat, and after dinner they let loose the
watch-dogs in their court-yards and gardens and go to bed.
Treating their women-folks as slaves, and their sons as
minors, even long after they have attained the age of man
hood, the merchants of the old types live aloof from any po
litical or even intellectual movement, under a rude patriar
chal system.
The sons and grandsons of these old-fashioned bearded
merchants, the " kupecheskiye synki " (merchants' sons), as
they are called, when they abandon the habits of their ances
tors, astonish the capital by their extravagancies and absurd
display of wealth. These young Russians shave their chins,
dress in European style, keep horses and carriages and ac
tresses, go to the theatres, and often push beyond the fron
tiers as far as Nice, Monte Carlo, or Paris, where they as
tound waiters and chorus-girls by their wild prodigality and
fantastic ostentation. The Muscovite merchant of the old
type is a sordid Oriental ; his emancipated sons and grand
sons have a thin varnish of apparent Western civilization,
or, rather, Western corruption, but they remain, nevertheless,
rank barbarians. This they show in their amusements, and
even in their hospitality, as we may readily convince our
selves by spending a " gay " evening in Moscow.
The reader need not be alarmed ; we shall not invite
him to follow us into any very terrible places, but simply to
accompany us to the park. It was a long ride. The swift
drosky rattled along uphill and downhill, through this sub
urb and that suburb, and then along an endless street of im
mense width paved with cobble-stones and bowlders, and
lined with low white houses mostly only one story high. Fi
nally we passed beyond the utmost limits of the city, past
an enigmatic triumphal arch erected in the middle of a wil
derness, and so across a stretch of open country, beyond

266 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
which is the Petrofski Park. At the entrance of the park
are some pretty summer villas built of wood, and ornament
ed with fretwork carvings in the well-known Russian style.
Then, after driving along immense avenues bordered with
fine trees, we reached the restaurants and concerts of which
we had heard so much — Strelna, Mauritania, Arcadia, Eldo
rado, and others — where the famous Tsiganes or Bohemiennes
sing. After the lyrical and hyperbolical descriptions of
Theophile Gautier and other enthusiastic travellers, to say
nothing of the boasts and recommendations of Russian ac-
quaintances, we were prepared for marvels and splendors, for
something fairy-like and unheard-of, or, at least, for some new
and memorable sensations. The deception was complete.
These establishments consist of pine-wood halls surrounded
by gardens similar to the ordinary German beer - gardens ;
and the salons and private rooms, instead of being enriched
with gilding and sumptuous divans, are furnished with eco
nomical bent-wood chairs, simple looking-glasses, and paltry
tables. We visited these establishments one after the other :
they were all the same, all enveloped in a veil of dismal mal
aria and ennui suggestive of bankruptcy : the pine-wood halls
were empty, the waiters half asleep ; in one corner of the
room on a dais was an orchestra, but the musicians did not
play. Pacing up and down in couples, their arms around
each other's waists, were women, mostly Swedes and Ger
mans, dressed in bright in-door costume — chorus-singers who
did not sing. In out-of-the-way corners sat ancient matrons
of horrible aspect, painted and powdered, who seemed to
watch over the safety of the promenading chorus -singers.
Near the door stood a few gypsy women in shabby Euro
pean costume, and a fat brigandish gypsy man, dressed in
brown corduroy, with a black cloth cap on his head. In the
garden a dozen customers and military officers were sitting
at the tables drinking tea and smoking cigarettes ; they wore

HOLY MOSCOW.

267

long overcoats, although we were supposed to be enjoying
midsummer heat, so sensitive are the Russians to cold and
damp. Strange, is it not, that in spite of this sensitiveness
they should be so fond of out-of-door places of amusement?
What was to be done ? We consulted a Russian friend,
an officer who had kindly guided us to these distant wastes.
" Why do not the Bohemiennes sing ? Why are there
so few people here ?"
These questions seemed to strike him as being rather
odd. The Bohemiennes, he told us, sing only when they are
paid ; we must hire a private room, and make a bargain with
the fat man in corduroy.
" How much do they want ?"
" At least twenty-five rubles."
We made the bargain, hired a room, ordered refresh
ments, and soon half a dozen men with guitars, and the same
number of women, all of them ugly beyond expectation, and
dressed in ridiculous French costumes, entered, and took
their places at the end of the room. They sang some melan
choly Russian songs, then some passionate Tsigane songs,
and then three of them danced with lascivious Oriental
movements, while the others howled and ejaculated in truly
savage fashion. But in order to induce them to execute this
dance the bargain had to be raised from twenty-five to a
hundred rubles, and still we were looked upon as very small
seigneurs. Certainly the songs and dances of these Bohe
miennes have a wild and striking character — on several sub
sequent occasions we had the opportunity of ascertaining
this fact— rbut from the point of view of art, and intensity of
expression, these famous Moscow gypsies cannot for a mo
ment be compared with the Spaniards ; and as for their
vaunted beauty, it is a delusion and a snare. Not one in a
hundred of them can pretend to good looks. The Tsiganes
of Moscow are one of those colossal " frauds " in which the

268 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
East is so fertile. In any other country these people would
exercise the profession of chair-menders, fortune-tellers, poul
try-thieves, and horse-dealers, for which the gypsies have nat
ural gifts ; in Moscow, thanks to the naivete of the new
fangled merchants, and of the rich young men in general,
they are able to spoil the Egyptians with less trouble and
risk. No fete is considered complete without the Bohemi
ennes ; no prodigality in money or jewellery can satisfy their
rapacity ; reserved, disdainful, inaccessible to the enterprises
of gallantry, these gypsy women drive the gilded youth of
Russia wild with enthusiasm, and stir their torpid souls in
much the same way as ardent spirits tickle their dull palates.
The fascination which they exercise over the incoherent
imagination of the Russians is exemplified by the case of a
Prince Galitzin, who in our own days bought from her tribe,
for more than fifty thousand dollars, the young Tsigane who
became his wife and the mother of his children. This lady,
'now divorced from her husband, lives in the vast Galitzin
Palace at Moscow, on the Moskwa Quay, and does not dis
dain to increase her handsome income by carrying on one of
the largest pawn-broking businesses in the Russian Empire.
After hearing the Bohemiennes, and after further ques
tioning our Russian friend, we began to understand why
these cafes chantants in the park are ordinarily so deserted,
and why there is no regular public to speak of: they depend
largely upon the support of the jeunesse doree, and this
gilded youth has a peculiar way of organizing a pleasure
party. A young seigneur or a young merchant will drive up
to one of these establishments, accompanied by his friends,
and hire the whole house. If there are other customers
present, he will pay them to go away, or fight with them for
possession, if they prefer the latter course. Then he will
hire the Bohemiennes, order champagne by the hundred bot
tles, and a feast copious enough for a company of .giants,

HOLY MOSCOW.

269

and then, after so many hours of wild and brutal eating,
drinking, and roistering, he and his friends will smash glass
es, dishes, tables, chairs, and everything breakable within the
place. This breakage is always reckoned beforehand in the
contract. Such is young Moscow's idea of a night of pleas
ure — the ostentations spending of large sums of money.
Naturally, with such customers as these, say four nights

WKmSmmm If IP'

',''/, //If '/FI < -
BRINGING IN THE MUTTON.

only out of the seven, Strelna and Mauritania can exist, and
even enrich their proprietors; but when some gay sparks are
not engaged in making match-wood of the furniture, they are
dull, dismal, and full of ennui.
This love of ostentation is one of the most marked char
acteristics of the Russians. We remember on one occasion

270 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
being invited by a young merchant to dine at one of the
great restaurants of Moscow. Our host asked us what we
should like for dinner, and if we had a desire for any par
ticular dish. We suggested our tastes were catholic and
simple, but that we would gladly take some Russian mutton.
When the dinner hour arrived, among the fourteen plats de
resistance figured a sheep roasted whole, which was carried
to the table on an immense silver dish, borne on the shoul
ders of four Tatars, dressed in the usual white blouses and
trousers. In reply to our look of surprise our host turned
towards us and explained : " You said you liked mutton ;
pray choose the portion that you prefer."
The Russians are enormous eaters and prodigious drink
ers. The great restaurants of Moscow are stupendous en
terprises, and several of them are appointed with barbaric
luxury, and with conveniences of a variety and a nature
which surprise the veteran Western traveller, and make the
Puritan hold up his hands in pious horror. On these mat
ters, however, we need not insist. But, given the appetite of
the Russian man, we shall not be astonished to find that all
places of public resort — such, for instance, as the Hermitage
and the Zoological Gardens, with which are combined thea
tres, concerts, and variety shows that remain open until long
after midnight — are also provided with gigantic refreshment
bars and restaurants, where much solid eating is performed.
Otherwise these latter establishments offer but little interest ;
in general they resemble German beer-gardens, with the ex
ception that the family element is less conspicuous, and less
desirable elements more en evidence.
The Bohemiennes of Moscow have always been famous
in Russia for their musical talent ever since their migration
from the East, and their settlement there in the fifteenth
century. Like the gypsies in Spain and other countries,
they live in tribes under the rule of chiefs, and hold their

* '.Ki
i a-^.

) 13 ij i " ' L-

PILGRIMS.

HOLY MOSCOW.

273

wealth in common. A whole quarter of the town near the
Zoological Gardens is occupied by their dwellings. The
imen occupy their leisure in horse-dealing. From the begin
ning, too, the women seem to have fascinated the boyars
and nobles ; several marriages between gypsy women and
ityluscovite gentlemen are recorded in the annals of the town,
while in the course of centuries irregular intercourse has
bieen so great that few of the modern Bohemiennes are of
puire blood, or of the true Tsigane type. Nowadays the
cra\ze is as strong as ever; every Muscovite of means has
his (favorite company of Bohemiennes who, under the guard
of their director and of the men of their tribe, are invited to
the Seigneur's fetes, and profit by his wild generosity. It
must,' however, be said that the Russians themselves do not
begin to appreciate the music of the Bohemiennes, until they
are wil'd with drink, which state they generally attain tow
ards two or three o'clock in the morning. After the tradi
tional Russian fashion, the Bohemiennes keep challenging
the seigneurs to drink, and excite them by melodious recita
tive, in whj'ch they repeat the name of each guest, emptying
at the same time a cup of champagne or spirits, and then
passing the cup to the one named. This invitation is never
refused, and these amiable savages finally get into such a con
dition of frenzy and enthusiasm that they fling to the Bohe
miennes a hundred rubles, a thousand rubles even, and then
their watches and chains, and all the jewellery they may have
about their persons.
The drinking capacity of the Russians passes descrip
tion. On one occasion we were the guests of a Muscovite
seigneur who had invited a party of ten to the Hermitage
Restaurant to supper, together with his favorite Bohemienne,
who came, not professionally, but as a guest, accompanied by
three other Bohemiennes, and, of course, by the inseparable
tribesman as director and guardian. Such is the custom,

274

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

and in such cases the Tsiganes would feel insulted if they
were offered any fee — a delicacy which does not prevent
them accepting presents in the form of ruble notes and jew
ellery. The Bohemiennes, it must be added, are poor eaters:
their only preferences are cold sturgeon and agourtsis, ojr
salted cucumbers, of which they consume enormous quarfi-
tities; as for drink, anything and everything is welcomle.
Our dinner was copious and over-abundant, according to tWiie
Russian manner, and things went on merrily until t/wo
o'clock, when we and our host retired, after paying the bil/l of
nearly two hundred dollars, and requesting the maitre cli'ho-
tel to provide the guests who remained with whatever /they
might require, of course at the host's expense, the extra a bill
to be paid the next day. Happening to go to the H/ ermit-
age the next day, we inquired of the maitre d'hotelyout of
curiosity, what the extras had amounted to. The/; genial
guests whom we had left had remained until fouiA o'clock
in the morning, and in the space of two hours hj ad drunk
three hundred dollars' worth of champagne and otl; ler wines.
From the Tsar down to the humblest mujik tly'ie Russians
are more or less barbarians from the point of vir/'ew of the re
fined West, but certainly most amiable barbarians so far as
foreigners are concerned. Their hospitality krv'iows no limits.
No trouble is too great when it is a question! t of obliging a
foreign visitor ; but, charming as they are, youl are constantly
being reminded of the wildness of their real/^ underlying nat
ure by the strange contrasts of delicacy any d brutality, of civ
ilization and barbarism, which their daily ljife offers. To hear
the Russians talk about the unwritten ^contemporary history
of their social and national life is like listening to the stories
of the Arabian Nights. The true ^narrative of Skobeleff's
career and death, and the true nanyative of the circumstances
of the assassination of the late/ Tsar, are far more thrilling
and extraordinary than print Mas ever told.

/'

HOLY MOSCOW.

275

As an example of the strange contrasts of real Russia, we
4vill cite two anecdotes that were related to us by a distin
guished official, whose intention was certainly not to throw

FETE-OAY OF THE PATRON SAINT.

dust in our eyes, or even to astonish us beyond measure. The
conversation happened to turn upon General Loris Melikoff,
the famous chief of the dreaded " third section." The Em-

276 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE. I
peror, we were told by our informant, had given Loris Meli
koff unbounded power to act against the Nihilists, and hac
virtually created him Vice-Emperor, as Melikoff himself usee |
to say. Now, Melikoff had discovered that one of the lead
ing Nihilist chiefs was in the habit of frequently visitin
Count Tolstoi, the novelist, and one day he went out to TolJs,
toi's country house. Before the visitor had announced hi
self Tolstoi' recognized him, and said :
" You are Loris Melikoff, Chief of the Third Section.
you come to see me officially or as a private man ? If
come officially, here are my keys. Search — open everytl~|jno-
You are free."
" I come not officially," replied Melikoff.
" Very good," answered Tolstoi ; and calling two rjtiuiiks
he said to them, " Throw this man out of the house !"
The mujiks obeyed Tolstoi' to the letter, and Loi/is Meli
koff had to accept this treatment, for in his way Tr/isi0i' fs a
mightier man, even, than " our father, the Tsar.'/ jn tne
eyes of the Russian people he is an exceptional/personao-e
being more than a saint and almost a saviour.
The mention of Loris Melikoff brought up a/nother an<-<
dote. Some twelve years ago the Emperor sen*/ for Melikoff
announced to him that the plague was raging fm rwo villages
of the empire, and ordered him to do whatevier was needful
with a view to stopping its ravages, at the safme time giving
him unlimited powers.
Thereupon Loris Melikoff went first ejff all to the Minis
ter of Finance, informed him that he should perhaps require
a great deal of money in order to carr;/ out the Emperor's
commands, and demanded a credit of 'fifty millions of rubles.
The Minister of Finance made a l0ng face, but was unable
to refuse. Loris Melikoff then posted to the villages in ques
tion, and having observed the situation, he telegraphed for
twenty fire-engines to be sent from the neighboring towns

HOLY MOSCOW.

277

had the pumps charged with petroleum, and ordered the fire
men to approach the villages by night, inundate the' cottages
with petroleum, set them on fire, and save nobody. The
order was executed ; the cottages and their few hundred in
habitants — men, women, children, and cattle — were burned
to ashes, and those two villages disappeared from the map
of Russia and from the registers of the empire. The meas
ure was radical, but it stamped out the plague effectually.
Loris Melikoff thereupon reported to the Emperor that his
commands had been executed, and then called on the Minis
ter of Finance to tell him that out of the credit of fifty mill
ions of rubles granted to him he had spent only two hundred
rubles to buy petroleum, and that consequently his Excellen
cy the Minister could dispose of the balance.
In both of these stories, which we have reason to believe
to be literally exact, we find that curious mixture of the
grandiose, of ostentation, and of barbaric recklessness which
are characteristic of the Russian temperament.
Let us now return to popular Moscow, for although the
wealthy Muscovite, both of the old and of the new school,
has marked individuality, and although the strong divisions
of classes are very striking, yet Moscow derives its present
physiognomy chiefly from its busy lower classes, and from
its streets full of merchants and peasants, who go about on
foot in the antique Russian garb, and sweat over teapots
in modest traktirs. In all our wanderings in Russia we re
marked the extreme piety of the people, the multitude of
sacred pictures, and the incessant crossings and genuflec
tions; but nowhere are the manifestations of religious feel
ing more conspicuous than in the streets of Moscow. Else
where in this work we explain the exceptionally sacred
character of the whole city, and especially of the Kremlin,
within whose precincts there is a constant succession of pil
grims, men and women, who prostrate themselves before its

278 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
churches, and go round the walls of the various shrines, kiss
ing image after image and relic after relic. Outside the
Kremlin also these pilgrims find plenty of churches, chapels,
and shrines where they may exercise their piety. As we stroll
along the streets, even in the busiest parts of the Kittai-Go-

THE " IVERSKV VIRGIN.

rod, we often find the narrow sidewalk blocked by some man
or woman who has faced about towards an image or shrine
before which a little lamp is burning, and who stands there
for several minutes making signs of the cross and swayino-
the body forward from the hips, and thereby completely bar-

HOLY MOSCOW.

2 79

ring the way. On the fete day of the patron saint of any of
the countless minor chapels, the holy image is brought out
of the chapel and placed on the sidewalk on a table decked
with oak leaves and flowers and lighted candles. On anoth
er table stands a silver vessel full of holy water, and beside it
a cup, the whole guarded by several priests ministering to
the wants of the thick crowd of worshippers who venerate
the image, do obeisance, offer a five kopeck candle about as
thick as a lead-pencil, drink a cupful of holy water, and then
go on their way rejoicing. Some of the worshippers take
away with them flasks, bottles, or gourds filled with holy
water. The most sacred of all these minor chapels is that of the
Iversky Virgin, situated at the Iversky Gate. The exterior
walls of this chapel are built of imitation marble; the pilas
ters are of imitation malachite ; the roof is a sky-blue cupola,
spangled with gilt stars ; the facade is panelled with paintings
of saints framed in embossed brass ; in front is a sort of plat
form raised three steps from the ground. So great and inces
sant is the concourse of worshippers that the steps and plat
form are made of iron, that being the only material that will
resist the wear and tear of pious boots for any length of
time. Inside, the chapel glitters with burnished brass and
burning tapers, amid which is enthroned the miraculous im
age of the Iberian Mother of God, a copy made in 1648 from
the original wonder-working icon at Mount Athos. The im
age is of the usual Byzantine type, of a dark brown color,
with a big jewel on the brow and another on each shoulder,
and on the head a net of real pearls and a brilliant crown of
precious stones. When the Tsar arrives at Moscow the first
thing he does is to go and worship this image ; from morn
ing until night there is a throng of people round the door of
the little chapel, and in front of it a double line of mendicant
nuns and beggars of various kinds. The wonder-working

28o

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

Iberian Virgin also pays vis
its in the town, travelling in
a big coach drawn by four
horses harnessed abreast,
and driven by a coachman
bareheaded, while behind
stand two lackeys, also bare
headed. Inside the coach
is a table on which the im
age rests, under the guard
of two priests in ceremonial
robes. In case of sickness,
of weddings, of a house-
warming, and such events,
the pious pay a fee of as
much as a hundred rubles
for the visit of the icon,
whose passage along the

THE SACRED GATE.

HOLY MOSCOW. 281
streets is the signal for genuflections and signs of the cross.
During the temporary absence of the real image a copy takes
its place in the chapel, and so the concourse of worshippers
never flags. The real Iberian Virgin and the copy together
elicit enormous sums from the pockets of the mujiks, part
of which forms the stipend of the Metropolitan of Moscow,
while the rest goes to keep up convents and monasteries and
to build new churches. The Russian clergy are adepts in
the art of passing round the plate.
A frequent sight in the streets is a party of prisoners
escorted by soldiers. At Moscow is the Perissilnii Zamok,
the prison or depot for Siberia, whence during spring and
summer the convicts are despatched, the first Monday of each
month, in troops numbering several hundreds. The railway
conveys them to Nijnii-Novgorod, where they are embarked
on boats and carried down the Volga to Samara, and thence
by rail to Orenburg, on the borders of Russia in Asia.
From Orenburg the exiles continue their route on foot, and
often they have to march a whole year before they reach the
distant spot in vast Siberia which has been assigned to them
as a dwelling. Being of the opinion that it is best for nations
as well as for individuals to mind their own business, we shall
f '
not venture to criticise the Russian system of convict coloni
zation ; nor shall we indulge in misplaced sentimentality over
the carefully guarded batches of thieves, ne'er-do-wells, mur
derers, and Nihilists whom we may remark in the streets of
Moscow uniformly dressed in gray, with black convicts' caps
and hair cut short. If the truth were known, the abuses and
inhumanity of European prisons would doubtless be found
to be quite as great as, if not greater than, those that zealous
busybodies have attempted to show up in the Siberian sys
tem, without, however, it must be added, disturbing in the
slightest degree the serenity of the Russian officials.
How many rambles we might yet take in the streets of

282 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Moscow ! How many pages we might write about its mu
seums, its theatres, its schools, its innumerable charitable insti
tutions, its wonderful foundling hospital, with its six hundred
nurses and thousands of babies ; its bath-houses, its traktirs,
its watch-towers and fire-brigade, whose pumps are so often
seen tearing through the streets, preceded by shouting out
riders to clear the way. How many pleasant walks we might
take around the walls of the Kremlin, and of the Kitai-Gorod,
admiring the elegant and original silhouette of the old gates
and spires, and the picturesque points of view from the gar
dens and boulevards that now replace moat and rampart !
Moscow is truly the mirror of Russia — a city of violent con
trasts, a mixture of Europe and Asia; its leading families
are Lithuanians, Finns, Tatars, Tcherkesses, old Russians —
a mixture of Aryan Slavs, and of elements from the East.
It is only in the single elegant street called the Smiths'
Bridge that one might for a moment believe one's self to be
in a European town. Here the shop-windows are full of the
inventions of Western civilization, easy- chairs, jardinieres,
statuettes, china, cravats, silk stockings, parasols, photographs
of French actresses and ballet girls, yellow-covered French
novels, and the last numbers of the Vie Parisienne and the
fournal Amusant. But even here the carriages, the horses,
and the coachmen tell us that we are far away from the
country of Grevin and Theo, and the first drosky that passes
will carry us from this pseudo-French quarter in less than
five minutes, and land us at the foot of the Souharef Tow
er in the midst of a most characteristically Russian scene.
On the immense open space to the right of this vast tower
there is held every Sunday an extensive bric-a-brac fair.
Lines after lines of booths shelter some venders, while others
simply spread their wares on the ground. There are stalls
for the sale of fruit, cakes, bread, sausages, fish, kvas, and oth
er non-spirituous drinks ; rows of drapers' booths where you

HOLY MOSCOW.

283

see flat-faced peasant women dreaming over bright-red frocks
or gaudy shawls ; boot stores where the customers sit on the
bare ground to try on; sheds from whose roofs are suspended
voluminous touloupes and loose coats which the mujiks eye
with envy. Elsewhere we see a chaotic waste of cheap fur
niture, bedsteads, cradles, rickety tables, tawdry clocks, and

PRISONERS ESCORTED BY SOLDIERS.

monumental sofas. Here are thousands of bright brass
samovars ; here piles of books among which the patient
bibliophile often finds a treasure ; here are the little glass-
cases of the silversmiths and jewellers, with rich stocks of
diamonds and precious stones ; and here the bric-a-brac deal
ers who sell every imaginable object — old icons, Circassian

284 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
girdles, church lamps, antique silver spoons, snuffboxes, arms,
watches, clocks, candlesticks, Saxe statuettes, Sevres china,
embroidery, lace, and a hundred other fragments of luxury
and wealth. The aspect of this crowded fair, with its patches
of bright color and its variety of popular costume, is very
picturesque. It is presumptuous for a hasty traveller to pretend to pro
nounce upon the moral qualities of peoples whom he has ob
served only superficially; external features, however, and ob
vious habits may legitimately be made the subject of remark
and criticism. In these matters it is curious to notice how
little Russian civilization has changed since it was first stud
ied by Western visitors, and how minutely true the descrip
tions of travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
remain even to the present day. The French envoy, De la
Neuville, in his Relatiori Curieiise et Nouvelle de Moscovie,
published in 1698, says: "The Muscovites are, properly speak
ing, barbarians; they are suspicious, distrustful, gormandizers,
avaricious, beggars, and poltroons. . . . Besides all this, they
are very coarse, and even brutal . . . they are very dirty, al
though they take baths often . . . they eat and drink poorly,
their ordinary food being nothing but cucumbers and Astra
khan melons pickled in salt and water. . . . Bad faith is one
of their virtues. . . . The religion of the Muscovites is the
Greek, which may well be called arch-schismatic, for it is dis
tinguished by so many frightful superstitions, introduced by
their ignorance, that they may be considered to be semi-
idolaters." The Dutch traveller, John Struys, who visited Moscow in
1669, is very severe concerning- the contrariety of the Mus
covites, " who, as they have neither the gentleness nor the
politeness of other peoples, have, also, manners and customs
such that they seem to make a point of being unlike them
in every respect. For instance, because other people wear

HOLY MOSCOW.

285

their shirts next their skins, they think themselves bound to
wear their shirts outside their trousers."
Dr. Giles Fletcher, speaking of his experience in 1 591,
says of the Muscovites in his Russe Commonwealth : " To
drinke drunk is an ordinary matter with them every day in
the weeke." The same writer, in mentioning the popular
drink made of ferment
ed barley-bread flavored
with herbs, which is still
sold at every street cor
ner, and called kvas,
quaintly describes it as
" nothing els (as wee say)
but water turned out of
his wittes with a little
bran meashed with it."
The Burgundian
Captain Jacques Mar
garet, who in 1607 wrote
an account of his expe
rience in the service of
the Tsars at the request
of Henri IV., the Earl
of Carlisle in his Rela
tion of his Three Em
bassies to Muscovy, Ole-
arius the German trav
eller, and many others4
whom we might quote,
are equally uncompli
mentary to the Russians. And so far as concerns the mass
es, the unbiassed observer of the present day cannot but con
firm their judgments: they are barbarous, coarse, dirty, and
drunken ; they live largely on salted cucumbers, and their

THE BELL-RINGERS.

286 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
religious practices entitle them to be looked upon as semi-
idolaters. Our parting impression of Moscow was the sound of the
evening chimes and a vision of the Kremlin at sunset. Af-
ter wandering round the fantastic Church of Vassili Blagen-
noi, and marvelling once more at its polychrome cupolas, we
crossed the Krasnaia, or Red Square, and entered the pre
cincts through the sacred Spassky Gate. The red brick
tower rose majestically, with its white pilasters, groinings,
and facings, in three superposed masses, each of different de
sign, the first and second stories square, and the third octag
onal and surmounted by a slender gilded spire, on the point
of which is the double-headed eagle holding in its talons the
globe. In the lateral chapels tapers flickered dimly. Over
the archway the holy image glistened with the reflected rays
of the big silver lantern that burns before it night and day.
To the right and to the left stretched the Kremlin walls with
their Oriental battlements, above which appeared turrets and
bulbous spires with gilt crosses and chains. Gladly respect
ing the local habits of veneration, we took off our hat, passed
bareheaded through the archway, and did not venture to
cover our head until we were well inside the Kremlin on the
Esplanade with the palaces, churches, and monasteries before
our eyes in all the splendor of their Muscovite originality.
To our left, following the irregularities of the hill-side, lay
the ramparts, with their towers of infinite variety, some round,
some square, some conical and crowned with roofs and min
arets of the most unexpected forms. At the foot of the ram
parts were the river and the tall modern houses on the quay ;
and beyond, the vast ocean of pale green roofs, gilded domes,
blue, green, or white cupolas and spires interspersed with
verdant patches of trees, and bounded on the horizon by a
girdle of woods darkening against the evening sky. To the
right, beyond the bridge, the immense gilded dome and cross

HOLY MOSCOW. 287
of the new Church of the Saviour crowned the massive white
temple, as it were, with a cone of ruddy fire, while within the
Kremlin the belfry of Ivan Veliki towered up with prodigious
elegance, dwarfing the gilded and frescoed churches clustered
around its base. It was a stormy, threatening night ; the sky
was laden with thick heavy clouds that lightened into masses
of blue luminous black and steely gray towards the western
horizon, where the setting sun had left a slender streak of
vivid molten gold, whose long horizontal rays struck the tall
est cupolas only, and rested like a star on their golden caps.
Against this tragic background of ebony clouds the white im
mensity of the belfry stood out in strong relief, and the huge
arched openings, within which the bells are hung, seemed
like the black gaping mouths of some fabulous monster.
With this vision graven forever on our memory we left
the Kremlin through the Iversky Gate, and passing the ven
erated chapel, we followed the rosy white wall of the Kitai-
Gorod until the sound of a bell caused us to look upward.
Overtopping the battlemented wall rose the silhouette of a
square tower surmounted by a flattened cupola tapering up
into a tall and slender octagonal spire. The tower was
pierced by four arched openings, and inside were hung from
huge beams great bells and small bells. Two men were pull
ing to and fro the clapper of the great bell ; another man
and a boy were striking the smaller bells with hammers, and
playing that gay carillon that suggests the lively and gro
tesque contortions and leaps of the national Kamarinsky
dance. In the twilight the white tower and its green cupola
stood out brightly and distinctly, while the beams, the bells,
the ropes, and the bell-ringers formed soft, black silhouettes
against the evening sky. In another hour, on our way to the
railway station, we took a farewell look at the walls and bat
tlements of the Kitai-Gorod. The belfries were then silent ;
the gilded cupolas were lost in the gloom of night ; but all

288 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
around the inner city, before each modest shrine and over
every gate, high up in the air, a lamp or a lantern glimmered
mysteriously against the darkly looming mass of wall or tow
er, and the mujiks, as they passed, saluted the holy images,
crossed themselves and bowed low, and then pursued their
way, peaceful and resigned, neither contented nor discon
tented, but continuing indifferently in the traditions of their
fathers and their forefathers.

\ \

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.
By THEODORE CHILD.

" ~T) OW thy head, faithful child of Russia, the immortal
JL/ Kremlin rises before thee. It has grown great amid
tempests, and master of its destiny, its brow laden with cen
turies, it stands powerful and steadfast, dominant above Mos
cow like the genius of glory. Here the proudest spirit be
comes humble, thought remains still, but the heart of a true
Russian is flooded with joy." So sings the poet Stankie-
vitch in presence of the sacred towers and cupolas of the
Kremlin, that sanctuary and fortress where the imperial
eagle has placed his eyry in the midst of the hills, covering
the whole of Holy Russia with his gigantic wings. The
Kremlin is the centre around which are grouped the great
historical souvenirs of Russia. It is the cradle of the Grand-
Dukes and Tsars who founded the unity of ancient Russia,
and the cradle of Peter the Great and Alexander II., who
were the great reformers, the one of the exterior and the
other of the interior life of the empire. It is here that the
Tsars receive their crown from God and the father-land ; it is
here that they come to act and to speak in the decisive mo
ments of their reigns ; it is here that the incursions of the
Lithuanians, of the Polish armies, and of the Tatar hordes
have been victoriously repulsed, and here that the might
of Napoleon I. was broken. In its obscure temples the be
lievers bow before the relics of the most venerated saints,

292 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and before the tombs of the great men of the past. The
Kremlin is truly the treasury of all that is dear to the Rus
sian heart.
The spectacle of the Kremlin is unique in the world,
and utterly unlike anything that the traveller may have seen
anywhere. Its buildings are not blackened by time. It
bears none of those traces of age which in our Western eyes
contribute to the beauty of venerable monuments ; even its
antique walls are clean and bright, except in very inaccessi
ble spots, where a few blades of grass may occasionally be
discovered. The aspect is white, relieved with brilliant color
and burnished gold. After the same manner as the Alham-
bra, the Kremlin occupies the plateau of a hill, which it en
velops within its rosy white walls, with their battlements in
dented like the notch of an arrow. These walls, flanked by
green-roofed watch-towers, of which no two are alike, and
pierced by five roseate brick gate -towers, each surmounted
by spires of various design, form an irregular triangle, within
which are enclosed four large open squares or places, three
cathedrals, seven churches, a convent, a monastery, three im
perial palaces, the Senate House, the Synodal buildings, the
tower of Ivan the Great, with at its foot the " Tsar-Kolokol,"
or King of Bells, which has never been rung, and the Arsenal,
with at one corner the " Tsar-Pushka," or King of Guns, which
has never been fired — a monster weighing forty tons, cast in
1586. Seen from the quays of the Moskwa River, the Krem
lin suggests one of those fairy towns which the imagination
of the Eastern story-tellers loves to build: it is neither Italian
nor Byzantine nor Indian in style, but partaking of all these
inspirations, and yet remaining novel, unheard of, and strange
as a dream, something individual and unique — a prodigious
architectural efflorescence of bulbous cupolas, pinnacles, spires,
and pyramids.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

293

Here, indeed, is something new
and strange in aspect ; here is char
acter ; here is Russian architecture ;
here truly are the productions of an
original and national art. The mo
ment we saw the Kremlin, we mar
velled all the more at the prodigious
absurdity of the counterfeits of Ital
ian, French, and German architect
ure which we had seen at St. Peters
burg, and appre
ciated more com
pletely the aspi
rations of the
Panslavists and
of the old Rus
sians whose influ
ence is once more
becoming domi
nant in the em
pire. It is only a
few years since
the Western crit
ics scoffed at the
very idea of such
a thing as an original Russian art, and even now most peo
ple ignore the origin, history, and manners of the Russian
nation, and still persist in recognizing only the Europeanized
and cosmopolitan Russians, the descendants of the noblesse
who aped the foreigner in order to curry favor at court, the
amiable men and fascinating women to whom their native
language is less familiar than the idioms of France, Germany,
and England. Such a state of affairs as this cannot be nat
ural or durable ; a nation of imitators cannot be a great na-
lq*

BOROVITSKAIA GATE IN THE KREMLIN.

294

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

tion. Of this fact the true Russians are convinced. " We
are young," say the Slavophiles; "our national life dates only
from yesterday ; our traditions are scarcely formed, for the
Western civilization transplanted by Peter the Great and
Catherine has proved a sickly growth in a soil that was not
prepared to receive it. By dint of will-power and example
Peter and Catherine forced the nobles and some of their sub
jects to forget the past and all that reminded them of its so-
called barbarism, in order to imitate the industry, the arts,
and the methods of the West, and even to assimilate West
ern theories and aspirations. Thus the development of Rus
sian art and of Russian national life was brusquely arrested ;
but you have only to look at our churches and monuments
to see that our national art had acquired a distinct existence
if it had not attained maturity. We have our national archi
tecture, our peculiar and appropriate methods of construc
tion, and our national styles of decorative art ; and in the
treasures of the Kremlin and of the churches and monas
teries of the empire may be seen arms, enamels, and objects
wrought in the precious metals which testify to the taste
and skill of the Muscovite artisans during their period of
glorious activity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
But this interruption of the free development of Russian
national art and life has not stifled our native qualities or
our instinctive aspirations. The great mass of the nation
has not been affected by the imitation of foreign models ; it
has remained indifferent and uncontaminated ; we shall join
the links of broken chain of our history, and then Russia will
become Russian once more."
In our visit to the Kremlin we will first of all examine its
towers and walls, which measure 7280 feet in circumference.
Originally, it appears, the town and citadel of the Kremlin
were protected by oak palisades and wooden towers. Dmitri
Donskoi in the fourteenth century had walls built of stone ;

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

2g5

at the end of the fifteenth century Ivan III. extended the
limits of the citadel, and between the years 1485 and 1492 he
had the present walls and the more important towers built by
Italian architects. This fact accounts for the peculiar bat
tlements, which are of the same form as those of the Ponte
Vecchio at Verona, for instance, and of the walls of many
other northern Italian towns. The great
gate towers, namely, the Spasskaia, the Bo-
rovitskaia, Troitskaia, the Tainiskaia, and
the Nicholas Gate, all remarkable for their
imposing and original silhouettes, were
built by the Italians, while the smaller tow
ers placed at intervals along the fortifica
tions are more probably due to Russian
workmen. This
conjecture is
based on their pe
culiar form.which
seems to be a re
production in ma
sonry of the old
wooden towers of
relatively colossal
proportions, in
the combination
of which the Rus
sian artisans had
achieved great
skill, thanks to the frequent fires that gave them constant
opportunities of exercising their ingenuity, and perfecting
themselves in the art of stupendous carpentry. In spite of
restorations these walls preserve their primitive style and
character ; their color alone has changed to warm, rosy gray,
through the whitewash not having been renewed so liberally

z-j%;^

TROITSKAIA GATE IN THE KREMLIN.

296" THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
as it was in former days ; the chemin de ronde paved with
square flags, the casemates, the staircases, the corridors in
the thickness of the walls (twelve to sixteen feet), the pow
der-magazines, etc., remain intact; and the quaint conical or
pyramidal roofs, with their imbricated covering of glazed
green tiles, still glitter in the sun exactly as they were three
hundred years ago. The spires of the Spasskaia and the
Troitskaia are very similar in style. They were both built in
the beginning of the seventeenth century by an Englishman
named Christopher Galloway, over the Italian towers, con
structed by Pietro Solari, and their Gothic silhouettes are
chief among the rare evidences of Western influence in this
Oriental dream-town.
Now let us direct our steps towards the Red Place, in
order to enter the Kremlin by the Spasskaia; but 'first of all
let us examine that wonder of wonders, the strangest of all
edifices ever conceived and executed, the Church of Vassili
Blagennoi, which occupies the end of the Place, with its bou
quet of fantastic cupolas and spires. The history of this
church is as strange as its aspect ; it was built by order of
Ivan the Terrible, at the expense of the principality of Ka
san, in order to thank God for the Tsar's conquest of that
country. 'The name of the architect, an Italian, is unknown,
but tradition relates that his eyes were burnt out by order
of Ivan, to prevent his designing in future for any more won
derful monument. " " It is my wish," said the terrible autocrat,
" that this sanctuary remain the unique and glorious monu
ment of the genius of this man." In the basement of the edi
fice are two chapels, and on the upper story nine chapels sur
mounted by nine cupolas, each different in shape, dimensions,
color, details, style, and structural disposition. The spire, too,
is placed at the east and not at the west, as orthodoxy de
mands. The facades, again, are all different and without dis
cernible plan, and the whole structure, with its suggestions of

CHURCH OF VASSILI BLAGENNOI.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

299

Hindoo, Byzantine, Gothic, and nondescript architecture, and
its profusion of painted ornaments and masses of crude yel
low, blue, red, and green, forms an admirable and mysterious
harmony, the secret of which none can explain and the charm
of which no words can describe. The whole exterior, with
its superimposed arches, its profusion of color and gilding,
its painting of roses and other flowers in panels all over the
walls, is strangely original. On the pedestal, formed by the
nine chapels and their basement, are placed belfries and cu
polas starting upward from masses of masonry resembling
the imbricated foliage of the artichoke, the scales of the pine
cone, or the opening bud of the cactus-flower. In the chief
belfry the Italian element is clearly perceptible in the first
three stories, above which is a story resembling an Indian pa
goda, which in its turn is surmounted by a hexagonal, crock.
eted spire, on the summit of which is a lanternon and an
onion-shaped gilt cap. Another belfry supports a cupola in
the shape of a pineapple, all covered with pointed facets ; on
another the pineapple cupola is laced over with a symmetrical
net-work, through whose meshes the points alone are visible.
Another cupola imitates the ribbed form of a melon, another
the twisted folds of a monumental turban, another the close
scales of the serpent. Let it be remembered, too, that each
of these cupolas is of a different color — one orange, another
sky blue, another apple green, another deep red ; and that,
besides paint in profusion, the mouldings, cornices, consoles,
panels, pinnacles, imbrications, and tiers of arches are lavishly
decorated with brightly colored glazed faience. It is a fan
tastic architectural dream, suggestive of uncanny sea -mon
sters, half fish and half flower, of gigantic fruits, or of vegeta
bles and Oriental turbans of such capricious and impossible
proportions as one might conceive in a nightmare. Theo
phile Gautier has given us a poet's description which we can
not do better than cite :

300 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
"The Church of Vassili Blagennoi," he says, "is without
doubt the most original monument in the world ; it recalls
nothing that one has ever seen, and belongs to no known
style. One might imagine it to be a gigantic madrepore, a
crystallized colossus, a stalactite grotto turned upsidedown —
a thing which has neither prototype nor similitude. It might
be taken for a Hindoo, Chinese, or Thibetan pagoda. In
looking at this impossible church one is tempted to ask if it
is not a whimsical will-o'-the-wisp, an edifice formed of clouds
fantastically colored by the sun, which the movement of the
air will presently cause to change in form or vanish into
nothingness." Having entered the Kremlin by the Spasskaia or Spass-
ki Vorota, which we pass bareheaded, out of respect for the
venerated image suspended over the archway, we shall find
ourselves on a vast esplanade, with, on our left, a guard-house,
and beyond, the panorama of half Moscow ; on our right, the
Ascension Convent and its dazzlingly white churches, richly
ornamented ; before us is the belfry of Ivan the Great, the
imperial palace, with its colossal gilt dome-like belvedere, and
the churches of the Kremlin, with their forests of cupolas and
crosses brilliantly gilt, and, as it were, rigged with festooning
chains. The first impression is that of stupefaction at the
novelty of the outline. The pictures of Bellini and Car-
paccio had prepared our eyes for the bulbous and tulip-
shaped extravagances of Oriental backgrounds, but the gi
gantic belfry of Ivan Veliki, and the quaint dwarfed and
archaic churches at its base, surpassed all that we had dream
ed. The tower, which dates from 1600, consists of five sto
ries, four being octagonal and the fifth cylindrical, the whole
rising to a height of 325 feet, including the gilded cupola and
cross. Beneath the cupola is an inscription in huge gilt Sla
vonic letters, that form at the same time ornamental bands,
and of which the translation is, " Under the protection of

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

301

the Holy Trinity, by order of the Tsar and Grand- Duke
Boris Feodorovitch, autocrat of all the Russias, and of his
son the Tsarevitch and Grand - Duke Feodor Borisovitch,
this tower was finished and gilded the second year of their
reign, 7180" (1600). The belfry building is a curious mixt
ure of styles : the tower is Arabian and Byzantine, with a
suggestion of Indian ornament over the fourth story ; the ad
jacent central building is Byzantine ; the end section is a
mixture of Gothic and Renaissance ; and the whole is thor
oughly Muscovite as it rears its tall silhouette against the
clear blue Northern sky, and crowns the highest peak of the
Kremlin hill.
We remark particularly, after admiring the elegance of
proportions, the graceful slenderness, the sveltesse of the tower,
the happy effect of the gigantic Slavonic lettering below the
bulging cupola. Such inscriptions form a distinctive feature
of Russian decorative art, and the almost constant accompa
niment of Russian silversmiths' work, particularly in cursive
borders around the lips of loving-cups of bratinas, either en
graved in relief or nielloed. Arabic and other Oriental let
ters are frequently employed in the same manner by Eastern
artists, but none lend themselves more readily to dec'oration
than these curious semi-Greek characters invented so late as
the ninth century by SS. Cyril and Methodius.
We may also take this opportunity of noticing the pecul
iar form of the cross that surmounts the cupola, with its char
acteristic double arms. The upper cross-piece is evidently a
development of the titulus, and the lower that of the rest for
the feet. This lower cross-piece is usually inclined at an an
gle, either on account of an idea of perspective, or, as some
suppose, as the representation of the effect of the earthquake.
The slanting disposition, it may be noticed, is retained in the
small pastoral and liturgical crosses also. Another form of
cross frequently seen on churches is the simple Greek cross

302

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

standing on a crescent. Various explanations have been giv
en as to the signification of this symbol. According to some
it is in remembrance of the victory of the cross over the cres
cent on the deliverance from the Mohamme
dan Mongol yoke ; but this is evidently an
error, for on the cathedral of St. Demetrius
at Vladimir is a cross with the crescent dat
ing from the twelfth
century, and there-
'^f?- fore previous to the
-j|\ Mongol invasion.
"iAl Furthermore, in the

THE IVAN VELIKI BELL-TOWER IN THE KREMLIN.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

3°3

most ancient Greek pictures, just as in Murillo's "Assump
tion," the Virgin is represented with her feet resting on a
crescent. The crescent was an old symbol in Byzantium; its
position below the cross is intended by the Russian Church
to typify the issuing of the cross from the Mother of God.
These crosses on the tops of Russian churches are made of
wood, lead, silver, and even gold ; often they are wrought
with elegant open-work designs. The Russian ceremonial
and pectoral crosses are most various in form and richness.
Indeed, owing to the universal habit of wearing them in Rus
sia, there is no object which has more exercised the skill and
inventiveness of the goldsmith and jeweller.
The tower of Ivan Veliki serves as a campanile for the
three cathedrals of the Kremlin, and contains thirty -four
bells, of which the largest, weighing sixty-four tons, hangs in
the central arcade of the middle building. At the foot of the
tower the largest bell in the world stands on a granite pedes
tal — a monster of ample and pure lines, impressive not only
on account of its immensity, but also of its fine shape. Cast
by order of the Empress Anna in 1733, it fell during a fire,
and remained buried in the ground until 1836, when it was
unearthed and placed in its present position, with the broken
fragment beside it. The height of this "Tsar-Kolokol" is
twenty-six feet, its circumference nearly sixty-five feet, and its
weight two hundred tons.
Behind the tower, to the left, we pass through an iron
gate and enter the paved enclosure of the cathedrals ; to
our right is the Synodal building; in front the Cathedral of
the Assumption ; then to the left the Palace, the Red Stair
case, and the Cathedral of the Annunciation and between
that and the Ivan Veliki tower the Cathedral of the Arch
angel Michael. Of these three sanctuaries the most sacred
is that of the Assumption, which is also the oldest. The
original wooden church was built in 1326, and when, 146

304

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

years later, in the reign of Ivan III., the wooden edifices of
the Kremlin were replaced by others of stone, this cathedral
was rebuilt by Russian workmen, but collapsed before it was
finished. It was then that the Italian Aristotle Fioraventi,
of Bologna, was called upon, and he built the church between

INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION.

1475 and 1 479, .after, the model of a cathedral at Vladimir, and
notwithstanding many restorations, alterations, and embellish
ments, it retains to the present day almost its primitive form
and aspect. It is almost square, and, like nearly all Russian
cathedrals, it is so small that we should rather call it a chap
el. The outside walls are plain, whitewashed, pierced with

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

305

the necessary windows and doors, and divided by the evident
supporting pillars of the edifice, which terminate in arches,
upon which rest in turn the vaulted roof and the crowning
bulbous cupolas overlaid with thickly gilt metal plates. Be
neath the exterior archivolts traced by the arches in the tym
panums are colossal paintings, sheltered from the weather by
broadly projecting semicircular penthouses carried on wood
work brackets. The inside of the cathedral is dimly lighted,
the windows being small and not numerous. Four enor
mous plain-shafted pillars, as large as towers, support the cen
tral cupola, placed on a flat roof in Asiatic style, and flanked
by four smaller cupolas. The sanctuary, the principal altar,
and the two side altars are separated from the rest of the
church by the screen and choir. The nave is square, and the
walls rise straight up to the roof. This arrangement pro
duces a grandiose effect merely by the simplicity and severi
ty of the lines, while the massive pillars give an air of stabili
ty to the whole interior structure. These pillars, and every
inch of wall space, are covered with paintings on gold
ground; all round the walls are sacred images and shrines
framed in gold and precious stones, together with the tombs
of Patriarchs and Metropolitans ; the iconostase, or screen, is
a high wall of burnished vermeil, with five superposed rows
of figures framed in richly ornamented cases of embossed
metal that leave visible, according to the Byzantine tradition,
only the brown faces, hands, and feet. These virgins and
saints are bedecked with breastplates, aureoles, necklaces, and
bracelets literally ablaze with diamonds, emeralds, amethysts,
pearls, sapphires, turquoises, and rubies. The splendor and
richness of this screen pass all conception ; it is such as we
might imagine the facade of some fabulous palace of gold
and precious stones. Add to this the magnificence of silver
and vermeil lustres hanging from the roof, and a profusion of
burning tapers and lamps suspended from gilt brackets glim-

20

306

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

mering before each holy image, and casting mysterious re
flections over the multitude of militant archangels, sombre
monks, noble chevaliers, and silent saints, with fixed eyes,
hieratic gestures, and Byzantine stiffness, that march in files
and theories, zone above zone, and people the golden expanse
of walls and cupolas with austere sem
blances of formidable life. In the
splendid luxury and pompous ceremo
nial of its worship the Greek Church
surpasses the Roman even, although
the latter may claim superiority from
the point of view of pure art. But so
far as regards the effect to be obtained
from the combinations of precious
metals, jewels, rich stuffs, and paint
ing of the hieratic and ornamental
kind, the inte
rior of this Ca
thedral of the
Assumption is
unique. Among the
many treas
ures of the sac-
risty of the
Church of the
Assumption
we will select
a series of ob-
jects which
have the dou
ble interest of
art and of re
ligious tradi-

w yj-^uui

RELIQUARY AND INCENSE BURNER, IN THE CATHEDRAL
OF THE ASSUMPTION.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

307

tion, and which form part of the Russian communion plate.
Mr. Maskell explains in his Hand-book that the Greek rite for
the celebration of the holy eucharist requires three things
which are not used in the Western Church. These are the
knife or spear, the star or asterisk, and the spoon for the ad
ministration of the chalice, as the sacrament is received by
the laity under both
kinds. It may nat
urally be supposed
that such sacred ob
jects would be the
subjects of high ar
tistic workmanship.
The paten itself is of
ten elaborately enam
elled and otherwise
decorated, whereas in
the Western Church
the rubrics require it
to be plain. In one
of these beautiful
patens the rim is di
vided into sections
by means of large
roughly cut stones,
between which are
floriated panels bearing the inscription in enamel ; the centre
is graven and enamelled with figures of angels, the symbolic
dove, and the Divine Child in the chalice protected by the
asterisk. On the right of it is the spoon, and on the left the
spear with a beautifully enamelled handle.
The preparation of the communion bread, which is leav
ened, and in the form of a small loaf, is very complex. Por
tions are cut out for consecration, and for this purpose an

GOLD STAR, JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED, PART
OF COMMUNION PLATE, IN THE CATHEDRAL
OF THE ASSUMPTION.

3o8

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

arrow-shaped knife, called a " spear," is used. These por
tions, placed on the paten, are covered with a veil, and in
order to prevent the latter from touching the elements, a
piece of metal is placed over them — two strips crossed and
bent so as to have four feet. The beautiful gold star figured
in our illustration, with
its exquisite floral de
sign wrought in colored
enamels, is one of these
simple asterisks beauti
fied into a splendid work
of art: the two strips of
metal bent and crossed
so as to have four feet
have been developed
into a wavy efflorescence
of gold and color, cen
tring in a precious stone
engraved with the Greek
cross and its symbolic
lettering, and suggest
ing at once the shield of
some fairy warrior, the
weird flower of an orchid,
and the diaphanous ten
tacles of a sea-anemone.
The Cathedral of the
Archangel Michael is
partly a copy of the Ca
thedral of the Assump
tion. It is a square
whitewashed building
with five gilded bulbous domes, constructed in its present
form about the year 1500 by the Italian architect Alevisio

HP

GOLDEN CROSS WITH PEARLS AND PRECIOUS
STONES, SACRISTY OF CATHEDRAL OF THE
ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

309

Novi, of Milan, and since frequently profaned, pillaged, and
damaged, but always carefully restored. The interior pre
sents the usual system of massive pillars, iconostases glitter
ing with gold and precious stones, and walls covered with
Byzantine paintings. These paintings, however, unlike those
of the Cathedral of the Assumption, are not on gold ground.
They represent for the most part scenes of the last judg
ment and portraits of the ferocious-looking Tsars, whose cat
afalques occupy the greater part of the floor of the edifice,
each covered with a crimson velvet pall and adorned with a
silver plaque whereon are inscribed the dates of the birth
and of the death of the sovereign. Up to the time when
Peter the Great transferred his capital to St. Petersburg this
Church of the Archangel Michael served as the burying-
place of the Grand-Dukes of Russia, the vassal princes, and
the Tsars of Muscovy. Forty-seven sovereigns of the houses
of Rurik and Romanoff are buried here, and one emperor,
namely, Peter II.
The Cathedral of the Annunciation, built in its present
form in 1554 on the site of the original cathedral founded in
1 29 1, differs in various particulars from the other two sanct
uaries of the Kremlin. Its form is rectangular, but it has
also a sort of covered vestibule or gallery along three of its
sides, and the number of its cupolas is nine instead of five.
Originally the Russian churches had only one cupola, which
was gradually surrounded by others — two signifying the two
natures of Jesus Christ ; three, a symbol of the Trinity ; five,
Christ and the four evangelists ; seven, the seven sacraments
or the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit ; nine, the nine celestial
hierarchies; and thirteen, our Lord and the twelve apostles.
The number of cupolas even reached twenty or thirty, and it
was not until 1589, the date of the establishment of the Pa
triarchate, that these were restricted to five, which is now the
orthodox and obligatory number. The interior of the Cathe-

310 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
dral of the Annunciation is covered with frescos ; from the
pillars are suspended gold and silver jewelled crosses worn
on golden chains by Russian princes, and the floor is paved
with a mosaic of jasper and agate. In this cathedral the
Russian Tsars were baptized and married ; in the Cathedral
of the Assumption they were and still are crowned ; in the
Cathedral of the Archangel Michael they were buried. The
three sanctuaries together form, so to speak, the Westminster
Abbey of Russia, and at the same time they present three
thoroughly typical monuments of Russian ecclesiastical archi
tecture and decorative art.
The reader will have remarked our frequent mention of
Italian architects. It was through these master-builders,
whose names were Fioraventi, Pietro Solari, Alevisio Novi,
Mario and Pietro Antonio, that Russia in the fifteenth, six
teenth, and seventeenth centuries had a sort of Renaissance,
though its manifestations were hampered by the traditions
of orthodoxy in church architecture, wmile the domain of
painting remained absolutely closed to its influences, owing
to those hieratic exigencies which still cause the Russians to
paint the Madonna precisely as Panselinos painted her in the
tenth century in the churches of Mount Athos. The Rus
sian Renaissance was marked chiefly by the introduction of
improved methods of construction, and by the number and
magnificence of the temples with which the Italian architects
adorned old Russia, making " holy Moscow," as the proverb
said, the city of " forty times forty churches," and rendering
it by its monumental splendor worthy to be the capital of a
great empire. Nevertheless, were it not for documentary
and irrefutable evidence, we should find it hard to believe
that the sombre Cathedral of the Assumption is of the same
epoch as the luminous churches of the Renaissance, and that
its architect, Fioraventi, had worked for Cosimo dei Medici,
Francois I., Matthias Corvinus, and Pope Sixtus IV., before

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

3H

Tolbousine, the ambas
sador of Ivan III., met
him at Venice and en
gaged him in the ser
vice of the Tsar. But
Fioraventi was a man
of prodigious versatil
ity : not only did he
build churches for his
Russian master; he also
designed and made
coins for him, built a
bridge of boats over the
Volkow at the time of
the expedition against
Novgorod, cast the cannons that bom
barded Kasan, and was the first organ
izer of the Russian artillery.
Before leaving the enclosure of the ca
thedrals let us glance at the Synodalnaya,
or sacristy of the former Patriarchs, which
is a marvellously rich museum of sacer
dotal robes and ornaments, ecclesiastical
objects, rich vestments embroidered with
pearls and precious stones, mitres, pana-
gias or portable pyxes worn on chains
round the necks of bishops, pastoral staffs,
incense burners, goblets, dishes, cups, communion plate, and
quantities of priceless relics of Russian art.
Next let us visit the Grand Palace of the Kremlin, whose
immense mass crowns the hill, and whose dome-shaped gilt
belvedere is visible at a distance of ten miles, surrounded
by the shining cupolas and the eagle- pointed spires of the
Kremlin towers. It is a modern structure, built between

PANAGIAS IN THE
TREASURY OF THE
PATRIARCHS.

312 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
1835 and 1849 on the site occupied from time immemorial
by the dwelling of the sovereign. Compared with its front
age, the palace is very lofty, and its style is an incongruous
mixture of various periods and forms of architecture ; like
many other Russian buildings, its chief merit exteriorly is' its
immensity. The building is in the form of a square, of
which the principal facade makes the south side, and the
Belvedere Palace the north, while on the east stands the im
perial Cathedral of the Annunciation, the Granovitaya Palace
— so called from the facets into which the stone walls have
been cut — and the passage leading to the house of the Patri
arch. In the centre of the square is the ancient Church of
St. Saviour in the Forest, and on the west is the Winter Gar
den, which connects the palace with the apartments of the
hereditary Grand-Duke, the Treasury, and the Potestiny or
Diversion Palace. North of the Belvedere Palace are the
barracks of the Chevaliers-Gardes, officers and grenadiers,
and the kitchens and other appurtenances. To attempt
even to describe this huge palace would be weariness and
lost labor; let it suffice to say that the interior, containing
about 700 chambers, is as sumptuous and magnificent as
Russian architects, decorators, and upholsterers can make it.
The state apartments are particularly rich, and generally
arranged in good taste, while the halls dedicated to different
orders of chivalry, and ornamented with appropriate heraldic
motifs, are for the most part well decorated in conventional
Western styles. Such is the hall of St. George, 200 feet by
65 feet, and 58 feet high, the halls of St. Alexander Nevsky,
of St. Andrew, and St. Catherine, all very fine in proportions,
and rich in decoration. But amid the chimerical strange-
ness of the old Kremlin, this new palace, with its sober fa
cade, its cold and classical lines, and its splendidly correct
interior, pains rather than delights the eye. We should have
preferred to see some structure in the true Muscovite style,

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

H3

like the Granovitaya and the old Terem, which are now in
corporated within the perimeter of the New Palace. This
remnant of the past, the residence of the ancient Tsars of
Moscow, is a labyrinth of low passages and vaulted rooms
adorned with barbaric magnificence, the epithet barbaric be
ing here used in a eulogious sense. Such a room is the

GOLDEN CHAMBER, OR TSARIKA ROOM, IN THE PALACE OF THE KREMLIN.

Golden Chamber, or Tsarika Room, probably built in the
beginning of the fifteenth century, and restored during the
reign of Nicholas I. in the style of the seventeenth century.
Were it not for the obtrusively modern parquet floor, this
room would present a complete aspect of antiquity, with its
arched roof consolidated by massive gilt girders, its narrow

314 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
windows with deep embrasures, its ceilings with their poly
chrome arabesques on gold ground, and the feudal and
saintly frescos painted on the walls in old style. In former
days the Tsarines received here visits of felicitation on grand
solemnities, or gave audience to the Patriarchs, to the Boy-
ars and Boyarines of high rank, as well as to the Tsare-
vitches of Georgia, Kassimoff, and Siberia. Very interesting,
too, is the gold dining-hall in the old Terem, with vaulted
roof resting on a square column in the middle of the room.
Here, after his coronation, the Emperor wears for the first
time all the imperial insignia, dines amid his nobles, and
receives the congratulations of the foreign ambassadors.
This hall, built by Italian architects in 1491, has been re
stored during the present reign in a simple and archaeo-
logically exact manner, the primitive mural paintings having
been reproduced with the aid of ancient descriptions thereof
in archaic style by peasant image- painters. Around the
pillar in the centre of this hall is a series of shelves forming
a buffet, on which the imperial plate is displayed on grand
days during the visits of the Tsar. We are sorry to add
that the inestimably precious treasures of ancient gold and
silver plate which we marvel at in the glass-cases of the
Treasury figure on the buffet, and are polished up for the
occasion by the careless hands of lackeys. In vain the cura
tors have been warned that this repeated rubbing diminishes
the value of the objects, and will in the end materially dam
age them; the only answer that they give is: "Our father
the Tsar is coming; the plate must shine brightly on the
buffet." The display of this collection of plate has always struck
travellers who have witnessed the magnificence of the court
of the Tsars. Margaret, a Burgundian captain of the time
of Boris Godunov, in his Estat de I Empire de Russie (1649),
gives a glowing picture of the rich collection of plate which

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

315

was used in the daily service of the Tsar. The Treasury,
he says, " is full of all kinds of jewels in great number, par
ticularly of pearls ; for in Russia more pearls are worn than
in all the rest of Europe. . . . There are great numbers of
gold plates, large and small, and drinking-cups ; besides this,

BIT OF THE BANQUET-HALL IN THE OLD TEREM.

an infinite quantity of silver plate, gilt and not gilt, as may
be judged from the fact that after the election of Boris Fed-
ervits, when he gathered his army at Serpo, during six weeks
he feasted almost daily ten thousand men each time, and all
were served in silver plate." Margaret mentions six silver
barrels, a number of big bowls and basins of silver which

316 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
required four men to carry them, each provided with drink-
ing-cups, the whole of Russian work. "Also a great number
of silver pieces from Germany, England, Poland, which are
either presents of princes sent by their ambassadors, or
which have been bought for the rarity of the workmanship."
Olearius, who visited Russia in 1633, the narrator of Lord
Carlyle's embassy in 1663, Richard Chancellor, Sir Jerome
Horsey, Dr. Giles Fletcher, Sir Henry Willoughby, and other
early travellers, all testify to the marvellous wealth of the
Tsar, and to the quantity of plate displayed on the " great
cupboard," as they called the buffet around the central pillar
of the banqueting-room., Richard Chancellor says: " In the
midst of the chamber stood a table or cupboard to set plate
upon which stood full of cups of gold, and among all the rest
there stood four marvellous great pottes, or crudences, as they
call them, of gold and silver. I think they were a good yard
and a half high. The number that dined there that day was
two hundred persons, and all were served in golden vessels."
Sir Henry Willoughby, speaking of a dinner given by the
Tsar, says: " In the middle of the dining-room was a table
covered with cups of gold. The number of persons that
dined was about two hundred, all served in vessels of gold,
and the gentlemen that waited were all in cloth of gold."
It is interesting to identify many of the remarkable pieces
mentioned by the old travellers among the objects now in
the cases of the Treasury. Furthermore, in several accounts
of the entries of embassies into Moscow we read of the com
panies of Boyars who rode out to meet them at the gates of
the city, and whose horses were richly caparisoned with vel
vet housings embroidered with precious stones, and bridled,
not with leather reins, but with chains of silver or gold rings
preciously wrought with chiselling or niello-work. These
chains tinkled musically, and, as an old English writer says,
made " a majestic noise " as the procession passed along, and

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

317

invariably excited the astonishment of the ambassadors and
of their suite. In the Treasury of the Kremlin many of
these chain bridles and cruppers are still preserved, and
specimens of some of the most beautiful and original in form
and design are reproduced in our engravings. It is impor
tant also to note the testimony of these travellers to the skill

SILVER CHAIN BRIDLES, TREASURY OF THE KREMLIN.

of Muscovite workmen, and to the celebrity of their products.
Samuel Maskievitch (1 594-1621), in his Annals, describes
the Russian workmen as being very clever, making easily
works for which they had had no previous teaching. An-

318 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
other old traveller, John de Piano Carpini, describes an ivory
throne of Russian work which he saw in Tatary. Olearius
says that the Russians imitate easily whatever they see, and
that he has seen chased and engraved work of theirs which
was as well done as, or even better than, the finest to be had
in Germany. From other sources we learn that the Cau
casian warriors and the Persians were eager purchasers of
sabres, coats of mail, and steel armor damascened with gold
made in the workshops of Moscow.
The rest of the buildings of the Terem, built in the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries, and restored between 1839
and 1849, form a palace four stories high, disposed in a series
of small, low, and generally vaulted rooms, entirely decorated
with polychrome ornaments and figures painted on gold or
other grounds, the furniture and arrangement being of the
epoch or of the styles of the seventeenth century. The
apartments consist of reception, dining, throne, sleeping, and
council rooms, all in the true Muscovite style, uncorrupted
by that mistaken imitation of the arts of the West which is
responsible for so many monotonous monstrosities in mod
ern Russian towns. It has been said that the progress of
civilization deprives nations of the sense of architecture and
of ornament, and certainly the old edifices of the Kremlin,
when compared with those of the present day, prove the
truth of this apparently paradoxical assertion. The ara
besques, the fantastic flowers, the color combinations, and
the inexhaustible invention and variety of the decoration of
the walls of these chambers are bewildering and charming at
the same time. The mysterious chambers of the Terem are
the equivalent in civil architecture of the Church of Vassili
Blagennoi in ecclesiastical architecture.
The Treasury, or Orujeinaya Palata, built in 185 1, forms
the right wing of the great palace, and, next to the mar
vellous spectacle of the ensemble of the Kremlin and its

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

319

churches, constitutes the greatest curiosity of Moscow, and
one of the most wonderful museums in the world, being the
depository of venerated historical objects, and of the treas
ures hereditary in the imperial families. The regalia, arms,
armor, carriages, costumes, thrones, crowns, enamels, scep
tres, gold and silver ware, precious stones, jewellery, and
other objects of art displayed in the Kremlin constitute a
collection with which those
of Dresden and of the Lou
vre can alone be compared.
The total of pieces in the
Treasury of the Kremlin
amounts to sixteen hun
dred. By far the greater
number belong to the sev
enteenth century, one only
to the twelfth, and some
few to the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. After
the Polish occupation and
the disasters of 161 2 all
the ancient plate for the
service of the Tsar's table
was melted down and con
verted into money, which
fact explains why there are
few examples of gold and silver work anterior to the dynasty
of the Romanoffs. The Treasury contains also some of the
most highly venerated crosses and reliquaries of Russia, the
thrones, crowns, and regalia of the ancient Tsars, and objects
in gold, silver, and enamel, of which verbal description can
give no adequate idea.
During our visit to the Kremlin we may be supposed to
have obtained some impression of Russian art and its pro-

Y*>J:

CHAIR OF TSAR MICHAEL FEDOROVITCH,
TREASURY OF THE KREMLIN. — PER
SIAN WORK.

320 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
ductions. We have seen specimens of its ecclesiastical and
civil architecture in the cathedrals and in the old palace or
Terem. In the interior of these edifices and in the treasuries
of the sacristies and of the Orujeinaya Palata we have seen
examples of Russian decorative and applied art. Now let
us endeavor to set forth the characteristics of this Russian
art, and to trace them to their source. The latter problem
is not easy ; savants are at variance ; ascertained facts on
the subject are few, so that all we can pretend to do is to
state the questions at issue and the solutions offered, though
not always accepted. In the first place, who are the Rus
sians ? How far can the Slavs or Slavonians be identified
with the Scythians of Herodotus ? In the .Kertch and
Scythian collections, the chief treasures of the Hermitage
Museum at St. Petersburg — a treasure far richer and more
curious, but, unfortunately, less known, than the famous dis
coveries of Dr. Schliemann — are several objects, and more
especially the silver Nikopol vase, which furnish valuable evi
dence. We may mention, also, the equally fine vase from
the Koul-Oba tomb in the vicinity of Kertch, on which
Scythian men are represented dressed in belted blouses, full
trousers tucked into their boots, with their national bow-
cases and implements, long flowing hair, full beards, and, in
short, with the physiognomies, characteristics, and costumes
qJLthe ^Russian mujiks of the present day. In the sixth cen
tury these pagan Slavs occupied a large part of the coun
try from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and possessed more
than the rudiments of art. In the same sixth century we
hear of the invasion of the Avars, who spread as far as Bul
garia and the Peloponnesus, and whose Khan treated with
Byzantium. At the same time northern Russia was overrun
by the Finns, who were followed by the Varangians, and the
period of ^Scandinavian influence began. In the seventh
century the Khazars, a race of Huns coming from the fron-

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

321

tiers of China, invaded Russia, and were followed by other
hordes in the eighth and ninth centuries, during which pe
riods the Russians were in constant communication with
Byzantium, whence in the tenth century they received the

THRONE-ROOM OF THE TSAR ALEXIS IN THE TEREM.

Christian faith in the reign of Vladimir, the great prince of
Kiew. The legend gives us to understand that the change
from paganism to Christianity was immediate. Vladimir sent
envoys to Constantinople to report upon the Greek faith, and
the legend says that they were so much dazzled by the splen
dor of the service celebrated in the Church of St. Sophia that
they did not hesitate to prefer this system to Mohammed-
21

322

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

anism, Judaism, Romanism, and all other forms of worship
which they had examined. " The Russians," says a Byzan
tine chronicler, " were struck by the multitude of the lights
and the chanting of the hymns ; but what most filled them
with astonishment was the appearance of the deacons and
subdeacons issuing from the sacristy with torches in their
hands, at whose presence the people fell on their knees and
cried, ' Kyrie Eleison.' The Russians took their guides by
the hand, and said : ' All that we have seen is awe-inspiring
and majestic, but this is supernatural. We have seen young-
men with wings in dazzling robes, who without touching the
ground chanted in the air, " Holy, holy, holy," and this is
what has most surprised us.' The guides replied, ' What !
do you not know that angels come down from heaven to min
gle in our services ?' ' You are right,' said the Russians ; 'we
want no further proof. Allow us to return home to our prince
and master.' "
Such, we read, was the origin of Christianity in Russia,
and through the obscure whisperings of the legend we dis
cern the fact of close intercourse with Byzantium, which nat
urally furnished the models for the form and ornament of
the new edifices that were needed for the new order of things.
In the south of Russia in the early ecclesiastic structures the
Byzantine element is marked. As we proceed towards the
north the original Byzantine influence is modified by the in
troduction of Lombardic and other elements; finally a special-
Russo-Byzantine type of edifice was produced resembling in
plan the Christian churches of the Peloponnesus, Attica, and
Thrace, but characterized by a system of more lofty construc
tion than the Byzantine type, which is low. The tall walls
and towering cupolas are suggestive of Asiatic rather than
Byzantine influence. In short, at the time of the Mongolian
invasion, in the twelfth century, the Russian Empire, then in
the third century of its national existence, possessed a na-

GENERAL VIEW OF THE KREMLIN,

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART. 325
tional architecture and art, ready to be modified once more
by Indo-Tatarian influences — an original and living art, sus
ceptible of progress, in close relation with Byzantine art, and
yet not identical with it. That luminous and profound his
torian of architecture, Viollet-le-Duc, shall be our guide in
this delicate sifting of the constituent elements of Russian
art ; and, in the first place, we must remark that Byzantine
art is itself composed of very different elements, and its orig
inality, so far as it has any, is due to the harmony established
between these elements, which are borrowed, some from the
extreme East, others from Persia, many from Asia Minor, and
others from Rome. Now, from her geographical position,
sandwiched, so to speak, between the East and the West, and
inevitably on the passage of the great migrations of the Aryan
tribes, Russia was always in communication with the East.
She received at first hand Oriental traditions of great value ;
she borrowed directly from many Oriental sources without
having recourse to Byzantium ; furthermore, at a very early
epoch she assimilated Greco-Byzantine arts. In other words,
Viollet-le-Duc protests against the tendency of many to con
sider as an absolute imitation of Byzantine art what is really
the result of similitude of origin. Sufficient account, he
thinks, has not been taken of the prodigious development of
the arts in the East at the beginning of our era, when many
vast countries east of the Caspian, now deserted, were occu
pied by flourishing empires, since devastated by the Tatars,
and at present lost in the sand. Through these vanished
civilizations, of which Marco Polo and other ancient travel
lers have made distinct mention, the countries west of the
Volga were in communication with the extreme Orient ; and
so, long before the thirteenth century, Russia could receive
the elements of art from the East by a route which is nowa
days almost closed. In short, among the divers origins of
Russian art, Persian, Armenian, and Asiatic, Byzantine art

326 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
holds certainly the principal place ; but from a time already
far distant other elements belonging to Asia may be per
ceived, principally in ornament. These Asiatic elements
take a more important place when Constantinople is • no
longer the seat of the Eastern Empire, and when the Mon
gols dominate over Russia, without, however, altogether dis
placing the principle of Byzantine structure in architecture
and the hieratism of religious painting.
Taking as specimens of Russian architecture the build
ings of the Kremlin and of old Moscow, we shall remark, in
the first place, that they are all rationally constructed ; the
form of the edifice harmonizes with its purpose ; the archi
tectonic means are evident, frank, and logical ; the form is
never in contradiction with the material conditions of the
building. Russia is not rich in building stone ; the natural
materials of the country are wood, brick, and rubble. Its
building methods, therefore, are either carpentry or concre
tion ; that is to say, masonry of some kind covered with plas
tering. To build edifices of these national materials in a style
of architecture which has been invented for utilizing the qual
ities of stone or marble is an evident absurdity, as is proven
by the pilasters, columns, cornices, and entablatures of the
counterfeit classical palaces of St. Petersburg, where this add
ed decoration, obtained with great difficulty by means of plas
ter and stucco applied over the bricks, cracks and peels off
every winter. There is not one form only of beauty in art.
In architecture diversity results from manners, from climate,.
from the needs of man, from the materials employed, and from
the manner in which they are utilized. Nature herself teaches
us that beauty does not exclude variety, and that one of the
essential conditions imposed upon beauty is to harmonize
perfectly the form with the conditions of existence, if we are
concerned with animals or vegetables, and with the conditions
of cohesion and duration, if it is a question of matter.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART. 327
Whether we take as a specimen the Cathedral of the As
sumption, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, or the marvel
lous Church of Vassili Blagennoi, we shall notice the same
characteristics. These edifices are all built of small mate
rials after the concrete method ; the means of construction
are left apparent ; the surfaces are covered with plaster, and
the plaster, in its turn, is protected with coatings of white
wash or paint. In all of them the architects have shown a
delicate sense of proportions ; the silhouette and the peaked
crown of cupolas are elegant; the ornamentation never im
pairs the purity of the contours, being, so to speak, engraved
rather than sculped in the round, and forming almost in
variably a sort of tapestry destined to embellish places that
are to be looked at specially and separately for the pure
pleasure of contemplating their adornment. Furthermore,
in the parts of the structure at any considerable elevation
from the ground this ornamentation ought to consist espe
cially of colorations, for, as we have already seen, Russian
architecture is polychrome; its concrete structure demands
exterior coatings of plaster or casings of some kind, which
naturally assume the form either of paint or of ceramic fac
ings. In the Church of Vassili Blagennoi both these sys
tems are employed, and the very mode of construction dictates
what should be the nature of the decoration of the edifice :
in order to last, the coats of plaster must offer few projec
tions and be well sheltered ; broad surfaces must be avoided,
and hence the breaking up of the wall space by means of
panels, where the plaster coating is held firmly by the sur
rounding mouldings; richness must be sought in the minute
ness and delicacy of low-relief carving in the Persian and
Indian styles, by the use of decorated faience, and by imbri
cations of tiles of different colors.
Another point which strikes us in connection with Rus
sian art is that it is essentially religious : it has developed

328 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and spread over the country simultaneously with the growth
and spread of religious sentiment. On the other hand, the
great means of the unification of the Russians into a nation
has been religion, so that it may be said that in Russia re
ligion and patriotism are one. In religious iconography
Russia frankly adopted Byzantine hieratism ; the first monks
would naturally bring with them devotional images or icons,
from Constantinople, which served the ignorant in lieu of a
written book or illuminated catechism. Hence, owing to the
wide dissemination of the population, and the difficulty of
communications. and interchange of ideas, when once these
archaic Byzantine images had acquired, from the teachings
of the first missionaries, a conventional signification and a
definite value as sacred hieroglyphics, there could no longer
be any question of modifying them. The icon, it has been
well said, is in the eyes of the Russian the bond which unites
the members of the nation; it is something equivalent to the
flag ; it is the language that all understand, and which makes
all join in one common thought. In the churches each and
all the icons are the subjects of visits and pilgrimages. They
are found everywhere in Russia — at the street corners, in
numerous little street chapels, over gate-ways, in shops, in the
taverns, in private houses, and in every bedroom and dwell
ing-room the sacred image hangs, with the lamp ever burn
ing before it. They are to be found in the palaces and in
the peasants' huts, in the village inn and in the soldier's
tent ; far and near they are the symbol of patriotism, and
therefore no more to be modified and tampered with than
the heraldic immortality of the double-headed imperial eapie.
In the interior decoration of Russian churches we have
seen how important a place the icon holds ; the whole walls
are covered with images of saints with lean, wild faces, ema
ciated limbs, lank hair, and most austere aspect, all executed
according to the orthodox formula laid down in the icono-

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

329

graphist's manual of painting. Byzantine pictorial art and its
offshoot Russian iconography are not arts in the sense which
we are accustomed to attach to the word ; they are suscepti
ble neither of progress nor of decadence ; they exist inde
pendently of conditions of time : such as they were in the
sixth, the tenth, or the twelfth century, so they are now ; they
borrow nothing, and are inspired only by themselves ; they
are not creative, but simply reproductive ; they have but one
school and one epoch ; every line, attitude, and gesture, every
fold of drapery, every
shade of color, is fixed
by tradition and gov
erned by religious laws.
The general aspect of
the Russian icons is
brown, ascetic, austere,
and more terrible than
the pictures of Cimabue.
Happily,however,wesee
only the faces, hands,
and feet of the figures,
the rest being hidden by
the case, which com
bines the arts of metal-
work, enamel, and jew
elled decoration. In a
richly decorated icon of
the most ancient description, such, for instance, as the one
which we have selected from the treasury of the Convent of
Novo-Devitchy at Moscow, the heads both of the Virgin and
of the Child are adorned with crowns and nimbuses of gold
and precious stones ; the Virgin wears a peculiar collar or
" barmi " of gold in relief, set with jewels, and a magnificent
breastplate of pearls and precious stones, so that very little

ICON IN THE CONVENT OF NOVO-DEVITCHY.

330 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
of the painting remains visible except the faces and hands.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, according to
Mr. Maskell's statement in his excellent and very complete
South Kensington Hand-book of Russian Art, the practice
was introduced of almost entirely covering the picture with
a plate of metal simulating the contours of the human fig
ure and the robes, and allowing only the faces and hands to
appear through openings. All the icons in the old cathe
drals of the Kremlin are framed in this manner, and on
some of them the repousse or graven arabesque-work is very
delicate, while on others it is vulgar, heavy, and indicative of
Western influence. In the modern churches, like St. Isaac's,
at St. Petersburg, and the new Church of the Saviour, at
Moscow, it must be confessed that the ancient type of icon
ography has been departed from to a large extent. At St.
Isaac's stained glass of Munich manufacture, sculptured fig
ures, and paintings in the Western style have been intro
duced. This is true also in the case of the new Church of
the Saviour. However, it seemed to us during our visits to
these sanctuaries that these new Western paintings did not
excite the fervor of the humble worshippers to any apprecia
ble extent, while the more modest and old-fashioned metal-
cased icons were besieged with adorers.
The ornamental art of Russia may be observed in archi
tectural ensembles, in arms and other metal -work, in em
broidery, and in illuminated manuscripts, of which many fine
specimens are preserved in the sacristies of the churches
and convents of the empire. In this very complex art of
ornament and pattern designing we may distinguish in gen
eral two principles — the geometric, and the imitative or nat
uralistic, the former more especially Eastern, and the latter
Western. In Asiatic ornament one of the great motives is
entrelacs, or strap-work, which is geometric, and derived from
the combinations of cords, or .suggested by the products of

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

331

the loom. That such should be the characteristic of East
ern ornament is only natural when it is remembered that
the Asiatics have always been the great weavers of fine tis
sues. In Western ornament, on the other hand, the models
copied are natural objects, selected from the fauna and flora
of the country, from jewels, particularly pearls, and from
usual objects, such
as arms, torches, and
vases, treated realis
tically. Combined
with the strap-work
we find floral mo
tives, and also birds
and animals, but al
ways treated in the
style of arabesques
or grotesque silhou
ettes. From these
two principles have
been formed the or
namental styles of
India, Persia, Syria,
China, Greece,
Rome, and Byzan
tium. From all of
these styles Russia
borrowed elements
and suggestions, at
the same time con
tributing a local
Scythian element of her own. To illustrate this immense
subject would require more space and wood-cuts than we
can command, and also the aid of color, for in Russian orna
ment color is absolutely essential ; the Russian sense of the

yjm.'J,

'TSENINA'' ENAMELLED STOVES IN THE PALACE
OF THE KREMLIN.

332 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
harmony of color is marked, and its preferences very striking
and original. Those who wish to study Russian art thor
oughly will find abundant material in the many splendid pub
lications concerning the antiquities and treasures of the
empire, illustrated with remarkable productions in chromo-
lithography, which have been issued within the past twenty
years from the imperial presses, mostly with text in the Rus
sian tongue ; but in spite of these works and of the recent
activity of governmental art and archaeological commissions,
the great mass of the treasures of Russian art remains more
or less inaccessible, and therefore very little known. The
reader, however, may be referred to the familiar instances
offered by Russian embroidery and needle-work, the designs
of which are distinctly Asiatic, and go back to the earliest
times of the Russia of history. This work is for the most
part embroidered with the pattern on one side only in red
cotton, in simple lines or cross stitches, or in white with
threads drawn out, or in cottons, silks, and wools of different
colors. The patterns comprise mosaics, lozenges, and crosses,
with denticulated edges, floral motives of Persian aspect, men
animals, trees, and monsters. Many of these combinations
are religious signs and symbols, whose signification has been
lost for centuries to the vulgar, but which savants trace back
to the worship of Mithras and other primitive creeds. In the
old palace of the Terem we may study Russian ornament in
all its variety of design and color on every wall, every window-
case, every door-frame, and also on the monster stoves faced
with enamelled pottery known as tsenina — a kind of fine fai
ence introduced into Russia by the Byzantines in the tenth
century, and manufactured to perfection by the Russians in
the sixteenth. We may study it in the sanctuaries of the
churches, on the altars, like the curious carved wooden altar
to be seen at Rostoff, on the towers and cupolas, on the arms,
saddles, and harness, and on the thousand and one objects of

WOODEN ALTAR AT ROSTOFF.

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART.

335

metal-work, jewellery, embroidery, and stuffs exhibited in
the Treasury of the Kremlin. Often, perhaps, we shall be
shocked by the excessive glitter and display of Russian art
objects, by the exaggerated barbaric magnificence, by the
love of solid material, by the lavish display of material
wealth. We shall deny the Russians the delicate taste and
refined elegance of the Indians and Persians, and still we
shall admire in their work a certain grandeur and marked
originality. In their architecture and in their sentiment of
the silhouette and ensemble of an object we shall see a pe
culiar elegance and slender grace, and also a rare respect of
the purity of the contour. Whether the object be a bratina,
a drinking bowl, or the facade of a cathedral, the Russians,
like the Persians and Arabs, reserve for decorative sculpture
the discreet and logical role of enlivening with beauty and
incident what would otherwise be a blank space ; the orna
ment of the Russian architect and of the Russian goldsmith
and metal-worker is always a sort of tapestry or embroidery
in very low relief, which never interferes with, the architec
tonic or structural lines of an edifice, or of an object of use
or luxury. When we have seen Moscow and its treasures, its walls
and towers, its antique churches and palaces, its ancient
relics, and its carefully renovated monuments of the time of
the old Tsars, we can say that there exists a Russian na
tional art bearing as distinct a cachet as its village architect
ure, its embroidery, its music, and its costume. This art is
composed of a multitude of elements ; it has been moulded
and modified by innumerable influences of neighborhood
and intercourse ; in the formation of it foreign artists and
workmen took an indisputably large part. Byzantium, Per
sia, and India contributed a large contingent; Lombard
architects came to build the churches ; English, Germans,
Poles, and Hungarians also entered the workshops of the

1 l(
336 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE. 1 1.
Tsars, bringing each an element of skill and formative energy.
It must, however, be remarked that there is always a differ
ence between the work which such imported labor produces
from its own genius and that which it produces with the
collaboration of native artists or to please native tastes.
The artist transplanted to a foreign soil both gives and re
ceives ; he adapts himself to his changed conditions ; he
engrafts types and elements found in his new country upon
the art of his own, and according as his new impressions or
his souvenirs are stronger, the art he produces will be more
or less imbued with the spirit of his adopted country or
with reminiscences of his original father-land. The architect
of the Church of Vassili Blagennoi is a case in point: he was
an Italian, and yet he conceived and built the most charac
teristically Russian edifice that exists. Arriving at Moscow
in the sixteenth century, when Russian art in all its branches
was at its apogee, and when the court of the Tsars and the
life of the Boyards were marked by all that splendor and
barbaric magnificence which has been chronicled by the old
travellers, this anonymous genius, who was necessarily an
adventurous spirit, and doubtless a man of wide instruction
and manifold talents, as were all the eminent creative minds
of his epoch, abandoned himself with joy to the mass of new
impressions that presented themselves on all sides to his
wondering eyes and receptive mind. He saw the singular
towers of the Kremlin, some with their reminiscences of the
architectonic system of native Russian carpentry, others
suggestive of the conical structures of Persia and Susiana,
others mounting stepwise, tier above tier, and terminating in
a pyramid. He appreciated the original silhouette of the
bulbous cupola and the effect to be obtained from its brill
iant metallic covering. Learned in the constructive meth
ods of the West, he studied the system of building vaults
and arches which the Russians had acquired from the Syri-

THE KREMLIN AND RUSSIAN ART. 337
ans and other Asiatic neighbors; he mastered the Oriental
theory of superimposed arches, and Convinced himself that
they were logical, and their lines and points of pressure and
resistance mathematically correct; he accepted the principle
of polychrome edifices, and methodized the various means of
pigments, tiles, imbrications, and ceramic panels ; he appre
ciated the Russian sentiment of elegant, pure, and towering
silhouettes, and the great principle of discreet and flat deco
rative sculpture ; the influences of India, of Mongolia, of
Byzantium, and of Persia, which h.ad by this time become
fused and incorporated in the living ensemble of Russian
national art, resolved themselves once more in his mind,
each into its native individuality; and vibrating with the
aesthetic intensity of the artist nature in presence of some
novel and sympathetic manifestation of art, intoxicated with
the chimerical magnificence of all that surrounded him,
flushed and fevered by the atmosphere of Asiatic splendor
and gorgeous barbarity in which he suddenly found himself
placed, the Italian architect conceived in a moment of propi
tious energy that marvellous and unspeakably original mon
ument which is the compendium, quintessence, and complete
type of Russian art, the Church of Vassili Blagennoi.
22

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.
Bv THEODORE CHILD.

THE visitor to Moscow who takes any interest in paint
ing should not fail to make an excursion across the
river, where, in a shabby street running at right angles to
the quay, indifferently paved, and lined with gardens and
monotonous gray houses altogether wanting in architectu
ral elegance, he will find the dwelling of the merchant M. P.
Tretiakoff. In front is a large gravelled court-yard, in which
you see traces of commerce ; to the right of the house are
offices and counting-rooms ; to the left a door and a vesti
bule, where a mujik receives you with smiling obeisance,
takes charge of your cloaks, offers you the use of a dressing-
room, and otherwise kindly entreats you by order of the rich
merchant; then, when you appear to be quite at your ease,
the mujik opens a door and admits you to the galleries where
M. Tretiakoff has gathered together the cream of modern
Russian art. The Russian painters have two great patrons,
the Tsar and M. Tretiakoff. The latter is the more intelli
gent of the two, inasmuch as he collects with method, en
deavoring to obtain the finest specimens of the work of the
best artists, not only their finished pictures, but also their
drawings and studies, all with a view to forming a Russian
national gallery of art. This scheme his great fortune has
enabled him to realize, and his immense collection of pictures
,#

22'

342 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
displayed in spacious galleries comprises the elements nec
essary for forming an idea of the true state of modern Rus
sian art. Additional elements may be found in the two
rooms devoted to modern painting in the Hermitage Muse
um at St. Petersburg, in the Prianischnikoff collection in the
Moscow Museum, in the pictures to be seen in the various
imperial palaces and in private collections, and of course in
the various annual exhibitions, of which the most interesting
is the so-called Ambulant Exhibition, which is held at St.
Petersburg first, and is transported successively to the great
provincial towns. The churches and monasteries also offer
important specimens of religious art, which plays a very great
role in holy Russia.
Let us suppose ourselves in the Tretiakoff galleries. We
pass indifferently through the lower rooms, encumbered with
screens covered with water-colors and drawings of no great
artistic merit ; we note some three hundred studies and pict
ures by Verestchagin ; we go up-stairs and hurry through
a series of rooms which we promise ourselves to visit in de
tail later, after we have seen the Repines. Where are the
Repines ? We are impatient to see the work of this artist,
whose fame has long been known to us, but whose pictures
we have seen only in reproductions — an etching of his fa
mous " Boat-haulers, or Bourlaki, on the Volga," the property
of the Grand-Duke Wladimir, and a photograph of a picture
representing Count Leo Tolstoi driving a plough.
At last, in the room at the extreme end of the gallery, on
the first floor, we find ourselves in presence of no less than
thirty pictures and portraits by Repine (born 1844 in the
government of Tchernigov, educated at the Academy of St.
Petersburg). Here indeed is something thoroughly Russian.
It is a picture dated 1881, and representing a Russian wed
ding party enjoying themselves in a traktir, or inn. Peas
ants are seated all round the room, the men with their big

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

343

boots, long coats, and yellow hair, the women decked out
with flowers, kakochniks, and gaudy jewellery. To the right
are some peasants playing, the one a fiddle, the other a fife,

ELIAS EFIMOVITCH REPINE.

the other a tambourine with bells ; near them stands a table
with on it jars and bottles full of flowers, and a dish of sun
flower seeds for the delectation of the visitors, the Russian
mujik, as we have already explained in previous pages, being

344 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
never completely happy unless he is cracking and chewing
these gray pods. The walls of the traktir are decorated
with icons, images, and embroidery, and across the room is
stretched a cord on which are tied two coarse tallow can
dles, lighting up the centre of the picture, where the bride
and the bridegroom are dancing, the girl laughing and up
right, while her partner, in his shirt- sleeves, with baggy
breeches and tall boots, stoops toad-like to execute the un
graceful step familiarly known in Anglo-Saxon countries as
" little man." The effect of artificial light, the frank gayety
of the fat peasant bride with her necklace of big beads and
her long blond braided hair tied up with knots of many-
colored ribbons, the character of the whole scene, and the
character of each individual person and detail, are admirably
rendered. The idea of the picture is expressed with a force
that is perhaps not quite free from rudeness ; but the vision
of the reality is so clear, so direct, and so human that we are
captivated and interested. Another thoroughly Russian pict
ure is the " Procession of the Virgin of Kasan," coming along
a country road full face towards the spectator. To the right
the land rises and forms a hill, with clumps of trees and old
stumps ; to the left the foreground is the white sandy road ;
the background is veiled in clouds of roseate dust ; before us
is the procession — the priest with his long yellow hair and
his gorgeous gold-embroidered vestments ; the sacred image
of the Virgin of Kasan that works miracles, borne aloft and
surrounded by peasants carrying lanterns bedecked with
streaming ribbons, and with candles burning inside ; other
peasants carrying banners and icons of minor distinction ;
in the immediate foreground, beside the holy image, a red-
faced merchant's wife panting almost to the point of apo
plexy under the honor of carrying a heavy gold-bound ritual
book ; officers, gendarmes, and other dignitaries on horse
back, rising above the common plebeian herd ; a compact

i^W^

"AT THE THEATRE." — From the drawing by Elias Efimovitch Repin

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

547

throng of humanity toiling along in full sunlight, dusty, sweat
ing, fagged, and yet sustained by mingled feelings of piety,
vanity, the satisfaction of accomplished duty, the assertion of
self, the willing acceptance of the superiority of others. In
depicting character Repine excels all Russian painters, and
among the living artists of other countries it is not easy to
name his equals. Of this talent he gave striking proof in
the "Boat-haulers of the Volga," painted in 1870-73, his
first picture, and one of his best. The original is now in the
Annitchkoff Palace at St. Petersburg, and consequently inac
cessible to the public ; but there exists a good etching of the
work, the composition of which was given in Harper's Mag
azine for June, 1889; while in the Tretiakoff gallery there
is a complete series of remarkable painted studies of the dif
ferent figures that compose the gang of human brutes whose r
sad lot it has become to act as beasts of draught. ^In mod
ern painting I know of no more poignant composition than
these boat-haulers, and of no more simple and intense repre
sentation of laborious misery, of weary resignation, or of hope
less and momentary revolt against galling and degrading toil,
than these dozen figures of young and old victims of man's
inhumanity to man, whose brown and dusty rags, bronzed
faces, red or yellow hair, and straining silhouettes form a
sad symphony of suffering against the luminous pearliness of
the clear sky and background of broad waters reddened with
the rosy morning sunlight.
An example of Repine's character-work in a gayer note
is given in our illustration "At the Theatre" — a fac-simile of
a black-and-white drawing by the artist. The mise en scene
of this composition, the variety of the types depicted, the im
pression of life given by all these men, women, and children
literally shaking with laughter, the characteristic laugh of
each one so curiously studied in the pose of the head, the
contortion of the mouth, the wrinkling of the cheeks, and

348 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the expression of the eyes — all this is very admirable, and to
be appreciated with joy.
From the point of view of mere painting, the most re
markable picture that Repine has produced is the " Return
of the Exile " ( 1 884), represented in our engraving. The scene
takes place in a simply furnished room, the walls hung with
cheap paper of a bluish-green tint, and decorated with com
mon religious prints, a map, and a few portraits. To the left
is a half-glass door opening into a garden, and flooding the
room with a stream of reflected sunlight. The boards of the
floor are bare ; the table is covered with a white cloth over a
scarlet one ; the chairs are of the most modern and prosaic
bent wood with perforated seats ; the one easy-chair is uphol
stered with the usual green stamped velvet ; in the corner of
the room is a piano. We are here in a characteristic Rus
sian home. The children are busy with their lessons and
their music, while the mother is meditating in the warm still
ness of the afternoon, when suddenly the servant introduces
a strange visitor, whose costume and appearance excite her
astonishment. She holds the door open, with her hand on
the latch, and in the second room we see another servant
peering curiously at the strange visitor, who advances with
hesitating step and inquiring look, wondering whether they
will recognize the exile, whether this is really his home,
whether he is free indeed and not walking in a dream. How
wretched and emaciated he looks in his loose brown coat, his
crumpled plaid neck-cloth, his dusty, well-worn boots ! How
anxious his expression !
The mother rises from the easy-chair slowly, her body
bent forward in an attitude of mingled surprise, inquiry, and
hardly restrained desire to spring forward and fall upon the
exile's neck. The girl at the piano looks at him with star
ing eyes and an exclamation of astonishment The boy in
his college uniform looks round with a smile, and the girl

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

349

who is working beside him at the table, with her hands
clasped under the cloth, and her feet dangling together,
raises her eyes from her slate, and turns her head to see

" RETURN OF THE EXILE FROM SIBERIA,
From the painting by Elias Efimovitch Rapine.

who is this intruder who has broken the em tut of an insolu
ble sum. The reader may judge from our engraving how
vividly and yet how discreetly the story is told, how natural

350 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the gestures and expression, how intense the realism of the
whole scene, and how uncommon the general aspect of the
picture. The original painting is remarkable for qualities
that artists will appreciate, because they know how difficult
they are to obtain : each object has its color ; everything is
clear and distinct, adequately drawn, and admirably painted,
having its exact value in the envelope of atmosphere ; the
lighting of the picture is wonderful for its verity, and every
shadow is luminous and full of air. As a piece of realistic
painting, treated at the same time with distinction of vision,
the " Return of the Exile " will bear comparison with the
very finest modern pictures of the kind that can be men
tioned. In another note we may notice two large historical pict
ures — the one, dated 1879, represents Sophia, the sister of
Peter the Great, who attempted to revive in Russia the
Byzantine tradition of the occult empresses Pulcheria and
Olga, reigned as regent autocratice during the boyhood of
her brother, plotted against the great Tsar's life, and was
finally imprisoned in the Dievitchi Monastyr, where Repine
has depicted her clad in a dress of white gold brocade, her
arms folded, and leaning against the corner of a table, with
scowling brow and furious eyes, her hair hanging loose and
dishevelled over her shoulders. In the background, through
an open door, we see a chapel with the burnished brass icon-
ostases illuminated with flaming candles ; the walls of the
room are richly decorated with images ; to the left, in the
middle distance, is a table with on it a casket, a mirror, and
a jewelled candlestick ; at the back, against the polychrome
door-post, a little nun stands expectant in terror behind So
phia ; to the right of the picture is a barred window, through
which we see a dead soldier hanging head downward from
an iron crossbar, on which are sitting three carrion-crows
waiting calmly for their prey.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

351

The other picture, reproduced in our engraving, repre
sents Ivan the Terrible embracing the gory head of his son,
whom he has mortally wounded in a frenzy of anger. The
scene takes place in one of the sombre rooms of the Grano-
vitaya Palace ; in the corner is a polychrome faience stove ;
on the wall, a picture with richly jewelled frame; settles and
chests of curiously inlaid-work are placed around the room,
and on the floor are strewn rich Oriental rugs. One day,
in an altercation with his eldest son and heir Ivan, the Tsar,
whose character was a strange mixture of greatness and of
brutality, struck the young man with his iron-pointed cane ;
the blow was fatal. The Tsar's fury immediately gave place
to immense and fierce grief. By killing his son and heir he
undid all his life's work, for of his other two sons, Feodor
was an idiot and Dimitri an infant, and he could only sadly
reflect that the consequence of this cruel misfortune would
be that he would have founded the autocracy for the benefit
of strangers, and doubtless for one of those boyars whom
he detested, and whom he had combated at the cost of so
much bloodshed and so many perils. Ivan the Terrible
died in 1584, having survived only three years the event
which Repine has so tragically represented. The back
ground of this picture is all in shadow; the light is concen
trated strongly on the central group, of the father, with his
hair standing on end, his eyes starting out of his head, his
brow bedaubed with blood, clasping his dying son, who is
clad in the splendor of a peach-flower silk, robe and green
boots embroidered with gold. T-hkL-_pieture is a marvellous
evocation of the barbaric richness, the ferocity of manners,
and the tragic grandeur of Muscovy in the sixteenth cen-„
tury ; it is a wonderful piece of color. ff
Repine, besides being equally remarkable in historical,
genre, and character pictures, excels also as a portrait-paint
er. He seems to take peculiar pleasure in immortalizing

352 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
the features of the great artists of his own race, and among
his finest works of this kind are portraits of Rubinstein,
of the poet Fofanoff, of Turguenief, and especially of the
great novelist Tolstoi, whom he has painted in many poses.
One portrait of Tolstoi, of singular physiognomic intensity,
represents him three-quarters length on a white background
sitting in an arm-chair, clad in a black blouse with a strap
round his waist, holding a book in one hand, and grasping
the elbow of the chair with the other. This portrait is dated
1887. Another very interesting portrait represents Tolstoi
tilling the soil. In a delicate pearly landscape with pale
green upland and pure white and blue sky in the back
ground, Tolstoi wearing a white cap, mujik's boots, and a
blue blouse, his long white beard floating in the breeze, is
represented in the act of guiding a primitive wooden plough
drawn by a patient white horse, while he holds, by the bridle,
another white horse that follows dragging a harrow. In the
distance, over the expanse of brown earth, we notice two
other teams of ploughs and harrows working in different
directions. One other picture by Repine which we cannot omit to
mention is that hung at the top of the staircase in the Great
Palace at Moscow, representing the present Tsar at St. Pe
tersburg saluting the people after his coronation, one of the
most wonderful renderings of a contemporary crowd that has
yet been produced. In the centre of the composition the
Tsar advances, followed by the Tsarina, the imperial children,
and a suite of dignitaries of all sorts. The crowd, bare
headed and respectful, stands in line, keeping the path free —
a crowd of mujiks and popular types of all kinds. In the
background, beyond the crowd, we see some iron gates and
railings, and farther away a suggestion of the Neva, with
boats and distant buildings. The sun blazes down upon the
scene, the light is reflected up from the pavement on to the

=r -L.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

J53

costumes and faces, and, to complete the modernity of the
whole, the Tsarina and the imperial children are depicted
with their parasols open.
From the above notes and from the few examples repro
duced in our illustrations, the reader will be able to form
some idea of the variety and wide scope of Repine's talent,
and therefore to comprehend why we give him so high a

1 IVAN THE TERRIBLE AND HIS SON. — From the painting by Elias Efimovitch Repine.

place in contemporary art. Repine is essentially a Russian
painter in the sense that he is most happily — indeed, one
may say that he is only — inspired by Russian subjects; he is
the portraitist of the great geniuses of modern Russia ; he
is the historiographer of the ceremonies that most deeply
touch the Russian heart, such as the communion of the Tsar
23

354 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
with his people, and the processions of the sacred images ; in
his genre pictures, he strikes the most diverse chords of hu
man sentiments : the gross jollity of a rustic wedding dance,
the equally frank gayety of the middle classes enjoying a
comedy at the theatre, the heart-rending spectacle of the
misery of the Bourlaki, the humors of the peasants, the foi
bles of the " nobles," in the Russian sense of the term ; in
his historical pictures he has evoked tragic souvenirs of the
terrible and heroic past with a power of imagination, a di
rectness of rendering, and a simple realism which place him
in the first rank of artistic intelligences. "At the same time
that he is essentially Russian in fibre, and while retaining
always the integrity of his artistic personality, Repine is a
painter as well as an artist, and a draughtsman as well as a
painter. ''In his best work — for instance, in the " Return of
the Exile," the " Bourlaki," or " Ivan the Terrible and his
Son " — we never have to regret inadequacies of expression.
On the other hand, Repine is essentially Russian, and
modern Russian, in his conception of the domain of the
painter's observation ; he is a realist, a democrat, a man
newly arrived at " intelligence," as the Russians say, speak
ing of that curious mental state that has been observable
in Russia since the emancipation and the breaking up of
the autocratic empire such as Nicholas dreamed, and almost
realized. Like Antocolski, the sculptor, the friend of his
youth, Repine is a man of humble origin who has been sud
denly provided with all the terrible analytical instruments of
Western culture, but not at the same time with the safe
guards of Western traditions and prejudices. Repine, how
ever, has been preserved from the abuse of analysis — so com
mon among the Russian literary men and Russian painters
of his generation — by his joy in art and by the healthiness
and happiness of his nature, so visibly written on his express
ive, kindly, and sympathetic physiognomy. For Repine, as

m>i

rfftttfc

m

"*g

_¦
ii* |f,i 1 1 Hi]
HLf§. i i ii i

" LA CHANSON DE L'ESCLAVE." — From the painting by H. Siemiradzki.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART. 357
for all the Russian artists of the modern school, reality alone
exists and is respectable ; ideas of selection, of charm of as
pect, of daintiness, play but a small role in his work; he
paints scenes of real life with all their reality ; he paints
portraits of men who are coarse -looking, rough-hewn, but
living and full of character ; he paints sick children and
ugly old women, but always with an underlying and unob
trusive note of commiseration. His realism has much in
common with that of the modern French school. Indeed,
we may remark that the contemporary Russian painters in
general, so far as the spirit of their work is concerned, pre
sent many points of resemblance with the younger painters
of France, who have been influenced by the grand move
ment of emancipation from academic formulae, and by its
counterpart in literature, known as the naturalist evolution.
It might be curious also to note the very strong impres
sion made upon the French mind by the excessively ana
lytic literature of the Russian reform era, particularly by
the novels of Tolstoi and Dostoievsky, and by the doctrines
therein set forth, which certain French dilettanti have con
veniently characterized by the name of the " religion of hu
man suffering." At the Paris Salons of late years we have
remarked the evolution of art from idealism to realism, and
to humanity. Nowadays the favorite subjects of French
painters are portraits, landscapes, scenes of reality, incidents
in the ordinary existence of those who till the soil or of
those who work at trades, episodes of the joys or miseries
of the daily life of the masses. There is even a tendency in
France to prefer sad subjects to joyous ones, and the num
ber of funereal or elegiac pictures in the last Salon was the
matter of general remark. This community of tendency,
however, concerns, as we have said, only the spirit of the
work of the French and Russian schools, and it is perhaps
an inevitable phase of democratic art. Both Russians and
23*

358 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
French seem to delight in gross and gloomy popular sub
jects, and in a realism that suggests everything except ideas
of contentment and serenity ; but while the Russians paint
such pictures, as a rule, with only sufficient technique to
convey the requisite impression, the French display in them
a sincerity and completeness of vision, and a frankness and
skill in execution, that often attain perfection. In emanci
pated Russia, as in democratic France, the plebeian multitude
is the great factor in the life of the nation, and therefore in
the art and in the literature of both countries the sincere
observers, and at the same time those who are influenced by
fashion, are naturally attracted by plebeian subjects. The
kind of scenes and of characters which art depicts is always
a question of social form and of dominant classes.
Between Repine and other living Russian artists, and
also between Repine and the glories of Russian art of the
past, there is a vast distance. In reality Russia has pro
duced few artists and few painters ; the majority of the
Russian picture - makers are men who have used line and
color merely as a sort of writing to express religious, poet
ical, or humanitarian ideas. The mystic tendency of the
Russian mind would alone suffice to explain this phenom
enon, but we must not forget that painting is an exotic
growth in Russia, and that it has grown up under the fos
tering care of Italian and German influences, and still more
recently it has been strongly influenced by Panslavist, Re
formist, and even Nihilist theories. The introduction of the
fine arts formed part of the programme of Western civiliza
tion which Peter the Great elaborated when he abandoned
Moscow, the city of the Tsars, and built St. Petersburg, the
city of the Emperors, the stronghold of that German culture
which prevailed in Russia for more than a century and a
half, and against the remnants of which Panslavism has still
to struggle. The native art of Russia, as we have seen in

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

359

" Moscow, the Kremlin, and Russian Art," is Byzantine and
hieratic when it leaves the domain of ornament. Peter the
Great sent many young men to study in Italy, with a view
to creating a new Russian art on the model of the art which
he had seen during his European peregrinations. These
young men, on their return, painted images in the churches
in the style of the Italian masters, and specimens of their
work may be seen at St. Petersburg in the Peter Paul Cathe
dral in the Fortress. In 1757 the Empress Elizabeth was
induced to found an Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1704
Catherine II. gave this Academy new statutes, endowed it
richly, and built for it the immense palace on the Vassili-
Ostroff Quay, which has since remained the great art school
of Russia. The early pupils of the Academy, in the time of
the Emperor Paul, were given to painting fresco in the style
of Watteau and Boucher, and much of their work may still be
seen in various palaces. In the time of Alexander I. there
lived artists with some semblance of talent, which was devel
oped by long residence in Italy and by servile study of the an
cient masters, and also of the efforts of the German artists of
the school of Kaulbach, Cornelius, Overbeck, and Pschnorr.
Such were the elder Ivanoff (1775-1827); K. P. Bruloff (1799-
1852), whose colossal and empty picture of the "Last Day of
Pompeii" is in the Hermitage Gallery; F. A. Bruni (1801-
1875), whose picture of the "Brazen Serpent," likewise in the
Hermitage, is one of the most gigantic and horrible academic
pictures ever painted; V. I. Jacoby (born 1834), whose " Halt
of Exiles " is in the Tretiakoff gallery, and who, in Russian
genre subjects, and in historical scenes from the French Revo
lution, has equalled the worst efforts of his Western rivals and
models; A. A. Ivanoff (1806-1855), a very cold and feeble
painter of religious subjects; C. D. Flavitzki (1 830-1 866), the
painter of Christian martyrs and of colossal bituminous histor
ical scenes ; T. A. von Neff (1 805-1 877), a painter of nymphs

360 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and nudities, and also the author of the principal icons in
the cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg and in the Tem
ple of the Saviour at Moscow; Gue (born 1831), who has
treated various sacred subjects with an apparent novelty of
realism, which is only a cloak for vulgarity and poverty of
imagination. Of the work of all these men there is little to be said ex
cept that it is cold, academic, uninteresting, and a monument
of wasted effort. In the many huge canvases of this epoch
which may be seen in the Academy of St. Petersburg and in
the museums of the Hermitage and of Moscow, it is hard to
find a single spontaneous touch, a delicately observed effect,
an evidence of a hand and a brain vibrating in unison in
presence of a noble vision of nature.
Of the same generation is the marine painter, I. C. Aiva-
zovski, whose Jubilee was one of the great events of artistic
Russia in 1887. Aivazovski was born in 18 17 at Theodosia,
in the Crimea, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy and at
Rome, and became famous all over Europe, even in exclusive
Paris, where he has been well known since the Exhibition of
1855. He exhibited also at the Universal Exhibitions of
1867 and 1875, and frequently at the Salon, where he ob
tained a third medal in 1843 and the Legion of Honor in
1857. Aivazovski, who forty years ago was looked upon as
a realist, appears to our modern eyes as an idealist of the Ro
mantic school, a sort of Victor Hugo of the palette, delight
ing in the Titanic struggles of sea and sky, in the tragic
splendors of sunset, in the weird dreaminess of moonlight on
the watery plains of the Black Sea, in the fantastic forms of
waves, spray, and mist that the poet's mind fashions into
visions of the " Birth of Venus." He is interesting as a ma
rine painter, and characteristically Russian in his often fan
ciful and, so to speak, literary vision of nature.
Only a few years younger than Aivazovski is Alexis

^2i

' SUMMER NIGHT IN OLD POMPEII." — From the painting by H. Siemiradzki.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART. 363
Bogoluboff (born 1824), pupil of the Academy of St. Peters
burg, official painter to the Emperor and to the Russian
Admiralty, the graphic historian of all the notable episodes
in the annals of the Russian navy. Bogoluboff's work is
enormous in quantity, and as good as official painting can
be. He lives in Paris, where he is president of the club of
Russian artists, whose principal members are the genre paint
er Kharlamoff (born 1842), the well-known portraitist George
Lehmann, and a very gifted and delicate artist, Ivan Pokhi-
tonof, whose ambition it is to treat landscape in the micro
scopic and yet broad style of Meissonier.
We now come to two names of European celebrity, Con
stantine Makowski (born 1839) and Henry Siemiradzki (born
1843). Makowski is a weak draughtsman and a poor painter,
who nevertheless makes a great sensation by his large pict
ures in the style of Makart, Matejko, Brozik, Piloty, and
other Teutonic masters who revel in gaudy paint and super
abundant costumes and accessaries. One of his best pict
ures is the " Procession of the Carpet of the" Prophet at
Cairo" (1876), now in the Hermitage. Other notable works
by this artist are the " Roussalki " (1879), also in the Her
mitage Museum — white phantoms of women floating in the
vapors of the night over the surface of the lakes; a "Rus
sian Wedding in the Sixteenth Century," well known in
New York ; the " Choice of the Bride " — all three very large
compositions, so full of shortcomings that they can appeal
only to very untutored eyes.
M. Henry Siemiradzki lives at Rome, and seeks his in
spiration almost exclusively in souvenirs of the times of the
Caesars. In order to give an immediate idea of his talent
we might say that Siemiradzki is the Russian Alma-Ta
dema, with this difference, that he requires an enormous can
vas to tell a story which Alma-Tadema would relate on a
thirty -inch panel. Our engraving of Siemiradzki's "La

^364 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Chanson de l'Esclave " shows a pleasing specimen of his
talent. From the point of view of the exacting modern
critic, Siemiradzki's painting will not provoke great admira
tion ; on the other hand, he has marked qualities of style, of
elegance, of refinement, and of felicitous invention, and the
general aspect of his pictures is not commonplace/' At the
Paris Exhibition of 1878, Siemiradzki received the Medal of
Honor in the Russian section, and the decoration of the
Legion of Honor, for his colossal picture of Christian mar
tyrs, called " Nero's Living Torches," which has been made
popular by many photographs. The scene is that described
by Suetonius, when Nero comes out of his palace, borne in a
litter, to enjoy the spectacle of the gardens of the Esquiline
illuminated at nightfall by the living torches formed of
Christian martyrs swathed in tow and pitch, and blazing on
the tops of tall stakes planted in rows. The accessaries in
this picture are painted with wonderful skill, but the figures
are rather lacking in expression and movement. The same
remark applies to another famous picture by Siemiradz
ki, "The First Meeting of Christ and Mary Magdalene,"
inspired by Alexis Tolstoi's poem, which describes Mary
touched by grace and smitten with repentance in the midst
of a feast. Siemiradzki, it may be remarked, particularly de
lights in painting scenes of luxury and excess.
Other notable pictures by this artist are the " Danse des
Glaives " — a very charming and delicate vision of vanished
Roman civilization — the suave idyl of youth and love called
a " Summer Night in Old Pompeii," reproduced in our en
graving, " Une Orgie a Capri sous Tibere," and " La Coupe
ou la Femme." The Emperor of Russia and the Grand-
Dukes own several pictures by M. Siemiradzki, and the
splendid Temple of the Saviour at Moscow contains seven
mural paintings by him, of which the principal is the " Last
Supper." In the Historical Museum at Moscow M. Siemi-

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

367

radzki has two large pictures, forming part of the mural dec
oration. At the recent Melbourne Exhibition his picture
of pirates selling slaves received a gold medal. His latest
production is a vast composition representing " Phryne at
Eleusis appearing to the People as Venus Anadyomene."
The Russians are fairly rich in portrait, genre, and land
scape painters, whose work has a strong savor of the soil.
Among the most remarkable are Nicolas Swertchkoff (born
1 81 7), the water-color painter Sokoloff (born 1823), Peroff
(1834-1882), Kramskoi (1837-1887), H. M. Prianischnikoff
(born 1839), Lemoch (born 1842), Vladimir Makovski (born
1846), Troutovski (born 1826), and the landscapists Schisch-
kine (born 1831), and Klever (born 1850). To these names
may be added those of Tchoumakoff, Rohmann, M. Ha-
renck, W. Szymanovski, J. Pankiewicz, Josef Chelmonski, so
well known in Paris as an illustrator, and of Albert Edelfeldt
(born 1854), who owes his artistic education to Antwerp, and
who, like another distinguished Russian painter, Verestcha-
gin, is a pupil of Gerome, and to all intents and purposes a
Parisian, although he is an Academician of St. Petersburg.
The young Russian lady Marie Bashkirseff, who died a few
years ago, was virtually a Parisian, educated in Paris. Her
pictures, one of which hangs in the Luxembourg Museum at
Paris, are essentially French. The two sons of the eminent
sculptor Klodt must also be mentioned among the painters
of the present day: one of them, Michel Constantinovitch,
is a distinguished landscapist; the other, Michel Petrovitch
Klodt, excels in genre pictures of a sentimental kind, such
as " Leaving the Convent," reproduced in our engraving.
Swertchkoff has exhibited at Paris and in other Euro
pean capitals. At the Salon of 1863 he was recompensed
with the Legion of Honor, and recognized as a pronounced
individuality. One of his best pictures is an effect of sun

1.
r-
ie

368 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
on snow, the " Return from a Bear Hunt," as striking for th j e
novelty of the subject as for the verity of the impressior
Swertchkoff's work is very considerable, and varied by po
traits and some military pictures, but he excels in landscau
animated by cattle and figures, and in the incidents of Rus
sian rural life and travel. Sokoloff, like Swertchkoff, exceus
in rendering the character of the sturdy little Russian horsi'e,
•the picturesque aspects of a sleigh toiling through a blizzard,
or of a troika speeding across a melancholy plain. Both
painters depict by preference the scenery and types of Little
Russia. At the Paris Exhibition of i88g Sokoloff was rep
resented by a large and luminous water-color of the " Horse-
Fair at Nijnii-Novgorod," full of character. Chelmonski too
had at the same exhibition a very clever picture of a horse-
fair, beautiful in color and painted with wonderful skill.
Peroff, whom the Russians consider to be one of their best
painters, interests us mainly by the subjects he treats, and
the types and local customs which he depicts. His pictures
are all either dramatic or comic, and his comedy is some
times a little pretentious. Peroff's " Fisherman," in specta
cles, watching his float, his " Bird-catchers," his " Troika," the
" Peasant Funeral," and many of his other works, which may
be seen in the Tretiakoff gallery, have been popularized by
engravings and lithographs. Kramskoi, who died recently
in the prime of his life and talent, was one of the most per
sonal and interesting painters of young Russia. Several ad
mirable portraits by him may be seen at Moscow, and also
an excellent picture, " The Widow," representing a modern
interior with its commonplace furniture and all the paltry
accessaries of contemporary civilization, even to the photo
graph album that lies on the table. Beside the table stands
a woman in black, holding a handkerchief to her face, look
ing sad, tearful, and dishevelled. This is a very simple and
powerful picture.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

369

H. M. Prianischnikoff, who must not be confounded with
the prolific and most talented illustrator Ivan Pranischnikoff,
is a very strong painter. In the Tretiakoff collection may
be seen his best character picture, some " Merchants Amus
ing Themselves," " The Retreat from Moscow," representing
French soldiers being led by peasants, a gray landscape
effect with a man fishing, a guitar-player, etc. Prianischni-
koff's talent is most varied. Ivan Pranischnikoff is also a
painter who deals by preference with military subjects and
landscapes. At the Paris Exhibition he made a considerable
display of very small pictures treated almost like colored
photographs. This artist's vision is merciless ; it takes in
every blade of grass, every hair, every stitch in a coat, and
combined with great skill in miniature painting, it enables
him to produce pictures that deserve the honor of a magni-
fying-glass attached to the frame by a gilt chain. Lemoch
is the painter of aged women, beggars, and pathetic subjects
in the style of the old Ecouen school. Troutovski's work,
like that of Sokoloff, Swertchkoff, and Peroff, is interesting
as being a faithful representation of local truth, and partic
ularly of peasant life and manners. Vladimir Makovski (born
1846), one of the most prolific and versatile of Russian paint
ers, holds in the national pictorial art a place similar to that
of Ostrowski among the dramatists. He is the indefatigable
student of the middle classes, of the shopkeepers, the mer
chants, the servants, the functionaries; of the foibles and van
ities of contemporary Russian mankind ; of the amiable, the
comic, or the humorous aspects of daily Russian life. Vladi
mir Makovski paints broadly and strongly ; he is equally
happy in rendering effects of in-door and of out-door light ;
and his painting displays many of the qualities of atmosphere,
envelope, and exactness of relative values to which so much
importance is justly attached by the painters of Western
Europe. 24

370 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Yet another genre painter is N. A. Yarochenko, whose
" Life Everywhere," now in the Tretiakoff collection, was the
great picture at the Ambulant Exhibition in 1888. The as
pect of this picture is pale ; the color is not true to nature ;
it is, indeed, tinting rather than color, and suggests certain
anaemic German work. The Russian public is, however, still
in that very primitive state of artistic culture where the sub
ject of a picture is its first concern and also its last. " Life
Everywhere," the composition of which is shown in our
sketch, represents a green railway prison-car, with iron-barred
windows, drawn up along the platform of a station. Look
ing through the bars are the prisoners, old men and young,
and a Madonna-faced woman holding a baby, who is throw
ing bread-crumbs to the pigeons and sparrows fluttering at
liberty outside. The sentiment of this picture, the patiently
painted heads of carefully selected but common types, the ob
vious contrasts of youth and age and of liberty and captivity,
the apparent realism of the green railway car, the arrange
ment of the picture designed to favor the illusion of a trompe-
I'ceil — all these points contributed to its success ; and if the
truth must be told, it is probable that the same points would
assure the success of Yarochenko's work in other countries
as well as Russia, for, all the world over, the general public
is the ready dupe of sensational or Tendenz pictures, to use
a Teutonic expression.
For that matter, what success has fallen to the lot of
Vassili Verestchagin (born 1842) is due to the tendency of
his work rather than to its purely artistic merit. 'Verest
chagin, so far as he is known to the public of both hemi
spheres, is above all things a sensational painter who never
forgets that he is essentially a humanitarian philosopher, a
would-be solver of grave political and social problems, a the
orist and a polemist who expounds and combats with paint
in the place of ink, a portentous St. Michael who strives to

' LIFE EVERYWHERE." — From the painting by N. A. Yarochenko.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

373

kill the Dragon of War by plunging down its throat the lance
of Humanity. The impression produced by Verestchagin's
pictures of the horrors and realities of war has been im
mense wherever he has exhibited them. At Vienna the im
patience of the populace to see them was even so great that
horse-guards had to be placed round the doors of the Kunst-
lerhaus in order to preserve regularity. But with all these
fearful representations of the horrors of Plevna and Tashkend,
Verestchagin has never achieved a purely artistic success, for
the simple reason that he is not primarily an artist or a paint
er, but a traveller, an ethnographer, a philosopher of the " Ni
hilist " species, a victim of the abuse of analysis. His pictures
of the wars in Central Asia and in Bulgaria, his souvenirs of
China, India, and Palestine, his, innumerable studies of human
types, are curious and valuable documents indeed, rich in
facts of form and color, and in material for moral and social
deductions ; but we look to them in vain for aesthetic pleas
ure such as we find in contemplating a simple portrait by
Rembrandt, a suave vision of beauty by Botticelli, or a thick-
lipped infanta by Velasquez. In the Tretiakoff gallery may
be seen the greater part of Verestchagin's work, many of his
most famous pictures, and nearly three hundred studies. The
pictures we look at with distrust, often with disgust, some
times with curiosity, never with joyous satisfaction. In all
Verestchagin's work, that which gives us true aesthetic pleas
ure is here and there a swift and delicate painted study of
some Oriental horseman speeding across a parched plain, or
a note of calm and fatalist Eastern types against the back
ground of a faience-walled mosque. In these studies Verest
chagin gives proof of wonderful precision of eye.
But to return to our purely Russian painters : we may
mention among the notable landscapists Schischkine and
Klever, who both excel in painting the birch forests of
northern Russia and silvery sous-bois which would have de-
24*

374 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
lighted Corot. Other eminent landscapists are Volkoff (born
1844); Endoguroff, who paints southern Russia and Crimean
scenes; Kissileff and Kholodovski ; Mescherski (born 1831),
who paints snow and ice in the iridescence of January sun
shine ; Orlovski, who paints the yellow sunlight of summer
on broad golden grain - fields ; Kouindji (born 1843), who
paints equally sunlight and moonlight pictures, and exhibits
the latter in a dark room with a ray of reflected lamplight
concentrated on them. The landscapists, together with the
genre painters of the younger generation, form the progress
ive element in Russian art, especially since the foundation,
just seventeen years ago, of the Ambulant Exhibition, which
is gradually familiarizing provincial Russia with the pro
ductions of modern art. The tendency of the past twenty-
five years has been towards emancipation from classical and
academical traditions, and towards a genre art based on the
observation of every-day life, and intelligible to all minds.
Such is the art of the Reform era ; and, given the conditions
of Russian political and social evolution, it is not astonishing
that this new realistic genre painting is not always content
to remain anecdotic and literary, but often seeks to be philo
sophical, and even actively propagandist. To us foreigners,
we must frankly confess, with the exception of the work of
Repine, who is a universal artist, and of Siemiradzki, who is
Russian only by the accident of his birth, the productions of
modern Russian art offer little but ethnographical interest.
During the past thirty years the painters have endeavored
to shake off the trammels of that cold official art which the
Academy taught until past the middle of the century, and
which necessarily remained unintelligible to all those who
had not been perverted by foreign education. In Russia,
where the fashion of aping the civilization of western Europe
has prevailed so long and so completely that even at the
present day there are many Russians who know their native

MADONNA IN VLADIMIR CATHEDRAL, KIEV.
From the painting by V. M. Vasnetzoff.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART. 377
language only as a foreign tongue, and who speak and think
either in French, German, or English, we may truly say that
the academic art of the first half of this century was an art
of monkeys, addressed to monkeys — mere apish gibberish.
The modern genre painters, on the other hand, are always
sincere and interesting, even when their means of expression
are inadequate ; they are intelligible to all minds, because
they attempt to represent only what all men can see any day
and every day ; they catch the spectator by a simple senti
ment or a point of humor. But, with all this, they have no
sense of beauty; they are heedless even of refinement; they
have a certain rough energy of expression, and much to say
in a rude way about the bitterness of life, the misery of men
and animals, the patience of resignation, the eloquence of
mute revolt. In the painting of the past twenty-five years
the Romantic ideal has been replaced by a sad and demo
cratic realism, which appeals to the unquiet Russian mind.
Thus the painters have become the portraitists, the satirists,
the prophets, the amusers, the consolers, and the educators
of the masses ; and thanks to the Ambulant Exhibition, of
which we have already spoken, the influence of the genre
painters in modern Russia is increasing every year. But
still, considered as a branch of the national activity, painting
plays a ridiculously small role in the life of the great Rus
sian Empire. Less than twenty years ago the only town
where picture exhibitions were held was St. Petersburg, and
it is only recently that the Ambulant Exhibition, founded in
i87i,has shown the inhabitants of Moscow, Toula, Kharkov,
Kiev, Elisavetgrad, Odessa, and other great towns of Russia
in Europe, what a picture and a picture exhibition mean.
Between 1855 and 1881 the twenty exhibitions held in the
St. Petersburg Academy comprised in all not more than five
thousand pictures during the whole period of twenty-six
years, while at the present day, successful as it is, the Ambu-

378 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
lant Exhibition does not get together more than two hun
dred pictures a year on an average. Artistic production
in Russia is small, patronage very limited, and until recent
ly painters and painting have attracted very little interest.
How could it be otherwise, seeing that before the foundation
of the Ambulant Exhibition the mass of Russians knew, in
the way of pictures, nothing but the icons in the church
es, the portrait of the Tsar, the coarse religious prints that
adorned the walls of the isbas, and the engravings in some
rarely seen illustrated periodical. Russia, even St. Peters
burg, does not yet present the conditions of appreciation, of
criticism, of emulation necessary to call forth current paint
ing of high merit The Russian public is still simple-minded
in matters of art, and heedful of details extraneous to art
rather than of those qualities which our Western aesthetic
exigencies demand. With very few exceptions, therefore, we
must refrain from absolute admiration in speaking of Rus
sian painting, and content ourselves with examining its prod
ucts as manifestations of aspirations towards refinement, or
as curious and interesting ethnographical or even psycho
logical documents, the latter epithet being applicable to the
work of certain religious painters and some of the more
serious genre and historical painters, such, for instance, as
Sourikoff and V. M. Vasnetzoff (born 1848), who come next
in greatness to Repine, at least according to enlightened
Russian estimation.
Our Western judgment will, however, scarcely confirm
this classification. Our points of view being more various
and comprehensive, reveal between Repine and these men a
distance so vast that it seems to us preferable to avoid all
comparison. Sourikoff is a painter of superior talent and
dramatic power; his invention is felicitous and striking; his
reconstitutions of the past are interesting even if they are
not always free from comparison and useless accumulation

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

379

of figures and details. Some of his best work may be seen
in the Tretiakoff collection, notably his " Execution of the
Strelitz" (1880), on the Red Place at Moscow, by order of
Peter the Great, and two other important historical works
representing episodes of Russian history in the terrible and
picturesque sixteenth century. In order to see Vasnetzoff's
work the traveller must go all the way to Kiev. There is,
it is true, a fine frieze by Vasnetzoff in the Historical Mu
seum at Moscow, but his great works are the mural paintings
in the Vladimir Cathedral at Kiev, and especially a picture
of the Virgin and Child, which we have reproduced in our
engraving. This picture has caused a veritable sensation in
religious Russia, and it seems likely to become one of the
most sacred and venerated of icons, in spite of the tendency
of the populace to prefer the old hieratic Byzantine images
to the more modern and realistic presentations of divine per
sonages. About Vasnetzoff's work, from the technical point
of view, there is much to be said in a depreciatory sense : his
drawing is feeble, his painting inadequate, his sense of color
primitive. Nevertheless, his work is impressive and intense
ly sincere, and in the case of this Virgin it is fascinating by
force of its grand visionary character. The conception of the
Madonna standing on the clouds in the starry sky, the dolor
ous expression of the Madonna's face, the preternatural seri
ousness of the divine Child, with his strangely dilated eyes,
his eager and suffering face, his authoritative gesture, that
seems so unsuited to those small arms; the effulgence of
light that irradiates the two figures ; the regular, calm, and
aristocratic features of the Mother; above all, those two
mysterious faces whose eyes fix you so sternly and yet so
compassionately — all this is of a nature to captivate the
admiration of the mystic Russians, to work upon their innate
humanitarianism, and to harmonize with all the vague long
ings and forebodings of that religion of human suffering of

380 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
which Tolstoi and Dostoievsky have been the great literary
apostles. ^Sculpture in Russia, like painting, and even more so, is
an exotic plant, the growth of which is not favored by the
rigorous climate. There is no more lamentable spectacle
than the Summer Garden in the Court Quay at St. Peters
burg, with its population of chipped and crumbling marble
statues, with their noses, ears, and fingers frozen off, their
chins abraded, their knees eaten away, their toes mouldered
to dust ; for although the poor statues are swathed in flannel
and straw and carefully boxed up five months out of the
twelve, it is impossible to protect them completely from the
action of the frost In the climate of Russia the only mate
rials for sculpture are wood, granite, and bronze ; marble has
to be reserved for works that can enjoy the same shelter
during the winter as human beings. The monumental sculpt
ure of St. Petersburg is not of native origin.' On the Vassili-
Ostroff Quay are two granite sphinxes from Egypt; the great
monument of Peter the Great, opposite the Isaac Cathedral,
was made in i78i-by the French sculptor Falconet. Other
signatures to be read on statues and monuments in St. Peters
burg are Rastrelli, Martos, Orlovski, Koslowski, Vitali, Pimen-
off, Tolstoi, and Klodt, the last the author of the monument
in the Summer Garden in honor of the fabulist Kryloff, and
also of the bronze horses on the Annitchkoff Bridge, suggest
ive of inspiration borrowed from the famous chevaux de Mar
ly by Coustou, now at the entrance of the Champs Elysees at
Paris. About the productions of these sculptors there is not
much to be said ; they form an element in the vast work of
imitation of French, German, and Italian models which has
produced that curious ensemble already examined in this work
under the title of " Palatial Petersburg." The strongest of
these sculptors was Baron Klodt (1805-1867), who possessed
no marked personality, no invention, and only ordinary talent

' IVAN THE TERRIBLE." — From the statue by Marc Antocolski.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART. 383
The Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg has a
sculpture school, whose pupils enjoy the same privileges as
the painters ; that is to say, they are instructed by professors,
examined periodically, and rewarded and encouraged by med
als, while the best, at the end of their career, become pension
ers of the Academy, and receive an allowance of fifteen hun
dred dollars a year, to enable them to spend four years in
study at Rome, Paris, and Munich. The most distinguished
of the living Russian sculptors is Marc Antocolski, corre
sponding member of the Institute of France, some of whose
principal works may be seen in the Hermitage Museum at
St. Petersburg. Other names of more or less distinction are
Bernstamm, who has had some success with portrait busts
both at St. Petersburg and at Paris ; Pierre Tourguenief, who
is a regular if not very brilliant exhibitor at the Paris Sa
lon; Von Bock (born 1829), a genre sculptor in the style of
the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century ; T. F. Kamenski
(born 1838), whose two groups, " L'Enfant Sculpteur" and
" Le Premier Pas," are in the Hermitage Museum ; Lave-
retzki (born 1837); M. A. Tchijoff, a prolific portraitist and
genre sculptor; the animal sculptors Posen, Lieberich, Au-
bert, and E. A. Lanceray, the latter two of remote French
origin. Lanceray, whose grandfather was a Frenchman nat
uralized Russian, was born at Morchansk in 1848. He never
had any master — he is a self-taught sculptor — but he had the
benefit of friendly advice from Professor Lieberich (1828-
1885), whose studio he frequented en amateur. Gradually
Lanceray became so absorbed in his art that he made it his
profession, and began to produce those clever and amusing
little bronze groups of Arabs, Cossacks, Bachkirs, and Kir-
gheezes on horseback, which now number more than four hun
dred, and which have achieved world-wide popularity and high
recognition at the exhibitions of Paris, London, Vienna, and
Philadelphia. Some illustrations of Lanceray 's work were

384 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
published in Harper's Magazine for January;/! 889. Arthur
Aubert (born 1843) is a descendant of some Parisians who
emigrated at the time of the French Revolution and settled
at Moscow. He is a remarkable animalier. His small
bronzes received a medal at the last London Universal Ex
hibition, and a large lion by him was bought by the St. Pe
tersburg Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a pupil
only for a few months. Like Lanceray, Aubert is practically
self-taught. Two other sculptors remain to be named, Mikerschine
and Opekouschkine, who have produced some of the best
monuments of contemporary Russia. These artists, who are
still alive and in the prime of their talent, completed in 1873
the imposing monument of Catherine II. on the Alexandra
Square in the Nevskoi Prospekt, consisting of a grandi
ose basement of circular steps and pedestal of granite, sur
mounted by a second ornamental pedestal around which are
seated Catherine's great contemporaries, Potemkin, Rumjan-
zoff, Suvoroff, Orloff, Daschkoff, etc. This pedestal is sur
mounted by a bronze figure of the Empress, twelve feet high,
wearing the ermine mantle, and holding in her right hand
a sceptre, and in her left a crown. Mikerschine is the au
thor of a gigantic monument at Novgorod in memory of the
Russian millenary, and Opekouschkine is the author of the
Pouschkine monument at Moscow.
Having thus relieved our conscience by noting, we hope
without omission, the most important names of modern Rus
sian sculpture, we will return to the sculptor who seems to
us the most personal, the most interesting, and the most
Russian in temperament, Marc Antocolski. His record
stands as follows: born at Vilna in 1843; pupil of the St.
Petersburg Academy; second and first medal in 1864 and
1865; Academician in 1 871, and subsequently professor. His
youth appears to have been one of poverty, and often of

-71 T
I

' MEPHISTOPHELES." — From the statue by Marc Antocolski.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART.

387

misery; his parents, orthodox Jews, were poor and had a
large family. Marc, a lank, awkward, and sickly boy, was
always getting into trouble for drawing on the walls and
doors ; he was too poor to buy paper, and his first sketch
ing blocks were made by pasting together scraps of paper
thrown into the yard of the house by a neighbor, whose
trade was to bind books. At an early age Antocolski was
apprenticed to a wood -carver, and his talent having been
noised about, the Governor of Vilna sent him with a letter
of introduction to the director of the Academy of St. Pe
tersburg. ' Then followed years of hard work and incredir
ble struggles against poverty, and also against the routine of
the Academy, at that time a stronghold of pseudo-classicism,
where originality, truth to nature, and the slightest attempt
at realism were condemned as vulgar and almost impious. W
Antocolski's first work, produced in 1864, was an alto-
rilievo in wood, representing a lean Jew tailor in cap and
caftan, sitting cross-legged in the window of his little shop,
and trying to thread his needle against the light, his eyes,
lips, and all the muscles of his face absorbed in the business.
For this piece of realism he. obtained a second-class silver
medal, and followed it up in 1865 by a second alto-rilievo in
wood and ivory of a country miser counting his money,
which obtained a first-class medal. Then followed a period
of misery and apparency hopeless struggling, during which
Antocolski conceived and executed his grand statue of Ivan
the Terrible, reproduced in our illustration. "Ivan, the heroic
incarnation of the might and barbarity of old Russia, is rep
resented br Antocolski in the later years of his life, clad in a
monk's garb, with the Bible on his knees, and at his side the
legendary steel-pointed staff with which he tested the man
hood of his nobles, beat out the brains of his enemies, and
killed his son. Ivan is absorbed in thought, meditating be
tween despair and the hope of grace, between the consola-

388

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

tion of the Scriptures and the memory of his innumerable
crimesV/When Antocolski conceived his Ivan, he was starv
ing on five dollars a month ; he was too poor to hire a
studio, and it was only with great difficulty that he obtained
permission to work during the vacations in one of the class
rooms of the Academy, whence he was finally banished to a
lumber-room under the
roof. At last, when he
had finished his statue,
the professors of the
Academy refused to climb
up-stairs to see it, and in
despair Antocolski sum
moned up courage to call
upon Prince Gargarin,
president of the Acad
emy, who came and saw
the statue, and returned
the following day with the
Grand-Duchess Maria
Pavlovna, who in her turn
brought the Emperor
himself. The imperial
visit put an end to An-
tocolski's sufferings ; all
St. Petersburg trooped up
the stairs which the Tsar
had not disdained to tread.
Antocolski was made an Academician and sent to Rome with
a pension, while his statue was bought for the Hermitage
Museum, where it now stands executed in marble.
|\ In 1872 Antocolski produced a colossal statue of Peter
the Great marching against his enemies; in 1874, Christ
before the people tied to a post; in 1875, a monument of the

"JAROSLAV THE WISE."
From the alto-rilievo by Marc Antocolski.

MODERN RUSSIAN ART. 389
Princess Obolenska, now in the church-yard of Monte Tes-
tario at Rome; in 1876, the Death of Socrates, now in the
Hermitage ; and then successively among his chief works
may be noted a bass-relief, the last sigh of Christ on the
cross (1877); the head of John the Baptist, bronze and mar
ble (1878); the statue of Spinoza (1882); Mephistopheles, in
some respects the finest of his works, now in the Hermitage ;
the high relief of Jaroslav the Wise, the author of the. first
Russian codex; equestrian statues of Jaroslav the Wrise and
of Ivan III.; a seated statue of Christ, "Come unto me all
ye that are heavy laden"; a monument to the memory of
the late Emperor Alexander ; a Christian martyr ; Ophelia ;
and quantities of minor works and busts.
Antocolski's work in all its varied manifestations has cer
tain common characteristics, which are those of the sculptor
and of the generation to which he belongs. His work is
above all things literary; it is full of sorrowfulness and re
proach ; he is by preference the sculptor of martyrs, or if not
of martyrs, of heroes. The key-note of his talent is given in
his letter to a Russian critic, Stassoff, concerning his con
ception of " Christ before the People," which won him the
medal of honor in the Russian section at the Paris Exhibi
tion in 1875. " I shall make Christ," he wrote, "a reformer
who rose in revolt against the exclusiveness and injustice of
the Pharisees and Sadducees, and who proclaimed the King
dom of Truth and Brotherhood and Freedom on earth for
the very people which in its fury and blindness cried : ' Cru
cify him ! Crucify him !' I have represented him standing
before the people, for whom he afterwards laid down his life,
forgiving them, ' for they know not what they do.' "
Antocolski is not a partisan of the theory of art for art's
sake; he is rather a preacher who endeavors to embody
moral ideas in marble, to set forth the conflicts of the soul,
as in his Ivan the Terrible, the sublimity of resignation, as
25*

39O THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
in his Christian martyr, the majesty of divine commiseration,
as in his Christ. Or, again, as in his alto-rilievo of Jaroslav
the Wise, he seeks to express the moral and physical traits
of an epoch of fierce energy and patriarchal simplicity in the
noble features of a law-giving hero. As for his Mephistoph-
eles, it is not the romantic companion of Goethe's Faust that
the sculptor has attempted to portray, but rather a personi
fication of consummate egoism, energizing for self alone,
destructive of all that surrounds it, and gloating over the
spectacle of emptiness from the peak of a solitary rock that
is anywhere and nowhere.^ This Mephistopheles, which, from
the point of view of modelling and of adequate truthful
ness to nature, is perhaps the finest of Antocolski's works —
though still far behind the vibrating strength of the work of
the contemporary French school — is at the same time one
of his most literary and most mystic conceptions. To hear
the sculptor himself talk about it is even bewildering, so
metaphysical, so varied, and so vague are the ideas which he
has sought to express. We are, however, at liberty to neg
lect Antocolski's comments, and instead of trying too con
scientiously to comprehend why this statue is a personifica
tion of egoism, of the abuse of analysis, or of the spirit of
Nihilism, we may simply admire it as a sculptor's vision of
man in the splendor of his nervous physical beauty racked
and worn by the ardor of a restless and proud intellect.
The title is of little importance; the work itself is impress
ive in aspect, original in conception, and full enough of
meaning for each one to find in it an interpretation in
harmony with the emotions that he may feel in its presence. y

/

RUSSIAN BRONZES,
By CLARENCE COOK.

ACCORDING to the general opinion, the story of art in
l Russia might be told in as few words as go to the tradi
tional chapter " On Snakes in Ireland " contained in a history
of that country oftener referred to than seen. Although of
late years there has appeared some reason for thinking that
denial of the existence of art in Russia may have gone too
far, yet few persons could be found who would pretend to a
personal acquaintance with it, and those few seemed to con
sider its existence a matter of little importance. Before the
opening of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia it is
likely that the name of hardly a single Russian painter or
sculptor had been heard of by our home-staying Americans,
and even our travelled countrymen had been little attract
ed by the few specimens of Russian art they might have
chanced to meet with outside of Russia herself. At the
World's Fair held in London in 1862 less than fifty painters
were represented in the Russian department by seventy-
eight pictures, while there were no sculptors of importance,
and among the few bronzes shown, those of Lieberich were
the only ones worth naming.
At Philadelphia, on the other hand, the collection of
bronzes exhibited was far superior to that shown in London,
both in the number and the importance of the pieces. For

394 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
some reason, best known to the authorities, these bronzes
were not placed in the Russian art-exhibit in Memorial
Hall, but in the Main Hall of the Exhibition, along with
Russian manufactures, and as this was one of the least inter
esting departments of the Centennial, the bronzes received
much less attention than they deserved.
In our own Exhibition, Russian painting was hardly so
well represented as it was in London. We had only thirty-
eight pictures, contributed by sixty-three artists, and few of
these were distinguished names. There were the marines
of M. Ivan Aiwazowski, and Siemiradzki and Verestchagin
were at least represented in name, though the works they
sent were not characteristic. But Brulloff and Ivanoff,
Jacobi and Makovski, artists greatly in repute among their
countrymen, whatever outsiders may think of them, were not
present at Philadelphia, and without them and a dozen oth
ers it was not easy to judge of the merits of the school —
if school there be — since for that we need the names that
stand highest to serve as a starting-point for criticism. It
may be said in passing that it was not until Constantine Ma-
kowski's "Russian Wedding" was brought to this country
and exhibited in New York that we can be said to have be
come practically aware of the existence of the art of painting
in Russia. As a specimen of the art as practised there to
day, this picture (where, in spite of the frigid attitude main
tained towards it by our artists, there was more to praise
than to condemn) gave, perhaps, too favorable an impression,
while at the same time it was not an unfair exponent of
what the general aims of art appear to be in that country.
Scenes from Russian history, commonly of a bloody or fero
cious character ; passages from the splendors of court life ;
the salons and festivities of the aristocratic class ; illustra
tions of the novels, poems, and dramas in vogue, with inci
dents from the pastoral and peasant life of the people ; land-

'AN ARAB FANTASIA." — From the bronze by Lancere.

RUSSIAN BRONZES. ,g7
scapes in plenty, chiefly winter scenes, with marines not a
few, make up the sum, and the treatment is what might be
expected from routine and commonplace in the choice of
subjects. In looking over a large number of reproductions
of pictures which have gained a place in popular esteem in
Russia, we have not come across a half-dozen where any
trace of imagination or fancy is to be met. But the art of
painting, as it is taught in academies, seems to be well
enough understood; the stories are clearly told, and there
seems little disposition to look outside of Russia for themes,
and no disposition at all to dress up those themes in foreign
garb to make them presentable, a sturdy realism being the
prevailing note. We rise from a survey of the field with
a sense of having gained something substantial from our
study, even if our love of art has not been stimulated or our
knowledge of its resources greatly increased. We have felt
the conviction that a national school is founding, and that
Russian artists are, for the present at least, in touch with the
sympathies of their countrymen.
It has been remarked by a sagacious observer that the
art of Russia has followed with faithful steps the remarkable
evolution that has taken place in her literature. " In less-
than fifty years," says the Vicomte E. M. de Vogue, " Russian
literature has swung round rapidly from the aristocratic ele
gances and the romantic ideals of a Pushkin or a Lermon-
toff to the unhealthy analysis, the rude realism, often coarse
and often powerful, of the productions of our own time. In
the same way the new art betrays in its strong predilection
the fundamentally democratic genius of the race. The wit,
the gayety, the delicate qualities that have made the fortune
of genre painting in France, are here almost unknown. The
soul of Russia is epic and lyric. To-day it is the epopee of
the poor and the humble that wins favor. The latest-come
among the painters, and those most enjoyed by the public,

398 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
are those who interpret life with sad and bitter strokes ; the
scenes and the persons which they love to paint speak to us
of a resigned fatalism or of a dumb revolt ; we feel that their
pencils translate the pages of Dostoievsky or of Nekrassoff.
Their humorists have the heavy hand ; they force the note,
and easily become vulgar. That which shocks us most in
their rude natures, too rapidly ripened by civilization, is the
absence of politeness — in the old and true sense of that
word ; it is replaced here by a sombre energy of expression
and manner. The painters of want and suffering are dra
matic because they are evidently sincere ; they are not
amusing themselves with playing variations upon an art
theme. Those who study Nature regard her with a deep
penetrating sentiment, not always found in the same meas
ure among our French masters."
The absence of religious subjects from the exhibitions of
modern painting in Russia has been often remarked. It is
due to the fact that neither the ecclesiastic authorities nor
the people at large look with favor upon attempts to translate
the old ideas into modern speech. And from the time when
Catherine the Great established the Hermitage and laid the
foundations of the Academy of Fine Arts until very recently,
the history of art in Russia has been what it has been in ev
ery country of Europe except France, where alone has orig
inal talent — if genius must be allowed rare — been able to
hold fts own against imitation, conventionality, and academic
routine. Not until our own time — and this, thanks to the
same awakening that has produced her inspiring modern lit
erature — has there been in Russia any sign of the beginning
of a national school. And these beginnings, welcome as they
are, do not, it must be confessed, compare in creative im
pulse, certainly not in beauty and richness of form, with the
productions of the poets and novelists, who have flung open
for us the gates of a new world.

RUSSIAN BRONZES.

399

When we turn to the art of sculpture we find that within
its own limits it has shown, as was to have been expected,
the same characteristics as painting ; there is the same want
of artistic feeling, of imagination, of poetic interpretation of

iP^

" ARAB WITH THE LION CUBS." — From the bronze by Lancere.
nature ; the sculptors are satisfied, as the painters are satis
fied, with reporting as directly and as veraciously as possible
what passes before their eyes.
No more than elsewhere has sculpture in Russia attempt
ed to rival painting in the representation of a wide field of

400 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
human life. But sculpture, as sculptors understand it, can
hardly be said to exist in Russia, since the word is thought
to be of too great dignity to be applied to the bronzes, for
example, which we are considering; and with few exceptions
these bronzes represent the highest achievement in this field
of art that has been reached in the country. M. De Vogue
gives several reasons for this poverty of production. That
there is no marble in Russia, or so little that it may fairly be
said there is none, which is one of M. De Vogue's reasons
for the absence of sculpture, seems to us of small importance,
for there is no marble fit for the sculptor's use in any country
of Europe north of the Alps. What is more to the purpose
is, that marble cannot be safely employed for work that is to
be exposed to so rigorous a climate ; it chips and scales un
der the intense cold. Such statues as there are in the public
squares and imperial pleasure-grounds have to be boxed up
every autumn; but this is an insufficient protection, and they
are gradually destroyed by the climate. Then, again, the or
thodox religion prohibits the reproduction in the churches of
the human figure in the round, though bass-reliefs are allowed ;
and this takes away a large field from the sculptors, which in
every other European country they have cultivated to great
profit. And besides the veto of the Church, there is the veto
of the State. Until a late period the Government refused to
permit the employment of bronze for the statues of persons
in civil life. That material is reserved for the sovereign and
for a few of the more illustrious generals of the army. De
Vogue says that the monument to the poet Derjavine was
at first set up in the public garden at Kasan, but when
Nicholas saw it, and learned that it was intended for a pub
lic place, he was displeased, and ordered it to be removed
to the court of the University. Of late there has been a
change in the situation, and the great men in the world of Rus
sian thought will not have to wait long for the honor of a

RUSSIAN BRONZES.

401

public statue, where in death as in life they may appeal to
the memories of their countrymen. But it may be doubted
whether in Russia more than in other modern countries the
poet and philosopher will have much to be thankful for in
these posthumous memorials. If the older Derjavine belies
his time dressed in the Roman toga, and shod with the tragic
cothurnus, the statue of Pushkin by the sculptor Opekousch
kine, lately erected in Moscow, is a melancholy piece of mod
ernism, dressed in a loose overcoat, trousers of the usual
sculptor cut, holding his hat behind him with one hand,
while he thrusts the other in his waistcoat, " he looks like a
provincial notary brooding over a lost case at law."
As sculpture, then, has no public field either in the
Church or in the market-place, it has become little more
than the minister to private luxury in the decoration of the
house. For a long time it contented itself with imitating
the fripperies of Italy and the elegances of Florence ; and it
is only here and there that we find it, even now, attempt
ing more than the supply of a demand for a superior article
of furniture. The Russians do, however, claim one sculp
tor, Marc Antocolski, born in 1842, at Wilna. Antocolski,
who is an Israelite, is the author of a statue of Ivan the
Cruel, and of a Dying Socrates, which have made for him a
name outside his own country. He began with small works
in wood and ivory, but he turned to working in marble, and
produced a strikingly realistic " Christ shown to the People."
He then went to Paris, and finally to Rome, where he resides
and works. His best statue is the " Ivan the Cruel," a life-
size figure sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1878, where it
was much admired. The Tsar sits in a large arm-chair, his
head sunk upon his breast. With one hand he plays with a
rosary, and standing at his right hand is the javelin with
which, in one of his rages, he killed his son. On his knees
is a book, which seems to be falling from his nerveless
26

402 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
hands. He wears the fez, and a long gown with close-fitting
sleeves ; while his heavy mantle, lined and bordered with fur,
covers his knees, but has been thrown back from the upper
part of his body. A resemblance was found by the French
critics between this statue and the " Voltaire " of Houdon,
but it seems to us that it is more distinctly a reminiscence
of the " Dying Napoleon " of Vela. But the " Ivan " has'
character and purpose enough to acquit its author of the
charge of imitation.
Without doubt the bronzes exhibited first in this country
at Philadelphia, at the Centennial Exhibition, and later, with
important additions, at the rooms of the Messrs. Tiffany in
New York, are the most interesting contributions made by
Russia to the domain of sculpture. The tendency of Rus
sian painting in our day towards subjects drawn from con
temporary home life, and the disposition shown to a morbid
and gloomy view of the aspects of society, have been already
pointed out. It is noticeable that the sculpture we are con
sidering, while it too is almost wholly contemporaneous in
its choice of subjects, differs strikingly from the painting
in that its most marked characteristic is the cheerfulness, we
may almost say the gayety, with which it depicts the life of
the people. The beautiful pastoral pictures of Count Tol
stoi, unsurpassed by those of any other writer, have the in
delible impression they leave upon the mind quickened and
renewed by these frequent glimpses of the peasant life : the
truth of the writer is reflected in the truth of the sculptor.
The principal names represented in the collection from
which the Messrs. Tiffany have obligingly allowed us to
make a selection are those of Lieberich, Gratchoff, Lancere,
Kamensky, Naps, and Gentzburg. Of these the best known
are those of Lieberich and Lancere, and the collections of
Russian bronzes thus far shown have been made up mostly
of the work of these artists. At the World's Fair in Lon-

RUSSIAN BRONZES.

403

don in 1862 the name of .Lieberich is the only one repre
sented out of the six.
Lancere is, we are told, not a Russian by birth, but a
Frenchman who has become naturalized in Russia. The
French write " Lanseret," perhaps to preserve the pronuncia
tion. As we have not been able to learn any particulars of
his life, it may, no doubt, turn out to be prejudice that makes
us suspect in his work a more polished and elegant manner
of treating his subjects than appears in the groups of Liebe
rich and Gratchoff, and at the same time a less essentially
Russian spirit in the conception. His work, whether it is

'SAMOYED AND REINDEER TEAM. — From the bronze by Professor Lieberich.

due to his being a Frenchman born, or whether he made
his studies in Paris, and so gives us Russian life sifted
through the Beaux-Arts, is marked by a something which is
not exactly conventional or academic, but comes nearer to
being so than the work of Gratchoff or Gentzburg, whom
one does not suspect of leaving Russia. Lancere is the
author of the large group we reproduce, " The Fantasia,"
and also that of the "Arab with the Lion Cubs," subjects
which, with a dozen smaller pieces — "An Arab Water-seller,"
"A Donkey -driver," and "An Arab Horseman" — are to be

404

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

referred to the visits made by the artist to Cairo, where he
laid up a rich store of native subjects, next to those of
Fremiet the best notes we have in sculpture of Eastern life.
Lancere is, however, most at home in Russian subjects, or,
we may say, it is by them that he is best represented here.
Next in importance, for the number of its figures, and the
variety of the action and expressions, is his " Cossack Soldiers
watering their Horses." Here the study of nature is very
close, and the sense of reality strongly communicated. One
of the men quietly smokes his pipe while his horse drinks.
Another, a younger man, draws his rein as he talks ; his horse
has had enough. More spirited in action, but the note not
forced beyond the precise limit of fidelity to nature, is the
" Circassian driving a Herd of Wild Horses." He wears the
fez of Astrakhan, the short embroidered jacket, and the full
trousers, with boots, and carries before him on his saddle
bow his little son, who shares the sport with brave delight.
Lancere's bronzes unite a large flowing picturesque compo
sition with a minuteness of detail in accessaries, carried to
a high point of mechanical finish, which yet preserves the
artistic accent. Something of this may be discerned in the
figure of the mounted man- at-arms, called an Opritchnike,
which we reproduce. The Opritchnike were a band of free
booters commissioned by Ivan the Cruel to carry out his
plans for breaking up the growing power of the great Boy
ars. The group of horse and horseman is treated with spirit,
and has in little a monumental air; but it is made for a near
inspection —
"All perfect, finished to a finger-nail."
The chain armor, the head- trappings of the horse, the
bow-case of stamped leather — all these details are worked
up with care, and are so well designed, and treated with such
sculpturesque feeling, that they add greatly to the pleasure

RUSSIAN BRONZES.

405

given by the group as a whole. The same judgment may
be passed upon the grand group — by some thought to be
the masterpiece of Lancere — called "The Standard-bearer."
It represents one of the heroic figures in Russian history,
who, at the close of the battle, still holds the standard safe,
though with weary hands,
and a frame faint with the
fierce labors, of the dis-
puted day. His armor is
half covered by a magnifi
cent mantle, stiff with em
broidery, and he holds the
great banner in his arms,
embracing it, and half hid
ing his helmeted head in
its folds. The horse he
sits is a magnificent creat
ure, reminding us by his
rich contours and his silky
torrent of mane and tail
of the Andalusian that
Regnault's "Prim" be
strides. This noble group,
and the Opritchnike, are
the only pieces we have
seen from Lancere's hands
that verge on the imagi
native in sentiment or the
romantic in treatment.
The rest of his subjects are
drawn from the actual life of Russia in our own time. He
has designed a few playful subjects ; among them a hand
bell which has been a great favorite, as it is both useful and
pretty. A little Russian peasant child, in his shirt and a
26

"STANDING BEAR.
From the bronze by Professor Lieberich.

406 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
big hat, with bare legs and feet, is mounted on top of a hay
cock, with a short-handled shovel in his hand. His smiling
phiz is half hid in the shadow of his hat ; he seems proud of
his achievement in climbing this Mont Blanc of a hay-cock.
Nicholas Lieberich was born in 1828, and is a professor
in the Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg. His spe
cial excellence lies in designing animals and hunting scenes.
His figures of men are not without spirit, but they are sub
ordinate to the animals with which they are grouped, as
in the "Wolf-chase," the " Hare-hunt," the " Falconer," the
" Fight with a Bear," and the " Fox-hunt." At Tiffany's the
finest examples of Lieberich are the " Samoyed driving a
Team of Four Reindeer " and the " Standing Bear," this lat
ter the most remarkable of several of the artist's groups in
which this animal plays a principal part. Lieberich, like
Lancere, carries minuteness of finish far ; but with him it
is less seen in the accessaries than in the substance of his
work. He gives us the thick coat of the black bear with its
multitudinous fine crinkles; he shows us the bony structures
of his face, the soles of his feet, and his cruel claws. But
this minuteness of finish is so wedded to the spirit of the
whole presentment, the lumbering alertness of the beast, the
expressiveness of his action and attitude, that we do not quar
rel with it ; it is perfectly in its place, and in no way inter
feres with the life-like impression the artist has to convey.
This is "the rugged Russian bear," and Barye himself, though
his methods were different, would have been quick to recog
nize the truth to nature in Lieberich's portrait. It must be
noted in passing that with Lieberich, as with Barye, there is
no trace of the clumsy humor sometimes shown by animal-
painters and sculptors in mingling a human element with
their subject. If Barye must be allowed to show a more
imaginative conception in some of his groups than Lieberich
has attained to, this is always within the limits of reality, and

' AN OPRITCHNIKE." — From the bronze by Lancere.

RUSSIAN BRONZES. 409
Lieberich knows as well as Barye how to be picturesque
without touching upon forbidden ground.
The group of the Samoyed with the reindeer team, which
we reproduce, has a delightful freedom and sense of move
ment -the lightly built sledge; the tackle so deftly suited to
its work ; the smiling Laplander, easily guiding his team; the
team itself, with branching horns, whose toss and sway add
to the life and play of the whole group. Many times as we
have seen this piece, we do not tire of it. Other figures by
Lieberich are those of women peasants going to the hay-field
mounted on farm horses and with rakes on their shoulders,
or riding to market. We have already mentioned the hunt
ing scenes where the hare or the wolf or the fox has been
caught, and is shown by the hunter to the hounds. One of
these hunting scenes is very spirited : the hunter urges his
horse to a full gallop and gives him the rein ; the dogs,
straining every nerve, have come up with the wolf. The
group has an immense deal of "go" in it. In general, how
ever, Lieberich's groups are rather quiet in action.
The names of Gratchoff, of Posene, Samonoff, and Naps,
have not perhaps reached so much distinction as those we
have mentioned, but they stand for work of much artistic
merit, and their subjects are so essentially Russian, and so
characteristic of the life of the people, that we have studied
them with as much pleasure as we have the better-known
work. These sculptured pictures of Russian life form a sort
of commentary on much of the writing about peasants and
peasant life that we find in Tolstoi and Tourguenief, without
pretending to be other than literal transcripts of passing life.
Samonoff shows us a Finlander and his wife driving along
home in a cart drawn by a mare whose foal trots by her side.
The husband, tired out with his day's work, and perhaps suf
fering from too much drink, is asleep ; the wife, who is driv
ing, turns round and tickles him in the face with the whip-

410

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

lash without in the least disturbing his slumbers; the curious
construction of the cart, like one-half of a straight barrel cut
lengthwise ; the singular adjustment of the wheel — these de
tails, with the dress of the man and woman, all accurately
given, are of a piece with the general realism of these Rus
sian bronzes. Other subjects of Samonoff are : " A Guard
with a Convoy of Turkish Prisoners," " A Cossack lighting
his Pipe," and oddly enough, among all this every-day life, a
" Don Quixote and Sancho Panza," showing a strong sense
of humor in the discrimination between the two characters.
There is also a capital piece — a party of men in a troika ;
one plays on an accordion, another passes the whiskey-flask
to the driver, who, standing up while he drives his horses at
a mad pace, turns round to receive it.
Naps and Posene are workers in the same field ; their
groups of peasants have much naturalness and unstrained
pathos. Posene's " Emigrants to the Amoor " shows us a
family of poor travellers preparing to bivouac for the night —
the horses unloosed from the wagon with its tent-like cover ;
the old people resting, the grandfather with his boots off and
his fur cap on the ground, the grandmother watching her
little grandson, who in his turn watches his mother getting
out materials for a meal from her store; one of the younger
men cutting wood, another drawing water. There is a charm
in a group like this, which may perhaps be stronger with one
who has read the Russian story-tellers than with one who
knows nothing, even by hearsay, of Russian peasant life ; but
it would be felt in some degree by all unsophisticated people,
and by children, and by all those whose notions as to what
art may do and what it may not do are not too set to admit
of expansion. We confess to a great liking for Gratchoff, another pro
fessor in the Academy, but of whom we can learn no fur
ther particulars. He shows us a variety of types — Cossacks,

RUSSIAN BRONZES.

411

Circassians, Bashi-Bazouks, peasants of Little Russia, Kam-
tchatka, Lapps, and Esquimaux — and treats his subjects in
the spirit of anecdote. Here a mounted Bashi-Bazouk, who
has lassoed a cow, prepares to give the pursuing owner a
warm greeting with his pistol ; here a Cossack, who lightly

BABY WASHING HIS JUMPING-JACK." — From the bronze by Kamensky.

springs to the saddle-bow, says farewell to his wife, and strains
her strongly in his arms ; another pair descend a steep hill
side—the wife, seated in front of her husband, trusts the rein
to the careful horse, holding it lightly in her hand, while her
husband, clasping her waist with one arm, points out some-

412 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
thing on the plain below. Or peasants from Little Russia —
pretty pastoral bits of life : he sits at her side as she spins,
and embracing her with one arm, holds her free hand against
his breast, while he whispers sweet nothings in her ear, her
face lighted up with pleasure ; here, again, he lies full length
on the ground and looks up into her face as she sits at his
side smiling down upon him, one hand on his shoulder.
Gratchoff has tried his hand too at animals : some pretty
kittens, and a fine dog, a pointer, are his, and a sturgeon
lying upon a block of rock-crystal for ice ; white bears, too —
one attacks a sea-lion ; an Esquimau hunts the seal ; a Kam-
tchatkan makes his two curly little dogs " ask " for a fish.
Such are the glimpses the artist gives us into a life of which
few records come to us. The Cossacks and Turcos of Grat
choff are full of fire, dashing along in pursuit, shooting at the
enemy from behind their horses, sheathing their swords after
victory, with the enemy's riderless horse in tow. It will be
seen that, taken together, these bronzes present a varied pict
ure of out-of-door life in the vast empire, and make us ac
quainted with many strange and interesting types.
Feodor Kamensky, the sculptor of the " Baby washing his
Jumping-jack," was born in 1838, and after studying in the
Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg, where he took the
great prize, went to Florence. He is not associated with sub
jects peculiarly Russian, but has rather brought back from
Italy a liking for popular subjects of a domestic and fanci
ful character — "A Mother nursing her Baby," "Baby as Ar
tist," a fountain group of two children, etc. Our illustration
shows him at his best; but even Mr. Miiller's clever hand
cannot do justice to the modelling of the flesh, at once so
soft and so firm : the back of the child is especially fine.
There is a large, rich feeling about this work — it is the size
of life — -that makes most modern things about it look weak.
There is none of that pettiness in the treatment that hurts

RUSSIAN BRONZES. 413
so many of the works of the modern Italian school, where, no
doubt, Kamensky got his direction.
Among all these works perhaps the only one that gives
promise of any important addition to the field of modern

. 1

" THE BATHER." — From the bronze by Gentzburg.
sculpture is the " Bather," by Gentzburg. A photograph of
the artist stands by the side of this bronze. It shows us the
artist looking up with pleased earnestness at the clay model

414 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
of his boy, to which he is just giving the last touches. He is
a young man with an expressive face and a dark, earnest eye.
We cannot learn whether he has produced any other work of
consequence ; but it is certain that he will do so, for the pres
ent work has energy and vitality enough to set up a dozen
modern sculptors. It is life that Gentzburg would evolve —
life, supple movement, the consenting play of muscle and will.
Beauty does not as yet tempt him ; to him, as to the rest of
his countrymen, the beautiful and the ugly are only two as
pects of the one nature, which the artist regards with the in
difference of their creator.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE
BY VASSILI VERESTCHAGIN.

LAST summer I passed a few weeks in a village — a small
settlement of some fourteen or fifteen houses — that
had been burned out about a year ago, and is just being
built up anew.
Right behind the village corn-kilns passed the Moscow-
Jaroslav Railroad, as well as the causeway, the latter being
well kept and bordered by four rows of birches.
The village's chief adornment is the old wooden church
dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. It had also taken fire
at the time of the conflagration, but was saved by the com
bined efforts of all the peasants. This church was built in
the second half of the seventeenth century, in the reign of
the Tsar Alexei Mikhailovitch. It is very original and in
teresting outside as well as inside. A short rime ago it
almost toppled over to one side, which was not to be won
dered at, since its foundation was as narrow as the keel of a
boat. Happily, though, the church-warden, a clever peasant,
did not hesitate to spend his own money to save the church.
He interfered in good time, put the church on a brick foun
dation, erected brick supports, and now the building is good
for another two hundred years.
It is true that the new foundation has raised the church
somewhat, that the whitewashed brick supports are unsightly,
27

418 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
and that the iron sheets covering the roof and cupola are
entirely out of place, and are decidedly worse than the an
cient wooden tiles which they have replaced. But we must
still be grateful that this monument of the seventeenth cen
tury has not been levelled, that another structure has not
been erected in its place — one of those imitations of Roman
architecture with porticos, Corinthian pillars, and such like
absurdities, now so dear to the hearts of the Russian clergy
and nobility. All the repairs and renovations in the church
are, besides, seen very plainly, so that it will be very easy to
restore its original form.
A peculiar odor of antiquity lingers about this church.
First of all there is the church-warden's old woman, who with
some primitive hook begins to pick at the hole in the en
trance door; whether it is that the old woman is somewhat
blind or the mechanism is faulty one cannot say. Anyway,
she picks and picks at it long and persistently, until the bolt
springs up ; then she unlocks a padlock, and grumbling, no
one knows at whom or at what, lets you in to the staircase.
These stairs lead not to one of those delightful porches that
in the stone churches of Jaroslav are ornamented and painted
over, but to a wooden gallery that borders the building on its
northern and western sides. Here it is that such people as
have come too early for service remain waiting; here it is
that any one tired or taken unwell in church comes out to
get rested ; here it is, again, that the local peasants, as well as
wanderers and pilgrims, assemble for a talk at the end of the
service. Along the gallery there is a great number of little
lifting windows, which make the place very fresh and breezy
in the summer; in short, this is one of the testimonials to the
delicate attention with which former builders treated the wor
shippers — an attention that has gone out of fashion.
As a sample of the ancient way of building, we may take,
for instance, the porch of the stone church of John the Bap-

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE. 4IO/
tist in Jaroslav. That porch borders the church on three
sides; everywhere along the arched windows run benches
with colored designs; the vaults as well as the walls are
painted over with instructive scenes from the Old and the
New Testament, accompanied by fitting inscriptions. All
those benches are occupied long before the beginning of
services on the eve of great holidays, while at the feast of
the patron saint of the church the porch is chock-full of
worshippers come from afar. These people pass even the
night there, sleeping on carpets
and mats furnished by the church.
Some come on the eve of the holi
day from a distance, say, of fifty
versts,* and bring their children
and folks along, their chief care
being not to miss the matins. Is
it handy for such people to put up
at an inn, to get up almost at mid
night, disturbing others and ex
posing themselves to hardship?
'i ° r CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE
Here on the porch they take their baptist.
nap on some matting spread on
the floor, then get up in time to attend divine service. Now
let any one try to enter a modern church out of the hours of
service, even be it in stormy weather, and he will certainly be
turned away without ceremony.
But let us return to the village church. The door lead
ing to the church is of a very remarkable form, resembling
a holy images case surmounted by a Byzantine ogive arch,
which is composed of a yellow garland in relief on green
background. The door itself is also painted green, and has
an immense lock of a delightful design nailed on red leather.
* About thirty-three miles.

420 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
The enormous key is turned thrice in the lock, giving out
a distinct sound each time to the accompaniment of the
grumbling of the old woman.
One would now expect to enter the church ; but no,
there is yet another large padlock, put up for safety's sake.
The ceiling of the church, one discovers on entering, is
an ancient one in ogive style. The walls likewise have es
caped renovation. The iconostase separating the altar from
the main church has not the naivete of shelves with holy
images that we find yet in many old wooden churches of the
north of Russia ; but still this one is simple enough : it con
sists of four ranges of holy images running along the wall,
and joined by narrow boards quaintly painted. 'Tis a pity
that the design of these joining boards, so well preserved on
one of the images on the wall, is renovated on the icono
stase in trenchant tones with a profusion of gilding.
Some of the holy images here are of good enough exe
cution ; therefore it is to be regretted that they are almost
covered with offerings of gold cloth, silk, beads, false stones,
and all kinds of rubbish, that does not enrich the church,
but only serves to hide the images of Christ, the Virgin, and
the saints. The entire character of the iconostase is affected
by these offerings, which convert it into a giddy display of
multicolored pieces of goods bestowed on the images in ac
cordance with the well-known precept, " Offer to God what
you do not need yourself." The absurdity of adorning holy
images in this way is strikingly illustrated by a crucifix
which is stationed to the right hand of the choir. The
crucifix is a large one — almost of natural size— and one of
the zealous champions of church gorgeousness had the body
covered with gold cloth from the belt down to the feet, so
that now the Crucified is hanging literally in petticoats. It
was also an excess pf zeal on the part of the warden to var
nish the images too abundantly.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.

421

" Fairly good holy images thou hast here, granny ; keep
them in good order," said I to the old woman.
" I know it, I know it, benefactor," answered she. " Others

AT THE CHURCH DOOR.

have been here before thee — 'old believers' I heard they
were. They offered me a thousand apiece for these two if I
would only give them up."

422 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
" But where is the purse to hold so much money ?" I an
swered. Behind the right choir is the prior's place, the church
formerly having belonged to a monastery. Therefore, very
likely, even now at service the men occupy one side of this
church, and the women the other.
It must be said, however, that divine service is very sel
dom held in this church — never more than a few times each
year — as the church has no priest of its own, but is annexed
to a neighboring parish.
" If he would only come and sing a little to us now and
then, our Father Nicholas," complains the granny about the
priest. " But no, he would not sing to us — not he. What
is to be done with him ? Taken all in all, he would not sing
here even ten times a year; that is the kind of priest he
is !" But immediately after this complaint, in direct contra
diction of it, granny would state that " nothing but pecu
niary loss comes from the service here, because the men of
the village are more apt to go to church in town, where the
saloons are side by side with churches; and, with women
alone, where is the income? . . . Just see: coal must be pro
vided for the service, and incense, and red wine for the com
munion. . . . Well, then, how are you to make both ends
meet ? . . . Now conduct service if you can !" To that " com
munion wine" the old warden treated me once: I found it to
be pure. The warden, Pietr Mikhaiiovitch, an old man of seventy-
five, was at death's-door a short while ago. On my arrival
I found him taking some sort of innocent mixture of the
kind ordinarily prescribed by physicians in order to humor
the patient or quiet their own consciences. Following my
advice the old woman made her husband drink a hot de
coction of dried raspberries, covered him up well, got him
in a perspiration, rubbed him thoroughly down, and the old

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE. 423
man felt so much better after the treatment that he soon
went about as usual, complaining of nothing but deafness
and an occasional headache.
Yet not long ago the old man made up his mind that he
wanted to take a steam bath ; nothing would dissuade him
from it, and he did. It was with great difficulty he dragged
his feet off. I went to see him as soon as I heard that he
had been brought out of the steam bath half dead. " Look
here, grandfather," said I to him, "why didst thee go to the
steam bath before thee recovered entirely?"
"What is to be done? could not stand it; I had to get
steamed," mumbles the old man.
"Well, many are the things that thee would like to get
at. . . . See, now, thy feet don't carry thee."
" Could not; be helped; a long, long time I had it on my
mind, and now I did it," replies grandfather, in his weak,
broken voice.
Occasionally I would send a small quantity of Don wine
to the old man, and he enjoyed it so well that once, under
its influence, he smartly drove out on a cart to the hayfields.
" Here we are ! . . . Good is thy wine," would he say to me,
" but the price must also be a good one."
Pietr Mikhailovitch is not of poor peasants. He was
quite well off before the first conflagration, some fifteen years
before, and he used to go every year to St. Petersburg, where
his children carried on a business of their own.
Pietr Mikhailovitch is not on good terms with his priest,
and he never lets slip an opportunity to indirectly reproach
Father Nicholas with greediness ; to which the other — also a
very respectable man — from his side responds by calling the
warden a caviller, accusing him of having drawn away in
favor of the church some seven hundred rubles (nearly $350),
the interest from which formerly reverted to the local clergy.
" He got the wheels greased up, you know, in the Con-

424 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
sistorium ; he is a master-hand at that, is Pietr Mikhailo
vitch ; so he got the money drawn away from us, and such a
good lump of money as it was ! I alone used to get eight
rubles [four dollars] a year for my part ; no trifling sum that,
considering our condition !"
I watched this priest as he was going the rounds of the
peasants' houses, collecting sour cream and eggs, on the last
day of the Lent* preceding St. Peter and St. Paul's day.
I could not understand at first what it was he was doing.
Clad in an old cassock, the white underwear plainly exposed
beneath it, the old man carried a pail in one hand and a
wooden bowl in the other; going from house to house, he
would knock at the door of each, and peep in at the windows.
At first I thought he had been kept out late and was asking
for a night's lodging. But no ; after knocking vainly at one
peasant's house, he passed on to another, and then still to a
third. Eventually women carrying trifling donations began
to come out from the backyards, some making gestures
which seemed to explain why it was that the donation was
so small ; some to kiss the priest's hand ; some others to
simply bow to him and pour their sour cream into his pail,
laying down a couple of eggs in the bowl. The priest did
not once lose patience, and such peasants as did not answer
his summons at his first knock brought out their offerings
to him on his return trip. In place of sour cream I sent
him out a ruble of money; and the good man put down
his pail, and taking off his hat, crossed himself thrice at the
church. Father Nicholas did not complain of the peasants, but
remarked to me that they were much weighed down by

* The Greek Church prohibits the use of milk and eggs no less than
that of meat during Lenten times.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE. 42r
poverty. " No little money is spent on drink, and that is a
truth," he would say; " but then, if we let the holidays out of
the count — the only days when they might be taking a drop
too much — one has to wonder, indeed, what it is they only
live upon. Poorly, very poorly off are our peasants !"
One would not be far amiss, though, in setting down this
poverty to the general drinking, which in this village is as
firmly rooted and as thoroughly carried on as in other points
of Russia. The people here mostly raise vegetables; very little grain
is sown ; as to potatoes, peas, and chiccory, there are large
quantities of them here. This village is only three versts
distant from the city of Rostov, and all over this neighbor
hood chiccory is called the '; Rostov coffee," and dealers in
that kind of product are known as the " chiccory kings."
Labor in this locality is still more of a heavy task than is
grain harvesting in other places. Here the pea crop and
the hay crop are ripe at the same time. These parts are re
nowned for their peas. They must be not only gathered
but shelled, and all this must be done on time, because small
sweet-peas fetch as much as forty and fifty kopecks* a pound,
whereas the price of full-grown peas is a trifling one — some
five or ten kopecks.
In the year of my visit dealers paid forty-three kopecks
a pound at first for the best kind of peas; later on, they gave
forty and thirty- eight kopecks a pound; and if we judge by
the example of previous years, when all the peas were ripe
the price would have to come down to twenty-five kopecks
a pound. Then the peasants are glad to sell even at this
small figure, since the whole business of buying peas and
sending them off to Moscow is in the hands of a few per-
* A kopeck equals half a cent.

426 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
sons, who usually agree between themselves not to pay more
than a certain price ; and no matter how a peasant woman
tries to get a better price, no matter how many buyers she
applies to, she will nowhere get a kopeck more for her peas
than the dealers dictate.
If only the peasants were able to come to an understand
ing among themselves — were they to agree to work together,
to combine in harvesting as well as in selling — they would
surely be able to force the dealers to pay them the highest
current price at the time being. Unluckily, though, no agree
ment of such a kind is to be thought of where peasants are
concerned ; they are sure to quarrel over the business, and
then to throw up the whole thing. Thus it comes about
that goods selling in Moscow, say at eighty kopecks, can be
got by dealers at half this price, and that only a few hours'
distance from the capital.
Quarrels prevail not only between different households,
but even in the very midst of families living under one roof.
Now, in our house, for instance, the grandmother — a brisk
and still lively old woman of seventy-five — sided with one of
her daughters-in-law against another, and they went so far
that eventually nothing would do but they must divide all
their possessions; even the iron sheet serving to dry peas
was cut in two — spoiled on purpose — so that it should not
serve any one. If one party to the quarrel gets its peas burn
ed a trifle, its opponents are happy; if a young ox belong
ing to one dies, the others rejoice, saying, " See, now, how-
God chastises him !" Yet at the same time they are all of
them really good and very considerate people.
There is no little work over the preparation of the peas;
first they are scalded, then they are dried three times over —
and here great care is to be taken that the peas do not get
yellow, and lose their green color. If they turn yellow, they
will immediately come down in price.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.

427

Of evenings all sit down before the house and get to
work shelling peas, with the help of two hired women assist
ants, who usually sing all the while. The men generally
gather together and engage in the same work of shelling
peas by the bailiff's house, on which occasion whiskey is
served— to brace them up to work, probably. The result of

A RUSSIAN TYPE.

it, however, is that oftentimes, as the peasant women are sing
ing, the young folks joking and laughing, there will break in
the noise and shouts of half -drunken men ; then it requires
hard work to pull asunder such as are most boisterous, and
even with this it is not always possible to avert an occasional
blow on somebody's face.
Generally all work assiduously, except children, who eat

428 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
peas unceasingly. If a child happens to come across a large
pod containing a dozen peas and more, " What a large pod !"
he says; " I must eat it"; then, striking a pod of two or three
peas, he says, "There's a small one; surely it must be dis
posed of." A puffy pod, may be, comes along, and then a flat
one — each one in turn finds its way to the child's mouth.
Many are the jokes in the circle ; these mostly originate with
granny, who, among other things, used to say, " No matter
how much land a man gets, he will not get rich on it, but
only hunch-backed."
Although the people get up early, they go to bed rather
late. Work ceases only at dusk — generally when the shep
herd is driving off the horses to pasture for the night. That
last task is by no means a light one ; it is so easy for the
shepherd to go to sleep a wink or two, to get a little care
less, and let the horses stray away a bit ;* and see ! before you
know it, they will be sure to get into the fields. One night,
it was said, much wheat was trodden down. Of course the
owners of the damaged fields bring in a complaint. Who
shall be made to pay them ? This is matter for the Mir to
decide. Among the horses there is one spotted in yellow and
white — a somewhat frisky animal. From the time when that
horse was bought he would let no one manage him ; the only
way to overcome him was to ride him into deep water; but
as soon as he set foot on firm ground again, that horse was
sure to throw his rider and hurt him. It was found, later on,
however, that the young rider's mother knew how to master
this horse. In her hands the animal would give himself up
willingly. When the old woman would catch that horse,
though — we saw it with our own eyes — she would stroke
* There are no fences about fields in Russia.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.

429

him, caress him a long time, even talk to him. Was not
that, after all, her secret for taming him ?
The summer of this year in its first part turned out to
be very rainy. The peasants, who wanted to get to haying,
as well as myself, with my sketches begun by sunlight — all
of us were looking forward anxiously to every coming day.
Usually I tried to guess the weather by the way the sun
would set and the clouds would be disposed, and sometimes
my guesses would be amiss. Yet the peasant women of our
house generally guessed aright by watching what cow would
walk in foremost as the herd would be driven home of an
evening : if a red cow would be walking in front of the oth
ers, a fine day was to be expected ; did a dark cow take the
lead, the next day would hardly turn out to be a clear one.
As there are no popular signs without some reasonable foun
dation, so it must be supposed that this one is also backed up
by some hidden reason. It is possible that the impression
ability, nervousness, and briskness of a cow's movements must
be to some extent regulated by the cow's color, which, in
countries with perfected methods of cattle-breeding, is always
adapted to the climate and the general conditions of the soil.
Thus, in travelling over Holland, one does not see in that
damp, foggy climate any other than black-and-white cows.
I was living with my wife in a roomy house, where at
first we were somewhat annoyed by vermin, but with the
aid of Persian camomile powder we soon got rid of the nui
sance; as to the other unavoidable fellow-lodgers in a village
house, the water -bugs, we got used to them: they don't
sting any one. Concerning the rest, we got on quite well
and comfortably, and the daughter of one of the mistresses
of the house waited on us with so much zeal and such
thorough attention that it would indeed be rare to find any
thing that would come up to it in towns nowadays.

430 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
Provisions had to be brought over from the town of
Rostov, but fish we could get on the place. In our river
Ishnia eel-pouts were caught as well as crucians and craw
fish ; the latter tumbled of themselves in the weels set for
them, or into ordinary baskets, while the eel-pouts, when not
caught in the same manner, were hit with harpoons, or else
simply caught by hand. " The principal thing to do is to
take good hold of the eel-pout's head," our laborer, Alexan
der, who was also our principal fisherman, used to say in
answer to my inquiries as to how he succeeded in catching
such a lively fish with his hands. Yet still it was not clear
to me how I was to " take good hold of the eel's-pout's head";
to me it looked very much like the proverbial catching of a
bird by "putting salt on its tail."
The fish and crawfish were delicious, and not at all dear;
thus, for instance, for twenty kopecks we used to get several
eel-pouts, one of which would bring the scales down at two
or three pounds, say ; large crawfish could be had at two ko
pecks apiece. As to the milk, we could not have fared any
better ; we used it in all kinds of preparations — a bowl of it,
holding a couple of quarts, costing but five kopecks.
Communication with town was somewhat troublesome,
since there was but one cabman in the place, and though he
lived next door to us, he liked to make difficulties, so that we
generally had to send a boy to town for a cabman, and that
was very agreeable to the youngster, who for some ten ko
pecks went on his errand running and jumping.
Our house was one of the few that escaped burning at
the time of the conflagration, and most likely it was saved
by the shady willows that grow all around it. This was one
of many occasions on which the usefulness of trees was dem
onstrated, yet still the peasants are very unwilling to bother
themselves about trees ; even if they plant them, they won't
water and look after them, and so the trees perish.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.

431

The fire occurred at night, and, as usual, from a trifling
cause. A tipsy peasant, lighting his pipe, set fire to his house
and the whole village. Probably that peasant felt his guilt
very keenly ; at least he disappeared from the village right
after the fire, went to earn his living elsewhere, and was not
seen for a whole year, although he sent occasional remit
tances in support of his wife and children. It is interest
ing to note that on that very day this same peasant, in com
mon with others, helped to put out a fire in a neighboring
village. Together with the rest, he got drunk there on the
wine to which they were treated in gratitude for their assist
ance ; and having saved their neighbors', this peasant came
home and set fire to his own village.
As stated already, there was another conflagration in this
same village some fifteen years previous to that ; and at that
time the peasants lost still more than they did lately. Ev
ery summer and fall " the red cock " (as they call a confla
gration) sweeps along unrestrainedly all over the northern
part of Russia, and so used is the peasant to this fact that,
noticing the smoke or reflection of a fire in the distance, he
only scratches himself and says, " There, now ! the fires have
set in already."
As I have mentioned, right behind the village passes
the railroad, and the wedding of the railroad watchman,
which took place this summer, was an event indeed for the
whole village. And what gossip was set on foot by the
occurrence ! At first all were in a flurry because the wed
ding was intended to take place in the Church of St. John ;
then the priest of the bride's parish set everybody talking
because he refused to comply with certain formalities, so as
not to let such a good thing slip out of his hands ; and after
all, the young people had to be married at that priest's
church. Again there was something else that set tongues

432 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.
a-wagging. The bridegroom, a brave workman receiving
twenty rubles a month salary, had a defect in one eye, whose
lids presented such an unattractive appearance that the
young man constantly wore dark goggles. It turned out
that the bride happened to thoroughly find out that defect
in her spouse only on the day following their marriage, and
had the foolishness to complain of it to her girl companions.
How people laughed then at the bride's tardy fastidiousness !
There was not a house in which her mortification was not
laughed at, and talked over threadbare. Our granny, for
instance, in shelling peas, once launched such a cutting and
funny joke concerning the squeamish bride that we could
not restrain ourselves from laughter.
Not far from the railroad passed the causeway, which
swerves here towards Perejaslav-Zalieski — a place not reach
ed by the railroad. It is a pity that the birches bordering
the causeway are so neglected. No one ever thinks of re
placing a dead tree, so that empty places run sometimes from
six to twelve hundred feet along the roadway. Large num
bers of people of all descriptions pass along this causeway;
a good many of them are pilgrims of both sexes, who take
this road going north and returning as they proceed to the So-
lovetskoi monastery. It is at this point also that people turn
off to the side when going to visit the holy places of Rostov.
I myself loved the causeway chiefly because under the
birches here I used to gather mushrooms, my wife making
a delicious soup of them. There were not many mushrooms
to be found this summer, since the ground in all the neigh
boring small woods was thoroughly submerged. Berries were
not very plentiful either.
Provisions were not high with us, nor were they as low
as in other country places. For instance, we had to pay
from thirty to forty kopecks for a fowl; beef was ten kopecks

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE. 43,
and fish four kopecks a pound. Of course prices would
have been still lower were it not for the railroad, which swal
lows up all the place produces, and carries it off to such
large centres of consumption as the neighboring city of
Jaroslav and the somewhat more distant Moscow.
All work in the fields is carried on in common by the
village Mir, and many are the disputes and even quarrels on
such occasions. Mowing-time comes on, say. On the eve
of the day when the work is to begin the bailiff makes the
call, blowing his horn, and all the peasants assemble at his
house in the evening. Here they hold a council, at which
everything is talked over and settled — at what point to set
out, where each man is to work, and all that kind of thing.
Nevertheless, when morning sets in, there is again much dis
cussion over the question as to where each one is to stand,
and where to begin mowing. But once work is started all
becomes still, and it does one's heart good to see how not
only men, but women and girls, swing their scythes. Once
in a while one would notice some exceptionally smart mower,
who, having distanced all his companions, would stand grin
ning and cracking jokes at the slowness of the laggards, or
with some passer-by that had stopped to look at them.
There is no school in the village, and children used to
go to school in a neighboring village ; but that school has
also been closed, so that there is now no place where chil
dren may be taught. There are a good many illiterate peo
ple among the grown-up folks, chiefly among women, and
consequently there is much superstition : great is the faith
in signs and charms. On one occasion, for instance, a swal
low flew in at our entrance door, and began beating against
the walls and the ceiling, trying to find an outlet ; seeing
this, our girls got in a flutter, so great was their certainty
that some misfortune was impending. As to the patron
28

434

THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE.

saint of the Church of John the Baptist, the people hold him
outright to be the father of thunder, and no sooner does a
storm draw near than all turn to him with prayers to avert
lightning, to cast off his wrath, and exert his good-will on the
people's behalf. With the first peals of thunder our house
wives hasten to light the image lamps before the icons, so as
to pacify God and the interceding saints.
What tricks cannot be played on these people of ours !
what are not the devices at hand to frighten them! Our
landlady told us once herself how she and her daughter were
scared by a passing gypsy. " She got at us, and began to
bother us as we were sitting before the house. ' I can do
anything with you,' says she. ' I can make you either happy
or unhappy. I can this very minute call down fire from
heaven on you. I can make cold water boil at my bid
ding. . . . Don't you believe me, now? Well, then, let me
have a glass of water ; I will show you,' says she. Well, we
gave her a glass of water, and she began blowing at it and
mumbling over it ; then, we notice, she takes a pinch of
something with her fingers out of her pocket and throws it
into the water, and sure enough that very moment the water
gets to boiling and boiling ! . . . Now, we have seen it with
our own eyes, so we tell you the truth. The gypsy ordered
that water thrown away ; ' otherwise,' says she, ' it may set
the house on fire.' Well, she asked then if I had not some
dress to give her, and so I gave her an old 'sarafan ' of mine,
and Sasha here gave her a kerchief for the .head. I gave
her twenty kopecks besides. But, would you believe it? this
would not satisfy her. ' Give me sixty kopecks more,' says
she, ' otherwise dire misfortune will befall you.' I wellnigh
lost my head then ; did not know what to do with her, and
so sent Sasha for granny, hoping the other would help us
out. Granny came, and sure enough she straightway set out
to drive off the gypsy. And how mad that gypsy got then !

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE.

435

' You will remember me,' says she. ' You would not give me
a trifle now, yet there will come a time when you will be
ready to give up much, but it will be too late then.' "
Even in telling us of that occurrence our worthy land
lady was evidently still under the influence of the gypsy's
threats, and was dreading revenge at her hands. But when
we put some Sedlitz-powder in water in her presence, caus
ing the water to effervesce, then only, and not before, she
believed our assurance that the gypsy played a trick on her,
and that no dire misfortune is to befall her for refusing the
sixty kopecks.

THE END.