THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID . i v STUDIES IN RUSSIA STUDIES IN RUSSIA BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE AUTHOR OF WALKS IN ROME" "CITIES OF NORTHERN AND CENTRAL ITALY" "WANDERINGS IN SPAIN" ETC. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & COMPANY LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN 1896 TO THE KIND COMPANIONS OF THREE FOREIGN JOURNEYS THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED I - PREFACE. 'A FOREIGNER must spend two years in our country before he can judge of it,' say the Russians, and the author of the following chapters feels bound to confess at the outset that he has only passed one summer there. He would not have ventured to write, much less to publish, anything he had written about it, if it were not that, when he was in the country, he had himself felt intensely the want of such assistance as may be found in this volume. Few English travellers know Russian enough to enable them to ask questions or to understand verbal information ; the meagre existing English handbooks give a useful catalogue of the sights in the principal towns, but scarcely any information as to their meaning or history ; and much thus passes un- observed or misunderstood which might lend a great charm to the usual monotony of a Russian tour. This book does not profess to contain many original observations, but it is a gathering up of such information as its author has been able to obtain from the lips or writings of those better informed viii PREFACE. than himself, and for which he would have been so thankful before his own visit to Russia, that he believes it will not be unwelcome to others, especially to those who are likely to travel in that country. The illustrations are from the author's own sketches taken upon the spot, under the fear, almost the certainty, of arrest, and sometimes of imprisonment, till the rare official could be found who was capable of reading the various permits with which he was furnished. The drawings have been transferred to wood by the skill of Mr. T. Sulman. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE INTRODUCTORY . I CHAPTER II. ST. PETERSBURG ......... 28 CHAPTER III. EXCURSIONS ROUND ST. PETERSBURG ..... 122 CHAPTER IV. NOVOGOROD THE GREAT . . . . . . . l66 CHAPTER V. MOSCOW (THE INNER CIRCLES) 196 CHAPTER VI. MOSCOW (THE OUTER CIRCLES) ...... 281 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. I'ACE THE MONASTERIES NEAR MOSCOW . . . . . 316 CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW JERUSALEM 3 6 9 CHAPTER IX. KIEFF ....... 4 2 7 CHAPTER X. A GLIMPSE OF POLAND' 4^3 INDEX 497 CHAPTER I. IN TROD UCTOR Y. THE best time for visiting Russia is always said to be the winter, but those who wish to sketch must go there in the summer months. There they will then find S. Petersburg and Moscow, which are so gay in the snow- time, almost deserted ; everyone has gone into the country. But except for the sake of studying native manners and customs, and the melancholy monotone of rural life which Gogol has described so well, few travellers will follow them thither. For cursory visitors all the interest of Russia north of the Crimea is confined to the cities, though native authors, Pouchkine, Gogol, Tourgueneff, Koltsov, teach us how to make the utmost of the charms which the calm, sleepy existence of country life has to offer, especially in the Ukraine. As to scenery, no one must expect any striking beauty in Russia ; it does not possess any, and except in the neighbourhood of some of the towns which have chosen all the best situations there is scarcely anything which can be even called pretty. The desolation is also extreme, for no country is more thinly inhabited. The time when Russia shows at its best is just after the sudden, almost instantaneous change from winter to a verdant flower-laden spring of indescribable radiance and freshness. B 2 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' The whole countrey differeth very much from it selfe, by reason of the yeere : so that a man would marueille to see the great alteration and difference betwixt the winter, and the summer Russia. The whole countrey in the winter lieth under snow, which falleth continually, and is sometime of a yard or two thicke, but greater towards the north. The rivers and other waters are all frosen vp a yard or more thicke, how swift or broade soeuer they bee. And this continueth commonly flue moneths, viz. , from the beginning of November till towardes the ende of March, what time the snow beginneth to melt. So that it would breede a frost in a man to looke abroad at that time, and see the winter face of that countrey. The sharpnesse of the aire you may judge of by this : for that water dropped down or cast vp into the aire congealeth into yce before it come to the ground. In the extremitie of winter, if you holde a pewter dish or pot in your hand, or any other metall (except in some chamber where their warme stoaues bee), your fingers will friese fast vnto it, and drawe off the skinne at the parting. When you passe out of a warme roome into a colde, you shall sensibly feele your breathe to waxe starke, and euen stifeling with the colde, as you drawe it in and out. Diuers not onely that trauel abroad, but in the very markets and streetes of their townes, are mortally pinched and killed withall : so that you shall see many drop downe in the streetes ; many trauellers brought into the townes sitting dead and stiffe in their sleds. Diuers lose their noses, the tips of their eares, and the bals of their cheeks, their toes, feete, &c. Many times (when the winter is very hard and extreame) the beares and wolfes issue by troupes out of the woods driuen by hunger, and enter the villages, tearing and rauening all they can finde : so that the inhabitants are faine to flic for safeguard of their lines. And yet in the summer time you shall see such a new hiew and face of a countrey, the woods (for the most part which are all of firre and birch), so fresh and so sweete, the pastures and medowes so greene and well growen (and that vpon the sudden), such varietie of flowers, such noyse of birdes (specially of nightingales, that seeme to be more lowde and of a more variable note than in other countreys) that a man shall not lightly trauell in a more pleasant countrey.' Dr. Giles Fletcher, Ambassador from Elizabeth to the 7^sar Feodor Ivanovitch, 1588. A traveller accustomed to the freedom of the rest of Europe will be intensely worried by the tyranny which is exercised over him in Russia, and which will call all his TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA. 3 powers of patience into unceasing and vigilant practice. There is no end to the orders which are necessary for all sights, almost for all actions, or to the degree in which every official, generally in proportion to his inferiority and subordinateness, exacts to the uttermost the little meed of attention which he thinks due to his self-esteem, his fees, or more especially his expectation of a bribe, and his habit of receiving it. Many of the sights of S. Petersburg and Moscow are said to be freely open ; the fact is just the contrary. A visitor can see nothing unaccompanied, neither museum, palace, school, hospital, nor anything else. The manners and politeness of the East are made an excuse for never leaving a foreigner alone, under an outward pre- text of doing him honour. To make a sketch, not only of an interior, but even of any external view, an order, signed and countersigned, is necessary, and even then is utterly inefficient to protect the artist, who is often dragged for miles to the police stations, because the police themselves cannot read. One piece at least of the admirable dying advice which the Grand Prince Vladimir Monomachus gave to his children in 1126 is entirely neglected at the present time in his country ' Pay especial respect to strangers, of whatever quality ,or whatever rank they may be, and if you are not in a position to overwhelm them with gifts, expend for them at least the proofs of your good will, for upon the manner in which they are treated in a country depends the good or the evil which they will speak of it in their own. ' Nevertheless, an English traveller, possessed of a firm intention of conquering difficulties and laughing at de- ficiencies and disagreeables, will find much in Russia to enjoy. It is not the country or the buildings, but the life B 2 4 ' STUDIES IN RUSSIA. itself which make its picturesqueness, especially to one who has not seen the East. ' On se sent, en Russie, a la porte d'une autre terre, pres de cet Orient d'ou sont sorties tant de croyances religieuses, et qui renferme encore dans son sein d'incroyables tresors de perseverance et de reflexion.' Madame de Stall Better acquaintance also will show that the influence of the East is not confined to externals, and that Oriental mysticism has still a stronger hold than European civilisa- tion upon the country. ' La Russie est un immense edifice a exterieur europeen, orne d'un fronton europeen, mais, a 1'interieur, meuble et administre a 1'asiatique. La tres grande majorite des fonctionnaires russes, deguises en costumes plus ou moins europeens, precedent dans 1'exercice de leurs fonctions en vrais Tartares.' Prince Dolgoroiiki. ' C'est un pays a la fois neuf et vieux, une monarchic asiatique, et une colonie europeenne ; c'est un Janus a deux tetes, occidental par sa jeune face, oriental par sa face vieillie.' Anatole Leroy Beaulieu (Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1873). The capabilities and powers of Russia are quite out of proportion to its past history, but it is impossible for an outsider to foretell what its aspirations for the future may be. It is only certain that those who know Russia best are those who consider the ordinary impressions of it the most erroneous. * There is a widely spread belief in Europe that Russia is an ambi- tious colossus, thirsting after conquest, and aspiring to universal monarchy. . . . The impulse of development .drove it to the conquest of the Baltic and Pontic countries, by which means it first became a State, and entered the circle of modern civilised empires. Russia indeed made further conquests of parts of Poland proper, the Caucasian coun- tries, &c. , but she has , never derived any real advantage from these A US STAN POLITICS. 5 conquests she looks forward to realise them in a distant future. From henceforth every further conquest would be a source of incalculable embarrassment. Where is it supposed that Russia wishes to extend her conquests ? An increase of territory on the side of Sweden were madness : Finland itself is only valuable as a fortress to protect S. Petersburg. Conquests in the West? Poland is already more a burden than an advantage to Russia. The Caucasian countries, in comparison with what they have cost, have not the slightest real value for her. The frontier-line towards Persia and Asia Minor is at present drawn so favourably for .Russia that any further conquest in thai quarter must appear insanity. * But the conquest of Constantinople ? Can it be believed possible to govern Constantinople from S. Petersburg ? The entire equilibrium of the government would be destroyed, and the weight of power would necessarily seek other points in the Empire, such as Kharkof or Odessa, instead of Moscow and S. Petersburg. ' There exists no trace of any warlike idea of conquest in the Russian people : there is indeed a " Young Russia," as there is a Young Europe, a Young Germany, a Young Italy : this belongs to the development of modern civilisation. Young Russia dreams of a great Slavonic empire, of the restoration of Byzantium, of the ancient Tzargorod, but these dreams have never penetrated among the people.' Haxthausen, ' The Riissian Empire.'' Of late years, since the word ' Nihilist,' first explained by S. Augustine, 1 has been brought into common acceptance, the Russian government has been chiefly occupied by its internal difficulties and dangers. The unhappy position of the Tsar is even far worse than when, in 1839, M. de Custine wrote ' Le souverain absolu est de tons les hommes celui qui moralement souffre le plus de 1'inegalite cles conditions ; et ses peines sont d'autant plus grandes, qu'enviees du vulgaire elles doivent paraitre irremediables a celui qui les subit.' 1 ' Nihilisti appellantur, quia nihil credunt et nihil decent.' Russian society was first reminded of the expression by Ivan Tourguneff in his novel, Parents and Children, in which the ' nihilist ' Bazarof plays a principal part. 6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. And yet, nominally, the Tsar is still as omnipotent as in the old times when we read * II (le tsar) dit, et tout est fait : la fortune des la'iques et du clerge, des seigneurs et des citoyens, tout depend de sa volonte supreme. II ignore la contradiction, et tout en lui semble juste, comme dans la divinite ; car les Russes sont persuades que le grand prince est 1'execu- teur des decrets celestes : ainsi Pont voitlu Dieu et le prince, Dieti et le prince le savtnt, telles sont les locutions ordinaires parmi eux. ' l and when we read ' He who blasphemes his Maker meets with forgiveness among men, but he who reviles the Emperor is sure to lose his head.' Travels of Macarius, ii. 73. In colleges or council-halls a triangular mirror the ' Mirror of Conscience ' is always set up to typify the pre- sence of the Emperor, and thus to solemnise the proceedings. ' Cette population d'automates ressemble a la moitie d'une partie d'echecs ; car un seul homme fait jouer toutes les pieces, et 1'adversaire invisible, c'est 1'humanite. On ne se meut, on ne respire ici que par une permission ou par un ordre imperial ; aussi tout est-il sombre et contraint ; le silence preside a la vie et la paralyse. Officiers, cochers, Cosaques, courtisans, tous serviteurs du meme maitre avec des grades divers, obeissent aveuglement a une pensee qu'ils ignorent ; c'est un chef-d'oeuvre de discipline, mais taut de regularite ne s'obtient que par 1'absence complete d'independance. ' Le gouvernement russe, c'est la discipline du camp substitute a Pordre de la cite, c'est 1'etat de siege devenu 1'etat normal de la societe.' M. de Ciistine. ' The patriarchal government, feelings, and organisation are in full activity in the life, manners, and customs of the Great Russians. The same unlimited authority \vhich the father exercises over all his children is possessed by the mother over her daughters : the same reverence and obedience are shown to the Communal authorities, the Starostas and Whiteheads, and to the common father of all, the Tsar. The Russian addresses the same word to his real father, to the Starosta, 1 From the letters of Baron d'Herbestein, ambassador from the Emperor Maxi- milian to the Tsar Vasili-Ivanovitch. THE TSAR. 7 to his master, to the Emperor, and finally to God, viz., Father (Batiushkd) ; in like manner he calls every Russian, whether known to him or not, Brother (Brat}. ' The common Russian (Muzhik} entertains no slavish, but simply a childlike fear and veneration for the Tsar ; he loves him with a devoted tenderness. He becomes a soldier reluctantly, but, once a soldier, he has no feeling of vindictiveness for the coercion exercised upon him, but serves the Tsar with the utmost fidelity. The celebrated expression " Prikazeno " (it is ordered) has a magical power over him. Whatever the Emperor commands must be done ; the Russian cannot conceive the impossibility of its execution : the orders of the police are not even worded Zaprestcheno (it is forbidden), but Neprikazeno (it is not ordered). The profound veneration felt for the Tsar is also shown in the case of everything belonging to him ; the Russian has the deepest respect for the Kaziomne, or property of Tsar. ' ' Kaziomne does not die, does not burn in fire, or drown in water," is a Russian proverb. ' There is scarcely an instance recorded of any collectors of the Crown taxes, who often traverse the country with considerable sums of money, being attacked and robbed. In the north, in the government of Vologda, where the morals of the people are still particularly pure and simple, and great confidence and honesty prevail, when a collector enters a village, he taps at each window and calls out " Kaza ! " Then each person brings out his Crown tax for the year, and throws it into the open bag : the collector does not count the money, being well assured that he is never cheated. If his visit is in the night, he enters the first substantial house, places his money-bag under the image of the Saint, looks for a place to rest on, and sleeps, with a perfect assurance of finding his money safe in the morning. ' The Tsar is the father of his people ; but the descent, and even the sex, of the sovereign is indifferent to them. Ruric and the Varan- gians were invited into the country, and were obeyed like hereditary chiefs. The Empress Catherine II., a foreign princess, experienced the same veneration and attachment as princes born in Russia : she became nationalised on assuming the Tsardom. The profound veneration for authority passes to the person of everyone who assumes the office of Tsar.' Haxthatisen, ' The Russian Empire S It is certain that no position of temptation can possibly be more terrible than that of the Tsar, who, nourished in self-idolatry, constantly hears his infallibility proclaimed by 8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. eighty-two millions of his subjects. And it is extraordinary that, in spite of such temptation, all the sovereigns, since the time of Peter the Great and the Empire, have lived, in various degrees, according to their light, for the good of their people. They have not, however, always continued the liberal policy of Peter, and, under several of the sove- reigns who succeeded Catherine II., genius was always looked upon as a sure passport for Siberia. It did not create any surprise when, one day, at the Council of Censure, a high official declared that ' every writer is a bear who ought to be kept in chains.' Under the Emperor Nicholas, none even of the books published under his predecessors could be brought out again unless submitted to changes, so vigilant was the censorship of the press. Yet some regard this reign as the golden age of Russian literature, because it was then entirely freed from foreign influences. The sufferings of a native author at this time are, however, vividly described by Tourgueneff : * Life at this time was very hard, and the young generation of to-day has had nothing like it to bear. In the morning the censor returned your proofs full of erasures, covered with words written in red ink, and as if they were stained with blood. Sometimes one was obliged to have an interview with the censor, to listen to his sen- tences without appeal, and often ironical. In the street you met a general or head clerk, who overwhelmed you with abuse, or paid you compliments, which was worse. When one looked around one, one saw venality in full play, serfdom weighing down the people like a rock, barracks rising everywhere : there was no justice, the closing of the universities was under discussion, travelling abroad was impossible, one could not order any serious book, a dark cloud weighed over what was then called the administration of literature and science ; denuncia- tion penetrated everywhere ; amongst young people, there was no common bond, nor any general interests j fear and flattery existed everywhere. ' Recollections of. Bielinsky. EMANCIPATION OF SERFS. . 9 Under Nicholas it was forbidden to speak even of such a Russian ruler as Ivan the Terrible as a tyrant. No one was permitted to make a scientific tour in Russia without special authorisation. No one could leave the country without a permission which was obtained with difficulty on payment of a tax equivalent to two thousand francs. 1 Russia was thus hermetically sealed. There is a proverb which says 'The gates of Russia are wide to those who enter, but narrow to those who would go out.' Warned by the failure of the policy of Nicholas, which cost Russia her dominion of the Black Sea and her pro- tectorate of the Christians of the East, a reign of comparative liberty was inaugurated under his successor Alexander II. The system which consisted in governing Russia without any participation of the country in its own affairs was con- demned. It seemed in the first years of Alexander II. as if the conservative Russia of Nicholas had passed away for ever. Men of letters, condemned or watched during the last reign, guided public opinion. But it was realised that no other serious reform could be carried out, till the greatest of all was effected the emancipation of the serfs. These owed their enthralment to the administration of Boris Godunof as minister of Feodor Ivanovitch (1584-98), when, to gratify the nobles, he interdicted the peasantry from passing from the domains of one landlord to another, a cruel law which was soon found to place them at the mercy of the lords of the soil, and against which they murmured ever after, sometimes revolting into the Cossack life of the Don and the Dniester. If the nobles and grandees quarrelled amongst themselves, their serfs were only the more oppressed 1 Victor Tissot. io STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' When wolves fight, sheep lose their wool,' was a Russian proverb. Even after abundant harvests, the peasantry were often compelled to starve, that their lords in Moscow and S. Petersburg might wallow in luxuries. 1 A few cities enjoy the pleasures of life, and exhibit palaces, because whole provinces lie desolate, or contain only wretched hovels, in which you would expect to find bears, rather than men. ' Memoirs of the Court of Petersburg, p. 268. There were above forty-seven millions of serfs in Russia, of which twenty-one millions belonged to private landowners, and one million and a half belonged to the dvorovie or servant-class. In resigning themselves to whatever treat- ment they received personally, the serfs never forgot their ancient rights to the soil. ' Our backs belong to the land- lord, but the soil to ourselves,' was an old saying, and they were less ready than the government itself to forget the fact that the obligation of the peasant to serve his lord was correlative to the obligation of his lord to serve the Tsar. When Peter III., in his brief reign, freed the nobles from obligatory service to the State, the peasants expected, as a natural sequence of this ukase, the issue of a second which should free the peasantry from the service of the land. 1 It was in 1857 that Alexander II. began his work of liberty by forming a committee ' for the amelioration of the state of the peasantry.' All sections of the literary world had arguments to offer in support of the emancipation, and moral and social progress were alike declared impossible whilst slavery continued. But it was to the indefatigable zeal of the Emperor himself, and his determination to con- 1 Rambaud, Hist, de la Rnssie. EMANCIPATION OF SERFS. n quer all opposition he received, that the act of emancipation was really due, by which eventually the Russian peasantry were not only declared free, but placed in possession of more than half of all the arable land possessed by those who had hitherto been their lords. Strange as it may seem to out- siders, the new state of things, even from the first, was not hailed with enthusiasm by the class it was intended to benefit. They cared little whether they were called serfs or free peasants, unless the change of name brought some material advantage, and when they found that they had to pay government taxes for land which they had practically treated as their own before, it was necessary to appoint arbiters for the difficult task of conciliating and regulating the differences between the peasantry and the old proprietors, and endeavouring to overcome the ignorance of the former^ and the unjust claims of the latter. The arbiters, though in- describably patient and painstaking, only partially succeeded. A great proportion of the former serfs still regret their serf- dom. Then they were provided for in old age, they were looked after in case of sickness or accident, their doctors' bills were paid for them, they had an hereditary interest in their proprietor and his belongings and he in them, and, in the rare case where a lord of the soil was unjust or cruel, they could always, and often did assassinate him. 1 ' There is something so grand in the very name of Liberty,' says the philanthropist. ' But can it feed one ? ' answers the emancipated serf. Almost all Russian peasants now would find it difficult 1 For instance, when a master treated his slaves cruelly in a distillery, they threw him into a boiling copper. 12 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. to answer the question whether they were better or worse off than formerly, for the present money-dues and taxes are often more burdensome than the labour-dues in the time of serfage. The obligations of a serf were usually more than compensated by their privileges by the rights of grazing their cattle on the manor-land, of obtaining firewood or timber for repairing their cottages. All their advantages have now been swept away with their burdens. 1 Emancipated serfs of the present time are apt to forget what the position of their class was a hundred years ago ; they forget that Peter the Great permitted the serfs to be divorced from their land and to be sold separately by their masters ; they forget their proverb, ' The heaven is high and the Tsar is far off,' with which they lamented under their oppressors; they forget that, till the time of Alexander L, who put a stop to it, their physical and mental powers were abundantly described (before their public sale) in the news- papers, a coachman and a cow being often advertised in the same column. Cases, however, of great personal cruelty on the part of masters were certainly even then rare and severely punished ; one of the worst being that of a lady of the Saltikov family, who was sentenced by Catherine II. to imprisonment for life for having murdered several of her female serfs. A story is also told of the severe punishment of a lady who, feeling that her personal charms were on the wane, had made one of her serfs her hairdresser, and shut him up for life lest he should tell what he saw. One of the greatest outward changes which have come 1 On all subjects connected with Russian institutions the Russia of D. Mackenzie Wallace, who has thoroughly studied the subject, and spent six years in the country for the purpose, is indisputably the best authority. Russians themselves constantly say that they knew nothing of their own institutions till they read Wallace. POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 13 over Russian * society ' since the emancipation is to be seen in the change of language. Formerly, when there were two separate peoples masters and serfs the former always talked French and the latter Russ : now Russ is spoken everywhere. Formerly people said of the works of Gogol or Lermontoff, ' Oh, it is only Russian,' but now Russian literature is preferred. In its general aspects no European country has changed with modern times so little as Russia. It will be found by travellers that if the quotations given in these pages from the writings of sixteenth-century tourists describe the appearance and buildings of Moscow and other places as they are now, they equally apply to the manners and habits of the inhabitants now as they did then. With much of shrewdness and originality the Russian peasant combines still such uncouthness and uncleanliness that a traveller must have either considerable apathy or considerable patience not to be prejudiced against him, before his more hidden virtues have made themselves felt. Many are the popular superstitions which have lingered on unaltered even from pagan times, and which will be noticed in the description of places where they especially occur. Even a certain degree of actual paganism still exists in many remote spots, and in others the attributes of pagan deities and the honours paid to them are only transferred to popular saints of the Greco- Russian Church. It is also believed that, when Satan fell from heaven, some of his hosts sought a refuge under the earth, the Karliki or dwarfs ; some in the woods, the Lyeshie or sylvan demons ; some in the waters, Vodyanuie or water-sprites ; some in the air, Vozdushnuie or storm- spirits : some in the houses, 14 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Domovnie or domestic spirits; ' and all this strange mytho- logy has its part in the daily life, with its hopes and fears, of a Russian peasant. The intensity of superstition often oppresses and fetters the most ordinary acts of life. In the Nijegorod government it is even forbidden to break up the smouldering remains of faggots with a poker ; he who performs such an act might be causing his nearest deceased relations to fall through into hell ! Towards their icons, the sacred pictures of which we shall see so much in Russia, the feeling of the peasantry is unchanged since George Turberville, the secretary to Randolph, who went as ambassador from Elizabeth of England to Ivan the Terrible, described the ' Manners of the Countrey and People ' in * Letters in Verse.' 2 ' Their idoles have their hearts, on God they never call, Unless it be (Nichola Baugh) that hangs against the wall. The house that hath no god, or painted saint within, Is not to be resorted to, that roofe is full of sinne. ' And the ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein wrote ' When a Muscovite enters a house or chamber he saies not a word, till he hath fixt his eyes on the saint he looks for, or if he finds him not, asks,yktf le Boch, Where is the god ? As soon as he perceives him, he makes him one very low reverence, or more, and pronounces at every time, Gospodi Pomilui : then he returns to the company, and salutes them.' Icons pictures covered with metal except the faces and hands are of Byzantine origin, and all the most ancient icons are the work of Greek artists, who had Russian pupils : it has never been permissible to alter the type. A miraculous 1 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, 2 Hakluyfs Voyages, vol. i. p. 432. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 15 icon, and there are many of these, is usually affirmed to be pointed out by a vision, and then to be found buried in the earth, or hanging in a tree ; but its miraculous qualities must be recognised by ' the Most Holy Synod,' before it is given to the adoration of the orthodox. The most ordinary icons, however, receive greater veneration than any of the images in Roman Catholic churches. Even in the old romances, when a warrior is represented as reaching the hall of the heroes, he fastens up his horse to the steel rings fixed in the oaken pillars at the entrance, and, entering the presence-chamber, bows to the sacred picture, before noticing the princes and princesses and the rest of the assembly. The multitude of icons, frequently glistening with gold and jewels, and ever surrounded by burning lights, gives an in- describable richness to a Russian church. Thus, to the devout Russian, even S. Peter's at Rome would be bare and cold. But to the orthodox Russian the Pope is no better than the first Protestant, the founder of German rationalism. An Eastern Patriarch ' does not hesitate to speak of the Papal Supremacy as ' the chief heresy of the latter days, which flourishes now as its predecessor Arianism flourished before it in the earlier ages, and which shall, in like manner, be cut down and vanish away.' Many of the Russian services are exceedingly magnificent and striking, and it has been endeavoured, in the descriptions of the different churches, to give such explanations as may assist a stranger bewildered by the strange tones as well as the labyrinthine ceremonies in understanding them. Few travellers, however, will have patience to stay through whole services, as their length is enormous. 1 Encyclic Epistle of the Eastern Patriarch, 1848. i6 ! STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' " Reveillez-moi quand vous en serez au bon Dieu," disait un ambas- sadeur endormi dans une eglise russe par la liturgie imperiale.' M. de Custine. Importance of outward forms is much more insisted upon by the Greek than the Roman Church. This is seen in the strict observance of feasts and fasts ; the careful appropriation of vestments and ornaments ; above all, in the manner in which the sign of the cross is to be made, the Russians all making it with three fingers, except the. Rashkolniks or dissenters, who use only two : a bloody war once resulted from this distinction. 1 Every outward form that symbolises the Trinity is especially insisted upon. An archbishop of Novogorod declared that those who repeat the word Allelujah only twice instead of three times, at especial points in the liturgy, sing to their own damnation. 2 As to the essential points of religion there is greater laxity ; formerly the orthodox were obliged (rather by the State than the Church) to communicate twice a year, but now this is not compulsory, except in accordance with ecclesiastical teaching. ' In the Greek Church there are seven mysteries, or sacraments as they are called in the Latin Church, viz., baptism, the chrism or baptismal unction, the Eucharist, confession, ordination, marriage, and the holy oil or extreme unction. 4 A mystery is defined to be " a ceremony or act appointed by God, in which God giveth or signifieth to us His grace." Baptism and the Eucharist are called the chief ; of the rest, says Father Plato, some are to be received by all Christians, as baptismal unction and confession ; but ordination, marriage, and the holy oil, are not obligatory upon all. ' King, ' Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia.'' 1 See Hebers Journal. 2 Wallace, ii. -z. RUSSIAN SUBSERVIENCE. 17 The characteristic which will probably strike foreigners most in the Russian people is their extreme subservience to authority, in whatever rank they may be. 'The Russians, with all their acuteness, do whatever they are com- manded without question. The soldier never asks the reason why. " Such is the command " (Prikaz], is his well-known reply, when asked why he stands there, or does this or that, or leaves it undone. We hear of soldiers who, when a boat containing a number of officers was upset on the Neva, were ordered to save them with these words, " Rescue especially all the officers of the Guards." " Are you officers of the Guards ? " demanded the men of the first persons they reached ; the water already filled the throats of the unfortunate men, and they were allowed to sink. Upon another occasion the parade-ground in S. Petersburg, the streets being very dusty, had to be watered before a review. A sudden shower of rain fell ; but the detachment sent to execute this operation proceeded with their work, for " they were so commanded." These and similar anecdotes are told ; I cannot vouch for their truth, as the wits of S. Petersburg, a numerous class, are fond of such stories. Something characteristic of the Russians, however, is always to be found in them ; and although we in the West may laugh at the consequences of this pedantry, still when we hear that a soldier during an inundation would not abandon his post, even when the water reached up to his neck, and was drowned where he stood, we can imagine what a mighty power is contained in this Russian spirit of obedience. I will only mention two other of these characteristic traits, which I have heard upon good authority. Before the assault of Warsaw two grenadiers were standing at their post ; the one, a recruit, asked the other, an old soldier, pointing to the Polish entrenchments before them, "What think you, brother, shall we be able to take those works?" " I think not," replied the old warrior, " they are very strong." " Ay, but suppose we are ordered to take them ! " " That is another affair : if it is ordered, we will take them." At the conflagration of the Winter Palace, a priest rushed through the portion of the building which was on fire to rescue the pyx : he succeeded in reaching it, and hastened back : in one of the passages he perceived a soldier through the smoke : " Come away," he exclaimed, "or you are lost !" "No," said the soldier, "this is my post, but give me your blessing." He was immovable : the priest gave him his blessing, and saved himself with difficulty : the soldier was never seen again.' Haxthausen, 'The Ritssian Empire^ C i8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. An anecdote, characteristic at once of the imperturb- able deference of a Russian to his superiors, and of the Grand-Duke Constantine whom it concerned, is told by M. de Custine. It occurred at Warsaw, in the time of Alexander I. ' Un jour Constantin passait sa garde en revue ; et voulant montrer a un etranger de marque a quel point la discipline e"tait observee dans 1'armee russe, il descend de cheval, s'approche cTun de ses generatix, et sans le prevenir d'aucune fa9on, sans articuler un reproche, il lui perce tranquillement le pied de son epee. Le general demeure immobile : on 1'emporte quand le grand-due a retire son epee.' Most of the punishments still in use in Russia are of Tartar origin, the most terrible being that of the knout, introduced under Ivan the Terrible. In former times, cruel punishment with whips used to be ordained in episcopal circulars as well as in Imperial ukases. Gogol declares, however, that many Russians become quite indifferent to floggings, and only think them * a little stronger than good brandy and pepper.' Exile to Siberia, which sounds so terrible to us, is also less appalling to Russians, from their having none of the home-sickness which affects English in exile. But much naturally depends upon whether the exile is to north or south Siberia ; as, in the latter, there are many very pleasant places of residence, and its towns are said to be much more lively than many Russian cities. Olearius describes the Tartar punishment of the pravezh, which used to be inflicted upon debtors, who, till they made restitution, were daily beaten in public upon the shin-bone for an hour together, by the common executioner ; only, sometimes, by a bribe, the debtors were permitted to put a thin iron plate inside their boot to receive the blows. But RUSSIAN BRIBERY. 19 ' if the debtor have not to satisfie,' said the law, ' he must be sold, with his wife and children, to the creditor.' ' They say the lion's paw gives judgement of the beast : And so you may deeme of the great, by reading of the least,' says George Turberville, and thus the bribe offered by the debtor to his executioner is only a specimen of what may still be seen in every class of society in Russia. ' There is only one honest official in all my empire, and it is myself,' was said, probably with truth, by the Emperor Nicholas. In a Russian trial it is not unusual for a prisoner to promise his advocate 10,000 roubles if he is acquitted, 5,000 if he has only a year's imprisonment, 1,000 if he is sent to Siberia ; and for this a regular contract is drawn up. * The cause is decided, when the judge has taken a present,' has long been a Russian proverb. An example of the way in which bribery is everywhere rampant may be seen in a fact of recent occurrence. The. theatres are maintained by the government, and the manager is bound by an agreement to have a certain number of actors. Only lately an official was sent to one of the principal theatres in S. Petersburg to see that there were the right number in the corps de ballet. Its members were ordered out and marched round and round. The officer kept his eyes low and counted the number of legs ; while the same actors made the circuit several times. There were not half the right number of persons, but the officer had counted the right number of legs, and he was too deeply implicated in peculations of his own to be unpleasant. ' II faut le dire, les Russes de toutes les classes conspirent avec UIL accord merveilleux a faire triompher chez eux la duplicite. Us ont une dexterite dans le mensonge, un natureldanslafaussete.' M. c 2 20 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. All the public offices of Russia are full of civilised robbers who have not courage to work in open day. How the people hate and despise the official world which pillages them ! ' World of apes in uniform ; world of slaves proud of their fetters ; scum of society, marsh in which honour is engulfed.' Count Bledow said that one ought to write over the doors of certain public offices in Russia * Lasciate ogni conscienza, voi che entrate ! ' Bureaucracy is an ulcer which ceaselessly devours the country, ' Favouritism is the key-stone of Russian government, and adoration of Saints the pillar of their faith. The Sovereign is disregarded in the obeisance offered to his parasites ; and the Creator forgotten in the worship of his creatures.' Clarke. ' Dans la vie russe, tout est fumee ! On ne voit que des formes nouvelles ou des choses ebauchees. Tout le monde se presse, se pousse, et Ton n'arrive a rien. Le vent tourne ; on se jette du cote oppose. . . . Vapeur, fumee !' Tonrgueneff. The 'General Inspector' (Revizor) of Gogol, which gives a terrible picture of the cringing, cheating, tyrannising officials, appropriately bears on the title-page : ' You must not blame the looking-glass, if your face is crooked.' ' Savez-vous ce que c'est que de voyager en Russie ? Pour un esprit leger, c'est de se nourrir d'illusions ; mais pour quiconque a les yeux ouverts et joint a un peu de puissance d'observation une humeur inde- pendante, c'est un travail continu, opiniatre, et qui consiste a discerner peniblement a tout propos deux nations luttant dans une multitude. Ces deux nations, c'est la Russie telle qu'elle est, et la Russie telle qu'on voudrait la montrer a 1'Europe.' M. de Ctistine. There is still much of the same policy which characterised the last century, when one of her former favourites, rewarded by the governorship of Moscow, complained to Catherine II. that no one sent their children to school, and she answered RUSSIAN THIEVES. 21 * Mon cher prince, ne vous plaignez pas de ce que les Russes n'ont pas le desir de s'instruire ; si j'institue des ecoles, ce n'est pas pour nous, c'est pour 1' Europe, oh il faut maintenir notre rang dans f opinion ; mais du jour ou nos paysans voudraient s'eclairer, ni vous ni moi nous ne resterions a nos places.' A quaint instance of the recognised substitution of forms for realities which still pervades even small things in Russia is given in ' Clarke's Travels,' written at a time when there was less ready money in the country than there is now. ' Dr. Rogerson, at S. Petersburg, as I am informed, regularly received his snuff-box, and as regularly carried it to a jeweller for sale. The jeweller sold it again to the first nobleman who wanted a fee for his physician, so that the doctor obtained his box again ; and at last the matter became so well understood between the jeweller and phy- sician, that it was considered by both parties as a sort of bank-note, and no words were necessary in transacting the sale of it. ' Doubtless it is owing to the way in which habits of pecu- lation in the upper classes are recognised and winked at, that the habit of theft has such a hold upon the lower orders. There are no such thieves as the Russians. Peter the Great once observed that if in church, in the middle of a prayer, one of his subjects found that he could rob his neighbour, he would certainly do it. When robbing a church, a man will often offer several roubles' worth of candles to a neighbouring icon, if it will only help him to pull out the jewels of the one he is attacking. ' The French ambassador was one day vaunting the dexterity of the Parisian thieves to one of the grand-dukes. The grand-duke was of opinion that the S. Petersburg thieves were quite their equals ; and offered to lay a wager, that if the ambassador would dine with him the next day, he would cause his excellency's watch, signet-ring, or any other articles of his dress which he thought most secure, to be stolen from him before the dessert was over. The ambassador accepted the 22 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. wager, and the grand-duke sent immediately to the head of the police, desiring him to send the adroitest thief he might happen to have in custody at the time. The man was dressed in livery, instructed what to do, and promised a pardon if he accomplished his task well. The ambassador had named his watch as the particular object of attention, both for himself and the thief ; when he had got the watch, the sup- posed servant was to give the grand-duke a sign. The dinner began, the preliminary whet, the soups and the rGti came and disappeared in their turns ; the red, white, Greek, Spanish, and French wines sparkled successively in the glasses of the guests. The ambassador kept close guard on his watch, and the grand -duke, observing his earnest anxiety, smiled with good-humoured archness. The pretended lackey was busily assisting in the removal of the dishes, the dinner was nearly over, and the prince awaited with impatience the expected signal. Suddenly his countenance brightened ; he turned to the ambassador, who was deep in conversation with his neighbour, and asked him what was the hour. His excellency triumphantly put his hand into his pocket, he had had it on his watch a few minutes before, and, to the amusement of all, but particularly of the grand- duke, drew out a very neatly cut turnip ! A general laugh followed. The ambassador, somewhat embarrassed, would take a pinch of snuff, and felt in all his pockets for his gold snuff-box : it was gone ! The laughter became louder ; the ambassador in his embarrassment and vexation had recourse to his seal ring, to turn it as he was accustomed ; it was gone ! in short he found that he had been regularly plundered of everything but what had been fastened upon him by the tailor and shoemaker of his ring, watch, handkerchief, snuff-box, tooth-pick, and gloves. The adroit rogue was brought before him, and commanded by the grand-duke to give back the stolen property ; when, to the great surprise of the prince, the pickpocket took out two watches, and presented one to the ambassador, and one to his imperial highness ; two rings, one for the ambassador, and one for the grand -duke ; two snuff-boxes, &c. In astonishment, his highness now felt in his pockets as the ambassador had done, and found that he too had been stripped of his moveables in a like manner. The grand-duke solemnly assured the ambassador that he had been quite unconscious of the theft, and was disposed at first to be angry with the too dexterous artist. How- ever, upon second thoughts, the fellow, who had enabled him to win his wager so triumphantly, was dismissed with a present, and a warning to employ his talents in future to more useful purposes.' Kohl, ' Travels in Russia.' RUSSIAN INTEMPERANCE. 23 ' From the first Minister to the general -officer, from the lackey to the soldier, all the Russians are thieves, plunderers, and cheats. . . . It sometimes happens that in apartments at Court, to which none but persons of quality and superior officers are admitted, your pocket-book is carried off as if you were in a fair. The King of Sweden, after the battle of July 1790, invited a party of Russian officers, who had been made prisoners, to dine with him. One of them stole a plate ; upon which the offended king ordered them all to be distributed among the small towns, where they never again ate off silver.' Memoirs of the Court of Petersburg, 1801. There is a proverb which says 'The Russian peasant may be stupid, but he would only make one mouthful of God Himself.' Haxthausen l gives a curious example of the popular measures which are taken to discover a theft, and which are usually more efficacious than any interference of the easily-bribed police would be. ' In a house at which I called, a petty robbery had taken place a short time before : and I heard the method of catching a thief on such occasions. The mistress of the house had sent 'for a Babushka (an old woman reputed to be skilled in witchcraft) ; and, as soon as she was come, the servants were assembled, and told that if the thief confessed, he would be let off with a slight punishment, otherwise the Babushka would soon find out the culprit. Before she began her manoeuvres the thief confessed and begged for pardon. The practice of the Babushka is that she takes a piece of bread and kneads it into as many little balls as there are persons present : then she places a vessel of water in front of her, and makes all those present stand round it in a semicircle. Then, taking one of the balls, she looks fixedly at the first person and says, "Ivan Ivanovitch, if you are guilty, your soul will fall into hell, as this ball falls to the bottom ! " The balls of the innocent are sup- posed to float, and those of the guilty to sink ; but no Russian culprit ever allows the ball with his name to touch the water.' That which does most to brutalise the lower orders in Russia is their constant habit of intemperance, though this 1 The Russian Empire. 24 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. has much modified since the time of the ancient Tsars, by whose example it was so much encouraged. Vodki (corn brandy) is the chief means of intoxication. ' When God had created the world and wanted to people it, He created the different nations and bestowed rich gifts on them all : amongst the rest the Russians, to whom He gave vast lands, and every- thing else in superfluity. Then He asked each nation if it was satisfied. All the others said they had enough ; but when God asked the Russian, he took off his cap, and simpered, "Na Vodki, Lord."' Russian Pbpular Story. ' Twenty years,' said a patriarchal old Russian, ' did Noah preach to the people, but nothing would induce them to give up Vodki. And when the Lord sent the mighty deluge, they climbed up into the pine- trees, with shtoffs (quarts) and pol-shtoffs (pints) in their bosoms, and drank there till the water reached them.' H. C. Romanoff. Almost every village festival ends in the intoxication of most of those who take part in it. The Russian peasants are not altered since George Turberville described ' A people passing rude, to vices vile inclinde, Folk fit to be of Bacchus traine, so quaffing is their kinde. Drinke is their whole desire, the pot is all their pride, The sobrest head doth once a day stand need full of a guide. If he to banket bid his friends, he will not shrinke On them at dinner to bestow a douzen kindes of drinke : Such licour as they haue, and as the countrey giues, But chiefly two, one called kuas, whereby the Mousike Hues. Small ware and waterlike, and but somewhat tart in taste, The rest is mead of honie made, wherewith their lips they baste. And if he goe unto his neighbour as a guest, He cares for little meate, if so his drinke be of the best.' Master George Turbervile out of Moscouia to Master Edward Dancie, 1568. Drunkenness amongst the peasantry is much increased by the idleness enforced on the Church-festivals, which reduce the year to a hundred and thirty days of work. If the Church would only direct her solicitude to a peasant's FASTING AND CLEANLINESS. 25 drinking, and leave him to eat what he pleases, she would exercise a material beneficial influence. As it is, the Russian peasant is expected to fast for seven weeks of Lent, for three weeks in June, from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all Wednesdays and Fridays through the rest of the year. Many, however, are the subterfuges by which the full rigour of these fasts is evaded, * The cunning of the Moujiks, in eluding the laws and the ordi- nances of religion, surpasses the art of the devil himself. It is said, " Ye shall eat no flesh on fast-days ; ye shall not boil eggs in water on your hearths, nor eat of any such eggs." A peasant, not inclined to forego the enjoyment of eggs on a fast-day, knocks a nail into the wall, suspends the egg from it by a wire, and, placing his lamp underneath, contrives to cook it in this manner. He defends himself to a priest who has caught him in the act by the assurance that he did not think that any breach of the commandment. " Ah, the devil himself must have taught thee that!" cries the priest in high displeasure. "Well then, yes, father, I must confess it it was the devil who taught me." "No, that is not true," cries the devil, who, unobserved, is one of the party sitting on the stove, and laughing heartily as he looks at the cunningly-placed egg. " It is not I that taught him this trick, for I see it now for the first time myself." ' Kriloff. Personal washing, in the sense in which it is understood in other European countries, is unknown amongst the lower classes in Russia. Almost everyone goes from time to time to the public vapour baths, but with soap and water in their own homes they are wholly unacquainted, and their thick woollen garments are a terrible receptacle for vermin. Matters are not much changed since Custine wrote ' Avant de se nettoyer elles-memes, les personnes qui font usage des bains publics devraient songer a nettoyer les maisons de bains, les baigneurs, les planches, le linge, et tout ce qu'on touche, et tout ce qu'on voit, et tout ce qu'on respire dans ces antres oil les vrais Mosco- vites vont entretenir leur soi-disant proprete, et hater la vieillesse par 1'abus de la vapeur et de la transpiration qu'elle provoque.' 26 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The bath, necessary to health, does not inspire cleanli- ness. If the Russians did not use it, they might see the charm of cleanliness, as well as of washing hands and faces, now never thought of. A description of the peasants written at the beginning of the century is almost equally applicable now. ' Their hair is universally in a state not to be described ; and their bodies are only divested of vermin when they frequent the bath. Upon those occasions, their shirts and pelisses are held over a hot stove, and the heat occasions the vermin to fall off. Suwarof used to cleanse his shirt in this manner during a campaign ; stripping before the common soldier, at the fires lighted in their camps. It is a fact too notorious to dispute, that from the Emperor to the meanest slave, throughout the vast empire of all the Russias, including all its princes, nobles, priests, and peasants, there exists not a single individual in a thousand whose body is not thus infested.' Clarke's ' Travels.'' ' The people beastly bee. I write not all I know, I touch but here and there, For if I should, my penne would pinch, and eke offend I feare.' George Turberville. Nearly everything, however nasty to our ideas, is still accepted as food by the lower classes of Russians, though no one is more observant of fasts. It is, as it was three hundred years ago ' The poore is very innumerable, and liue most miserably : for I have scene them eate the pickle of Hearring and other stinking fish : nor the fish cannot be so stinking nor rotten, but they will eate it and praise it to be more wholesome than other fish or fresh nieate. In mine opinion there be no such people under the sunne for their hard- nesse of liuing.' Richard Chancelour, 1553. Amongst the favourite dishes of the people are Borzch, a soup made of meat, sausages, beetroot, cabbage, and vinegar ; Varenookha, corn-brandy boiled with fruit and RUSSIAN MELANCHOLY. 27 spice ; and Kostia, boiled rice and plums (eaten by all Russian peasants on Christmas Eve). Cabbage in every form is adored by the people. . Gherkins (Agourtzi) are very popular, and the peasants will eat them with their tea. Everything pungent or acid is liked ; indeed the scorbutic effects of other greasy food are probably counteracted by the quantities of sour quass and pickled cucumbers or cabbage and raw apples which are taken. Finally, the Russian character owing to long years of oppression will be found to be essentially silent and sad. In the south especially, their endless songs, which serve them at once as speech and as history, are all melancholy. At their festas the people drink much and talk little. At their fairs, an unexciting see-saw is the favourite amusement (and there are few country houses of the upper classes which are without it). Formerly the peasants used to dance the Barina (like the Tarantella) accompanied by the Balalaika, but now this is seldom seen. 28 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. "Si T CHAPTER II. V S. PETERSBURG. r\ TRAVELLERS may rest both mind and eyes all the way from Calais to S. Petersburg, there is so little to see ; only as, across the frightful sandy flats, they draw near Dantzic, they may observe storks strutting jauntily ^through the fields after the farm labourers. Dantzic is the ^-finest of the remarkable group of Prussian towns which lie far away from all else, and almost upon the confines of Russia, and it is well worth while to make the detour of a few miles which alone is necessary to visit it. Its wonderful old houses, divided and redivided by the twisting Motlau, cluster round an oblong square, at the end of which stands the Rathhaus with its splendid red tower, and, hard by, the gothic Artus Halle, filled with old sculpture, pictures, models of ships, and stags' heads in stone, jumbled together like a nightmare. In many of the surrounding streets, especially in the Frauen Gasse, all the houses have tiny forecourts, often raised high aloft, with stone parapets worthy of Venice in the richness of their intricate sculpture, or adorned with reliefs of some quaint German legend, and approached by broad stone stairs, ending, at the street, in huge stone balls or pillars. Here, an artist might find a MARIENBURG AND KONIGSBERG. 29 thousand subjects amongst the groups of children at play upon the little platforms, where the tender green of vine and Virginian creeper plays amid the brown shadows of the architecture. An hour's railway takes us from Dantzic to Marienburg, a quiet town of the middle ages, with a primitive little inn, Konig von Preussen, in its suburbs, rather too near the pig- market, perhaps, but charming in its outside balconies and exquisitely clean little rooms. Opposite, on a slight hill, girt by gigantic moats, rises the immense brick palace of the Teutonic Knights, once absolute sovereigns of this bit of Germany. A figure of the Virgin, thirty- eight feet high, is a conspicuous feature on the outside of one of the towers. The gothic rooms in which the Grand Master held his stately court are still perfect, but have been ' restored ' into all the ugliness that glazed pavements, bad gaudy frescoes, and worse and gaudier glass can give them. The church is grand in proportions as any cathedral, but here also the decaying loveliness of the beautiful old colour is being renovated away, and there will soon be nothing left worth seeing. From the other side of the broad Vistula, which flows sleepily at the foot of the castle-hill, there is a mag- nificent view of the building, the most prominent feature being the huge Buttermilk tower, which the knights com- pelled the peasants to build, slaking their mortar with buttermilk. Two hours more bring the train to Konigsberg, the ancient Prussian capital and coronation-city, chiefly modern in its buildings and very handsome, but with a noble Schloss r which stands well on the edge of a steep, and has all the charm of having been built in many ages mediaeval 3d STUDIES IN RUSSIA. fortress, Italian palace, Prussian country-house. It con- tains the Schloss Kirche, like a gilded hall. Below, on the island in the Pregel, is the gothic cathedral, with a twisted columnar staircase, and several interesting tombs. All the old preachers have left their full-length portraits to the church, in which, with the costumes and charac- teristics of many ages, they look" down upon the scene of their former labours, giving much colour and dignity to the walls. The express train to S. Petersburg leaves Konigsberg at midday, and at about 6 P.M. reaches the frontier station of Wierzbolow. Here we recognise a new country at once. The porters and custom-house officials all have long white aprons and the brilliant scarlet shirts with which travellers afterwards become so familiar, worn under their black waist- coats, but outside their trousers, which are tucked into huge jack-boots. The prevalence of red colouring is very picturesque, and it is intensely admired by the natives in fact there is only one word in Russian for ' red ' and 'beautiful.' For ourselves, we found the custom-house a mere form, the officials most civil, and our passports, which we gave up on arriving, were brought back to us in the train ; but we saw unfortunate Russian ladies who were suspected of smuggling, having to submit to seeing the whole contents of their boxes turned out in an indiscriminate heap on the dirty floor, and being left to sort and repack them as best they could, or, if they could not do it in the time, to wait piteously through the night for another train. Still, a bribe will do wonders : the higher the bribe, the slighter the search, and a five-rouble note, slid into the hand of an THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE. 31 official oh giving up a passport, has such an effect upon the eyesight that a thousand-roubles-worth of forbidden goods often easily passes unobserved. 1 Here, on the very threshold of Russia, we found, as ever afterwards, that, though the upper classes of Russians may boast that the ' language of Europe ' is more familiar to them than their native tongue, French is perfectly useless for all practical travelling pur- poses ; sometimes a word or two of German may be under- stood, but generally nothing but Russian. To learn the most necessary Russian words, therefore we devoted ourselves during the immense railway journeys : but the terrible alphabet was long a stumblingblock the new hieroglyphics seemed possible, but to see familiar European forms meaning other letters was a puzzle indeed. The very abundance of its alphabet gives the language such an indescribable richness that the Russian word for a foreigner, especially a German, is 'the dumb,' 'the speech- less.' 2 ' In days of doubt, in days of agonising reflections on the fate of my home, thou alone art my stay and my staff : oh, great, mighty, true, and free Russian tongue ! If thou wert not, would it be possible not to despair at this moment, and see all that is happening at home ? But it cannot be possible that such a language would be given to any but a great people. ' Ivan Totirgueneff, ' Senilia. ' Strugglers with the language will be amused to recollect that Sir Jerome Horsey records of our English Queen Eliza- 1 The traveller will do well early to make himself familiar with the value of Russian coins copecks and roubles. The latter derive their name from the Russian word 'roublion,' '1 cut,' being cut from the silver bars which formed \h& grievinka. in the old coinage. - Considering the vastness of the country, there is wonderfully little variety of dialect in Russia. The Moscovites say ' ento ' for ' etto ' (that), and have a few trifling peculiarities, but there is never anywhere an important difference in the language. 32 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. beth that she said, * as for Russian she could quicklie lern it this famoust and most copius language in the woride/ The Slaves, Bohemians, Illyrians, and Russians had no alphabet before 865. At that time the brothers S. Cyril and S. Methodius of Thessalonica were sent by Michael Emperor of the East to the Christian princes of Moravia, that they might translate the sacred books from Greek into the language of the country. For this purpose they invented a special alphabet, founded upon the Greek, with the addi- tion of many new letters, and this alphabet (the Cyrillian), with some variations, is the one still in use. 1 It is long before there is any change from the German landscapes we have been accustomed to ; then forests of firs thicken along the wayside, or woods of birches, which have sprung up unseen, by the strange invariable and inexplicable habit which they have, wherever the fir-trees have been cut down : as Madame de Stael says, * Le triste bouleau revient sans cesse dans cette nature peu inventive.' 2 Night closed in upon a weird scene of jagged pines rising from a desolate heath against a lurid crimson sky, and left us wondering in which of these vast woods there were bears, and in which we should hear the baying of wolves, if we were travelling here through a winter's night. Low fir-woods and open cornfields at dawn, low fir- woods and open cornfields always, thirty hours of them, and constant stoppages of eight minutes at bright-looking stations, with shrubberies of lilacs and senna, where stakan tchai tumblers of weak tea without milk, burning hot, are offered on a tray through the carriage-windows. This refreshment is universal, and soon comes to be a matter of course. The 1 Karamsin, i. 2 Dix A nnees (fExil. RAILWAY TRAVELLING. 33 tea is made in a samovar, and poured off instantly, for tea which has been standing many minutes is regarded as almost poisonous in Russia. You can seldom procure milk, but have generally the option of thin slices of lemon in your tea, and, though always weak, the tea is excellent, with the aromatic flavour which tea retains when it has travelled overland, but which the leaves sold in England lose in coming by sea. The sleeping-cars are most luxurious. A narrow passage, with a long row of windows on one side, on the other gives entrance to a series of little rooms, with broad sofas on either side. At night, a contrivance turns these sofas round, and the most inviting little beds with spring mattresses take their place. In crowded trains, a second tier of beds can be created over the first, like berths in a ship ; but these are seldom in use. There is no jolt or jar, but the immense length of the carriages makes them waggle with a movement like a caterpillar's, and, after many hours, often produces something very like sea-sickness ! Even the express trains move very slowly, and what seems to foreigners an endless time is spent in dawdling at the pretty country stations with their brilliant little gardens of common flowers, well kept by the gardeners who travel constantly up and down the lines to look after them. On most of the railways no train leaves a station till a telegraphic message arrives from the next that the line is clear, so great is the fear of accidents, which consequently scarcely ever occur in Russia. Perpetually do impatient travellers hear the answer 'Sei tshas! sei tshas! sei minut!' ('Directly, directly, this minute'), and a hundred times a day are they con- vinced of the truth of the Russian proverb which says D 34 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' Sei tshas ' means to-morrow morning, and ' sei minut ' this day week. We pass Wilna, the chief town of Lithuania, where Napoleon abandoned his unhappy army ; and Dtinaborg in White Russia, whence there is a branch line to Riga, the capital of Livonia, continued to Mitau, where Louis XVIII. resided in exile, and where the mummified body of Duke John Ernest Biren, lover of the Empress Anne, is still to be seen attired in velvet and ruffles. We see the bulb-like cupolas of Pskof, which, in its early history was the younger brother of Novogorod the Great, and had the same kind of vetch'e, prince, and division into ' quarters/ ' It was also the native place of S. Olga, the first Christian Grand-Princess, born a peasant-maiden of Pskof. We long to visit its kremlin, churches, and catacombs, which the mad hermit Salco protected from Ivan the Terrible, 2 but dread the horrors of its inns ; we look out for Gatschina, with the mosque- like palace, standing in solitary dismalness, where the unfortunate Emperor Alexander III. has worn out many days of life in the constant expectation of murder : and then we watch for the joyful moment of excitement when two vast domes appear beyond the hitherto featureless waste, one purple, 1 Rambaud, Hist, de la. Riissie, p. 117. 2 In 1570 Ivan came to massacre the inhabitants of Pskof, as he had already done those of Novogorod. Salco, or Nicholas of Pskof, a naked hermit, then lived in a hut by the gate. Ivan, who was terribly afraid of hermits, saluted him and sent him a present. The hermit in return sent the Tsar a piece of raw meat. It was in Lent, and Ivan recoiled before such a breach of the laws of the Church. ' Evasko, Evasko ' (Jack, Jack), said the presumptuous hermit, ' dost thou think that it is unlawful to eat a piece of beast's flesh in Lent, and not unlawful to devour as much man's flesh as thou hast already ? ' And he pointed to a dark cloud in the heavens, and declared that it would destroy the Tsar and his army if they touched so much as a hair in the head of the smallest child in that city which God held in His keeping. Ivan persisted so far as to attempt to carry off the great bell of the Holy Trinity, but then his horse fell, and he trembled before the words of Nicholas, withdrew his army, and Pskof was saved. ARRIVAL AT S. PETERSBURG. 35 the other with a brilliant gleam of gold upon its surface S. Alexander Nevskoi and the S. Isaac's Cathedral of S. Petersburg. Can we still be in Europe ? we wonder, as we emerge from the station into the first of those vast, arid, dusty, mean- ingless squares with which we afterwards become so familiar, and see the multitude of droskies the smallest carriages in the world, mere sledges on wheels, with drivers like old women in low-crowned hats and long blue dressing-gowns buttoned from their throats to their feet. All have the same mild, sleepy, benignant expression, and the gowns of all, even in this burning summer weather, are wadded till they are like feather beds, so that all proportions of the figure are lost, only a girdle indicating where the waist should be. It is useless to pull at your driver or even to thump him as hard as you can to make him turn round and attend to you, for your hand will only sink deep into his woolly protection. You would have small chance, however, of conversation under any circumstances, for ' Hold on in God's name, little father ! ' your coachman exclaims, as soon as you have made your bargain, and away you go with a leap and a rush, rattling, banging over the stones, swinging from side to side, pulling up with a jolt which almost hurls your bones out of your skin, and then, without an instant's reprieve, dashing on more wildly than ever. Marvellously adroit are the drivers. No whip is necessary, the voice takes its place. A sort of groan makes the foot-passengers give way ; the pace of the droski never relaxes. To make the horses go faster the reins are tightened ; to stop them they are slackened. It is said to be a local statistic that one foot-passenger is killed daily in the city by the droskies. Yet any driver 36 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. knocking down a foot-passenger is liable to be flogged and fined. How wide the streets are, how shabby, and (in summer) how empty, only a foot-passenger or two being visible in the whole of the far- stretching distance ! How the wind rushes unstemmed through the vast spaces ! All the streets are broad. They are classed as prospekts, oulitzi, and perouloks or cross streets, but even the perouloks would be broad CATHEDRAL OF S. ISAAC. streets in most of the older European towns. How mean and pitiful are the shops, with their names inscribed in the bewildering Greek characters which testify to the Greek origin of Russian literature and religion, and with their walls covered all over with pictures of their contents, coats, gowns, boots, portmanteaux, &c. pictures apparently far more im- portant than the objects they represent. Then comes a square more hugely disproportioned than the streets, the palaces which surround it built of bad brick covered with BUILDING OF S. PETERSBURG. 37 worse stucco, and, however immense, seeming paltry and puerile in the vast space, girt on one side by the Isaac Church, which, though only a poor imitation of S. Paul's in London, has at least the advantage of stateliness of propor- tions, when seen against a sunset sky. The poet Miskewickz says, ' Human hands built Rome : divine hands created Venice : but he who sees S. Peters- burg may say " This town is the work of the devil." ' Here, in the most eastern capital in the world, there are days without night, but there are also days almost without day, having only five hours and forty-seven minutes of light. A number of marshy islands, near the mouth of the Neva, 1 were chiefly inhabited by wolves and bears till the beginning of the last century, though a few fishermen's huts rose here and there amid the thickets, on the drier parts of the morass. Ivan the Terrible had some idea of founding a town here, but it was left for Peter the Great to begin the work in 1703, founding S. Petersburg, as Algarotti says, ' for a window by which the Russians might look out into civilised Europe.' Till the time of Peter, who is often said to ' have knouted Russia into civilisation,' the country had been more Asiatic than European. It was Peter (the first Tsar of Russia who had seen the sea) who realised that the future commerce of the country must depend on the creation of a naval force with which to occupy the Baltic. The site of the fortress which he built with this intention was selected as near as possible to the frontier of Sweden, because at that time the Swedes were the most formidable enemies of Russia. It was also chosen with a view of withdrawing the Russian 1 The Petersburg Island was formerly called Beresovionstrof : the Vassili Ostrof (when Ingria was Swedish) was known as Givisaari : the Apothecary's Island was Korposaari : the Kammeni Ostrof was Kitzisaari. See Tooke's.z) of Catherine II. 38 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. nobles from their magnificent somnolence at Moscow, and of gradually civilising them by rubbing them against those of more polished manners and tastes. Peter or Piter, as he wrote himself gave the name of his patron saint to his new city, which is therefore rightly called S. Petersburg, not simply Petersburg. 1 It was the apple of his eye, his * Paradise,' as he calls it in one of his letters. He regarded neither the danger of floods by which parts of the city are still constantly inundated, nor the unhealthiness by which the death-rate is still much higher at S. Petersburg than in any other city of Europe. When Catherine II. complained of the ill effects of the climate upon her health, one of her courtiers justly replied ' It is not the fault of God, Madam, if men insist upon building the capital of a great empire upon land destined by nature for the abode of bears and wolves.' It was on the most inland of the islands at the mouth of the Neva, called by the Finns Yanni-Saari, or Hare Island, that Peter laid his foundations. He superintended the building of one of the bastions of his fortress himself, and gave the others in charge to his chief officers. At first the fortifications were only built of wood, but three years after- wards they were re-erected in stone by masons from Novo- gorod who were assisted by the soldiers. The first fortress was begun on the i6th of May, 1703, and finished in five months. Wheelbarrows were unknown, and the workmen scraped up the earth with their hands, and carried it to the ramparts in their shirts or in bags made of matting. Two thousand thieves and other criminals sentenced to Siberia 1 The common people, however, often simply call the town ' Piter,' after Peter the Great, and the poet Koltsov and others write of it thus. BUILDING OF S. PETERSBURG. 39 were ordered to serve under the Novogorod workmen- Within the fortress a little church was ere'cted and dedicated to S. Peter and S. Paul ; it was covered with yellow stucco inside and bore a chime of bells. The first brick house was built by Count Golovkin in 1710, and the following year Peter constructed a little brick cottage for himself, which he called his palace, just outside the fortress. In nine years from the foundation of the city, the seat of government was moved from Moscow to S. Petersburg, and in 1710 the Tsar enforced that all the nobility and principal merchants should have houses there, while every large vessel on the Neva was forced to bring thirty stones, every small one ten, and every peasant's cart three, towards the building of the new city. Breaking through even the tradition which required that princes should be buried at S. Michael of the Kremlin of Moscow, Peter marked out his own tomb and those of his successors in his new cathedral. ' Before the new capital,' says Pouchkine, ' Moscow bent her head, as an imperial widow bows before a young Tsaritsa.' ' Saint-Petersbourg avec sa magnificence et son immensite est un trophee eleve par les Russes a leur puissance a venir. Depuis le temple des Juifs, jamais la foi d'un peuple en ses destinees n'a rien arrache a la terre cle plus merveilleux que Saint-Petersbourg. Et ce qui rend vraiment admifable ce legs fait par un homme a son ambitieux pays, c'est qu'il a etc accepte par 1'histoire.' M. de Custine. The mushroom growth of the city caused the buildings of Peter the Great's time to be of the most ephemeral character, so that scarcely anything we now see dates further back than Catherine II., and, though the size of the town has now surpassed the utmost hopes of its founder, and has spread from the island of Vassili Ostrof, which he destined as 40 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. its centre, for many miles south and eastwards, it is still ' only an immense outline which it will require future empresses and almost future ages to complete.' ' At first even the wild animals which had previously in- habited the locality were not all driven away, so that in 17 14 two soldiers on guard in front of the foundry were devoured by wolves, and, a little time after, a woman was torn to pieces at midday in front of Prince MentchikofT's house. The best hotels in S. Petersburg, though sufficiently comfortable, would be considered very second-rate in any other capital, and the food they supply is very indifferent. The rooms are clean, and are all fitted with double windows, which are here an absolute necessity. They are hermetically sealed in winter, only a single pane of the inner window, called a ' Was ist das ? ' being made to open. Yet the window- frames require constant renewal, as the great cold (which shakes even the granite stones of the quays from their places) constantly shrinks them, and alters their forms. We were at the Hotel de France in the Grand Moskoi, a broad street ending, close to the hotel, in a huge archway, of an aimless architectural character thoroughly characteristic of S. Petersburg. ' Je ne crois qu'on puisse voir ailleurs rien d'aussi mauvais gout que cette colossale porte-cochere ouverte sous une maison, et toute flanquee d'habitations dont le voisinage bourgeois ne 1'empeche pas d'etre traitee d'arc de triomphe, grace aux pretentious monumentales des architectes russes.' M. de Custine. Passing under the archway, we emerged at once into a vast open space, the centre of which is occupied by the granite Alexander Column, said to be the greatest monolith 1 Coxe. THE WINTER PALACE. 41 of modern times, but already scarred and cracked by the frosts. It is the work of a Frenchman, M. de Monferrand, and rests on a pedestal which is inscribed simply 'To Alexander I. Grateful Russia.' The monolith is eighty feet high, but the monument, including the angel and pedestal, is a hundred and fifty feet high. To the left are the Isaac Cathedral and the graceful tower and spire of the Admiralty. THE ALEXANDER COLUMN. Opposite us was the huge Winter Palace, which, with the exception of the Vatican and Versailles, is the largest palace in the world intended for a residence, and, though tasteless and rococo, has a certain grandeur from its immensity. ' Quoique les plus grands monuments de cette ville se perdent dans un espace qui est plutot une plaine qu'une place, le palais est imposant ; le style de cette architecture du temps de la regence a de la noblesse, et la couleur rouge du gres, dont Pedifice est bati, plait a 1'ceil. La colonne d'Alexandre, 1'Etat-Major, 1'Arc de Triomphe au fond de son 42 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. demi-cercle d'edifices, les chevaux, les chars, PAmiraute avec ses elegantes colonnettes et son aiguille doree, Pierre le Grand sur son rocher, les ministeres qui sont autant de palais, enfin 1'etonnante eglise de Saint-Isaac en face d'un des trois ponts jetes sur la Neva : tout cela perdu dans 1'enceinte d'une seule place n'est pas beau, mais c'est etonnamment grand.' AT. de Cttstine. Like all the Russian palaces, the Winter Palace is a mixture of splendour and shabbiness, luxury and discomfort. In going over it, visitors see everything gorgeously adapted for state ceremonials, but wonder how and where the imperial family can live. The whole of the splendid interior was consumed by fire in 1837, but speedily restored. It is said that not less than six thousand persons have frequently had a habitation in the Winter Palace. As in the Vatican at Rome, and as in the forests of the great landowners, many colonies are formed for years together of which the owner takes no notice ; so, before the fire, there nestled many a one in this palace not included amongst the regular inhabitants. The watchers on the roof placed there for different purposes, among others to keep the water in the tanks from freezing during the winter by casting in red-hot balls built themselves huts between the chimneys, took their wives and children there, and even kept poultry and goats, who fed on the grass of the roof; it is said that at last some cows were introduced, but this abuse had been corrected before the fire occurred. 1 This palace, from whose gate Catherine II. emerged on horseback, crowned with an oak wreath and with a drawn sword in her hand, to put herself at the head of her army, is full of associations with the modern history of the country. 1 See Kohl. THE WINTER PALACE. 43 ' Quelle est la noble famille cle Russie qui n'ait aussi quelque glorieux souvenir a revendiquer dans ses murs ? Nos peres, nos ancetres, toutes nos illustrations politiques, administratives, guerrieres, y re$urent des mains du souverain, et au nom de la patrie, les temoi- gnages eclatants dus a leurs travaux, a leurs services, a leur valeur. C'est ici que Lomonossoff, que Derjavine firent resonner leur lyre nationale, que Karamsin lut les pages de son histoire devant un auditoire auguste. Ce palais etait le palladium des souvenirs de toutes nos gloires ; c'etait le Kremlin cle notre histoire moderne.' Wia- seniski. The chamber is shown, which saw the last moments of the Emperor Nicholas I., whose death, during the Crimean war, made so great a sensation in England. After receiving the news of the defeat of the Alma, his health completely gave way. He frequently repeated 'On ne vit pas vieux dans ma famille.' He received with perfect calm from his physician the news that his case was hopeless. He pardoned his enemies, desired that the' simple words ' The Emperor is .dying ' should be telegraphed to the chief towns of his Empire, blessed his children and grandchildren, and thanked his ministers, his army, and especially the brave defenders of Sebastopol for their services. To the Grand Duke, his son, he said, ' My great wish has been to take upon myselt all the toils and difficulties of a sovereign's duties, to leave you a flourishing and well-ordered empire. Providence has ordained otherwise. Now I am going to pray for Russia and for you. After Russia, I have loved you more than anything on earth.' But these touching souvenirs are almost forgotten in those which surround the tragic end (in another room of the palace) of his son the Emperor Alexander II. On Saturday, March 13, 1881, Alexander communicated with his family at the nine o'clock mass in his private 44 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. chapel. After this he breakfasted with several intimate friends, received a visit from his doctor, conversed on the subjects of the day with his morganatic wife, and, a little after i P.M., drove to be present at a military review. When this was over, he paid a visit to his cousin the Grand Duchess Catherine, and, at 2 P.M., set out to return to the palace by the quiet road which is bordered by the Catherine Canal on the left, and on the right by the high wall of the Summer Garden. The carriage of the Emperor was followed by two sledges, the first containing Colonel Dvorjitsky, head of the police ; the second, Captain Kock. Almost imme- diately, a loud detonation echoed through the quay of the canal, followed by thick clouds of snow and debris, forced up by a bomb, thrown by a man named RyssakorT under the imperial carriage, of which it had burst in the back and smashed the windows. The coachman tried to drive on at once, but, seeing that two persons one belonging to the six Cossacks of his suite, and a boy of fourteen who was passing by with a basket on his head were wounded, the Emperor insisted on getting out of his carriage and going himself to look after them. Afterwards he turned to reproach the would-be assassin, who had been captured by Captain Kock. A considerable crowd had already collected, and the Cossack who had occupied the box of the imperial carriage, followed his master and implored him to return. Finding that the Emperor persisted in advancing, the faithful Cossack urged Colonel Dvorjitsky to caution him, but without avail. The Emperor enquired carefully into the circumstances of what had taken place, and then, with a sad and preoccupied expression, was returning to his carriage, when a man who had stood by during the conversation, and who had been THE WINTER PALACE. 45 remarked for the insolence of his manner, raised his hands and threw a white object at the feet of His Majesty. It was a second bomb, which exploded at once. A column of snow and dust rose in the air, and as it cleared away, amongst twenty other wounded persons, the Emperor was seen in a seated posture, his uniform torn away, and the lower part of his body a mass of torn flesh and broken bones. The Grand-Duke Michael, who had heard the first explosion in a neighbouring palace, arrived just at this terrible moment and was recognised by his brother. It was proposed to carry the Emperor into the nearest house, but, in broken accents, he cried, ' Quick, home, take me to the palace there to die,' and thither he was carried, marking his terrible course in blood across the snow. An hour later (3.35 P.M.) he expired, having received the last sacraments and surrounded by his family. 1 ' Telle fut la fin clu " tsar liberateur," qui en 1861 avait affranchi les paysans, en 1878 affranchi les chretiens des Balkans, qui, le jour meme de 1'attentat, venait de donner a la Russie une constitution, mais qui tombait victime d'une politique d'irresolution aussi funeste a son pays qu'a lui-meme.' Rambaud, 'Hist, de la Russie.'' The balls and banquets at the Winter Palace are cele- brated for their magnificence, especially the fetes of the ist of January, and have always been worthy of the ruler of so vast an Empire. At the suppers for three or four hundred guests a unique decoration is often introduced. Immense orange trees, planted in tubs which are placed upon the ground, are so arranged as to come up between the com- partments of the long tables, in which a space is cut out to 1 Alexandre II : Details inedits sur sa Vie Intime et sa Mori, par Victor Laferte, 1882. 46 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. admit of the trunk, whilst their rich foliage and fruit over- shadow the whole. 1 ' Des que la cour quitte Petersbourg, cette magnifique residence prend 1'aspect d'une salle de spectacle apres la representation.' 'Petersbourg est mort, parce que 1'empereur est a Peterhoff.' M. de Custine. On the further side of the Winter Palace flows the huge Neva^ moving slowly, thus near its mouth, between solid granite quays. On the south side it is lined with palaces, chiefly built of brick, in walls five or six feet thick, but occa- sionally of Finland granite. These quays are the pleasantest walk in the town, and are delightful in the fresh clearness of the northern morning, though the twilight which fills three parts of Russian life is also full of picturesque accidents. On the river are barges of hay, like houses moving slowly downwards, and along the bank are other barges from which the inhabitants are laying in their stores of winter-wood, cut into short blocks. Beyond the river stretch the warehouses of Vassili Ostrof or Basil Island, the largest of the islands at the mouth of the Neva, and the mercantile quarter of the city. Many of the houses here are still built of wood, which has the attraction of being the material warmest in winter as well as cheapest. Few of the houses are more than two stories high ; an enterprising speculator was completely ruined who built houses of several stories in Vassili Ostrof, as no Russian could be found who would mount so high. ' The building of a house is a much more costly undertaking in S. Petersburg than in any other part of Russia. Provisions are dear, and the price of labour always comparatively high. Then the ground 1 See Lady Bloomfield, Reminiscences ofCoiirt and Diplomatic Life. THE NEVA. 47 brings often enormously high prices. There are private houses, the mere ground of which is valued at 200,000 roubles, a sum for which, in other parts of the empire, a man might buy an estate of several square leagues, with houses, woods, rivers, and lakes, and all the eagles, bears, wolves, oxen, and human creatures, &c., that inhabit them. In particularly favourable situations for business as much as 1,000 roubles a year has been paid by way of rent for every window looking into the street. The next thing that renders building so costly is the difficulty of obtaining a solid foundation. The spongy, marshy nature of the soil makes it necessary for the builder to begin by constructing a strong scaffolding underground before he can think of rearing one over it. Every building of any size rests on piles, and would vanish like a stage ghost were it not for the enormous beams that furnish its support.' Kohl. In all parts of S. Petersburg there is the same difficulty the foundation. Water percolates everywhere, and a foundation of piles is always necessary. ' How can one live in a town where the streets are so damp and the hearts so dry I"* Count Sollohub. The Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Arts, and the School of Marine Cadets vary the line of buildings along the quay of Vassili Ostrof. The last named was the palace of Mentchikoff ; it is the oldest large building in the city, and was by far the finest building of Peter the Great's time. Peter could always see Mentchikoff 's lighted windows of an evening, and, when he did not himself visit him, comforted himself with the reflection, ' Danilitch is making merry.' Very different is this scene during the winter months, when the Neva becomes the great highway and is crowded with all the best and the worst company in the capital. The-Nikolskoi Maros, or frost of S. Nicholas, begins the real winter. Then, when you cannot face the outer air without a gasp, areas are set apart on the river for skating, race- 48 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. courses for sledges, and ice-hills are formed, down which timid persons are accompanied in their sledges by a con- ductor. At the end of the fast which closes at Christmas, a market is held on the Neva, and the booths form a street a mile long, at which Russians lay in their provisions for the winter. The ice becomes immensely thick, but holes are made in it for the washerwomen, who stand upon it for hours and plunge their arms into the freezing water, though the cold is at between twenty and thirty degrees Reaumur, which freezes hats to heads and veils to faces. 1 These holes are said often to be used for the concealment of murdered bodies, though the peaceful character of the Russians is shown in nothing more than the rarity of the deeds of violence, for which the long darkness and twilight of winter afford such enormous facilities. The natives are wonder- fully impervious not only to cold but to transitions, and the same drivers who will sleep upon their stoves at home are none the worse for sleeping for hours in the open air through the cold winter nights. When any great banquet or ball is given, huge fires are lighted in the streets for their benefit, but these are only on grand occasions. ' Oh, little father, thy nose, thy nose ! ' a stranger will sometimes exclaim, -and begin rubbing the nose the white and chalky nose of a foot-passenger, with a handful of snow. If you close your eyes, your eyelids are immediately frozen down, but if a man's eyes freeze up, he will knock at the nearest door, and ask to come in and be melted at the stove. At twenty degrees of cold, children are seldom allowed to go out. Only soldiers and officers must never shrink from 1 Washing, however, is so ill done in S. Petersburg that it is frequently sent to London and returned in a fortnight. BENEDICTION OF THE WATERS. 49 their duty, parades must never be interrupted, not a sign of a cloak must be seen. The Emperor never hesitates to expose himself to any amount of snow, rain, or wind, and his officers must do the same. The most pitiable objects in a Russian winter are the recruits, who, taken away from their hot huts and sheepskin clothing, are hardly able to hold their muskets, whilst their fur-clad countrymen are walking about at their ease. It is immediately in front of the Winter Palace that, on the festival of Epiphania or Theophania (January 6), the ceremony of the Benediction of the Waters takes place. A wooden temple is erected on the ice, richly gilt and painted, and hung round with sacred pictures, especially of S. John the Baptist. This temple is called the Jordan, a name in frequent use for any baptistery or font, or any basin in which holy water is contained. The Jordan is surrounded by a hedge of fir boughs, and in the midst of it a hole is cut through the ice to the water. To this a platform of boards, covered with red cloth, and fenced in by fir-boughs, is laid from the shore for the procession to pass over. First a service is held in the imperial chapel, and then, between lines of troops and standards, the clerks, deacons, priests, archimandrites, and bishops, in their richest robes, pass, carrying lighted tapers, censers, the Gospel, and sacred pictures and banners, followed by the Emperor, the Grand Dukes, and ail the court. As it moves, the procession sings the following tropariums ' The voice of the Lord cried aloud upon the waters, saying : Come hither, and receive the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, and of the fear of the Lord of Christ, who is manifested unto us ' (Thrice). E 50 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1 This day is the nature of water sanctified ; Jordan floweth out, the streams of his waters burst forth, when he beholds the Lord baptised ' ( Twice}. * Thou, O "Christ, the King, as a man didst come to the river, and is a servant didst desire to be baptised by the hand of the fore-runner, for our sins ; O Thou who art good, and the lover of mankind ' ( Twice). The Benediction of the Waters then takes place in memory of the baptism of Christ, and by it the Russian Church maintains that the nature of all waters is sanctified, and such virtue given to the water especially blest, that it will remain uncorrupt for years, and be as fresh as water immediately taken from the spring or river. The soldiers fire as soon as the service is finished. All are sprinkled with holy water with a bunch of basilka or herb Basil, and the procession returns to the church, where some of the consecrated water is given to the priests and congregation to drink, with the words ' Let us faithfully celebrate the greatness of the Divine mercy towards us ; for being made man for our sins, He perfected our purification in Jordan ; He, who alone is pure and unblemished, sanctifieth me and the waters, and bruiseth the heads of the serpents in the waters. Let us, therefore, my brethren, drink of this water with joy, for the grace of the Holy Spirit is invisibly imparted to all who drink thereof with faith, by Christ our God, the Saviour of our souls.' l It was at the Benediction of the Neva that both Peter the Great and his grandson Peter II. caught the colds of which they died. Alexander I. had three fingers frost-bitten during the same ceremony, and they had to be rubbed with snow before he returned to the palace, and one of his courtiers died of the cold on the occasion. 2 1 See Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, by John Glen King, D.D., Chaplain to the British Factory at S. Petersburg, 1772. * See Joyneville. THE NEVA. 51 If they can, numbers of people will plunge, from religious motives, into the hole, made for the Benediction, in the ice, and quantities of babies are dipped through it. If they die, which of course they generally do, heaven is secured for them ; but, strange to say, this kind of infanticide is allowed, though there is no country where population is so much needed as in Russia. On the evening on which the service is performed, all devout Russians make crosses on their window-shutters and doors, to prevent the evil spirits expelled from the water from entering their houses. S. Petersburg is indebted for everything to the Neva food, clothing, water, building-materials. It is the greatest source of pride to the inhabitants, but, like the Nile, it is the greatest source of terror also. The length of the river within the tovm is thirteen English miles. If a westerly storm, high water, and the breaking up of the ice were ever to occur to- gether, the whole city must be destroyed. Water is the enemy most to be dreaded in S. Petersburg, as fire is in other cities. The ice generally breaks up about April 20. No one, however, is allowed to use the river till the governor of the fortress has come to present some of the water to the Emperor in a goblet. This the Emperor is expected to drain, and to return to the governor filled with gold pieces, but latterly it has been found that the goblet increased annually in size, so the sum given now is fixed at two hundred ducats. After the presentation of the water, the governor is rowed down the river in his state barge to show- that the navigation is open and safe, and, soon after, the arrival of the first ship is hailed as a subject of great re- joicing. At this time S. Petersburg is at its unhealthiest, and the smells are terrible from the masses of rubbish and E 2 52 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. offal which the people have been allowed unchecked to throw upon the canals all through the winter. Whenever the Neva passes its usual level, guns are fired. The first attracts no attention : it is * only an inundation.' At the second gun, horses are moved from the stables in the lower town, and other precautions are taken. Cellars are frequently flooded in the course of the winter. The vaunted water of the river is often very dangerous to strangers and productive of serious illnesses. Any strangers taking their first walk in S. Petersburg will be attracted to turn to the left, from the Winter Palace, by the pretty and quaint spire of the Admiralty. This and the spire of the citadel are covered with the gold of the ducats of Holland offered by the Dutch republic to Peter the Great. In happier times, at the parades held in front of the Admiralty, the Emperor used to command in person. Several thousand men with officers and generals in brilliant uniforms always made a handsome spectacle. As the Emperor rode up with his staff, the soldiers presented arms and the spectators uncovered. ' Good morning, my children,' saluted the Emperor. 'We thank your Majesty,' answered a thousand voices at once. In the centre of the garden, beyond the Admiralty, stands the famous Statue of Peter the Great. It was executed by the Frenchman Falconet, and represents the Emperor in the most impossible of positions, reining in his horse upon the very edge of a precipice, stretching out his hand towards the Neva, and trampling on the enormous serpent of Con- STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT, 53 spiracy, which enables his horse to stand, by holding on at its tail. The pedestal bears the simple inscription ' Petramu Permovu, Catherina Vtovaya ' ('to Peter the First, Catherine THE ADMIRALTY TOWER. the Second '). It is said to be the reck upon which Peter stood when he was watching a naval victory over the Swedes from the land. It was brought from Lachta in Finland, and, to transport it, a mcrass had to be drained, a 54 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. forest cleared, and a road of four versts constructed to the shore. Originally it was forty-two feet long at the base, and thirty-six at the top, it was eleven feet broad, and seventeen high, and weighed 1,500 tons, but much of the jagged edges has been shorn away, and the original effect of the vast unwieldy mass is destroyed. One side of the rock had been damaged by lightning, and, on knocking off the fragment thus shattered, a collection of different semi-precious stones crystals, topazes, amethysts appeared, a subject of interest- ing investigation to naturalists, and, cut up and polished, they found a rapid sale throughout the Empire. On the day on which the statue was placed on its pedestal, the Empress Catherine released all debtors who had been five years in confinement, and remitted all debts to the Crown of less than 500 roubles. Upon the garden which contains this statue, the Cathedral of S. Isaac looks down, which, in spite of many defects, is the queen of S. Petersburg churches. It is founded upon piles, and their never having been properly secured has necessitated constant repairs and rebuilding. The original foundation cost nearly a million of roubles, for which the church might have been built in some countries. The first edifice was of wood, and it was rebuilt in stone. Then it was nobly begun again in marble by Catherine II. 1 and unworthily finished in brick by Paul I., whence the epigram, for which the author paid in Siberia, ' This church is the symbol of three reigns, granite, pride, and destruction.' The present church was begun afresh in 1819 and finished in 1858, but it already shows signs of perishing from the 1 The medal struck by Catherine II. on the occasion of her laying the foundation- stone bears on the reverse, ' Render unto God the things that are God's, and unto C'a-sar the things that are Caesar's.' CATHEDRAL OF S. ISAAC. 55 sinking of its foundations. It is dedicated to S. Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose festival (May 30, 1672) Peter the Great was born. Its pillars are glorious granite monoliths from Finland, buried there for centuries amidst the swamps, and the proportions of the interior are very noble and striking. The porch is full of male beggars, who prostrate themselves before all who pass by, and are considered, as all beggars in Russia, to be rather holy persons. Inside are the far holier female beggars, curvetting, smirking, and prostrating, two rows of the strangest figures, like witches, in high peaked hoods. These are nuns, who are sent out to beg for a certain number of years, a certain sum being fixed, which they are expected to acquire for the sisterhood, and which, once obtained, secures their being provided for in their old age. The vast number of these begging nuns in Russia is a result of the confiscation of monastic property under Catherine II., which was received without a murmur by the people, a sign that monasticism excited little love or respect. No seats are permitted in the Russian churches, except occasionally for the Emperor and Empress, and, in old churches, especially in monastic churches, for the abbot or bishop. The congregation always stand, except on Wednes- days and Fridays in Lent, when they kneel at a particular part of the Liturgy and Communion, and on a few other occasions. This is perhaps one reason for the great pre- dominance of men in the congregations ; but indeed, with the perpetual bowing and prostrating, seats would be a great inconvenience. Everyone prostrates, not at any particular point in the service, but when he feels so disposed, and when you see anyone look out for a good open space, you may be sure that in another moment he will fall flat on the 56 . STUDIES IN RUSSIA. pavement. The dirty habits of the Russians make their church-services a terrible penance to strangers, and it is desirable to give a wide berth to the peasants, especially to the men in sheepskins, which are always swarming with vermin. Almost all the men wear beards, well cared for by the young, but neglected by the old. 'Nothing but brown-haired peasants' heads. To and fro they came, with an undulating movement, prostrated themselves, and then arose, just as the ripe ears of corn bow when the summer breeze stirs them like the waves.' Ivan Tourgnhieff, ' SeniliaS All Russian churches stand due east and west with the altar at the east, from the original tendency to turn towards the rising sun, because the essence of God is light. The church is entered on the west by the narthex or porch. This leads into the trapeza, or outer church, whence we enter the vaos or church itself. Here, on the top of the steps -leading to the altar, stands the ambon (from d//,/3atVu> to ascend), where the officiating minister stands at particular parts of the service. Behind this is the iconastos, or screen, in which are three doors, the central being called the holy, royal, or beautiful door. .Within the screen is the Holy Table, 1 with four small columns supporting a canopy, from which a peristerion, or dove, is suspended as a symbol of the Holy Ghost, and on which the cross is always laid, with the Gospel, and the pyxis or box in which part of the consecrated elements is preserved for visiting the sick. Behind the Holy Table is the High Place or holy throne, in which the Bishop alone has a right to sit. On the left is the prothesis 1 The word altar has crept into the Russian rubric, but is there constantly used to signify all the space between the iconastos where the Holy Table stands, never the Holy Table itself. CATHEDRAL OF S. ISAAC. 57 or table of proposition, on which the elements are placed and prepared before the consecration. On the right, in older churches, is the sacristy, where the holy utensils and vestments of the priests were kept. The analogion is a portable folding desk, upon which the book of the reader is placed. In some modern churches the prothesis'.and vestry are changed into altars, but this is an innovation: the ancient orthodox Greek Church only knew one altar in a church. The reading from three different desks is intended to typify the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world. 1 The most striking feature in S Isaac's, as in every Russian church, is the golden screen or iconastos, shutting off the inner sanctuary, where the Greek priest is far more entirely withdrawn from the congregation than the Latin priest standing before the altar. Here the screen is decorated by huge columns of malachite, which are greatly admired by the Russians, though they have the effect of green paint, but some lapis lazuli columns at the portal are very beautiful. The Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and the vast number of saints with which its calendar abounds, obtain only a secondary devotion in the Greek Church, which denies that it adores them as gods, maintaining that it only shows them the respect due to those cleansed from original sin and admitted to converse with the Deity, and that it considers it more modest and available to apply to them to intercede with God than to address themselves directly to the Almighty. 2 Part of the oath taken by Russian bishops at their consecration includes, amongst the provisions intro- duced by Peter the Great, a promise to 'provide that honour be paid to God only, not to the holy pictures, and that no 1 See King. z See King. 58 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. false miracles be ascribed to them.' But though these are the authorised tenets of the Church, no one who has been much in Russia will believe that a less blind devotion is shown either to the saints or pictures there than in Roman Catholic countries. Upon the iconastos of a Russian church always hang the sacred icons or pictures, in a regular order. In the place of honour, on the south side of the door, is the figure of the Redeemer. On the north side is the Madonna, whom the Greek Church holds in intense veneration, without allotting her any precise part in the scheme of salvation or protection of the Church, or precisely allowing the reverence for her sanctity to 'crystallise into the dogma of the Im- maculate Conception.' l Her death, which is also often represented, is always ' the sleep,' not ' the assumption,' of the Virgin. Next to the Saviour is always placed the Saint to whom the church is dedicated ; the position of the other pictures may be changed. The pictures are covered with gilt metal, which is often encrusted with jewels, except the face and hands, which are left exposed. The Russian Church, therefore, whilst tenaciously insisting on the observance of the commandment, ' Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image,' neglects the second part of the precept, * or the likeness of anything in heaven or earth.' 'The Greek Church admits the use of pictures to instruct the ignorant, and to assist the devotion of others by those sensible repre- sentations ; nor do they herein think themselves guilty of any breach of the second commandment, as to the manner of worship ; not only because they say these pictures are used merely as remembrances of the saints, to whom their respect is directed, but because the design of Moses, according to them, in prohibiting the making and worshipping 1 See Stanley's Eastern Church. RUSSIAN SERVICES. 59 graven images, was merely to prohibit worshipping the idols of the Gentiles, which the Gentiles believed to be gods, whereas they admit no graven images, but pictures only, upon which the name of the saint represented must always be inscribed.' King. ' All their churches are full of images, unto which the people, when they assemble, doe bowe and knocke their heads, so that some will have knobbes upon their foreheads with knocking as great as egges.' Letters of Master Anthonie Jenkinson, 1557. To outsiders, the greater part of the Russian services are monotonous, two choirs alternatively taking up a sweet and plaintive chant, in which the words * Gospodi, Gospodi pamilui' ('Lord, Lord, have mercy upon us ! ') soon become familiar ; indeed, their repetition is so constant that many travellers have declared that no other prayers are used in the Russian Church. ' All their service is in the Russe tongue, and the priestes and the common people have no other praiers but this : Ghospodi Jesus Christos esine voze ponuloi nashe. That is to say, O Lorde Jesus Christ, sonne of God, have mercy upon us ; and this is their prayer, so that the most part of the unlearned know neither Paternoster, nor the Beleefe, nor Ten Commandments, nor scarcely understand the one halfe of their service which is read in their churches.' Letters of Master Anthonie Jenkinson, 1557. ' There is no degree, no variety in the melody of the Russian Church; all is a sweet, harmonious murmur. A "Creation," "Last Judgment," a " Requiem," could never find birth in Russian church music. It is like the monotonous whisper of the brook set to music. The chief part turns on the words " Gospodi pomilui" (Lord, have mercy), " Gospodi pomolimsa " (Lord, we pray Thee), " Padai Gospodi'''' (Grant this, O Lord). With these words the singers continually interrupt the prayers of the priest. The different modulations of the melodies on these few words form the chief study of the Russian choristers ; during a many-hours' service they are only occasionally varied by a psalm or two, and a prayer for the emperor.' Kohl. The service-books are all in the Slavonian tongue, which, 60 STUDIES IN R USSIA. though the ancient language of the country, differs so greatly from that in present use as to be an unknown tongue to the greater part of the congregation. l However, the congregation is not supposed to make any responses in the service, which is performed by the priest, a deacon, a reader, and the singers divided into two choirs. While the priest stands with his face to the east and repeats the prayers, the choir is almost constantly singing hymns, and the priest, for the most part, reads in so low a voice that the people are not even supposed to pray themselves or to hear the prayers he offers on their behalf. This practice seems to have arisen from an idea, shown in the ancient appellation of mediators as applied to the priests, in the sense in which some think S. Paul (Gal. iii. 19) spoke of Moses as a mediator, because he was the internuncins to relate the mind of God to the people and the requests of the people to God. Therefore the Russian con- gregations only join in the service by crossing themselves and bowing when ' Lord, have mercy upon us ' is repeated, and at the beginning and end of each prayer. They cross themselves by touching the forehead first, then on the breast, then the right shoulder, and then the left, thereby making the sign of the cross ; and with the thumb, the fist, and middle fingers bent together, the three fingers signifying the Trinity. These are called the inclinations or reverences, but the greater inclinations are made by prostrating themselves till their foreheads touch the ground. 2 The grand moment of the service is when the holy or royal doors are opened, or the veil withdrawn and the splen- 1 A list and explanation of the immense numbers of different service-books used in the Greek Church is given in the dissertation, ' De Libris et Officiis Ecclesiasticis Graecorum,' in Cave's Historia Literaria, 1743. a See King. RUSSIAN SERVICES. 61 clours of the inner sanctuary revealed, often with life-size figures of the Apostles round the golden walls, in the case of the Isaac Church, with the figure of the Redeemer on the stained glass, which forms the principal light of the dark church. ' Quand le pretre sort du sanctuaire, oil il reste renferme pendant qu'il communie, on dirait qu'on voit s'ouvrir les portes du jour ; le nuage d'encens qui 1'environne, 1'argent, 1'or et les pierreries qui brillent sur ses vetemens et dans 1'eglise, semblent venir du pays ou 1'on adorait le soleil.' Madame de Stael. ' The Nicene and Athanasian creeds, which are received in almost all other Christian Churches, are the symbols of faith in this. The Greek Church holds the doctrine of the Trinity, but that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only, and not from the Father and the Son ; accordingly, the eighth article of the Nicene Creed in their reading runs thus : " And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, and, with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped," &c., as it was at first drawn up at the Council, the term Filioque being afterwards added by the Latin Church, and, of course, the corresponding article in the Athanasian Creed to the same effect.' King. ( If an Anglican could be taken into a Greek or Russian church just at such parts of the service as the following : for the reading of the Gospel, and often also of the Epistle, for the singing of the Great Doxology at Matins, or of the " <?>s t'Actpo;/," on any great festival at Vespers, or during any of the singings of the Vespers or Matins, or at almost any part of the celebration of the Liturgy, the impression pro- duced would certainly be one of reverence and respect. On the contrary, if he chanced to be present at the reading of the lesser services, as the Hours, or Compline, or a riopci/c\rja-js, at the reading of the Cathisms of the Psalter (that is, of the divisions of the Psalter, as appointed to be read in course), he would be utterly annoyed and shocked. He would say, " If ever God was mocked with a lip-service, He is so assuredly now, and in the Greek Church. Neither Jewish Rabbis nor Buddhist priests of the heathen can gabble over their unspiritual carica- ture of worship in a more profane way." No words can be found too strong, none indeed strong enough, to express what he would feel ; and the more serious and religious the observer, the deeper would be his pain and wonder. As regards, some other things, such as the reading 62 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. of the 'ElaiJ/aA/ioj at Matins, or of the introductory Psalm at Vespers, the bidding of the 'E/crei/eTs, and the responding to these, at the performance of any occasional offices, as a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral, the impression produced would vary much, according to the manner and spirit of the priest officiating. Sometimes the stranger would hear only a slovenly and profane gabbling, as in the preceding cases ; some- times the performance would not seem altogether irreligious. The saying of the introductory or concluding prayers in every office would almost always strike him in its worst light.' W. Palmer, ' Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion.'' All bishops officiate in a saccos, which retains the humble name of a sack in memory of the garment worn by the Saviour, but is made of the most magnificent materials. Over this is worn the omophorion, now of silk, but formerly of sheep's wool, typical of the lost sheep which Christ, the good Shepherd, bore on his shoulders. He gives the benediction holding two candlesticks one with three branches, typical of the Trinity : the other with two, typi- cal of the two natures of Christ. 1 In each the flame is united. Two hundred steps lead from a door in the side of the portico to the roof of S. Isaac's Church, whence there is a lovely view over the pink-grey city with its domes and minarets. The pillars of the cupola are all of native granite. A passage inside these and a narrower staircase lead to the summit. Nowhere are the ramifications of the city better seen than from this point. We can see the forty islands in the delta of the Neva, many still swampy and uninhabited, and scarcely known even by name in S. Petersburg. To the north stretches the most important part of the town the Bolshaia Storona, or ' Great Side ' a thickly built mass of houses, divided in semicircular form by the Moika, 1 See King. VIEW FROM S. ISAAC'S. 63 Catherine, and Fontanka canals. These divisions, known as the first, second, and third Admiralty sections, are again subdivided by three principal streets the Nevskoi Prospekt, the Gorokhovaia Oulitza (Peas street), and the Vos-nos- enskoi Prospekt (Resurrection Perspective). The direction of these streets and canals determines that of the other prin- cipal streets the Great and Little Morskaia, the Great and Little Millionava, the Meshtshanskaia, and the Sadovaia or Garden street. To the west, beyond the broad Neva, is Vassili Ostrof or Basil Island, the commercial town of Peter the Great, containing the Exchange, the Academy of Sciences, and the University. To the north is the Peters- burgskaia Storona or Petersburg Side, the oldest part of the town, containing the Citadel, which commands only the town itself, and would be useless as a means of defence from a foreign enemy ; and to the east is the Viborg Side, full of barracks and factories. Scattered over the town we see the stashes or watch-towers for the police, whence they give notice of danger from its two enemies fire and water ' The streets in S. Petersburg are so broad, the open spaces so vast, the arms of the river so mighty, that, large as the houses are in them- selves, they are made to appear small by the gigantic plan of the whole. This effect is increased by the extreme flatness of the site on which the city stands. No building is raised above the other. Masses of archi- tecture, worthy of mountains for their pedestals, are ranged side by side in endless lines. Nowhere gratified, either by elevation or group- ing, the eye wanders over a monotonous sea of undulating palaces.' Kohl. ' Aussi, quelque cheque qu'on soit des sottes imitations qui gatent I'aspect de Petersbourg, ne peut-on contempler sans une sorte d'admira- tion cette ville sortie de la mer a la voix d'un homme, et qui, pour subsister, se defend contre une inondation periodique de glace et permanente d'eau ; c'est le resultat d'une force de volonte immense. Si Ton n'admire pas, on craint ; c'est presque respecter.' M. de Custine. 64 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. announcing water by red flags, and fire, in the daytime, by balls of black leather, and at night by red lights. The great bell of S. Isaac's is the finest in this city of fine bells. It weighs 53,072 Ibs., and is ornamented with a relief of S. Isaac of Dalmatia, and of its five imperial founders (for it was begun five times) Peter I., Catherine II., Paul L, Alexander L, and Nicholas I. The centre of the great square on the west of S. Isaac's is occupied by a magnificent equestrian Statue of the Emperor Nicholas Paulovitch, who was the most remarkable sovereign of his generation. Severely brought up by his mother, the Empress Marie, he was only five years old when his brother Alexander I. succeeded to the Russian throne. During his brother's life he remained entirely in the background, en- grossed in the military duties which were the joy of his heart, and never taking any part in the government or being asso- ciated in any council. He had attained his thirtieth year when Alexander died at Taganrog in December 1825. His brother Constantine, sixteen years older than himself, vicious, cruel, and the scourge of all around him, was universally detested, and the worst consequences were anticipated. But, to the relief of 'all, when the council assembled after Alexander's death, a sealed packet was opened, dated January 1822, by which Constantine, who knew his un- popularity, abdicated all his claims. Still Nicholas refused to accept the throne until he received, from his brother him- self, a confirmation of his abdication. His first act was a most spirited suppression of insurrection in the capital, and the same courage displayed itself during the cholera in Moscow (1830), when the poor rose against the rich under the impression that their food had been poisoned, and when, THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS, 65 with the natural eloquence with which he was gifted, Nicholas persuaded them to lay aside their weapons, and, instead, to implore upon their knees the mercy of God. Conservative in all his views, whilst Nicholas had it at heart to improve the commerce of his country, he thought that he could bring it about without external influence. He discouraged all his subjects from travelling, and would ex- press his regret that a barrier, like the great wall of China, did not separate Russia from the rest of Europe. In 1848 his setting himself forth as the champion of the Christians in Turkey and his demand from the Sultan of the protectorate of all populations professing the Greek religion was regarded as trying to enforce that they should all henceforth become subjects of the Emperor of Russia. The Crimean war was the result. On July 3, 1853, the Russian army entered Mol- davia. War was begun in October, and the fleets of France and England occupied the Black Sea. From this time Nicholas never had a day's satisfaction or even hope ; his army was not ready, .he had foreseen nothing, defeat followed defeat, and he died broken-hearted, on March 2, 1855. Personally, Nicholas was as winning in manner as he was noble and commanding in presence. He reigned as much over hearts as over actions. ' Un tel homme ne peut etre juge d'apres la mesure qu'on applique aux hommes ordinaires. Sa voix grave et pleine d'autorite ; son regard magnetique et fortement appuye sur 1'objet qui 1'attire, mais rendu souvent froid et fixe par 1'habitude de reprimer ses passions plus encore que de dissiper ses pensees, car il est franc ; son front stiperbe, ses traits qui tiennent de 1'Apollon et du Jupiter, sa physionomie pen mobile, imposante, imperieuse, sa figure plus noble que douce, plus monumentale qu'humaine, exerce sur quiconque approche de sa personne un pouvoir souverain. II devient 1'arbitre des volontes d'autrui, parce qu'on voit qu'il est maitre de sa propre volonte.' M. de Custine. 66 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The second walk which strangers will take in S. Peters- burg will undoubtedly be along the Nevskoi Prospekt, where the street life of the city will be better seen than anywhere else, and which extends for a distance of four versts, almost in a straight line, through all the rings of the town the aristocratic quarters, the commercial, and finally the suburbs of the poor. In happier times the sovereigns used to walk up and down here, and mingle with the crowd, or would drive up and down in the simplest of sledges or droskies priven by one horse; but, in these days of Nihilism and con- spiracy, the rude ' Ukhoditzay ' (' Be off with you ') of the Russian police is heard oftener here than anywhere else. ' Gogol warned the Russians years ago not to trust the Nevskoi Prospekt ; "all there," wrote the satirist, "is deceit, artifice, sc/iem." Nihilism and the Nevskoi are so associated with each other that there is scarcely a trottoir or a building, scarcely a corner or side-street, of this thoroughfare which has not made its separate contribution to the history of Russian conspiracy.' ' Morning Post, "* Feb. 5, 1884. ' The superintendence of the street-population of S. Petersburg is entrusted to a class of men called butshniks, a name for which they are' indebted to the butki, or boxes, in which they are stationed day and night. These little wooden boxes are to be seen at every corner, and to each box three butshniks are assigned, who have their beds there, their kitchen, and a complete domestic establishment. One of them, wrapped up in a grey cloak faced with red, and armed with a halbert, stands sentinel outside, while another attends to the culinary depart- ment, and a third holds himself ready to carry orders, or to convey to the stash, or police-office, the unfortunates whom his comrade may have thought it his duty to arrest. Each butshnik has a small whistle, by means of which he conveys a signal to the next post, if a fugitive is to be given chase to. The quartalniks are a superior kind of police- officers, and these and the police-masters are constantly going their rounds, to see that the butshniks are not neglectful of their duty. By these means excellent order is always maintained, and in no other capital of Europe are riotous or offensive scenes of less frequent occur- rence.' KohL THE NEVSKOI PROSPEKT. 67 No religion is more tolerant than the Greek. A few years ago S. Petersburg contained 191 Russian churches, chapels, and convents, six Catholic churches, ten Protestant churches, two Armenian churches, one synagogue, and one mosque, and most of these have since become more numerous. ' In the Nevskoi Prospekt there are Armenian, Greek, Protestant, Roman Catholic, United and Disunited, Sunnite and Sch'iite places of prayer in most familiar neighbourhood ; and the street has, therefore, not inaptly received the sobriquet of Toleration Street. ' -Kohl. As we walk along we are struck by the number of men and boys amongst the pedestrians ; girls are seldom seen in the streets in Russia, women never, unless they have something to do. In the end of the street nearest to the Admiralty, smart sledges may be met at every step during the season, but there are few aristocratic equipages in the summer, when all the nobility are away in the country. ' The huge placards and colossal letters, by which the tradesmen of London and Paris seek to attract public attention, are unknown in S. Petersburg. The reading public there is very limited, and the merchant who wishes to recommend himself to the public must have recourse to a less lettered process. This accounts for the abundance of pictorial illustrations that decorate so many of the shop-fronts, or advertise the passenger that such and such an artist may be found within. The optician announces his calling by a profuse display of spectacles and telescopes ; the butcher suspends in front of his establish- ment a couple of painted oxen, or perhaps a portrait of himself, in the act of presenting a ruddy joint to a passing dame. These signs, that speak only the mute language intelligible to a Russian multitude, relieve in some measure the monotony of the streets. The baker is sure to have a board over his door with a representation of every species of roll and loaf offered for sale in his shop ; the tallow-chandler is equally careful to suspend the portraits of all his varieties of longs and shorts destined for the enlightenment of mankind. The musician, the F 2 68 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. pastrycook, and, in short, every handicraftsman to whom the humbler classes are likely to apply, have adopted the same plan, and from the second and third floors huge pictures may sometimes be seen suspended, with appalling likenesses of fiddles, flutes, tarts, sugar-plums, sausages, smoked hams, coats, caps, shoes, stockings, &c.' \For a barber the customary symbol is the following picture : A lady sits fainting in a chair. Before her stands the man of science with a glittering lancet in his hand, and from her snow-white arm a purple fountain springs into the air, to fall afterwards into a basin held by an attendant youth. By the side of the lady sits a phlegmatic philosopher undergoing the operation of shaving, without manifesting the slightest sympathy for the fair sufferer. Around the whole is a kind of arabesque border composed of black leeches and instruments for drawing teeth. This picture is of frequent occurrence in every large Russian town. The most characteristic of these signs appeared to me that of a midwife. A bed with the curtains closely drawn announced the invisible presence of the acconchee, and in front was a newly-arrived stranger in the lap of the accoucheuse, and under- going, to his manifest discomfort, the infliction of his first toilet. Most of these pictures are very tolerably executed, and that of a Parisian milliner is particularly entitled to commendation for the art expended on the gauze caps and the lace trimmings. Nor must it be supposed that the merchant is content with displaying only one or two of the articles in which he deals ; no, the whole shop must figure on the board, and not only the dealer, but his customers, must be portrayed there. The coffee-shop keeper does not think he has done enough when he has displayed a steaming kettle and a graceful array of cups ; he must have a whole party making themselves comfortable over their coffee and cigars, and crying to the wavering passenger, " Go thou, and do likewise." The jeweller must have not only rings and stars and crosses, but he must have generals and excellencies as large as life, with their breasts blazing with orders, and at least three fingers on each hand laden with rings. The Russians attach great importance to these signs, and a stranger may obtain from them some knowledge of the manners of the people.' Kohl. There are fewer booksellers than any other kind of shop, and the press is still under the most degrading surveillance. What the Russians think of authors is shown in Kriloff's fables in a picture representing a part of hell. There are THE KAZAN CATHEDRAL. 69 two caldrons hanging in the foreground ; in one sits a robber, in the other a wicked author. Under the caldron of the latter the devil is busily employed in feeding a large fire ; while under the robber's kettle there is only a little dry wood, which seems to emit a very agreeable warmth. The author, who has lifted the lid of his kettle to look over at the thief, complains to the devil that he is worse treated than so notorious a rogue ; but the devil gives him a knock on the head, and says, ' Thou wast worse than he ; his sins have died with him, but thine will remain indestructible for ages.' After crossing the Moika canal, a semicircle of columns on the right a ludicrous caricature of the colonnade of S. Peter's at Rome announces the Cathedral of our Lady of Kazan (Kazanski Sobor), the second church in the city, which is truly comic in its ambitious imitation. In the square are Statues of the Field-Marshals Barclay de Tolly and Kutusof, by the Russian sculptor Boris Orlofsky. The church is a memorial of the reign of Alexander I., and was consecrated in 1811, having been 'got up in two years.' In order to respect the rule of the Greek Church that the altar should always be to the east, the main entrance is at a corner of the transept. The effect of the nave is handsome from its monolith pillars of Finland granite, but the building is chiefly remarkable as a pantheon and museum of national trophies keys of German and French towns, batons of French marshals, standards of French, Turks, and Persians. ' The Persian flags are easily known by a silver hand as large as life fastened to the end. The Turkish flags, surmounted by the crescent, are merely large, handsome unsoiled pieces of cloth, mostly red, and so new and spotless that they might be sold again to the 70 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. merchant by the ell. It looks as if both Turks and Persians had handed over their flags to the Russians out of politeness, and without striking a blow. The French colours, which hang near them, offer a sad but most honourable contrast. They are rent to pieces, and to many of the eagles only a single dusty fragment is attached. Of some the Russians have only carried off the flagstaff, perhaps because the French ensign had swallowed the last rag, that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. How many unknown deeds of heroism may not these flags have witnessed ! Those eagles with their expanded wings, with which they vainly sought to cover the whole empire, look strangely enough in the places they now roost in.' KohL In the original church on this site Catherine II. was crowned (1762) by the Archbishop of Novogorod, during the extraordinary revolution which dethroned Peter JII. Hither also all emperors and empresses have been accus- tomed to come before setting out upon or on returning from a journey, to invoke or thank ' Our Lady of Kazan ' a holy picture which has its own annual fete-days. When Alexander I. returned from his campaign against the great Napoleon, his first visit was to our Lady of Kazan, before whom he remained long in prayer, before joining his wife and mother at the palace. 1 It was also before the Madonna of Kazan that Kutusof knelt before advancing in 1812 ; whence she is supposed to be specially connected with that campaign. We now reach the angle of the Bazaar or Gostinnoi-dvor, 1 ' It is usual for the sovereign whenever he comes into any city, especially into the capital, to proceed directly to the Sobor or Cathedral, where he is met with the a-yiacrju.a, or holy water (the remembrance of the dew of baptism), and welcomed with a short speech by the bishop at the head of his clergy ; after this he assists at a moleben, or short office, in the church, and returns thanks to God for having brought him in safety to the place where he is ; and, in like manner, the last thing before setting out on a journey he goes to the church to pray God to prosper him and direct his way ; and so may be said, in his " goings out and comings in," to set out from the house of God and return to it again, according to that which is written " In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path." ' Blackmore's Moura&itff. THE BAZAAR. 71 (literally ' The Stranger's Court '), the front of which extends for an immense distance along the Bolshai'a Sadovaia, or Great Garden Street. It is a labyrinth of narrow alleys, in which above ten thousand merchants are at work. Furs are the chief article of national trade, but the icon and church- ornament shops are very curious, and the incense shops very pleasant. In the thieves' quarter charming articles of beautiful old silver may be picked up, but the Innostranez, or foreigner, should not go without some trusty Russian companion, for ' Slava Bogu (God be thanked), trade always goes on,' and the stranger will not only be outrageously cheated, but may not get away without having his purse cut out of his pocket, and may consider himself fortunate if the very rings are not stripped off his fingers. The Russian cry for 'Stop thief!' is frequently heard in the streets. 1 It is a fortunate custom which renders the tables of the money- changer always safe in Russian bazaars : from these no thief would ever think of taking even a single kopeck. In the fables of Kriloff the conversation of two Kupzi betrays how the rogues in the Gostinnoi-dvor cheat and circumvent each other. ' See, cousin,' says one, * how God has helped me to-day. I have sold for three hundred roubles some Polish cloth that was not worth half the money ; it was to an idiot of an officer, whom I persuaded that it was fine Dutch. See, here is the money thirty fine red banknotes, absolutely new ! ' ' Show me the notes, friend. They are every one of them bad ! Out upon you, fox ! do you let yourself be cheated by a wolf? ' 1 An English chaplain at Cronstadt recently heard this cry, and saw a gigantic robber hotly pursued running towards him. Being a very little man, and knowing that he could not stop him by force, he waited till he was close by, and then knelt in the road, and the thief tumbled over him. 72 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Everything may be bought in the Bazaar. The poulterers' stalls are interesting with the quantity of heathcocks (reptshiki}, and white partridges (kuropatki) in their season. White hares, reindeer, elk, and bear's flesh may also be seen. In the winter, the merchants all wear wolfskin coats over their caftans, for the cold in the bazaar is intense, as no fire is allowed there, nor any lights, except the lamps before the icons, which are, of course, too holy to be dan- gerous. Yet all through the severe weather, grey squirrels frisk in their cages, and singing birds warble impervious to the frost, though they seldom have any water, as what is given immediately becomes ice but snow is placed in their troughs. The handsome square which we next pass, on the right of the Nevskoi Prospekt, contains a fine Statue of Catherine II. , upon which the Alexander Theatre and the Imperial Public Library look down. In the latter is preserved the library of Voltaire, purchased at his death by Catherine II., with whom he had long corresponded. It was near this that the terrible punishment of the Countess Lapoukyn took place for having lightly spoken of the loves of the Empress Elizabeth. ' The beautiful culprit mounted the scaffold in an elegant undress, whieh increased the beauty of her charms and the interest of her situa- tion. Distinguished by the captivation of her mind and person, she had been the idol of the Court, and wherever she moved she was environed by admirers ; she was now surrounded by executioners, upon whom she gazed with astonishment, and seemed to doubt that she was the object of such cruel preparations. One of the executioners pulled off a cloak which covered her bosom, at which her modesty took alarm, she started back, turned pale, and burst into tears. Her clothes were soon stripped off, and she was naked to the waist, before the eager eyes of an immense concourse of people profoundly silent. One of the executioners then took her by both hands, and turning half round, THE FONTANKA CANAL. 73 raised her a little from the ground ; upon which the other executioner laid hold of her delicate limbs with his rough hands, and adjusted her on the back of his coadjutor. He then retreated a few steps, and, leaping backwards, gave a stroke with his whip, so as to carry away a strip of skin from the neck to the bottom of her back ; then striking his feet against the ground, he made a second blow parallel to the former, and in a few minutes all the skin of the back was cut away in small strips, most of which remained hanging to her chemise. Her tongue was cut out immediately after, and she was banished to Siberia.' Carr, 'Northern Summer , 1805. The Prospekt now passes the Annitshkoff Palace, where the Emperor Alexander III. resided as tsarevitch. This palace was built by the Empress Elizabeth and given to her favourite, Count Rasumoffsky ; it was bought back by Catherine II. and given to her favourite, Potemkin. Since then it has been used as a kind of S. James's, where the emperors have received ambassadors and held councils. Hence the Cabinet of S. Petersburg may be called the Cabinet of Annitshkoff, as that of London is called the Cabinet of S. James's, and that of Paris the Cabinet of the Tuileries. Now we cross the Fontanka Canal to the quays, along the bank of which the Russian aristocracy have drifted of late years. * The Russian aristocracy have been banished from the central part of the town by the invasion of industry and the bustle of trade. It is in the Litanaia and along the sides of the Fontanka Canal, and particu- larly at the eastern end of it, that the most fashionable residences will be found. It is there that one may see the palaces of the KotshuUeys, the Sheremetiefs, the Branitzkis, the Narishkins, the chancellors of the empire, the ministers, the grandees, and the millionnaires, on ground where a century ago nothing met the eye but a few huts tenanted by Ingrian fishermen. A quiet and magnificent street has since arisen there, and the Orloffs, the Dolgoroukis, the Stroganoffs, &c., have, it must be owned, displayed taste and judgment in their choice of a quarter wherein to erect their sumptuous dwellings. Their palaces are 72 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. no crowded together ; on the contrary, nearly every house stands detached from its neighbours, with a handsome space in front for carriages to draw up, while the apartments within are numerous and spacious. Suites of rooms will be found in many of them fitted up as conservatories or winter gardens a species of luxury in which the aristocracy indulge more perhaps in S. Petersburg than in any other city in the world.' Kohl. After passing the Fontanka bridge, we seldom see a shaven chin, the beards become of more venerable length, the caftans longer. Ishvoshtniks seldom are found further than this, but public omnibuses ply through the whole length of the street. The houses become smaller, the shops shabbier, like those of small provincial towns in Germany. Many of them are painted in yellow and red, in the old Russian fashion. The Nevskoi Prospekt now gets uglier and meaner, till the great town built by Peter the Great and beautified by Catherine II. loses itself in the miseries of nameless hovels, and in filthy and aimless open spaces. After passing the Moscow railway station, near which numbers of noisy Russian peasants are singing round the spirit shops, the Nevskoi makes a sharp bend, and we enter the district of wagoners and carpenters, of low wooden houses, like those of the country villages, and thus we reach the Convent of S. Alexander Nevskoi, where, after having gone through every phase of Russian life, we are reminded of death and solitude by a convent and a cemetery. Hither Peter the Great ' brought the sainted Prince, Alexander of the Neva, to rest on the banks of the river which had been illustrated by his exploits centuries before its great destinies were unfolded.' L The Russian S. Louis, Alexander, son of Yaroslaf the 1 See Stanley's Hist, of the Eastern Church. 5. ALEXANDER NEVSKOL 75 Prudent, who was burn in 1221, repulsed the army of the Swedes and Teutonic knights, and wounded the king of Sweden with his own hand on the banks of the Neva, whence he obtained the name of Nevskoi. But even more important were his victories over the Tartars, which delivered his native country from paying tribute to them. He died at Gorodetz, November 10, 1263, having taken the monastic habit in the close of his life. The famous metropolitan Cyril was then residing at Vladimir, and when he heard that the Great Prince was dead, he announced it by exclaiming, ' The sun of the country has set ! Alexander is dead,' and the people, who had regarded the hero of the Neva as indispensable to the prosperity of Russia, cried with one voice, ' Then we are lost ! ' The whole of the inhabitants of Vladimir went out to meet his body, which they buried in their cathedral, where it remained till Peter the Great brought it hither to conse- crate his new capital. The majestic beauty, the Herculean strength, the unflinching courage, and the trumpet-like voice of Alexander are celebrated by contemporary writers. The Church has placed him amongst the tutelary saints of Russia, and for centuries he was considered by the Russians as a new celestial protector, to whom they attributed all the fortunate events of their country. His magnificent shrine in this church is of silver, and upon his tomb lie the keys the very little keys of Adrianople. The gorgeous church is full of magnificent adornments. ' The Nevskoi cloister has profited yet more by the presents sent from Persepolis to the northern Petropolis, when the Russian ambassa- dor Griboyedoff was murdered in Teheran, than by the Byzantine tribute. The Persian gifts consisted of a long train of rare animals, Persian webs, gold-stuffs, and pearls. They reached S. Petersburg in winter. The pearls and gold-stuffs and rich shawls were carried in 76 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. great silver and gold dishes by magnificently-dressed Persians. The Persian Prince Khosreff Mirza drove in an imperial state-equipage with six horses ; the elephants, bearing on their backs towers filled with Indian warriors, had leathern boots to protect them from the cold, and the cages of the lions and tigers were provided with double skins of the northern polar bears.' KohL Here the murdered Peter III. was buried in an almost unknown grave during the reign of Catherine II. On her death, the Emperor Paul caused his coffin to be ex- amined, but only a few bones were found within and the Emperor's boots. These were exposed for three days, and, as Peter had never been either crowned or consecrated, those services were read over them before they were removed to rest with Peter's father and grandfather in the Petro- paulovski Cathedral. Here Peter's grandson Alexander I. listened to his own funeral service before setting off (1825) to follow his wife to the South, whence he never returned. In the crypt, amongst other tombs, is that of Suvarof inscribed, ' Here lies Suvarof, celebrated for his victories, epigrams, and practical jokes.' ' C'etait ce Souvarof, vrai soldat sarmate, qui ne couchait jamais dans un lit. " Je hais la paresse," disait-il ; " j'ai touj ours sous ma tente un coq prompt a me reveiller, et lorsque je veux ceder au sommeil commodement, j'ote tin des eperons. " ' Fallonx, ' Vie de Madame Swetchinc* In the vast S. Petersburg, built in speculation on a very distant future, every visit is an excursion. Endless are the open spaces, unfinished, infamously paved, edged by sheds, fringed with grass, almost populationless. It is a town of sumptuous distances, but all the streets are alike : there is no elegance and no originality. For the most part nothing can exceed the meanness of even the handsomest buildings, DISTANCES IN S. PETERSBURG. 77 the copies of temples being mere masses of plaster, without even a hillock for base, the sculptures coarse copies of antique sphinxes and statues. ' Les Russes ne sont pas encore arrives au point de civilisation oil Ton peut reellement jouir des arts. Jusqu'a present leur enthousiasme en ce genre est pure vanite ; c'est une prevention, ainsi que leurs pas- sions pour 1'architecture grecque et, pour le fronton et la colonne clas- sique. Que ce peuple rentre en lui-meme, qu'il ecoute son genie primitif, et, s'il a re$u du ciel le sentiment des arts, il renoncera aux copies pour produire ce que Dieu et la nature attendent de lui.' J7. dc Ciistine. In one place in S. Petersburg there are three houses, side by side, to pass which on foot will take a man a good half-hour. 1 It is no wonder, therefore, that the pedestrian shouts out 'Davai, ishvoshtnik ! ' to the first of the 17,000 droskies, 2 stands of which are to be met with everywhere,, with drivers in caftans down to their feet, who look, as Princess DashkofT says, ' as if they had a Turk for their father and a Quaker for their mother.' A crowd of droskies respond to the call, each driver settling himself as if certain of being the one selected. * Where to, little father ? ' 'To the fortress.' * I'll take you for a rouble.' ' I'll take you for half.' So they compete for several minutes. If you take the cheapest, a general jeer arises. ' Little father, little father, what an absurd bargain you have made ! Your horse is lame ; your driver is drunk is a fool does not know the way.' But no one enjoys the joke more than the successful candidate himself, who gathers up his reins, and drives off in high good-humour. A foreigner is always asked five times the 1 Kohl. 2 In 'Butter Week' the week before Lent ali the country droskies are also allowed to come into the capital and ply without a licence, so that the streets are then crowded. 78 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. right fare by a drosky driver : a Russian, only double. The best way is to turn aside and walk away a little. You are sure to be pursued with ' Pajoust, Batiuska ' (' As you please, little father'); when you may safely jump in and trust yourself to be whirled away, though you may probably be armed with no more useful words of Russian than the two necessary ones of ' Poshol ' ('Go on '), and ' Stoi ' (' Stop '). ' The ishvoshtniks of S. Petersburg lead a sort of nomadic life among the palaces of the capital. They encamp by day in the streets, and so do many of them during the night, their sledge serving them at once as house and bed. Like the Bedouin Arabs, they carry the oat-bag con- stantly with them, and fasten it, during their intervals of leisure, to the noses of their steeds. In every street arrangements have been made for the convenience of the ishvoshtniks. Every here and there mangers are erected for their use ; to water their horses, there are in all parts of the town convenient descents to the canals or to the river ; and hay is sold at a number of shops in small bundles, just sufficient for one or two horses. To still the thirst and hunger of the charioteers themselves, there are peripatetic dealers in quass, tea, and bread, who are constantly wandering about the streets to feed the hungry. The animals are as hardy as their masters. Neither care for cold or rain ; both eat as opportunity serves, and are content to take their sleep when it comes. Yet they are always cheerful ; the horses ever ready to start off at a smart trot ; the drivers at all times disposed for a song, a joke, or a gossip. When they are neither eating nor engaged in any other serious occupation, they lounge about their sledges, singing some simple melody that they have probably brought with them from their native forests. When several of them happen to be together at the corner of a street, they are sure to be engaged in some game or other, pelting with snow- balls, wrestling, or bantering each other, till the " Davai, ishvoshtnik ! " of some chance passenger makes them all grasp their whips in a moment, and converts them into eager competitors for the expected gain. ' The Russian coachman seems to trust more to the persuasiveness of his own eloquence than to anything else. He seldom uses his whip, and generally only knocks with it upon the foot-board of his sledge, by way of a gentle admonition to his steed, with whom meanwhile he keeps up a running colloquy, seldom giving him harder words than, "my brother," "my friend," "my little father," "my sweetheart," THE ISLANDS. 79 "my little white pigeon/' c. " Come, my pretty pigeon, make use of thy legs," he will say. " What, now ? art thou blind ? Come, be quick ! Take care of that stone there. Dost thou not see it ? There, that's right. Bravo ! hop, hop, hop ! steady, boy, steady ! Now what art thou turning thy head for ? Look boldly before thee ! Huzza ! Yukh ! Yukh ! " 'Kohl. The brightest side of S. Petersburg is to be seen in the drive the favourite drive to the islands. First we pass along the stone quays of the Neva, the handsomest feature in this city of stucco and plaster, and observe that there is only one stone bridge, for the new capital was purposely built without bridges, that Peter and his people might be constantly on the water, passing and repassing, in the two-oared ferry- boats which were designed by the Tsar, and which are still in use. ' On pretend avec raison qu'on ne peut, a Petersbourg, dire d'une femme qu'elle est vieille comme les rues, tant les rues elles-memes sont modernes. Les edifices sont encore d'une blancheur eblouissante, et la nuit, quand la lune les eclaire, on croit voir de grands fantomes blancs qui regardent, immobiles, le cours de la Neva. Je ne sais ce qu'il y a de particulierement beau clans ce fleuve, mais jamais les flots d'aucune riviere ne m'ont paru si limpides. Des quais de granit de trente verstes de long bordent ses ondes, et cette magnificence de travail d Phomme est digne de 1'eau transparente qu'elle decore. ' - Madame d Stall. Many of the houses which line the quays are of great size, which may be imagined from the fact that in some of the palaces of the nobles one hundred and twenty servants are not thought superfluous. But Russian servants are terribly lazy, and every servant has only one avocation, as in India : they refuse to mix their service. 8o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The reception rooms are usually of great magnificence. At the end of most suites of them is a boudoir with a grille of ivy (which will not bear the Russian winter, but is much used in the internal decoration of houses) or flowering plants in front of it, only large enough to receive two or three persons at a time, possessing t an air of intimacy and seclu- sion. Artificial flowers are often planted, to give a festal aspect, in the sand which is placed to absorb the damp between the double windows. The hospitality of the great Russian families is proverbial, and their kind reception of strangers. In winter the * society ' is perhaps gayer than that of any other capital. ' C'est un tourbillon continual que la bonne compagnie en Russie, et peut-etre que 1'extreme prudence a laquelle un gouvernment des- potique accoutume, fait que les Russes sont charmes de n'etre point exposes, par 1'entrainement de la conversation, a parler sur des sujets qui puissent avoir une consequence quelconque.' Madame de StaeL It is rather the love of ostentation than wealth which influences the display of the great Russian families, but the same pride of life exists far beyond the highest circles, and in many houses of an inferior rank, with great outward appearance, there is often a want of what to English minds would be necessary comfort. The bedrooms are very inferior, and in many houses, whose inmates sacrifice their comfort to outward effect, they do not exist at all. All the rooms are used for show ; the mistress of the house has an improvised sleeping-place upon a sofa, and the servants rest where they can upon the floors of the passages. The horrors of a Russian kitchen are often such as may be imagined not described. VASSILI O STROP. 81 ' L'interieur des habitations est triste, parce que, malgre la magnifi- cence de 1'ameublement entasse a 1'anglaise dans certaines pieces des- tinees a recevoir du monde, on entrevoit dans 1'ombre une salete domestique, un desordre naturel et profond qui rappelle 1'Asie. ' Le meuble dont on use le moins dans une maison russe, c'est le lit. Des femmes de service couchent dans des soupentes, pareilles a celles des anciennes loges de portiers en France, tandis que les hommes se roulent sur 1'escalier, dans les vestibules, et meme, dit-on, dans le salon sur les coussins qu'ils jettent a terre pour la nuit.' M. de Custine. It is not only the houses of the nobility which are gigantic in size ; there are many of these huge dwellings on the dif- ferent floors of which every class and subdivision of society has its representatives. ' When such a house is burnt down, two hundred families at once become roofless. To seek anyone in such a house is a real trial of patience. Ask the butshnik (the policeman at the corner of the street), and he will tell you that his knowledge extends only to one side of the house, but that the names of those who live in the other half are unknown to him. There are so many holes and corners in such a houso, that even those who live in it are unable to tell you the names of all the inmates ; and no man thinks another his neighbour merely because they happen to live under the same roof. Many of these houses look unpretending enough when seen from the street, to which they always turn their smallest side ; but enter the podyasde or gateway, and you are astonished at the succession of side-buildings and back- buildings, of passages and courts, some of the latter large enough to review a regiment of cavalry in them. ' Kohl. We cross the bridge into Vassili Ostrof (Basil Island), the largest of the islands in the Neva, and the commercial centre of the town. As a prelude to Cronstadt, Peter the Great, when founding S. Petersburg, had erected a battery on a nearer island, commanded by Vassili Demetrievitch. The orders to this officer were directed to Vassili na Ostrof Basil on the Island and the name has clung to the island G 82 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ever since. Peter the Great intended Vassili Ostrof to be the centre of his new capital, but the court was afterwards moved hence to the Admiralty quarter, and Basil Island is now for the most part covered with warehouses, though it has some handsome buildings. On the public buildings classical decorations are universal. ' La colonne classique est devenue le cachet de 1'edifice public en Russia.' ' A defaut du sentiment de 1'art et des libres creations de la fantaisie s'exer9ant sur les donnees populaires qu'elles represented, une justesse de coup d'ceil mathematique a preside a la creation de Petersbourg. Ainsi ne peut-on oublier un instant, en parcourant cette patrie des monuments sans genie, que c'est une ville nee d'un homme et non d'un peuple. Les conceptions y paraissent etroites, quoique les dimensions y soient enormes. C'est que tout peut se commander, hors la grace, soeur de 1'imagination.' M. de Custine. On the extreme eastern point of the island is the Exchange, with grand granite quays on either side. ' The narrow un-ideal nature of the Russian cannot free itself from its false estimation of the value of money, nor rise to an elevated view of the wants and nature of the times. Money is not, in his eyes, an instrument for the increase of credit and extension of the sphere of operation ; the shining metal itself is the one and only object ; he can rarely prevail on himself to part with the money once clutched, or incur voluntarily a small loss to ward off a greater. In spite, how- ever, of their false commercial system, the great mass of the worshippers in the temple of the Russian Plutus are wealthy ; and, with all their fondness for money, no people bear commercial losses as easily as the Russians. This seeming contradiction is partly to be explained by the light temperament of the Russian, and partly by the fact that no Russian merchant considers his honour as a merchant, or his credit as a citizen, at all affected by his failure, simply because such things have no exist- ence for him. " Bays'nim " (" God be with it "), he says to his faithless treasure, and begins anew the erection of his card edifice.' Kohl. After crossing Vassili Ostrof, we reach the five north- THE ISLANDS. 83 western isles of the Neva, separated by the arms of the greater and lesser Nevka and the Neva. These are the islands' the Garden Islands,' Krestovsky (the Cross Island), Kammenoi Ostrof (the Stone I.sland), Petrofskoi Ostrof (Peter's Island), Yelaginskoi Ostrof (Yelagin Island), and ihe Apothecary Island. When people say * Let us go to the Islands,' it is always these that they mean. These islands represent the country, and are the parks of S. Petersburg. ' Nature, odious nature,' says M. de Custine, * is conquered here.' An endless variety of drives wind through shady alleys in primaeval woods, partly cleared, but partly untouched, and cross green meadows and rushing brooks, or skirt trans- parent lakes, or broad reaches of the Neva ; with mosque- like buildings on the other side of the river framed by twisted willow-boughs. Interspersed amongst the trees are the pleasant Datchas literally 'gifts' villas originating in the gifts made by Catherine II. to her favourites, that they might lay out gardens. Kammenoi Ostrof, the chief residence of the wealthier classes, presents every variety of villa-archi- tectureGothic, Italian, Saracenic. ' Ce n'est pas la fecondite primitive du sol qui orne et varie les habi- tations de luxe a Petersbourg : c'est la civilisation qui met a profit les richesses du monde entier, afin de deguiser la pauvrete de la terre et 1'avarice du ciel polaire. Ne vous etonnez done plus des vanteries des Russes : la nature n'est pour eux qu'un ennemi de plus, vaincu par leur opiniatrete ; au fond de tous leurs divertissements, il y a la joie et 1'orgueil du triomphe.' M. de Custine. The furthest island Yelagin Island was first given to a Melgunoff, then to a Yelagin, and now belongs to the imperial family. It was presented by Nicholas to the widow of the Emperor Alexander I., by whom it was left to the G 2 84 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Grand-Duke Michael and his descendants. The island is partly covered by the gardens of the villa a sort of im- perial Tivoli. 1 'Society' drives here as far as 'the Point,' with a fine view towards the open sea, which, in a south- west gale, is blown furiously over the island and covers everything but the raised footpaths. The best equipages in S. Petersburg may be seen in the drives on the islands, and, though less pretentious, they are greatly improved since the end of the last century, when every gentleman entitled by rank rather than fortune to have six horses was obliged to be drawn by them, but no regard was paid to quality, size, or colour. 2 The lower orders are almost all clothed in the national sheepskins. Peter the Great and Catherine II. vainly tried to force the German dress upon their subjects, though, in their reigns, with the exception of the clergy, no one could obtain place or favour unless they banished their Asiatic robes, and even the worn-out veteran only received his pen- sion, upon terms of never again assuming the dress of his fathers. The many cafes and restaurants upon the islands are much frequented by summer pleasure-seekers, but the chill during August evenings shows that the brief summer is already waning. ' Aux iles, toutes les maisons et tous les chemins se ressemblent. Dans cette promenade 1'etranger erre sans ennui, du moins le premier jour. L'ombre du bouleau est transparente ; mais sous le soleil du nord on ne cherche pas une feuillee bien epaisse. Un canal succede a un lac, une prairie a un bosquet, une cabane a une villa, une allee a une allee, au bout de laquelle vous retrouvez des sites tout pareils a ceux que 1 Custine " See Svvinton's Travels, 1792 THE ISLANDS. 85 vous venez de laisser derriere vous. Ces tableaux reveurs captivent I'imagination sans 1'interesser vivement, sans piquer la curiosite : c'est du repos.' M. de Cttstine. We returned from the islands under one of those ' pale green skies ' of evening described by Pouchkine, 1 which before we reached the town had become a black-blue canopy with the shooting stars believed by Russians to be angels descending to fetch human souls. In Russia, each THE FORTRESS, S. PETERSBURG. child has its especial star, which is believed to appear at its birth and to vanish at its death. In this night-drive we saw the Dvorniks (at once servants, watchmen, and police-agents) lying curled up like dogs before the doors of the different villas. Thus they sleep, even through the snow of winter, with marvellous resistance of cold. In returning from the islands it is easy to visit the ' Under a sky of pale green Weariness, cold and granite.' Pouchkine's Works, ed. 1859, l - 377- 86 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Fortress on the northern bank of the Neva, enclosing the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul (Petropaulovski Sobor), which is like an historical sequel to the famous Cathedral of S. Michael in the Kremlin of Moscow, being the burial- place of the latter sovereigns of the house of Romanoff. ' The pointed slender tower rises like a mast 340 feet in height ; for the last 150 feet the tower is so small and thin, that it must be climbed like a pine-tree. On one occasion, when the metal angel at the top needed some repairs, an adventurous workman reached the summit thus ^ from the last gallery of the tower he knocked in a hook as high as he could reach from a ladder, threw a rope over it, and dragged himself up by it ; he then knocked in a second hook, which he also mounted by means of his rope, and so reached the top. On the gilding of this slender tower, which is seen from all parts of S. Peters- burg like a golden needle hovering in the air, particularly when, as is frequently the case, the lower part is veiled in fog, 10,000 ducats have already been lavished.' Kohl. The church is always open, but is watched over by a number of military guardians. It is heavily and gorgeously gilt within, and has no seats anywhere, after the fashion of Russian churches. Splendid pictures covered with gold and precious stones gleam upon the walls, and all around, half concealed by groves of living palms, or by ivy upon trellis-work, are the tombs of the ' Romanoffs. They are all alike, simple stately sarcophagi of white marble, with gold ornaments. The tombs begin on the right of the altar, with the immediate family of Peter the Great persons who bore so great an influence upon their age, and who so totally changed the character of the great Russian empire, that it is impossible not to pause beside their monuments, while regretting that the tenets of the Greek religion forbid sculpture upon them. TOMB OF PETER THE GREAT. 87 First, near the south door is the tomb of Peter the Great, who died February 9, 1725, after a life which redeemed the cruelties of a tyrant by the virtues of a legislator. His body remained on a catafalque under a canopy in the centre of the nave till June i, 1731, in the reign of the Empress Anne, when it was buried. If a newly-born child appears delicate, the Russians have it measured by the nearest pope or priest, and a picture of it and its two guardian-angels painted, which must be of exactly the same size as the child ; this picture, called the Obraz, is supposed to exercise a salutary influence, and is carefully preserved through life. Three days after the birth of Peter, Simeon Ushakof, the most skilful native artist of the day, was employed to decorate a measure taken by the pope a board of cypress nineteen and a quarter inches long, and five and a quarter broad with a representation of the Holy Trinity and the apostle Peter. Ushakof died before he had finished his work, which was finislied by the hand of one Theodore Kosldf. This curious ' birth-measure ' of the great Peter still hangs near his tomb. Count Stackelberg described Peter the Great, whom he had known personally, as six feet high, strong and well made, with his head slouching and awry, of a dark com- plexion, and a countenance continually subject to distortions. He was generally dressed in his green uniform or a plain brown coat, was remarkable for the fineness of his linen, and wore his short black hair without powder. Externally, Russia owed to him the being raised from a third-rate power to a political equality with Western Europe, and having her embassies placed on the same footing with those of other countries. Internally, it owed to him six new provinces, ~5S S-9 o -g w=^ c 3:2? x ll fl 9 | ^ sr s| s |l r| . i i 1 & 7 c u "> 1 ! ll! f tf T3 H jr IH rn ' s " rt ^ 85 Si3 c u 4; ^ . O <; <, j? o 1? i .2*0 ^ fj ^ x c ^ .y cf *c > w k" ? rt u^'S J? S H rt n ^ CO 1 11 I f il |o | l> "O O ^^ S s"^ * DO. "3 -5 w j , ^ 5 Is |i is -ss a - i 1 U .a II ^ 'B "S rt <! oJ ^ o <s ^ 3 f T i 3 *!> ^ 0. ;<g O ci CO) CO -5 d fe * S I- I *fr, 3 ^ S f <?; <=i ' c5 < ^ 1 g. 1 L || 1 r Is it u* 25 ^-5 J^ 2 Alexandra (Fe of Prussi III! x o;^ 4j 1 ^ s Maria Ai< Duchess ol -> 2 7 1 a ' c5 ^00 h'S N (X ! < Eo 1 8 -'1 rH _5 > J "^+ ""<" i r rt PH ^ u J? a? c oil S ^ 1 ->^ h ^=2 o U bfl 11 W 1 | |j? rt fiw TT <u c O tj i .i=3 11 '"SS P ^ j o 1 -i VO 7 1 2^ a OT c 2 ^ II K - 1 J3 |i I'^^CJ .a"|| c jj i 1 /-N C .ti "5- a S 3~u c -* 1 z -jjl y -| .^ "S 8 Q S H-l 11 fc- c ^Q i ^^"^ 4H ^ ^ ^3 C yi 'Cu- to" <- ? c ^ O | ^ o w g X Jj .5 "^ JO .2-^^ 1. H J 2~ tA Q C N >S rt*o ^ ^ -2 -o"3 -3 W i S if S"3 W 3 'i ^S "^ ^~ | __ c 'B " "JJ "is Od U a Z w ^^^^ C ? o C > Coo Q HI X ^ 1^2 -I n i i < M X Xc "^ ^rt+ M > u W H r^ > ^ d " TOMB OF CATHERINE I. 89 its fleet, admiralty, naval academy, schools, public library, picture-gallery, manufactures, the reform of its finances, the emancipation of its women : in a word, its earliest civilisation. One of the songs of the people, in use after the death of Peter the Great, ends in a touching allusion to the tie of military brotherhood between the Tsar and his soldiers, and to the modest rank of captain of the bombardiers with which he was satisfied till the taking of Azof. ' In our holy Russia, in the glorious town of Piter, in the cathedral of Peter and Paul, on the right side, by the tombs of the Tsars, a young soldier was on duty. ' Standing there, he thought, and, thinking, he began to weep. He wept : it was a river which flowed ; he sobbed : it was the throb of waves. ' Bathed in tears, he cried " Alas ! our mother, the wet land, open on every side. Open, ye bands of coffins ! open, ye golden cover- lets ! and thou, O orthodox Tsar, do thou awake, do thou arise ! Look, master, on thy guard, contemplate all thine army ; see how the regiments are disciplined ; how the colonels are with the regiments, and all the majors with their horses, the captains at the head of their companies, the officers leading their divisions, the ensigns supporting the standards. They wait for their colonel for the colonel of the regiment Preobrajenski for the captain of the bombardiers." ' Close to the tomb of Peter is that of his beloved Katinka, the Empress Catherine /., his second wife. Catherine was born in the village of Ringen, near Dorpat, and was probably the natural daughter of a Lithuanian peasant named Samuel Skavronsky. The little Martha (as she was called till her Greek baptism), being left destitute and an orphan, was taken into the house of Pastor Gluck at Marienburg, where she was nursery-maid to his children and made herself generally useful. Whilst here she became engaged to a Swedish dragoon, but, before their marriage, 90 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. he was summoned to join his company at Riga, and he was killed in battle in 1705. On the capture of Marienburg by Sheremetieff, Gluck and his family were sent to Moscow, but General Bauer, seeing the beautiful Catherine amongst the prisoners, took her into his house. Hence she passed to the protection of Prince Mentchikoff, till 1704, when she became the mistress of Peter the Great. She was then seventeen and very pretty ; she could neither read nor write, but had been otherwise well taught by Gluck and was very merry and intelligent. She had several children by the Tsar before they were married at Warsaw in 1711. Her attention and liveliness gave her complete ascendency over the melancholy and morose Peter. In his semi-madness the fascination of her voice at once soothed and tamed him, and she became the indispensable companion of his journeys and campaigns. She acquired great popularity by prevailing upon Peter to consent to the Peace of Pruth, and her courage on this occasion was made a reason for her coronation in 1724. A short time before the death of the Tsar, he ima- gined that he had discovered an intrigue between Catherine and her first chamberlain Mons. The chamberlain and his sister were arrested on an accusation of receiving bribes ; he was beheaded and she knouted and banished to Siberia. On the next day Peter took Catherine in an open carriage under the gallows upon which the head of Mons was fixed. Without changing colour in the least, she merely said, * What a pity it is that there is so much corruption amongst courtiers ! ' and her reputation was saved. Soon after, Peter died, having put off the appointment of his suc- cessor, and being in such dreadful tortures upon his death- bed that he was unable to attend to it. But, whilst he was TOMB OF ELIZABETH. 91 dying, Prince Mentchikoff seized the treasure, secured the fortress, gained over the clergy, and, by bribing right and left, obtained the succession of Catherine in right of her coronation. This gave Mentchikoff such an influence during her reign that he may be considered the real ruler of Russia at that time, the Empress chiefly passing her time in idleness and intemperance, which caused her death (1727), in her thirty-ninth year, after a reign of only two years. To the last, she could never read or write, and her daughter Elizabeth always signed her name for her, but she was always free from affectation, and bore her elevation to the throne with simplicity and dignity. ' She was a very pretty well-lookt woman, of good sense, but not of that sublimity of wit, or rather that quickness of imagination, which some people have believed. The great reason why the Tsar was so fond of her, was her exceeding good temper : she never was seen peevish or out of humour ; obliging and civil to all, and never forgetful of her former condition ; withal ; mighty grateful.' Gordon. Close to Catherine rests her handsome and amorous daughter Elizabeth, who succeeded the Empress Anne upon the deposition from brief power of the Regent Anne, Duchess of Courland (daughter of the Empress Anne's elder sister Catherine), and her child, who had been proclaimed as Ivan VI. Elizabeth imprisoned her unfortunate rivals for life, but otherwise had the reputation of a humane princess, except when her subjects commented too freely upon her amours, for which crime the Countesses Lapoukyn and Bes- tuchef each received fifty strokes of the knout in the open square of S. Petersburg, had their tongues cut out, and were banished to Siberia. The Empress Elizabeth, who never married, did much for the embellishment of S. Petersburg. 92 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. She died 1761, aged fifty-three, after a reign of twenty-one years. Immediately behind rests the Empress Anne (Duchess of Courland), daughter of Ivan V., elder brother of Peter the Great. Upon the death of Peter's grandson, Peter II., she was elected rather than the son of Anne of Holstein, daughter of Peter the Great, because the nobles thought she would more readily agree to their plan for limiting the power of the crown and reserving the chief authority to themselves. She obtained the throne at Mitau by signing their articles at once, but revoked her signature as soon as she reached Moscow, saying that she had been deceived into believing that they were the will of the whole nation. She was always governed by her lover Biren, whose cruelties tarnished her reign, though she often interceded for his victims. She died in October 1740, having nominated her great-nephew, grandson of her elder sister Catherine, her successor, as Ivan VI. On a line with Anne are the sarcophagi of Peter III. and the great Catherine II. The weak and depraved Peter III. was the son of Anne, Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp, eldest daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I. He succeeded his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, in 1762, and in the same year was driven from the throne in a revolution headed by his wife, and a few days after was murdered at the solitary palace of Ropscha. At first he was buried in the church of S. Alexander Nevskoi, but, on his wife's death, their son Paul had his remains taken up, and laid in state by his mother in the palace. Only one person, an archbishop, knew the secret spot where his bones rested, unmarked by TOMB OF CATHERINE II. 93 monument or inscription. Count Alexis Orlof and Count Bariatinski, the reputed murderers of Paul, were summoned, and forced to stand on each side of his corpse as it lay in state, and to walk behind it when it was carried to its new grave. Orlof was perfectly composed, but Bariatinsky fainted repeatedly. The bodies of Paul and Catherine were drawn by horses upon low carriages, and behind, with hands folded, pale as death, walked Orlof, next the Emperor, who mani- fested by this sublime though mysterious sacrifice to the Manes of his father, a feeling worthy of a greater character. l Immediately afterwards the murderers were banished. Catherine II. was the Princess Sophia Augusta of Anhalt- Zerbst, who took the name of Catherine upon her Greek baptism. In 1744 she married Peter, nephew of the Empress Elizabeth, who succeeded to the throne, abdicated, and died in 1762. Her reign was distinguished by victories of Russia over the Turks and Tartars, and her desire for personal distinction led her to do much to improve the social life of Russia and ameliorate the condition of the people. She had a passion for literature, and herself wrote a number of books for children. 2 The number of her offspring by her different lovers has originated a fresh class of Russian nobility. To her favourites she was most munificent, and the most celebrated of these the brothers Orlof, Vissensky, Vassiltschikef, Potemkin, Zavodofsky, Zoritch, Korzakof, Lanskoi, Yermolof, Momonof, Plato and Valerian Zubof received as much as 92,820,000 roubles amongst them. Catherine died in 1796. In the same vault, but without other monuments than 1 Clarke. 2 Tales of the Tsarevitch, * Chlor,' and the Little Samoyedi ; also historical and moral essays collected in the Bibliotheqne des Grands-Dues Alexandre et Consiantin. 94 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. brass plates in the wall, are buried the unhappy Alexis and his wife. Alexis Petrovitch, son of Peter the Great by his first wife, Eudoxia Lapoukyn, was born in 1690. It seemed as if nature had made him especially antipathetic to his father. He loved all that his father hated the old religion, the old customs, the old capital ; he was furious at his father's re- forms, and he declared his intention of abandoning S. Petersburg as soon as his father was dead. ' Peter was active, curious, and energetic. Alexis was contem- plative and reflective. He was not without intellectual ability, but he liked a quiet life. He preferred reading and thinking. At the age when Peter was making fireworks, building boats, and exercising his comrades in mimic war, Alexis was pondering over the "Divine Mamma," reading the " Wonders of God," reflecting on Thomas a Kempis's " Imitation of Christ," and making excerpts from Baronius. While it sometimes seemed as if Peter was born too soon for the age, Alexis was born too late.' Eugene Schuyler. The incapacity shown by Alexis soon led his father to wish to exclude him from the throne. His education was disgracefully neglected, and Mentchikoff purposely left him to the companionship of the most ordinary debauchees, especially priests of the lowest class, by whom he was con- stantly surrounded. He treated his wife, Charlotte Christina Sophia of Brunswick (married 1711), with the utmost neglect, for the sake of a Finnish mistress named Euphrosyne. His children were Natalia, born 1714, and Peter II., born 1715. Soon after the birth of the latter, Charlotte died, welcoming her end with joy, and consoled on her deathbed by her father- in-law, who promised to take care of her children and servants. Alexis constantly inveighed against his father, and, in 1716, renounced his right of succession in favour of Peter's son by GRAVE OF ALEXIS PETROVITCH. 95 Catherine I., and escaped into Austria and thence to Naples. Being persuaded to return by promises of forgiveness, he again formally renounced the crown at Moscow, but, being regarded by his father as a traitor, was carried to S. Peters- burg, and, after being tried there for rebellion, was con- demned to death ; though whether his end was actually caused by convulsions from fear, by the knout, or by the axe of the executioner, has been frequently disputed. * The trial was begun on June 25, and continued to July 6, when the supreme court, with unanimous consent, passed sentence of death upon the prince, but left the manner of it to his Majesty's deter- mination. The prince was brought before the court, his sentence was read to him, and he was reconveyed to the fortress. On the next day his Majesty, attended by all the senators and bishops, with several others of high rank, went to the fort, and entered the apartments where the Tsarevitch was kept prisoner. Some little time thereafter, Marshal Weyde came out, and ordered me to go to Mr. Bear's the druggist, whose shop was hard-by, and tell him to make the potion strong which he had bespoke, as the prince was then very ill. When I delivered this message to Mr. Bear he turned quite pale, and fell a shaking and trembling, and appeared in the utmost confusion, which surprised me so much, that I asked him what was the matter with him, but he was unable to return me any answer. In the meantime the Marshal himself came in, much in the same condition as the druggist, saying, he ought to have been more expeditious, as the prince was very ill of an apoplectic fit ; upon this the druggist delivered him a silver cup with a cover, which the Marshal himself carried into the prince's apartment, staggering all the way as he went like one drunk. About an hour after, the Tsar, with all his attendants, withdrew, with very dismal countenances, and when they went, the Marshal ordered me to attend at the prince's apartment, and in case of any alteration to inform him immediately thereof. There were at that time two physicians and two surgeons in waiting, with whom, and the officers on guard, I dined on what had been dressed for the prince's dinner. The physicians were called in immediately after to attend on the prince, who was struggling out of one convulsion into another, and, after great agony, expired at five o'clock in the afternoon. I went directly to inform the Marshal, and he went that moment to acquaint his Majesty, who ordered the 96 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. corpse to be embo welled, after which it was laid in a coffin, covered with black velvet, and a pall of rich gold tissue spread over it ; it was then carried out of the fort to the church of the Holy Trinity, where the corpse lay in state till the nth in the evening, when it was carried back to the fort, and deposited in the royal burying vault, next to the coffin of the princess, his late consort, on which occasion the Tsar and Tsarina, and the chief of the nobility, followed in procession. Various were the reports that were spread concerning his death ; it was given out publicly, that on hearing his sentence of death pronounced, the dread thereof threw him into an apoplectic fit, of which he died : very few believed that he died a natural death, but it was dangerous for people to speak as they thought. The ministers of the Emperor, and the States of Holland were forbid the Court for speaking their minds too freely on this occasion, and, upon complaint against them, were both recalled.' Bruce 's 'Memoirs,' pp. 185-187. The group of tombs on the other side of the altar, opposite the picture of the great apostle, are those of the Emperor Paul with his sons and daughters-in-law. The line of sarcophagi at the back begins nearest to the altar with that of the eccentric Paul (1796-1801), son of the murdered Peter III. and Catherine II., himself murdered, as we shall see, in the Michael Palace. Next comes his widow, the beneficent Marie Feodorovna, who did much for the en- couragement of literature in Russia, and founded many of its finest charitable institutions. Her tomb is succeeded by those of her eldest son, the great Alexander /., and his wife, Elizabeth Alexievna. Alexander, born 1777, was the eldest son of Paul Petro- vitch and Marie Feodorovna of Wiirtemberg. He was educated, by the care of his grandmother the Empress Catherine, under Nicholas SoltikofT. At 15 he was married to Princess Louisa of Baden (of 14), who took the name of Elizabeth Alexievna on her Greek baptism. It is believed that he knew of the conspiracy to murder his father, but was TOMBS OF ALEXANDER /. AND NICHOLAS. 97 persuaded that it was necessary to save his own life and that of his mother and brothers. Russia made great progress in civilisation in his reign, which added Finland to the empire and welcomed the efforts of the Bible Society in Russia. Alexander did all he could to avoid war with Napoleon, whose personal charm captivated him whenever they met. After the retreat from Moscow he appeared as the peace- maker of Europe, but entered France for the second time as conqueror, after Waterloo. He died at Taganrog, December i, 1825, aged 48, and his wife followed him in the ensuing May. ' Toutes ses paroles, toutes ses manieres, respiraient la bonte du coeur, le besom de se faire aimer, et 1'amour leplus vrai de 1'humanite. Sans faste ou prevention, il acccutuma lui-meme la noblesse a des habitudes simples, com me il lui donnait Fexemple de 1'elegance des mceurs et de 1'amabilite des manieres.' 4 Le traite conclu entre les empereurs de Russie et d'Autriche et le roi de Prusse, et que le nom de Saints -Alliance a rendu si fameux, porte evidemment 1'empreinte des idees religieuses d'Alexandre. Son pream- bule est digne des decrets d'un concile ; et c'est une chose singuliere que ce traite politico-theologique conclu par trois souverains, tons d'une religion differente. Le ton de componction qui y regne passa bien- tot dans la vie et dans les actes de 1'autocrate, et fut entretenu en lui par les predications de Mme. de Kriidner, qu'il ecoutait alors avec complaisance, bien qu'il la traitat plus tard avec severite. Rien ne cnractcrise mieux 1'etat moral de 1'autocrate a cette epoque qu'un aveu (|u'i! fit a M. Empeytaz, ministre protestant et compagnon de voyage de la nouvelle prophetesse. " Dans le conseil," lui dit-il, "toutes les fois que ses ministres etaient partages d'opinion, et qu'il etait difficile de les mettre d'accord, il priait Dieu, et avail presque toujours la satisfac- tion de voir se rapprocher les opinions en proportion de la ferveur qu'il apportait a sa priere." ' Nouvelle Biographie Generate. The sarcophagi of the ultra-conservative Nicholas (1796- 1855, third son of Paul) emperor at the time of the Crimean War, who did all he could to isolate Russia and his wife H 98 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Alexandra, are in front of those of his parents. The third tomb in the front line is that of Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great, who was brought up in the expectation of two thrones Russia and Sweden and disappointed of both. Excluded from the council of regency of Mentchikoff after her mother's death, she retired with her husband, the Duke of Holstein, to Kiel, and died there, aged 22, in 1728. The tomb (at the entrance of the north aisle) of the cruel Grand- Duke Constantine, the second brother of Alexander, who resigned his claims to the throne, is distinguished by the huge keys of the Polish fortresses of Modlin and Zamoscz, which lie upon it. In the same aisle are the sar- cophagi of Alexander II. (1855-1881) the 'Tsar liberator,' by whom 22,000,000 serfs were set free, but who paid for his generous impulses with his life of his wife Marie Alexandrovna of Hesse, and their eldest son, the Tsarevitch, who died at Nice. Of few Russian sovereigns are so many amiable traits recorded as of Alexander II. A young poet had written a most scurrilous poem, in which he had described and libelled not only the Empress, but also all the Grand Dukes and Duchesses. Some one, the censor of the press, went and told the Empress. * The man had better be sent off to Siberia at once,' he said ; 'it is not a case for delay.' 'Oh, no,' said the Empress ; 'wait a little, but tell the man I desire to see him at six o'clock to-morrow evening.' When the poor man was told this, he felt as if his last hour was come, and that the Emperor must intend himself to pronounce a sentence of eternal exile. He went to the palace, and was shown through all the grand state-rooms, one after another, without seeing anyone, till at last he TOMB OF ALEXANDER II. 99 arrived at a small commonplace room at the end of them all, where there was a single table with a lamp upon it, and here he saw the Empress, the Emperor, and all the Grand Dukes and Duchesses whom he had mentioned in his poem. * How do you do, sir ? ' said the Emperor. * I hear you have written a most beautiful poem, and I have sent for you that you may read it aloud to us yourself, and I have invited all the Grand Dukes and Duchesses to come that they may have the pleasure of hearing you.' Then the poor man prostrated himself at the Emperor's feet. * Send me to Siberia, sire,' he said ; ' force me to become a soldier; only do not compel me to read that poem.' ' Oh, sir, you are cruel to refuse me the pleasure, but you will not be so ungallant as to refuse the Empress the pleasure of hearing your verses, and she will ask you herself.' And the Empress asked him. When he had finished she said, ' I do not think he will write any more verses about us again. He need not go to Siberia just yet.' A nobleman had entered into a conspiracy against the Emperor, and was sentenced to Siberia. His eyes were bandaged, and he was put into a dark carriage, and for seven days and nights they travelled on and on, only stopping to take food. At last he felt that they must have reached Siberia, and, in the utmost anguish, he perceived that the carriage stopped, and the bandage was taken off his eyes, and . . . He was in his own home ! He had been driven round and round S. Petersburg the whole time : but the fright quite cured him. Alexander II., the liberator of the serfs, the man who was H 2 ioo STUDIES IN RUSSIA. able by his individual act to benefit a greater number of the human race than anyone who ever lived, met with a more frightful end than any of his predecessors, but the sympathy and grief of Christendom followed him to the grave in which he lies with the hair of his morganatic wife, Princess Dolgorouky, 1 cut off after his death, upon his breast. His sarcophagus is covered with a pall, inscribed simply, ' His Imperial Majesty Alexander II.' In a separate building within the fortress is preserved the famous boat known as ' The Little Grandsire ' or ' the Father of the Russian Fleet.' It is sometimes said to have been sent by Queen Elizabeth of England to Ivan the Terrible, but was in reality built during the reign of Alexis by a Dutchman named Kerstem Brandt. Peter the Great first saw it at the village Ismaelovo in 1691, and on enquiring of Timmerman, his instructor in navigation, why it was built in such a different way from other boats, was told that it was made to sail against the wind. Struck by this, he desired Brandt to be sent for, and, under his direction, practised the boat upon the Yausa. From the number of ships which were afterwards built with the same intention, the boat came to be regarded as the grandsire of the Russian 1 Dolgorouky (the long-armed) was originally a nickname. Such designations were at one period very common in Russia, and have become the origin of many of its family names. The terminations in 'off 'and 'eff' denote descent or derivation. Only those families which are descended from some of the ancient princes have retained the names of their former possessions. The first sovereign of the house of Romanoff, Michael Fe'odorovitch, married as his first wife (Sept. 18, 1624) Princess Marie Vladimirovna Dolgorouky, who died childless in 1625 (the house of Romanoff descending from his second marriage, with Eudoxia Strechneff). The house of Dolgorouky was for the second time on the point of making a royal marriage in 1729, when Peter II. was affianced to Catherine, daughter of Prince Alexis Gregorie"vitch Dolgorouky, but died before the day fixed for the ceremony. The mistress, afterwards the morganatic wife, of Alexander II. was Catherine, daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorouky. TUP: FORTRESS. 101 navy. It is thirty feet long, eight feet broad, and can spread three sails. In the stern is an image carved in wood, repre- senting a Russian pope stretching out his arm over the sea in blessing, that it may be kind to the Russian fleet, signified by some rudely-carved vessels leaving a harbour. The ' Grandsire ' was deposited in the fortress by the Emperor in person, all the men-of-war in the Neva saluting it. In 1870, on the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of Peter's birth, it was one of the chief objects of interest in the great parade at S. Petersburg. Except as a national monument, the Fortress of S. Petersburg is of little value. ' The building of S. Petersburg seems almost like a freak. . . . The fortress, on which so much money and so much life were spent, then, as now, protected nothing. Its guns could never reach the enemy, unless the town had been previously taken. It now protects nothing but the mint and the cathedral containing the imperial tombs. During the reign of Peter's successors, its walls were used as a suitable background for fireworks and illuminations, and its casemates have always been found convenient for the reception of political prisoners.' Schuyler>s ' Peter the Great' ' Against an attack from the side of the sea, S. Petersburg has no other defence than Cronstadt. The Russian fleet could not hold out against the combined fleets of England, Denmark, and Sweden. The Russian ships, after the loss of a battle, would be compelled to retire behind Cronstadt. Should Cronstadt then yield, either to the gold or to the artillery of the enemy, the Russian garrison would be forced to seek shelter in the citadel, the English men-of-war would enter the Neva, and in the cannonade that would probably ensue the finest part of the capital might be laid in ashes by the fire of its own citadel. The mortification of such a catastrophe would drive the government to realise the idea frequently entertained, of returning to the ancient capital ; Petersburg would then shrink into a mere maritime city of trade, and Vassili Ostrof would perhaps be all that would remain of it.' Kohl. 102 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Close to the northern entrance of the bridge near the fortress is a little church the oldest in S. Petersburg, where Peter the Great used to pray containing various relics of him, including a chandelier turned by his own hand. Hard by, in a tiny garden, a building encases the Cottage of Peter the Great, the original Palace of S. Petersburg. Here another of his boats is preserved. Here also is the tremendous staff of Peter, the only relic he retained of the ancient costume and accompaniments of the Tsars, when he astonished the Russians, accustomed to a long chain of barbaric costumes in their sovereigns, by what was even more strange to them, the full uniform of a European soldier. Part of the house has always been used as a chapel since Peter's death : which is strange in the dwelling of one whose private life was little better than that of a savage, whose chief amusement was getting drunk ; who forced his first wife into a convent that he might marry his Finnish mistress ; who beguiled his eldest son into his power by promises which he broke as soon as he had secured him, and then watched him tortured to death under the knout ; finally, who had no hesitation in sentencing those who differed from him to be impaled, broken on the wheel, or roasted alive ! His more respectable associates were mechanicians, manu- facturers, artisans, and merchants, and, as Bishop Burnet said, he seemed ' designed by nature to be a ship-carpenter rather than a great Prince.' The Electress Sophia, in 1697, describing her interview with the Tsar, affirmed that ' he knew excellently well fourteen trades.' His going to the terrible extreme of defacing 'the image of God' by the abolition of beards caused a large section of the people to regard him as Antichrist even in his lifetime. The THE HERMITAGE. 103 peasantry as well as the clergy were opposed to him ; only the nobles espoused the cause of progress. Yet, in his wars, the motto of Peter was 'For the Faith and the Faithful,' and his touching last words, 'My Lord, I am dying : help Thou my unbelief,' deserve to be remembered. In the house of Peter is a famous icon, which has been so often carried in battle, against the Tartars, the Poles, and the French ; by Demetrius, by Peter, by Suvarof and by Kutusof. It is a sad-looking head of the Saviour, before which people are constantly lighting little tapers, and crossing and prostrating themselves, with that reverent and striking simplicity which is always so remarkable in Russia and which takes no notice of spectators. Many mornings in S. Petersburg may be pleasantly spent at the Hermitage, which is supposed to be freely opened to the public, though plenty of fees are really re- quired. Situated just beyond the Winter Palace, this is, externally, one of the handsomest buildings in the capital, though, with characteristic want of invention, its huge cary- atides all exactly repeat each other. The Hermitage was no solitude, but a magnificent palace, the original hermit being the Empress Catherine II., the nymphs the princesses and countesses of her Court. 1 Here she inculcated the utmost ease and absence of etiquette ; one of her rules, most in contrast to those of existing sovereigns, being ' Asseyez-vous ou vous voulez, et quand il vous plaira, sans qu'on le repete mille fois.' 1 Kohl. 104 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' We possess many an alluring picture by Storch, by Dupre cle St. - Maure and by others, who took a part in those evenings, of the perfect freedom and equality that reigned here, in accordance with the ukases suspended in all the apartments of the palace. ' Musicians displayed their talents, artistes their works, and men of wit their opinions, and the pictures which we see elsewhere only as allegorical representations of art- and science-loving princes were here every day realised. On the roof of the building, the mighty Semiramis of the North had created a garden with flowers, shrubs, and lofty trees, heated in winter by sub- terraneous vaults, and illuminated in summer ; and many might here really esteem their abode more splendid than the Grecian Olympus.' Kohl. On the ground floor is the famous collection of Scythian antiquities from the south of Russia, especially from the Crimea. In this collection are two vases of incomparable value the silver vase of Nicopol and the golden vase of Kertch. ' On les fait remonter au quatrieme siecle avant notre ere, c'est-a- dire presque a 1'epoque oil Herodote a compose ses recits, dont ils seraient le vivant commentaire. Les Scythes du vase d'argent avec leurs longs cheveux, leurs longues barbes, leurs grands traits, leur tunique et leurs braies, reproduisent assez bien la physionomie, la stature et le costume des habitants actuels des memes regions ; on les voit occupes a dompter, a entraver leurs chevaux par des precedes qui encore aujourd'hui s'emploient dans ces campagnes. Les Scythes du vase d'or, avec leurs bonnets pointus, leurs vetements brodes et piques dans le gout asiatique, leurs arcs de forme etrange, ont cependant un type aryen tres-prononce. Les uns pourraient bien etre les Scythes laboureurs d'Herodote, peut-etre les ancetres des Slaves agriculteurs du Dnieper ; les autres, les Scythes royaux, adonnes a une vie nomade et toute guerriere.' Rambaud^ ' Hist, de la Riissie. ' The upper galleries are very handsome, adorned with hideous malachite, but with splendid vases of violet jasper. In the Italian school Guido Reni is nobly represented in the picture of S. Joseph with the Infant Saviour. Sebastian THE HERMITAGE. 105 del Piombo has a noble portrait of Cardinal Pole. Of Leonardo da Vinci there is a Madonna and Child, executed at Rome in 1513, slightly altered from the picture at Warwick. In the Spanish school is Murillo's Assumption of the young girlish Virgin, who is literally floating upwards on her cherub wreath. Of Luini, there is the mysterious ' Colum- bine ; ' of Morone, the graceful and lovely Judith, who looks as if she had only stepped by accident upon the head of Holofernes. In the Raffaelle room is the circular picture known as ' La Vierge de la Maison d'Albe,' in the best and most delicate manner of the master. Here, in a lovely landscape, the kneeling S. John playfully offers a cross to the Infant Saviour, in the lap of his Mother, who is wistfully watching the prophetic play of the children. There is a noble portrait by Raffaelle of an old man with an ' It does not signify ' look. And on a screen are the two most cele- brated miniatures in the world, both by Raffaelle the famous Madonna from the Conestabili Staffa Palace at Perugia in its original frame, wisely unaltered and un- mended ; and the S. George, in which the dragon is killed by a spear only, and the princess is introduced upon her knees. This picture, which was painted as early as 1506, long hung with an ever-burning lamp before a great portrait of the Emperor Alexander I. There is an immense collec- tion of the works of Teniers and other Dutch masters, amongst which the finest are Paul Potter's 'Watch-dog' and his famous cow, seen in the centre of a group of cattle under some oak trees before an old cottage. Rembrandt's charming portrait of his mother will remain in memory amongst the many examples of that master. io6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' On the whole, there are more Dutch cottages such as Ostade painted than there are Venetian palaces or Roman churches ; more North-German cattle-pastures than southern Alps ; more unroasted and roasted game than roasted martyrs ; more hares transfixed by the spit of the cook than S. Sebastians by the arrows of the heathen ; more dogs, horses, and cows than priests, prophets, and saintly visions. So numerous are the productions of some of these masters here, that separate halls are devoted to them, and it is scarcely conceivable how enough of their pictures were found for other collections.' KohL As a rule, Dutch pictures will be found to be more popular with Russians than Italian, for which collectors in Russia lovers of bright colours will seldom give large prices, ' because they have too much shade.' A long gallery in the Hermitage is fitly devoted to the memorials of Peter the Great his curious wooden chariot ; his turning-lathes and telescopes ; his throne, with his effigy, seated in the (full of holes) dress he wore ; a mask from his face, with real black hair and moustache, which was given by him to Cardinal Valenti, and found at Torlonia's at Rome ; and a little statuette of his housekeeper. Of the adjoining gallery of relics, one's memory dwells on a chaos of emeralds and diamonds in watches, chate- laines, boxes, chains, vases, every decoration of boudoir and toilet. A snuff-box, with miniatures of 'Marie Antoinette and her children, given by Louis XVI. to the faithful Clery upon the scaffold, is deeply interesting ; a wig of spun silver worn by Naryskin, Grand Marshal of the Court, is very curious ; and the strange timepiece of Prince Potemkin, with the peacock which spreads its tail, the cock which crows, the owl which blinks its eyes, and the grasshopper which eats a mushroom but all rather out of order now. There is also a magnificent diamond aigrette, with many other THE HERMITAGE. 107 relics of Potemkin (pronounced Patiomkiri), the most famous and extravagant of the favourites of Catherine II. priceless jewels, even volumes of banknotes bound together as curi- osities. The luxurious splendour of the Russian aristocracy which this gallery exemplifies was first introduced by Peter the Great, who, while he liked nothing but simplicity himself, wished his courtiers to be as magnificent as possible. The Troubetskoi, Sheremetieff, Mentchikoff, enriched by the Emperor, flattered him by the splendour of their uniforms and the gorgeousness of their equipages. Many of the great families ruined themselves that they might ingratiate them selves with the Emperor by their extravagance. Prince Ivan Vassilievitch Odoievski was obliged to sell palace, villages, serfs ; nothing remained to him but some servants who had once been his musicians. He let them out to the public, and lived upon them till his death. 1 The Empress Anne liked fine clothes so much that the oldest courtier, with white hair, would appear en rose tendre. But the Russian Court reached its greatest splendour under Catherine II. ' Men and women seemed to have challenged one other who should be most loaded with diamonds. This expression is not exaggerated ; for numbers of the principal people of fashion were almost covered with them ; their buttons, their buckles, the scabbards of their swords, their epaulets, consisted of diamonds ; and many persons even wore a triple cord of precious stones round the borders of their hats. This passion for jewels even descended to the rank of private individuals, who are fond of aping the great, and yet, after all, are but common people ; in this class of persons were families who possessed as many diamonds as the nobles. The wife of a Russian burgher would bring her husband 1 See Victor Tissot, Russes et Allemands. io8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. to ruin only that she might make her appearance with a headdress or girdle of pearls or precious stones to the value of some thousand roubles. ' Tooke's ' Life of Catherine II. ' The Court of Russia still keeps up quite a traffic in deco- rations, which are given to the mercantile classes in return for a certain amount of subscriptions to charities, and are regularly bargained for. All officers have decorations of some kind. On the quay beyond the Hermitage are some of the handsomest houses in the town, of vast dimensions. ' A fully-appointed house of the first class in Russia without men- tioning the numerous resident relations, old aunts, cousins, adopted children, &c. ; without mentioning the educational staff, the German, French, and Russian masters, tutors and governesses, the family physician, companions and others, who, as mdjorum gentium, must of course be excluded - has so astounding a number of serving-folk of one kind or another, that the like is to be found in no other country in the world. The following may be named as never wanting in the list : the superintendent of accounts, the secretary, the dvore~ki or maitre d'hotel, the valets of the lord, the valets of the lady, the dytitka or overseer of the children, the footmen, the buffetshek or butler and his adjuncts, the table-decker, the head groom, the coachman and postilions of the lord, the coachman and postilions of the lady, the attendants on the sons of the house and their tutors, the porters, the head cook and his assistant, the baker and the confectioner, the whole body of mushiks or servants, minimarum gentium, the stove- heater, kvass-brewer, the waiting-maids and wardrobe-keeper of the lady, the waiting-maids of the grown-up daughters and their ' gover- nesses, the nurses in and past service and their-under nurses, 1 &c., and, when a private band is maintained, the Russian Kapellmeister and the musicians. ' Kohl. Facing the bridge is the vast open space called Tsarinskoi Lug, or the Field of the Tsars, a name which has been cor- 1 An English nurse in such an establishment as this has no difficulty in obtaining jol. a year wages. THE SUMMER GARDEN. 109 rupted into Champ de Mars. It is admirably fitted for reviews. Petersbourg est Fetat-major d'une armee et non la capitale d'une nation. Toute magnifique qirest cette ville militaire, elle parait nue a 1'oeil d'un homnie de F Occident.' M. de Custine. Here is the Monument of Pouchkine^ the Byron of Russia, and still the most celebrated of native poets : a Russian Othello, who, jealous of his beautiful wife and exasperated by false reports, challenged his innocent brother-in-law, M. d' Antes, and, forcing him to fight against his will, was killed by him. It b unnecessary to say that the fact of a Russian being killed by a Frenchman enlisted the sym- pathy of everyone on the side of the dead ; justice went for nothing. Along one side of the square stretches the Summer Garden, laid out in lawns and avenues, and adorned with classic statues, which, as well as all the tenderer trees, are boxed up in winter. Towards the river is a celebrated railing of wrought iron with garlands and arabesques. A low house near this, ornamented with bas-reliefs painted yellow, was once used by Peter the Great. Near the en- trance of the garden on this side, a Chapel on the quay, erected by the offerings of the people, marks the spot where Karakusof attempted to murder the Emperor Alexander in 1866. ' You will find your throne a heavy burden,' had been the true last words of Nicholas, addressed to him from his deathbed. The chapel is inscribed in letters of gold, ' Touch not mine anointed.' The Summer Palace at the upper end of the garden was built by the Empress Anne in 1711, and, after her death, was inhabited by her lover Biren, who was i io STUDIES IN RUSSIA. arrested within its walls by the Regent Anna Leopoldovna and exiled to Siberia. 1 A handsome monument com- memorates the fabulist Kriloff (1768-1844), who has done more than anyone else to expose the weakness and credulity of the different classes of Russian society. His fables are drawn directly from the life of the people, and show the absurdity of the estimation in which Tchinn rank of every kind is regarded in Russia. The blind enthusiasm which overlooks the most essential objects is held up to ridicule in a 'S. Petersburg Tshinnovnik,' who relates to his friends that he has been to the museum and seen the most won- derful things 'birds of the most astonishing colours, beau- tiful butterflies, all foreign ! and gnats, flies, and golden beetles, so small that they can scarcely be seen with the naked eye.' ' But what say you to the elephant and the mammoth that are there also, my friend?' 'Elephant?' Mammoth ? Ah, the devil ! I really did not notice them. In another fable the pig and the cat swear eternal friendship, and conspire against the mice. The cat gets many a good dinner thereby, but the mice eat the bacon off the pig's back. The Russian peasant is far from sparing, in his criticism, the rich and great, from whom he bears so much, though conscious of its injustice. Thus, in one of Kriloff : s fables, a nobleman gives a box on the ear to one of his serfs, who has just saved his life from the attack of a bear, and cries out, ' Stupid fool, to tear the bear's skin so carelessly with thy clumsy axe ! Why didst thou not stun him with a stone, or strangle him with a rope ? What is his skin worth 1 The regime of the hated Biren, under which only Germans had favour, was called Birenovchtchina, as that of the Tartars had been called Tatarchtchina THE SUMMER GARDEN. in to me now at the furrier's ? The time will come, varlet, when I will take its value out of thee.' At the present time, the Summer Garden is chiefly given up to nurses and children, whom their parents delight to dress a la moujik. Formerly the ' choosing of the brides ' used to take place here on Whit Monday. Girls, dressed in their best, and decorated with all the jewels and ornaments which their families possessed or could borrow, used to be marshalled in lines, with their mothers behind them ; and, in front, the young men, attended by their fathers, walked up and down examining the blushing beauties. If any sign of mutual attraction appeared, the parents would engage in a conversation, into which they would endeavour to include their charges. Eight days after, interviews took place at the houses of the parents, in which negotiations would often lead to a betrothal. Lately the custom has flagged, but young men and maidens still resort in great numbers to the Summer Garden on Whit Monday to see and to be seen. ' Many of the damsels were so laden with gold and jewellery, that scarcely any part of their natural beauty remained uncovered. It is even said that, on one of these occasions, a Russian mother, not knowing what she should add to her daughter's toilet, contrived to make a necklace of six dozen of gilt teaspoons, a girdle of an equal number of table-spoons, and then fastened a couple of punch-ladles behind in the shape of a cross.' Kohl. The Summer Garden is full of crows. When the plot against the Emperor Paul was ripe for action, the conspira- tors were so intimidated by the noise of these crows that their design was nearly frustrated. 1 On the site of the old Summer Palace, in which he was 1 See ToynevilleV^,//i- of Alexander I. ii2 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. born, the Emperor Paul (1797-1801) built the Michael Palace, employing no less than 5,000 men in its hurried construction. Over the door he inscribed in golden letters, ' On thy house will the blessing of the Lord rest for ever- more ' words ill fulfilled in the murder of the Emperor three months after he came to reside here. ' The Russians observe that the number of letters in this inscription corresponds with the number of Paul's years, and that out of them an anagram may be composed denoting that he who raised the building would perish by a violent death.' Carr, 'Northern Summer. 1 Endless are the stories which are told of Paul's violence and eccentricities. One of his fancies was that everyone he met, wherever he met them, must get out of their carriages and sledges, stand in the mud, or on the ice, and make him a bow. This was of course considered the greatest bore possible. One day there was a poor dancing-master, who was going to give some lessons, and he had nothing but a pair of very thin shoes on. He was dreadfully afraid of encountering the Emperor, for it was the depth of winter, and the ground was covered with snow and ice ; and he thought if he did his feet would certainly be frost-bitten. As he went along, he saw to his horror that the Emperor was coming : there was no way of turning aside ; he must meet him. He determined at once that the only way was to pretend not to see the Emperor, and to turn the other way. Paul was not to be outwitted. He stopped at once, and sent one of his escort to see why the dancing-master had not obeyed his orders. The poor man pleaded not having seen the Emperor, and implored not to be forced to get out, on account of his thin shoes. The Emperor would not hear of THE MICHAEL PALACE. 113 it. ' Let him walk round and round my sledge,' he said, ' and see if that will amuse him ; and, since he is too blind to see me, tell him that I desire for the future that he will always, at all times, wear green shades over his eyes.' ' Mungo Park was hardly exposed to greater severity of exaction and of villany among the Moors of Africa than Englishmen experi- enced in Russia in the time of the Emperor Paul, and particularly in Petersburg. They were compelled to wear a dress regulated by the police ; and as every officer had a different notion of the mode of observing these regulations, they were constantly liable to be inter- rupted in the streets and public places and treated with impertinence. The dress consisted of a cocked hat, or, for want of one, a round hat pinned up with three corners ; a long cue ; a single-breasted coat and waistcoat ; knee-buckles instead of strings ; and buckles in the shoes. Orders were given to arrest any person seen in pantaloons. A servant was taken out of his sledge, and caned in the streets, for having too thick a neckcloth ; and if it had been too thin he would have met with a similar punishment. After every precaution, the dress, when put on, never satisfied ; either the hat was not straight on the head, the hair too short, or the coat was not cut square enough. A lady at court wore her hair rather lower in her neck than was consistent with the decree, and she was ordered into close confinement, to be fed' on bread and water. A gentleman's hair fell a little over his forehead while dancing at a ball ; a police officer attacked him with great rudeness and abuse, and told him, if he did not instantly cut his hair, he would find a soldier who would shave his head, as criminals are punished. ' The sledge of Count Razumovsky was, by the Emperor's orders, broken into small pieces, while he stood by and directed the work. The horses had been found with it in the streets without their driver. It happened to be of a blue colour, and the Count's servants wore red liveries, upon which a ukase was immediately published, prohibiting throughout the Empire of All the Russias the use of blue colours in ornamenting sledges, and red liveries. ' Coming down the street called the Perspective, the Emperor per- ceived a nobleman who was taking his w r alk, and had stopped to look at some workmen who were planting trees by the Emperor's order. " What are you doing?" said he. "Merely seeing the men work," replied the nobleman. " Oh ! is that your employment? Take off his pelisse, and give him a spade ! There, now work yourself ! " I H4 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1 When enraged, he lost all command of himself, which sometimes gave rise to very ludicrous scenes. The courtiers knew very well when a storm was coming on, by a trick which he had in those moments of blowing from his under lip against the end of his nose. In one of his furious passions, flourishing his cane about, he struck by accident the branch of a large glass lustre, and broke it. As soon as he perceived what had happened, he attacked the lustre in good earnest, and did not give up his work until he had entirely demolished it.' Clarke's 1 Travels. ' The eccentricities of the Emperor wore out even the Russian spirit of submission at last. ' Pahlen collected about fifty conspirators, and on the night of March 23 increased their number by releasing some officers from prison, arrested that evening (it is said, at his instigation), and he impressed on them that their only hope of life was by the Emperor's deposition. He provided for every contingency, and secured both Alexander and Constantine by locking them up in their rooms, lest they should be moved at the important moment to go to the rescue of their father. All those connected with the plot met at eight o'clock at the house of General Talitzin. . . . On this last day of his life Paul was particularly tranquil. He appeared at the morning parade, where he wrote a letter to Bonaparte on the crown of his hat, and went to the school for military orphans, where 800 children were boarded and instructed at his cost. It was a favourite walk; and he returned to the palace to his wife's sitting-room at half-past five, when her younger children were with her. He spoke to her tenderly, and brought her a piece of embroidery from the military school. He took his two youngest sons on his knee, and remained with them some little time. As he was leaving the room, Nicholas, who was four and a half years old, said to him, " Father, why are you called Paul the First ?" for he had been studying the imperial monograms which were entwined with the figure I in several parts of the room. " Because no one of that name ruled before me," said the Emperor. " Oh ! then," said the boy, "I shall be called Nicholas the First." "If you ever ascend the throne," said his father, abruptly. He stood as if lost in thought, fixing his eyes on his son, and then kissed him passionately. He spent the evening with the Princess Gagariue ; and more than one of the conspirators, including Nicholas Zoubof, had supper with them. He spoke to her of Alexander in such a threatening manner that, when he THE MICHAEL PALACE. 115 left her, she sent a slip of paper to the prince, begging him to escape. "Before many days," said Paul, "everyone will be astonished by seeing heads fall that were once very dear to me." ' The Emperor retired as usual between eight and nine o'clock. . . . An hour afterwards the conspirators appeared. The drawbridge was pulled up for the night, but they crossed the frozen ditch, disconcerted for a moment by the crows in the lime-trees of the Summer Garden setting up a loud njoise. Benningsen, Plato and Nicholas Zoubof, Tashwill and several more, all masked, led the first detachment to penetrate into the Emperor's bedroom, while the rest waited below to follow if necessary. Officers were placed on duty instead of ordinary sentinels at the various points, but no artifice could induce the faithful hussar who stood at Paul's door to leave his post. As the Emperor's aide-de-camp was admitted to bring despatches at any time in the day or night, he led them without difficulty as far as the library, and told the hussar to open the bedroom door, for he brought important despatches to his Majesty. The man opened the door, but immediately, suspecting something was wrong, shut it again, and called the Emperor. The conspirators struck him down and disarmed him, but he escaped covered with blood to summon assistance, and was seized and detained by the second detachment, while the first forced their way into the room. Benningsen and Zoubof, in full uniform, with their swords in their hands, advanced first. The bed was empty, and for an instant they thought the Emperor had fled, but in a moment he reappeared from behind the screen, bringing a sword from the recess. He was half- dressed and seemed confused, so as hardly to recognise them ; and the large room was only lighted with one night-lamp. ' " Sire," said Benningsen, "you are a prisoner, in the name of the Emperor Alexander. Be composed and sign this paper, and your life will be safe ; " and he handed to him a deed requiring his abdication. But as Paul read it his anger rose ; he accused those w-ho had drawn it up- of ingratitude, and said he had loaded them with benefits. He declared he would rather die than abdicate in favour of his son, and he tore up the paper and threw it at his feet. ' At this moment the second detachment was heard approaching, and Benningsen, who had locked the door, went to open it to them. Some state that Paul took the opportunity to reach the window, and severely cut his hand, being dragged down again by Zoubof and Tash- will ; others, that the cut was given by Tash will's sword, which he tried to wrench out of his hand by seizing hold of the blade ; and that this nobleman, who had sworn to revenge his own dismissal from office, laid I 2 ii6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. hold of the Tsar directly lie threw down the deed of abdication, com- pelled him to loose his weapon by breaking his arm with a blow, and, assisted by the rest, beat him to force him to abdicate, till he was so much injured that they thought it better to put him to death. At any rate, when the second detachment entered it found Paul struggling violently with Tashwill and four others ; the lamp was overturned, and until another was procured, after some delay, they fought in darkness. Paul was heard to ask what they had to complain of from him, and several answered that he had tyrannised over them for four years, and they ought to have settled matters with him long ago. Benningsen said that he implored the Emperor not to resist, for his life was at stake ; but Savary declares that he loaded his victim with insults and abuse, and used to boast of it afterwards when he commanded the Russian army in Germany. Paul resisted for a long time, and was struck by the butt-end of a pistol, which fractured his skull, and drew from him a shriek, when the leaders of the conspiracy, afraid of a rescue, closed in upon him, and held him down while the rest compressed him round the waist with an officer's scarf, intended to tie his feet. They dared not strangle him round the neck, lest he should be much dis- figured, as the body would lie in state ; but when it was given over to the surgeons for embalming, it presented the most unmistakable signs of violence. Besides a broken arm, and the wound on the hand and head, one eye had been put out, and he was bruised from head to foot. Benningsen kept his foot over the Emperor's mouth while Zoubof and Tashwill deliberately adjusted the scarf. Paul took the heel of the boot off with his teeth, which penetrated to the officer's skin, and caused him to raise it for an instant, when the Emperor, for the first time, asked their mercy. " Gentlemen," he said, " give me one moment to commend my soul to God ! " but he was silenced almost before he had completed his sentence, and Tashwill and Zoubof or, others say, Benningsen pulled at each end of the scarf till he expired. ' Though the walls of the palace are very thick, the confusion in the Emperor's bedchamber reached the other parts of the building. The English cook, in great alarm, escaped from the private kitchen, and rushed off to an English merchant's house in the city to report that the Tsar was being murdered. Constantine, who was unacquainted with the conspiracy, tried to go to his father's aid, but found himself locked in his room. The Empress attempted to make her way through the folding- doors separating her rooms from her husband's, and, finding them locked, went the other way, but was intercepted in the library by a detachment with strict orders not to let her pass. Here she was joined THE MICHAEL PALACE. 117 by her daughters, Mary and Catherine, with their governess, who, aware that a movement was going on against the Emperor, tried to tranquillise her by assuring her that the rest of the family would be safe. She persisted in trying to pass the soldiers, when Benningsen appeared from her husband's room, and she immediately appealed to him, and asked if she was a prisoner. He answered she was ; and if he allowed her to proceed, she would only risk her life needlessly. He added, " The Emperor Alexander " " Alexander ! " she interrupted, " who has made him Emperor ? " " The nation, madame," replied Benning- sen ; "all classes were concerned in it : military, civilians, and courtiers. The life of Paul is ended." ' From C. Joyneville, ' Life and Times of Alexander /.' ' Si les hommes se taisent en Russie, les pierres parlent, et parlent d'une voix lamentable. Je ne m'etonne pas que les Russes craignent et negligent leurs vieux monuments ; ce sont cles temoins de leur histoire, que le plus souvent ils voudraient oublier : quand je decouvris les noirs perrons, les profonds canaux, les ponts massifs, les peristyles deserts de ce sinistre palais, j'en demandai le nom, etce nom me rappella malgre moi la catastroDhe qui fit monter Alexandre sur le trone. ' M. de Custine. All spots in Russia connected with royal tragedies are closed to the public. It is very difficult to obtain leave to see the rooms in which Paul was murdered, and which may be recognised from the outside by their darkened windows on the second story. The Emperor Alexander I. would never enter them. The palace is now used as a School of Engineers. Exact models of all the fortified places in Russia are kept in one of the halls. These include the castles of the Dardanelles, whose presence here indicates the way in which they are regarded in Russia, and recall the saying of Alexander, ' II faut avoir les clefs de notre maison dans la poche.' A collection of Ukases upon military defence is preserved here, many of them bearing the disconnected handwriting of 'Ickathrina' (Catherine II.), which contrasts badly with the fine signatures of her grandsons Alexander and Nicholas. uS STUDIES IN RUSSIA. On the further side of the palace, in a desolate grass- grown space, is the equestrian statue which Paul, as heir- apparent, erected to Peter the Great, inscribed ' Prodadu Prasnuk' 'the grandson to the grandfather.' Hence it is a short distance to the Preobrajenski Church (Spass Preobrajenski Sobor), originally founded by Peter the Great, but rebuilt 1754. It is a museum of military trophies taken in battle, and the very iron railing which surrounds the churchyard is made from Turkish cannon. A little further is the Taurida Palace (Taurichesksoi Dvorets), built 1783 by Catherine II., and given by her to her favourite, Potemkin, Prince of Taurida, after his conquest of the Crimea, but eventually repurchased by her. It was in its gardens that the imperious favourite, Gregory Orlof, used to give the Empress his arm, and force her to take walking exercise, saying, ' Kattinka, we must be cheerful in order to be well, and we must walk in order to be cheerful.' It was here that Potemkin (whom the Empress is frequently believed to have secretly married in 1784) gave his celebrated fetes. It is said that the favourite was indebted for his for tunes to a feather. When, in the revolution which gave her the throne, the Empress appeared at the head of the guards, Potemkin, a young cavalry officer, seeing she had no feather in her hat, rode up to her and presented his. The ball-room had 20,000 waxlights. Yet the Taurida Palace is a characteristic specimen of a great house in S. Petersburg : * the marble is all false, the silver is plated copper, the pillars and statues are of brick, and the pictures copies.' Here we may imagine Potemkin, as he is described in the letters of the Prince de Ligne, ' d'une main faisant des signes aux femmes qui lui plaisent, et de I'autre des THE TAURIDA PALACE. 119 signes de croix.' South or New Russia still bears witness to his administrative genius, but many are the stories of his insolence to his contemporaries, such as his boxing the ears of a prince who applauded one of his jokes by clapping his hands, with, ' What ? Do you take me for an actor on the stage ? ' After a life of almost unbounded luxury, the end of Potemkin was miserable. Worn out at an early age by vice, he refused to be treated by doctors, and, affirming that the strength of his constitution would overcome all his ail- ments, he lived on salt meats, raw turnips, and spirits. In travelling from Jassy to Ochakow, however, his sufferings became so great that he could not bear the motion of the carriage ; his servants spread a carpet for him under a tree, and there he died. In later times the Taurida Palace was inhabited by the Empress Marie Feodorovna, widow of the murdered. Paul. ' Pour arriver dans son appartement, il faut traverser une salle bade par le prince Potemkin ; cette salle est d'une grandeur incomparable ; un jardin d'hiver en occupe une partie, et on voit les plantes et les arbres a travers les colonnes qui entourent 1'enceinte du milieu. Tout est colossal dans cette demeure ; les conceptions du prince qui 1'a con- struite etaient bizarrement gigantesques. II faisait batir des villes en Crimee, seulement pour que 1'imperatrice les vit sur son passage ; il ordonnait 1'assaut d'une forteresse pour plaire a une belle femme, la princesse Dolgorouki, qui avait dedaigne son hommage. ' Madame de StaSl. It was in this palace that King Stanislaus lived, saying that he felt more like a king there than he had ever done upon the throne of Poland; and here he died. Beyond the Taurida Palace, beautifully situated at a bend of the Neva, is the Smolnoi Convent, founded by the Empress Marie, who has a simple monument in the church, 120 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. which is ornamented by a profusion of stoves like little chapels. The convent is now a seminary for eight hundred young ladies. We have now probably noticed all the spots which will be interesting to those who make a cursory visit to S. Petersburg, except one the Museum of Imperial Carriages. Many of these are indescribably splendid. Some are gilt all over ; others are exquisitely painted. In many the handles, the coats of arms, even the steps, are encrusted either with real diamonds and emeralds, or with false stones, which are quite as captivating, and safer as regards the crowd who see them at coronations. There are miniature carriages and sledges of many generations of Imperial children. The sledge of Peter the Great, which he made himself, is like a cottage inside, with mica windows. All his luggage was contained in a wooden box behind. At the end of the collection is a terrible and touching memorial the carriage of Alexander II., in which he was driving just before his murder, split and shivered at the back by the first bomb, from which he so miraculously escaped ; the place of the absent servant shattered ; the cushions upheaved or thrown down. Carriages are luxuries of such recent date in Russia that even under Peter the Great no subject except the rich boyar Michel Ivanovitch Loukoff, burgomaster of Archangel, pos- sessed one. All the great Russian world coveted it, though it had only cost 1,000 roubles. Mentchikoff wished to obtain it ; and as Loukoff refused to part with it, he avenged him- GENERAL IMPRESSIONS. 121 self by preventing his obtaining an inheritance due to him from his wife. 1 ' Je vous ai decrit une ville sans caractere, plutot pompeuse qu'im- posante, plus vaste que belle, remplie d'edifices sans style, sans gout, sans signification historique. Mais pour etre complet, c'est-a-dire vrai, il fallait en meme temps faire mouvoir a vos yeux, dans ce cadre pretentieux et ridicule, des hommes naturellement gracieux, et qui, avec leur genie oriental, ont su s'approprier une ville bade pour un peuple qui n'existe nulle part ; car Petersbourg a etc fait par des hommes riches, et dont 1'esprit s'etait forme en comparant, sans etude approfondie, les divers pays de 1'Europe. . . . Les ingenieurs euro- peens sont venus dire aux Moscovites comment ils devaient construire et orner une capitale digne de 1'admiration de PEurope, et ceux-ci, avec leur soumission militaire, ont cede a la force du commandement. Pierre le Grand a bati Petersbourg contre les Suedois bien plus que pour les Russes ; mais le nature! du peuple s'est fait jour malgre sa defiance de soi-meme ; et c'est a cette desobeissance involontaire que la Russia doit son cachet d'originalite : rien n'a pu effacer le caractere primitif des habitants ; ce triomphe des facultes innees contre une education mal dirigee est un spectacle interessant pour tout voyageur capable de 1'apprecier. ' M. de Custine. The same impression, probably, is left on the minds of all who have visited S. Petersburg a prevailing sense of the vastness of everything the squares, the streets, the palaces, the overgrown desolate suburbs ; and, in spite of the interest of much that is curious and strange, a weariness of a city so beautiless, so uncouth, and so irksome to a stranger in the bondage of its petty restraints. ' La magnificence est le caractere de tout ce qu'on voit en Russie ; le genie de 1'homme ni Jes dons de la nature n'en font la beaute.' Madame de Sta'Jl. 1 Victor Tissot, Riesses et Allcmands. 122 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. CHAPTER III. EXCURSIONS ROUND S. PETERSBURG. EXCEPTING on the islands, the immediate neighbour- hood of the capital has no beauty. Perfectly flat of course, it is often marshy, and always intensely melancholy. ' Dans ce pays sans paysages coulent des fleuves immenses, mais sans couleur ;' ils coulent a travers un pays grisatre, dans des terrains sablonneux, et disparaissent sous des coteaux pas plus hauts que des digues, et brunis par des forets marecageuses. On sent 1'hiver et la mort planer sur tous ces sites : la lumiere et le climat du Nord donnent aux objets une teinte funebre : au bout de quelques semaines, le voyageur epouvante se croit enterre vif ; il voudrait dechirer son linceul et fuir ce cimetiere sans cloture et qui n'a de bornes que celles de la vue ; il lutte de toutes ses forces pour soulever le voile de plomb qui le separe des vivants. N'allez jamais dans le Nord pour vous amuser, a moins que vous ne cherchiez votre amusement dans 1'etude ; car il y a beaucoup a etudier ici.' M. de Custine. ' II y a tant d'espace en Russie que tout s'y perd, meme des cha- teaux, meme la population. On dirait qu'on traverse un pays dont la nation vient de s'en aller. L'absence d'oiseaux ajoute a ce silence ; les bestiaux aussi sont rares, ou du moins ils sont places a une grande distance de la route. L'etendue fait tout disparaitre, excepte 1'eten- due meme, qui poursuit 1'imagination comme de certaines idees meta- physiques, dont la pensee ne peut plus se debarrasser, quand elle en est une fois saisie.' Madame de Stai'l. A number of railway stations encircle the town. From that in the south-eastern suburbs we took the train to OR A NIENBA UM. 1 2 3 Oranienbaum, which is situated near the mouth of the Neva, opposite Cronstadt, of which the fortress rises like a great martello tower beyond the wide estuary. A short walk through the village leads from the station to the steps into the gardens of the palace. This is an exceedingly pretty building of grey and yellow colouring, standing on a high terrace, approached by winding staircases from the broad walk below, by the side of which nurses may constantly be seen sitting with the Kakoshnik (a half-crescent with a long pendent veil) on their heads, watching their charges at play. A chain of flowers connects the palace with the woods, and as a residence it would be difficult to find anything more attractive and unpretending than this the lofty terrace so radiant with blossoms, and the view so enchanting of deep- blue sea across the woods, and the old-fashioned gardens with -their thickets of lilacs. But there is not one of the imperial residences near S. Petersburg which is haunted by the memory of more terrible dramas than Oranienbaum. It was originally built by the famous Mentchikoff, when he was at the summit of his power. This extraordinary person when a boy, known as Alexaschka the little Alexander struck the fancy of Peter the Great, 1 who took him into his service, in which his extreme subservience, which allowed the Tsar to beat and kick him like a dog, led to his rapid advancement. Eventually his influence was such that he was permitted to give audiences, personating his sovereign, whilst Peter appeared as a private individual in his suite. His good fortune continued under Catherine I., who ordered her successor, Peter II., to marry his daughter. But, under 1 There seems to be no foundation for the story that Mentchikoff, in his boyhood, sold pies in the streets of Moscow, whatever he may have done for amusement in the camp at Preobrajensky. See Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great. . 124 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. this prince, the insolence of Mentchikoff led, in 1727, to his imprisonment at Beresof, where he lived for two years and a half, and died in 1729. His surviving son and daughter, who shared his imprisonment, were released under the Empress Anne. Having been confiscated on the attainder of Mentchikoff, the palace became the favourite residence of Peter III., who added its wings. Thus Oranienbaum became the scene of most of the early loves of his wife, the famous Catherine, every summer- house having its especial reminiscence of a rendezvous. There are also some remains of the little fortress whence Peter III. was dragged to Ropschka, where he was assas- sinated by Alexis Orlof and his associates. ' Ruine moclerne, ou la politique a plus de part que le temps. Mais le silence commande, la solitude forcee qui regnent autour de ces debris maudits, nous retracent precisement ce qu'on voudrait nous cacher ; la, comme ailleurs, le mensonge officiel est annule par les faits : 1'histoire est un miroir magique ou les peuples voient, apres la mort des hommes qui furent influents dans les affaires, toutes leurs inutiles grimaces. Les personnes ont passe, mais leurs physionomies restent gravees sur cet inexorable cristal. . . . Si je n'avais su que le chateau de Pierre III. etait demoli, j'aurais du le deviner ; mais ce qui m'etonne en voyant le prix qu'on met ici a faire oublier le passe, c'est que Ton y conserve quelque chose. Les noms memes devraient disparaitre avec les murs.' M. de Custine. During the few months of his reign, Peter had rendered himself obnoxious not only to his wife, but to the Russian clergy, by the contempt which he evinced for the national religion. His offences of this kind began even in the cham- ber where his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, was lying in state. ' On le voyait chuchoter et sourire avec les dames de service, tourner les pretres en ridicule, chercher querelle aux officiers, aux ORANIENBA UM. 1 2 5 sentinelles menie, sur le pli de leur cravate, sur'le grandeur de leurs boucles et la coupe de leur uniforme.' Princess Dashkof. Peter alienated the army by attempting to introduce Prussian uniforms and exercises, and by suppressing the bodyguard of the Empress Elizabeth. He enraged the whole Court by the ridiculous rigour of his etiquette, and the maids of honour in particular by forcing them to courtesy in the German fashion. Aristocratic society in Russia had already become sufficiently refined to be dis- gusted by his habits. ' La vie que 1'empereur mene est la plus honteuse ; il passe les soirees a fumer, a boire de la biere, et ne cesse ces deux exercices qu'a cinq ou six heures du matin, et presque toujours ivre-mort. ... II a redouble d'egard pour Mile. Voronzof; il faut avouer que c'est un gout bizarre : elle est sans esprit ; quant a la figure, c'est tout ce qu'on voit de pis ; elle ressemble en tout point a une servante d'auberge de mauvais aloi.' M. de Breteuil. At length the Empress discovered or fancied that her husband intended to divorce her to marry his mistress, Elizabeth Voronzof, and to shut her up in a convent, disin- heriting her son Paul in favour of his cousin Ivan VI. From this time she watched and waited. Suddenly, accom- panied by her lover, Alexis Orlof, and his brother, she fled from the palace, and, placing herself at the head of the army in S. Petersburg, marched upon Oranienbaum at the head of 20,000 men. Peter escaped to Cronstadt, but Catherine had already sent to secure the fortress, and when he dis- embarked exclaiming ' I am the Tsar,' the admiral met him with ' The Tsar no longer exists.' He returned to Oranien- baum, where, in the words of Frederick II. , he abdicated quietly ' like a child who is sent to bed.' His wife des 126 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. patched him under a guard to Ropschka, 1 twenty-seven versts distant, where, four days after, Catherine and Orlof agreed that he should die of dysentery. ' Les soldats etaient etonnes de ce qu'ils avaient fait : ils ne conce- vaient pas par quel enchantement on les avail conduits jusqu'a detroner le petit-fils de Pierre le Grand pour donner la couronne a une Alle mande. La plupart, sans projet et sans idee, avaient ete entraines par le mouvement et les autres ; et chacun, rentre dans sa bassesse, apres que le plaisir de disposer d'une couronne fut evanoui, ne sentit plus que des remords. Les matelots, qu'on n'avait point interesses dans le soulevement, reprochaient publiquement aux gardes dans les cabarets d'avoir vendu leur empereur pour la biere. La pitie, qui justifie meme les plus grands criminels, se faisait entendre dans tous les cceurs. Une nuit, une troupe de soldats attaches a I'imperatrice s'ameuta par une vaine crainte, disant "que leur mere etait en danger." II fallut la reveiller pour qu'ils la vissent. La nuit suivante, nouvelle emeute plus dangereuse. Tant que la vie de 1'empereur laissait un pretexte aux inquietudes, on pensa qu'on n'aurait point de tranquillite. ' Un des comtes Orlof, et un nomme Teplof, furent ensemble vers ce malheureux prince ; ils lui annoncerent, en entrant, qu'ils etaient venus pour diner avec lui, et selon 1'usage des Russes, on apporta avant le repas des verres d'eau-de-vie. Celui que but 1'empereur etait un verre de poison. Soit qu'ils eussent hate de rapporter leur nouvelle, soit que 1'horreur meme de leur action la leur fit precipiter, ils voulurent un moment apres lui verser un second verre. Deja ses entrailles bru- laient, et, 1'atrocite de leurs physionomies les lui rendant suspects, il refusa ce verre ; ils mirent de la violence a le lui faire prendre, et lui a les repousser. Dans ce terrible debat, pour etouffer ses cris qui commen9aient a se faire entendre de loin, ils se precipiterent sur lui, le saisirent a la gorge, et le renverserent ; mais comme il se defendait avec toutes les forces que donne le dernier desespoir, et qu'ils evitaient de lui porter aucune blessure, reduits a craindre pour eux- memes, ils appelerent a leur secours deux officiers charges de sa garde, qui a ce moment se tenaient en dehors a la porte de sa prison. C'etait le plus jeune des princes Eariatinski et un nomme Potemkin, age de dix-sept ans. Ils avaient montre tant de zele dans la conspira- tion, que, malgre leur extreme jeunesse, on les avait charges de cette garde : ils accoururent, et trois de ces meurtriers ayant noue et 1 See Tooke's Life of Catherine II. ORANIENBA UM. 1 27 serre une serviette autour du cou de ce malheureux enipereur, tandis qu'Orlof de ses deux genoux lui pressait la poitrine et le tenait etouffe, ils acheverent ainsi. de 1'etrangler, et il demeura sans vie entre leurs mains. ' On ne sait pas avec certitude quelle part I'imperatrice cut a cet evenement ; mais ce qu'on peut assurer, c'est que, le jour meme qu'il se passa, cette princssse commen9ant son diner avec beaucoup de gaiete, on vit entrer ce meme Orlof echevele, couvert de sueur et de poussiere, ses habits dechires, sa physionomie agitee, plein d'horreur et de pre- cipitation. En entrant, ses yeux etincelants et troubles chercherent les yeux de I'imperatrice. Elle se leva en silence, passa dans un cabinet ou il la suivit, et quelques instants apres elle y fit appeler le comte Panin, deja nomine son ministre ; elle lui apprit que Pempereur etait mort. Panin conseilla de laisser passer une nuit et de repandre la nouvelle le lendemain, comme si 1'on 1'avait re9ue pendant la nuit. Ce conseil ayant ete agree, l'imperatrice rentra avec le meme visage et continua son diner avec la meme gaiete. Le lendemain, quand on eut repandu que Pierre etait mort d'une colique hemorroidale, elle parut baignee de pleurs, et publia sa douleur par un dit.*- i J?/A*2r, ' Anecdotes sur la Russie ' imprimes a la suite de son Histoire de Pologne. ' It was very sad for such a humane man as I was to be obliged to carry out what was required of my obedience in this case,' said Orlof nine years later ! Many Russians have looked upon Peter III. as a martyr for their ancient customs, and a tradition even asserts that he still lives in Siberia, whence he will be summoned by the great bell of the Kremlin of Moscow penetrating so far. 1 We took a carriage from Oranienbaum and drove to Peterhof, about five miles distant. This is much the best way of approaching the Russian Windsor. The country recalls Sweden in the freshness of its green pastures, the 1 Ropscha, of terrible memories, still exists, and should be visited by students of Russian history. The road thither from S. Petersburg passes Strelna, a palace of the Grand-Duke Constantine, originally built by Peter the Great, and rebuilt by Alexander I. 121 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. detached groups of self-sown birches and firs, and the lovely glints of sea between them. On the rising ground to the right are several little villas half buried in the woods, and the miniature palace of Serieffsky, which was given to the Grand-Duchess Marie by her father upon her marriage with the Duke of Leuchtenberg. Imperceptibly the surroundings become more trim and cared for, gravel walks wind through the lovely woods, and we reach the shore of a little lake, on HOUSE OF PETER THE GREAT, MARLY. the bank ot which stands Marly, the favourite cottage of Peter the Great, scarcely altered from his time, and con- taining his kitchen with its old tiles and stove, and his bed-room, with its old bed and toilet-table and even his old dressing-gown carefully preserved. The cottage is well worth seeing, and a great contrast to the gorgeous gilding and decoration of all the larger palaces. The lake in front is declared to be full offish, some of which, of great antiquity, have chains round their necks, placed there by Peter the PETERHOF. 129 Great. They are said to come up to feed whenever their dinner-bell is rung ; but, alas, the bell was rung for us and no fish appeared. Near Marly is one of the finest fountains in Russia. A beautiful copy (not model) of a Greek temple of red and grey marble, with a white marble plinth and pedestal, rises, PALACE OF PETERHOF. in the midst of the woods, from a marble basin like a miniature lake, into which tall fountains springing between each of the pillars, and many mouths in the basement, are splashing and foaming. Hence we passed through a suc- cession of fairy water-scenes, magnificent jets in the recesses of the forest, water-nymphs veiled by the spray of a hundred intersecting cascades, till, while crossing a bridge, we reached K 130 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the climax of the whole, and looked up, between wooded avenues, to the great and beautiful palace of Peterhof, beneath which the whole hillside was a turmoil of exquisite fountains, leaping high into the tops of the trees, dashing over precipices, sporting round tritons and naiads, en- wreathing, embracing, intersecting, and illuminated into a splendour of prismatic colouring by the sun of a cloudless sky. Long, long had we to wait before the various little forms and ceremonies which attend upon a royal portal, in this land of useless formalities, were sufficiently satisfied to allow the customary silver keys to open the doors of the palace to us ; but meanwhile it was delightful to have the old- fashioned gardens to sit in, with their brilliant flowers, and background of clipped hornbeam. The staircase where Peter III. was stripped, after his capture, of his orders and jewels, and even of all his clothes but his shirt, leads to the principal apartments. Here, the pictures for the most part represent the naval glories, as those of Oranienbaum the military glories, of Russia. One room, however, is en- tirely covered with portraits by Count Rotari, some of them admirable as paintings, and all full of life and variety. Catherine II. sent the artist to travel over Russia and to paint every good-looking peasant girl he saw. The ' White Room ' is charming, with its polished white walls and furniture. Other rooms recall the first years of the reign of Elizabeth (1741-1762), daughter of Peter the Great, in whom the people welcomed not only the substitution of the race of Peter for that of Ivan, but the triumph of the national over the German party. The chamber of the Empress, with its comfortable dais, has two portraits of her, one naked as an PETERHOF. 131 infant, the other robed as a sovereign. Here she used to listen to the inflated verses of the poet Lomonossof, who saluted her as the Astrea who had restored the golden age, the Moses who had rescued Russia from the darkness of Egyptian slavery, the Noah who had preserved it from the foreign deluge. But to posterity the character of Elizabeth has not seemed so admirable. . ' It is supposed that the government of Elizabeth cost every year to her empire at least one thousand of her subjects by private imprison- ment, which, during the twenty years and upwards that she reigned, makes the number amount to above twenty thousand. Nothing was more easy than to obtain a secret order for this purpose by the flatterers of all ranks that swarmed about her person. It was sufficient for one of her maids of honour to think herself slighted, for getting an order to have a person taken out of bed in the night, carried away blindfolded and gagged, and immured underground, there to drag out the re- mainder of life in a solitary and loathsome dungeon, without ever being charged with any crime, or even knowing in what part of the country he was. On the disappearance of any such person from his family, from his relations, from the circle of his acquaintance, it was highly dangerous to make any inquiries after him. " He has disappeared," was held a sufficient answer to questions of that nature.' Tooke's ' Life of Catherine II. ' Endless is the variety of walks and drives in the lovely woods around Peterhof. Formerly, these were lighted up for one night in every summer generally on the birthday of the Empress a fete which reached its greatest magnifi- cence in the time of Catherine II. These illuminations, when the trees disappeared in their jewelled decorations, recalled the Bagdad of the ' Arabian Nights ' or the more famous Babylon of Semiramis. Eighteen hundred men were employed in the lighting, and accomplished it in thirty- five minutes. In a pretty situation on the sea shore, is the cottage-like palace of Montplaisir. Near it is an oak, which K 2 132 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Catherine II., on the evening before the revolution which placed her on the throne, observed to be springing from an acorn, and which she then herself surrounded with little sticks as a protection : her long reign enabled her to see it grow into a tree. 1 Znamenska is another little palace built by an English architect for the wife of the Emperor Nicholas, on land which had been given to her by her brother-in-law Alex- ander I. It has charming views towards Cronstadt and S. Petersburg. Between the palace of Peterhof and the railway is a large lake with two little palaces on islets called Isola Bella and Isola Madre, which also belonged to. the Empress Alexandra. The former of these is a lovely little Italian villa with a brilliant garden, whither, in happier days, the imperial family were fond of resorting for tea, and whither strangers are ferried across by boatmen dressed in a livery of white linen. But now no empress can attempt to fulfil what used to be looked upon as her duty : * Le devoir d'une imperatrice est de s'amuser a la mort.' M. de Custine. If the return from Oranienbaum or Peterhof be made by sea, Cronstadt may be visited, the fortified port which was one of the favourite creations of Peter the Great, and in which all succeeding emperors have taken a great interest. It was with truth that Lord Durham said to Nicholas, ' Les vaisseaux de guerre des Russes sontles joujoux de 1'empereur de Russie.' See notes to Tooke, vol. i. p. 232. SERGL 133 We made a separate excursion to visit the famous monastery of Sergi (easily accessible by rail), though it is on the road to Peterhof, the road which the Empress Catherine found so dull when she created the palace, that she bestowed the land bordering upon it upon her different favourites, on condition that they should build residences looking out upon the highway, and thus enliven the route she so fre- quently traversed. The traveller Swinton, who visited S. Petersburg in her reign, says : ' Catherine II. does not merely measure out an ell of ribbon to her knights, but measures out to them, besides, a mile, a league, or even a latitude of acres : the scale of her bounty is as magnificent as that of her Empire.' These country-houses are all deserted till May, when the country life of Russia begins. Everyone leaves S. Petersburg at that time, even servants moving their families into some country lodging, however poor. The first burst of spring occurs about S. George's Day (April 23), when the cattle, which have been fed in winter with straw, and emerge like skeletons from their stables, are brought out for the summer, and sprinkled with holy water by the priest. Then the upper classes send out to have the windows of their villas opened and their rooms aired from the damp of winter. ' " When winter vanishes, summer zV." It is not the work of a week, or a day, but of one instant ; and the manner of it exceeds belief.' Clarke's ' Travels. ,' The heat goes on increasing till after S. Elijah's Day (July 20), when the rolling of the Saint's chariot is believed to be heard in the thunder. ' Eternal stillness ' is said to be the essential characteristic of monotonous Russian country 134 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. life, though the larger houses are filled with guests, to whom an invitation generally means an invitation for the whole summer. Nothing is so much wished for as guests, and it is a fact that in some remote country places, would-be passers-on have found the wheels taken off their tarantass to compel them to remain. In the smaller country houses, the living rooms divide the male and female apartments. Wearisome dullness is the order of the day. The men seldom do anything but sit in one armchair after another and smoke ; the most important avocation of the women is ordering dinner : the afternoon siesta is a welcome interlude in unutterable boredom. Custine speaks of one of these houses in which a great lady of S. Petersburg, who had been married several times, preserved in her garden the tombs of her different husbands, whom she began to love passionately as soon as they were dead, raising mausoleums and chapels to them, and covering their monuments with sentimental epitaphs. ' It is a proof of the general monotony that reigns in all things here, that the verst stones are the only landmarks in this desert. People will say, for instance, "We are living this year in the Peterhof road, at the seventh verst ; " or " TheOrlof Datscha stands at the eleventh verst ; " " We will breakfast at the traiteur's at the fourteenth verst ; " as if these milestones were pyramids. But so it is ; there are neither valleys, brooks, nor smiling villages wherewith to distinguish places ; and people can find their way only by reckoning the milestones.' KoJiL The fields in this part of Russia are covered in summer with ' Jean-Marie,' a pretty yellow-rattle with a plume of blue leaves at the top of each flower. Later the mushrooms are abundant, and the fungi, which seldom seem to be poisonous in Russia, and are in great request with the SERGL 135 natives, especially one which tastes like meat, and which thus, when eaten on fast days, gives all the pleasure of com- mitting a venial sin to those who enjoy it. Through a picturesque brick gateway, thoroughly barbaric and consequently Russian in design, we enter the monastery of Sergi, occupied, like all the monasteries in Russia, by monks of S. Basil, with long hair and beards. Just within the gateway is the new cathedral, a very beautiful building, entirely created at the expense of the exceedingly rich monks. Its marbles were all found in the neighbourhood (boulders of splendid coloured marbles may be seen all over the fields) and cut upon the spot. The interior is exquisitely harmonious, with lovely effects of golden light and purple shadow. The enamelled candelabra are splendid of their kind. The frescoes are the work of a devotional German artist, and are an advance upon Russian art, which has maintained that the style of art which prevailed in the tenth century, when Russia first received the Gospel, and which found its full development in the manuscripts of the twelfth century, was indivisible from the sacred subjects of Christianity, and has thus, in maintaining the Byzantine forms, interdicted all exercise of original power. Indeed, originality in art was prohibited by the State, a Grand-ducal decree of 1551 requiring that all sacred pictures should thenceforth be painted on the model of those of Andrew Rublof, a monk at the close of the fourteenth century. Viollet-Ie-Duc thinks that the ascetic character prescribed for the saints in the icons was intended to inculcate habits of abstinence and temperance. Behind the new is the old cathedral, with many quaint domes and minarets Russian fashion : and a number of 136 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. other churches. A crypted hall and stair lead to the chapter- house, surrounded by carved stalls, and supported by eight huge granite pillars, each hewn from a single stone. Below are the graves of the great families who have the right of separate chapels here Apraxin, Stroganof, &c. We were driven from the Refectory by the overwhelming smell of the cabbage soup upon which the seventy- five monks had been regaling themselves : they are always forbidden to eat meat. The gardens are full of graves ; amongst them is a glass house containing the tombs of the Oldenburgs, covered with flowers. By the side of the gate is an icon shop, where you may buy little figures of the saints painted on china the holy hermit Arcino, thirty kopecks ; the holy Sergius, sixty kopecks ; the Saviour, one rouble. Till recently, Russians professed never to sell their holy images, and, though they hawked them about the streets, they only ' exchanged them for money to buy other saints' ! Almost all the monasteries are icon-manufactories, and the artists are all monks and nuns. Here, as near all the great monasteries, a great traffic in tapers is carried on -little, thin, and yellow, or large, thick, and white, according to the purse and piety of the buyers. The churches draw a large revenue from this, especially as they melt down the ends, and collect the drippings for fresh tapers. On great holidays, all cannot reach their favourite icon, and the lights are seen passing from hand to hand. A commission is often given to travellers, * Light a taper of forty kopecks for me before S. Sergius of Troitsa &c.' No fisherman goes to sea, no traveller starts, no robber goes out to plunder, no murderer commits his crime, ' TZARSKOE SELO. 137 without lighting a taper : the duty is as indispensable a prelude to evil as to good works. What a pretty group remains with us as a picture connected with Sergi ! of a tall priest standing in the open pillared portico, talking to a lay brother on the steps be- neath, while the sunlight played through his long rippling hair, and relieved it against the dark background. The whole neighbourhood is indescribably flat. ' Ici la terre meme, 1'aspect monotone des campagnes commandant la symetrie : 1'absence complete de mouvement dans un terrain par- tout uni et le plus souvent nu, ce manque de variete dans la vegetation toujours pauvre des terres septentrionales, le defaut absolu d'accidents pittoresques dans d'eternelles plaines ou Ton dirait qu'un seul site obsede le voyageur et le poursuit comme un reve d'une extremite de 1'empire a 1'autre ; enfin, tout ce que Dieu n'a pas fait pour ce pays y eoncourt a I'imperturbable uniformite de la vie politique et sociale des hommes.' M. de Custine. The palace second in importance is that of Tzarskoe Selo, 'the Royal Village,' to which we travelled from afresh station across a flat country, characterised by the same ' aspect of sublime sadness' as all the environs of the capital, seeing on the way numbers of the large grey crows called ' Napoleon's scavengers,' asserted to have first made their appearance in Russia after the retreat of the French from Moscow, and to have abounded in the country ever since. Tzarskoe Selo is said to be built in the Duderhof Hills (Duddergovski Gori); though where the hills are it would be difficult to say. It is a village of wooden villas, due to Catherine II., who called it Sophia, after her maiden name. She intended it as a kind of city of refuge for oppressed serfs, or those whose masters 138 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. refused them permission to purchase their freedom ; but after a time this right of asylum was disestablished, because it was found that none but the idle and profligate took ad- vantage of it. l The Palace was begun by Peter the Great on land which he had given to Catherine L, but the greater part of it was built by the Empress Elizabeth, and is a compound of all that an architect ought to avoid rather than to imitate. Its front, covered with pillars and caryatides, was once profusely gilt, but little gilding now remains, except on the crowns and domes which surmount one of its towers. There is no comfort in the rooms of any of these huge imperial resi- dences ; here the vast interior displays every form of mag- nificence, and an equal amount of bad taste. Pictures have been fitted into the panels without frames, and ruthlessly cut down where they did not fit. One room, prepared for Prince Potemkin, has a floor inlaid with exotic woods, at a cost of a hundred roubles for every squared archine. Another room is entirely coated with amber presented by Frederick the Great, the raised parts of the amber being transparent. Over and over again we see here, in their portraits, the five most familiar faces of the imperial family. Peter the Great, * the terrible hammer of which Russia was the anvil,' is represented in many different attitudes and uniforms. The portraits of Catherine I. all show her humble origin, which did not prevent her influence over her husband. ' I know well my faults,' he said, ' my outbursts of passion ; and therefore it is that I wish to have some one near me like my Catherine, who will warn and correct me. I can reform my people; I cannot reform myself.' 2 Anne of Courland, 1 Swinton's Travels, 1792. " Stahlin, 83. TZARS KOE SELO. 139 Peter's ugly niece, contrasts with his handsome daughter Elizabeth, though the charms of both are equally praised in the verses of the flatterer Lomonossof. son of .a fisherman of Archangel, who made his way on a wagon of fish to Moscow, and became there one of the most voluminous of Russian writers. Lastly, we have the astute and vicious Catherine II., the 'Felitza' of Derjavine, who was the laureate of her age. Tzarskoe Selo, more than any other of the palaces, is connected with the private history of Catherine II., whose bonhomie and charm, as well as her public character, threw a veil even over her vices. The Empress Elizabeth had insisted upon the most rigid observance of court etiquette. It is recorded that one day she received at her toilet a lady of the court, who with great difficulty continued standing. Elizabeth at last perceived her uneasiness, and asked what was the matter with her. ' My legs are very much swelled.' ' \Vell, well, lean against that bureau ! I will make as if I did not see you.' l Catherine went into quite the opposite extreme in her goodnature and kindheartedness, and her courtiers, especially such as were her lovers, took great advantage of it. It is recorded that when Gregory Orlof was summoned to council, whilst he was playing at cards, he refused to go. When the messenger humbly asked what excuse he should take back, he told him to look for it in the Bible. Being asked where, ' In the first Psalm and in the first verse Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum ! ' Here one after another of the favourites of Catherine were changed from lovers into adopted sons. It was at Tzarskoe Selo that Catherine shut herself up for three months after the 1 Notes to Tooke's Cat /win- II. 140 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. death (1784) of her young favourite Lanskoi, who expired in her arms, bequeathing the whole of his vast fortune to the Empress, who gave it up to his sisters. She erected a beau- tiful mausoleum in the grounds to his memory, which, even two years after, she could not pass without floods of tears. ' When her majesty had fixed her choice on a new favourite, she created him her general aide-de-camp, in order that he might accom- pany her everywhere without attracting reproach or inviting observation. Thenceforward the favourite occupied in the palace an apartment beneath that of the empress, to which it communicated by a private staircase. The first day of his installation he received a present of a hundred thousand roubles, and every month he found twelve .thousand on his dressing-table. The marshal of the court was commissioned to provide him a table of twenty-four covers, and to defray all the ex- penses of his household. The favourite attended the empress on all parties of amusement, at the opera, at balls and promenades, excursions of pleasure, and the like, and was not allowed to leave the palace without express permission. He was given to understand, that it would not be taken well if he conversed familiarly with other women ; and if he went to dine with any of his friends, the mistress of the house was always absent.' Tooke's ' Life of Catherine //.' It is characteristic of the illiterate character of several of the favourites of Catherine, that Rimsky Korsakof, who succeeded Zoritz in her affections, sent for a bookseller to arrange a library for him ' Little books above and great books below.' Still, in the reign of Catherine, Russian literature made great progress ; and Derjavine, ' the bard of Catherine II.,' recited many of his poems here. One of the poems which afterwards first drew attention to the genius of the famous Pouchkino was his ' Recollections of Tsarskoe Selo.' The size of the grounds at Tzarskoe Selo may be inferred from the fact that six hundred gardeners are employed TZARSKOE SELO. 141 there, though certainly Russian workmen do not accomplish much. Here, as well as in the gardens at Oranienbaum and Peterhof, visitors are comically warned away from the central gate and the central walk. These are reserved for the imperial family, and must be profaned by no more humble foot. A triumphal arch was built by Alexander I. after his return from France. The gardens of Tzarskoe Selo also contain an immense lake, with a beautiful Palladian summer-house on its banks, and a very pretty mosque-like building, with a golden roof, at its extremity, now used as the Imperial Bath. Here the young Grand- Duchess Alex- andrine used to feed her swans. In spite of the plague of mosquitoes which is such a scourge to those who visit these gardens in summer, all the gay world of S. Petersburg assembles on the shores of the lake for the fetes of the summer regatta. ' La flotilla de Tsarskoe-Selo est une chose bien curieuse. Elle a son amiral, non pas un amiral d'eau douce, s'il vous plait ! Ce ser- vice est d'ordinaire confie a quelque officier de marine, en recompense d'une action d'eclat oil il a ete blesse assez grievement pour etre exclu du service actif. ' La flotte de Tsarskoe-Selo se compose de tous les modeles d'em- barcations legeres employees dans 1'etendue de 1'empire. Tout s'y trouve, depuis la perissoire en acajou, le podoscaphe elegant, depuis la peniche reglementaire, le youyou, la simple barque plate ou les mamans ne craignent pas de s'embarquer, jusqu'a la barque des Esqui- maux en peau de veau marin, jusqu'a la jonque chinoise qui s'aventure dans les eauxde 1' Amour, jusqu'a 1'embarcation Kamtchedale, etroite et baroque, jusqu'a la longue pirogue, maintenue en equilibre par des perches transversales. Les modeles originaux, amenes a grands frais des plus lointaines extremites de 1'empire, sont conserves dans une sorte de musee, auquel a ete assignee pour demeure une espece de chateau assez laid en briques brunes, flanque de deux pseudo-tours rondes ; mais les copies de ces modeles sont a la disposition des amateurs. On peut, a toute heure du jour, s'embarquer seul sur le navire de son choix, ou 142 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. se faire promener pendant une heure sur les flots limpides du lac ; tout cela gratis ; libre au promeneur genereux de recompenser le matelot qui lui presente la gaffe et 1'amarre, ou qui rame pour lui sous les ardeurs du soleil, pendant qu'un dais de toile protege les belles dames'ou les elegants officiers.' Henry Grtville, ' Dosia." 1 Heber, who visited Russia in 1805, describes the situa- tion of Tzarskoe Selo as ' the most dirty and boggy con- - -, THE IMPERIAL BATH, TZAKSKOE SELO. ceivable,' but the trees and shrubberies have grown and prospered since that time, and the park affords a great variety of charming walks and drives. One part of the domain is laid out in imitation of China, with curious Chinese bridges over the straight canals ; and there is an absurd Chinese village, inhabited by gardeners and workmen. A hideous modern building, with a tall tower, is called the Arsenal^ and contains a most glorious collection of armour, TZARSKOE SELO. 143 including that of Charles V., and many diamonded saddle- cloths and trappings given to the Tsars by Eastern Khans. Numbers of historic relics are also preserved here, including the cane of Catherine II. and a little sword which she made out of a large pin for her grandson Alexander I. as a child. In another part of the grounds is a ludicrous ruin, where milk is sold to visitors, and where a succession of ladders leads to a room which contains a flippant effeminate figure of Christ, by the over-praised Dannecker. But most of the grounds are a monotone of quiet beauty groups of self- sown birches and pines, giant larkspurs and hemlocks, and fresh grassy lawns. Till the recent times of Nihilism, the Emperors have been accustomed to walk unattended in the grounds of Tzarskoe Selo. Joynevilie's ' Life of Alex- ander I. ' narrates how an English lady was walking with some friends in these gardens, when two dogs, running by the side of a gentleman at a little distance, came towards her, and much frightened her. Their master called them away, and then came up, bowed, and apologised, and was going to walk on, when she, being a stranger, and anxious to know the names of the various buildings in sight, detained him to ask a few questions. He told her the history of the various monuments, and was again about to withdraw, when she said, ' But I want most of all to see the Emperor ; where am I likely to do so ? ' * Oh, you are certain to see him soon enough, madam,' he said ; * he often walks here ; ' and, bowing, he retired into a neighbouring shrubbery. A little further on she met a court-official, and inquired who the officer was, describing his dogs and that he was deaf. 'That was the Emperor,' he said ; 'I saw him myself a few minutes ago.' 144 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Near Tzarskoe Selo, as near Peterhof, are a number of smaller palaces belonging to different members of the im- perial family, who have become very numerous in the present century. ' L'imperatrice a donne trop d'idoles a la Russia, trop d'enfants a 1'empereur. S'epuiser en grands-dues, quelle destinee ! ' Custine. The immensity of the imperial parks is seen during the drive to Pawlovski, the pretty park and porticoed palace of the Grand Duke Constantine. This palace was furnished with the treasures of the Michael Palace, where the Em- peror Paul was murdered, and became the favourite residence of his widow, the Empress Marie, who secluded herself here. ' Elle se crea a Pawlovski une existence a part. Une bibliotheque riche d'editions rares et de productions nouvelles, des tables d'acajou chargees de dessins ou de medailles, des collections de camees ou de pierres fines graveesde sa propre main, indiquaient, au premier regard, ses habitudes serieuses.' ' Vie de Madame SwetcJiine. Between the station and Pawlovski, of which the park is more varied in its natural features than most, is a great restaurant, which is illuminated with coloured lamps in the evening, when a band plays, and immense numbers of people come out from S. Petersburg to be amused for hours by next to nothing at all. Strangers who can do so should not fail to see a review at the Camp at Krasnoe Selo. The Empress and her ladies are present in white dresses with white bouquets. After all is over, and the Metropolitan gives his benediction, the 1 The Empress Marie obtained real celebrity as a medallist ; the head of Paul, in the Academy of Arts, is her finest work. THE NEVA. 145 Emperor kisses his hand, then the Empress, then the Grand- Dukes in succession, and finally they all follow the prelate, as he passes in front of the troops, sprinkling them with holy water. The singing of the Russian national hymn, Boje Tsar chrani, composed by General Lwoff, is often very magnificent. Beyond the suburbs of S. Alexander Nevskoi, at S. Peters- burg, are the warehouses of grain ; whole streets of them stand by the side of the river. Every roof, every parapet, and the roadway itself are covered with pigeons, which are permitted to multiply to any extent, and are never killed, for fear the Holy Ghost should be shot by mistake. We embarked here on a steamer for Schliisselburg, and thus we saw the whole length of the Neva above the capital, one of the most important, though one of the shortest, rivers of Europe. The scenery, as usual, is flat and melancholy. ' Je n'ai rencontre aux approches d'aucune grancle ville rien d'aussi triste que les bords de la Neva. La campagne de Rome est un desert ; mais que d'accidents pittoresques, que de souvenirs, que de lumiere, que de feu, que de poesie ! Avant Petersbourg, on traverse un desert d'eau encadre par un desert de tourbe : mers, cotes, ciel, tout se con- fond ; c'est une glace, mais si terne, si morne, qu'on dirait que le cristal n'en est point etame ; cela ne reflete rien.' M. de Custine. A number of manufactories stand on the banks of the river near the capital. The duties on that for playing-cards go to support the Foundling Hospital, towards which the theatres also pay a percentage. Here and there are villages, long lines of wooden cottages, black from the effect of the weather, with rude lace in wood fringing their gables. In August and September the forests near the upper part of * L 146 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the Neva are much resorted to by sportsmen for the sake of the double snipe, or the gelinotte, which is something between a grouse and a partridge, and lives upon the young fir-shoots, from which it obtains a flavour of turpentine. Russian legend tells that it was once the finest bird in the forest, but it rebelled against the Great Spirit, so a portion of its breast was taken away and given to the blackcock, which has to this day a breast of a different colour from the rest of its plumage. In winter these forests are the scene of numerous bear- hunts, full of thrilling adventure. The solitary tall tree which rises conspicuously from the woods opposite Schliis- selburg is left as a landmark to guide the hunters. One of the most remarkable adventures and escapes during a bear- hunt was that of Mr. Morgan, a much-respected English merchant at S. Petersburg, who in his youth, not very long ago, was one of the handsomest young men in Russia. He was very fond of bear-hunting on the ice, but there was one bear so ferocious that no one would venture to go and kill it. At last Mr. Morgan persuaded three peasants to go with him. The hunters wear long boots on the ice, fastened to pieces of wood several feet in length, and the wood is on rollers. Then they stride out, and away they go at fifty miles an hour, Mr. Morgan was rushing thus along the ice and the peasants after him, when out came the bear. He fired, and the animal fell. Then, thinking the bear was mortally wounded, he discharged his other pistol, and, immediately after, the bear jumped up and rushed at him. He had given his knife to one peasant and his stick to another to hold, and, when he looked round, both the peasants had fled, and he was quite defenceless. SCHL USSELB URG. 1 47 In his boots he could not turn, he could only make a circuit, so he jumped out of them and tried to sink into the snow. He sank, but unfortunately not entirely, for the top of his head remained above the snow. The bear came and tore off the top of his head and both his eyelids, then it hobbled away ; but the cold was so great, Mr. Morgan scarcely felt any pain. By-and-by the peasants returned, and he heard them say, ' There is the bear, sunk into the snow ; now we can kill him.' Then Mr. Morgan called out, 'Oh no, indeed, I am not the bear,' and they came and dug him out. But when they saw what a state he was in, they said, ' Well, now it is evident that you must die, so we must leave you, but we will make you a fire that you may die comfortably, for, as for carrying you four days' journey back to S. Petersburg, that is quite impossible.' But Mr. Morgan offered the peasants so large a reward if they would only take him to some refuge, that at last they consented, and they picked up the eyelids too, and carried them to a neighbouring house. There, the old woman of the place, when she saw the eyelids, said, ' Oh, I will make that all right,' and she stuck them on ; but she stuck them on the wrong sides, and they continued wrong as long as Mr. Morgan lived. Schlilsselburg is a pleasant little town on the right bank of the river, where it joins the vast Lake Ladoga, which is 130 miles long and 2,000 English square miles in dimensions. The source of the river is under the water. When the west wind blows, and the waters of the lake flow back, the emissary becomes shallow and the source is visible. It is then known at Schliisselburg that the same wind must have driven the waters of the Gulf of Finland into the mouth of L 2 148 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the river, and that S. Petersburg is under .water. In spite of the troubled river Volkof falling into Lake Ladoga, its waters are marvellously clear, and they are always cold ; in tempests they rage like the sea. ' A 1'origine, dit la tradition, le Ladoga etait un lac aux eaux tran- quilles, qui ne connaissait pas les orages ; mais, depuis qu'un jour le courroux divin 1'avait souleve centre une race impie de mortels, il n'avait plus retrouve le repos : meme par un temps calme, ses vagues etaient bouleversees par des tempetes interieures. Cette frenesie dura jusqu'a Pierre le Grand. Alors, " alors de Piter (Saint-Petersbourg) Pierre I s'embarqua sur la Neva et sur le Ladoga ; tout a coup la tempete s'eleve, une bourrasque, un orage epouvantable. A grand' peine, ils arriverent au nez de Storojevski. Le tsar debarqua. En- toure des flots, la tete lui tourna de voir la mer bleue. ' Aliens, toi, mere humide, la terre ! ne t'agite pas, ne prends pas exemple sur ce stupide lac.' Aussitot il ordonna de knouter et de fouetter les vagues irritees. Le lieu ou il les fustigea de ses mains imperiales s'appelait FEcueil sec, et depuis ce temps on 1'appelle PEcueil du tsar. Depuis lors le Ladoga est devenu plus paisible ; il a ses jours de calme comme les autres lacs. " ' Alfred Rambaud, ' La Russie Epique. ' The sea fish and shells in Lake Ladoga prove that it was once a gulf of the Baltic. Near its further extremity is the island convent of Valamo, to which refractory monks are sent as a penance. No female is ever permitted to land upon its shores, and it is said that even a hen is never permitted to exist there. Deep water surrounds the island, and rare plants flourish upon it, which will grow nowhere else in northern Russia. There is no poverty in Schliisselburg, owing to the cotton factory of Messrs. Parish & Hubbard, whose pretty gardens rise above the river bank, but the Russians are such hopeless thieves that it is necessary to examine every workman in the factory every time he passes out of the gate. They are SCHL USSELBURG. 1 49 forced to lift up their arms, for they are wont to conceal handkerchiefs, &c., by wrapping them around them. The church, of many domes, all different in design, has a fine new bell, which w r as presented by the English manufacturers and hoisted into its place by the whole population. Such a large village church as this is always full of human interest, and is the dumb witness of every varied human emotion. It is of such a one that Tourgueneff writes : ' He reached the church early. There was scarcely anyone there : the sacristan, standing in the choir, was repeating the psalms of the day ; his voice, broken now and then by a cough, seemed to beat time, falling and rising in turn. Lavretsky remained near the entrance. The faithful arrived one after the other, stopped, made the sign of the cross, and saluted on every side ; their steps echoed under the arches. An infirm old woman, dressed in a hooded cloak, continued kneeling by the side of Lavretsky, and prayed fervently ; her yellow and wrinkled face, her toothless mouth, expressed the deepest emotion ; her red eyes were fixed, immovable, upon the images of the iconastos ; her bony hand constantly came out from under her cloak, as, slowly, and with a harsh gesture, she crossed herself conspicuously. A peasant with a heavy beard and repulsive countenance, his hair and clothes in dis- order, entered the church, flung himself on his knees, with numerous signs of the cross, shaking his head and throwing himself backwards, after prostrating to the earth. Such bitter grief was depicted on his features and in each of his movements, that Lavretsky approached him, and asked what ailed him. The peasant drew back half timidly, half rudely ; then looking at him : " My son is dead," he said in a hollow tone, and he began to prostrate himself again.' A Retreat of Gentle- folks. In a glass house, on the shore of the lake, is preserved that boat of Peter the Great in which he was nearly lost on Lake Ladoga, as is represented in painting and sculpture at Tzarskoe Selo. The houses of the prosperous-looking village are chiefly of wood and rather picturesque, but a summer visit to a Russian village can give little idea of the ISO STUDIES IN RUSSIA. life there through the winter months which occupy so far the longer portion of the year. Throughout the greater part of the country the peasants sleep away their winters like dormice. The heat is tremendous in their little rooms, hermetically sealed from the air, as about a quarter of the room is occupied by the stove, a sort of brick oven, flat at SCHLUSSELBURG. the top, the actual chimney being a mere flue ; but on to the top of the stove the inhabitants climb, and there they slumber away life. For those who cannot find room on the stove, a shelf often surrounds the room, on which twenty persons will often sleep unconcernedly without lying down, and with their legs hanging. Even if they do go to bed, the peasants seldom take off their clothes. Sometimes two women will sleep at each end of a bed, with their clothes on. VILLAGE LIFE. 151 The only domestic enlivenment of the months of snow is found in the Besyedy winter parties which meet at sun- set. They are of three kinds : first for the married women, to chatter and gossip ; secondly for the adults, who some- times sing and often flirt ; but thirdly and most frequently for the children, when the girls spin, and the boys make bafti, 1 but all talk incessantly, unless they are listening to some old woman, who tells them stories. ' At the first glance there is something extremely repulsive in the Russian Moujik. His hair is long and shaggy, and so is his beard ; his person is dirty : he is always noisy ; and when wrapped up in his sheepskin he certainly presents a figure more suitable for a bandit or murderer than for a man devoted to peaceable occupations. This apparent rudeness, however, is less a part of the man himself than of his hair and beard, of his shaggy skeepskin, and the loud deep tones of his voice. The stranger who is able to address him with kindness in his native language, soon discovers in the Moujik a good-humoured, friendly, harmless, and serviceable creature. " Sdrastviiitye , brat! Good -day, brother ; how goes it?" " Sdrastvttitye, batiushka, good- day, little father ; thank God, it goes well with me. What is your pleasure ? How can I serve you ? " and at these words his face unbends into a simpering smile, the hat is taken off, the glove drawn from the hand, bow follows bow, and he will catch your hand with native polite- ness and good-humoured cordiality. With admirable patience he will then afford the required information in its minutest details ; and this the more willingly as he feels flattered by the interrogation, and is pleased by the opportunity to assume the office of instructor. A few words are often enough to draw from him a torrent of eloquence. ' Englishmen are too apt to attribute the courtesy of the Russian to a slavish disposition, but the courteous manner in which two Russian peasants are sure to salute each other when they meet cannot be the result of fears engendered by social tyranny. On the contrary, a spirit of genuine politeness pervades all classes, the highest as well as the lowest.' Kohl. The chief person in every village is its Elder, or Sehki J Birch bark slippers. 152 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Starosta, and its affairs are managed by the Selski Skhod, or village assembly. The authority of the Starosta is limited by the heads of households. No peasant can leave his native place without the consent of the commune, and he can always be recalled by a communal decree, but if he sends home his taxes regularly, this is seldom likely to occur. The principle of the Russian commune appears in every social relation, and even in each room of a prison, where three or four are assembled, a Starosta is at once appointed to maintain order and exact obedience. In a household the same kind of system prevails, all the sons and daughters- in-law usually living in perfect harmony with their parents, the Bolshak, or ' Big One,' ruling, and keeping a common purse, which is the family treasury, as in the farms on the Mezzaria system in Italy. The commune has the right of distributing the com- munal lands, which are divided according to the numbers of 'revision souls,' a system which has often very harsh results, as a widow with little children may receive the same as a man with strong able-bodied sons, and the same taxes have to be paid on bad as on good land, when the distribu- tion has once been made. A division of land always lasts till a new revision, which only takes place once in every fifteen years, and in that time the circumstances of the families entirely change. By the Russian communal system, one half of all the arable land in the empire is now reserved to the peasantry, who comprise five sixths of the population. Communal meetings are held in the open air, and generally on Sundays. When women are heads "of households, they are present. From the fact of the heads of households meeting frequently in assembly it results that all the in- THE MIR. 153 habitants of a Russian village have some acquaintance with one another, which is far from being the case in England. The popular name of the communal assembly is the Mir. ' The Russian word Mir has a different signification in the language of business, the law, and of the educated classes, from what it has in that of the people. In the first case it is identical with the French word Commune, being the aggregate of persons living together in the same place, the police jurisdiction of a city, town, or village ; but the meaning is quite different in the common conception of the people. Even the literal signification of the word Mir indicates the sacredness of the idea, denoting both Commune and the World ; the Greek Cosmos is the only equivalent to the Russian word. The Russian language has a great number of proverbs in which the power, rights, and sacredness of the Commune are recognised : God alone directs the Mir. The Mir is great. The Mir is the surging billow. The neck and shoulders of the Mir are broad. Throw everything upon the Mir, it will carry it all. The tear of the Mir is liquid, but sharp. The Mir sighs, and the rock is rent asunder. The Mir sobs, and it re-echoes in the forest. Trees are felled in the forest, and splinters fly in the Mir. A thread of the Mir becomes a shirt for the naked. No one in the world can separate from the 'Mir. What belongs to the Mir belongs also to the mother's little son. What is decided by the Mir must come to pass. The Mir is answerable for the country's defence. Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire S Russian peasants are always exceedingly ceremonious and civil to each other, and take off their caps to one of their own class, whilst prostrating to a person of distinction. Every peasant visitor, however, will make a point of saluting the family icon, before addressing the family. On going to rest or rising, all the inhabitants of a house salute the 154 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. domestic icon, crossing themselves frequently, bowing, and even prostrating themselves. In every Russian peasant family the icon represents the family Bible, the wedding gift, the birthday present, the ancestral portrait. In national life it is the watchword, the flag which has supported the courage of generals and roused the patriotism of troops. In a room, the sacred picture always occupies the corner, because it is the place of honour. Formerly icons were made of the same size as newly-born babies and hung up in the church of their patron saint. An icon of this nature was called the Obraz. If the child afterwards died, any jewel or trinket which might have adorned it was bestowed upon the obraz. Persons who are regular at church, observe all the fasts, make pilgrimages, and, above all, who never pass an icon without crossing themselves, are supposed to do all that is necessary for salvation. At a railway station it is often startling to see people hurrying in with their handbags and baskets, and then, just as they are about to take their tickets, fall flat down upon the floor. They have seen the icon behind the ticket-vendor's head. ' The Moscovites are vastly attached to the love of pictures, neither regarding the beauty of the painting nor the skill of the painter, for with them a beautiful and an ugly painting are all one, and they honour and bow to them perpetually, though the figure be only a daub of chil- dren, or a sketch upon a scrap of paper ; so that, of a whole army, there is not a single man but carries in his knapsack a gaudy picture within a simple cover, with which he never parts, and, whenever he halts, he sets it up on a piece of wood, and worships it.' Travels of Macarius in the Sixteenth Century. Nothing also is changed since the ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein, early in the seventeenth century, wrote : POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 155 ' The first thing the Muscovites teach their children is to make reverences and inclinations to the images. At Ladoga I lodged at a woman's house, who would not give his breakfast to a child she had, who could hardly either stand or speak, till he had first made nine inclinations before the saint, and as often, as well as he could pronounce it, said his Gospodi." 1 Endless are the superstitions which attend domestic peasant life in Russia. A cross is marked upon the threshold to keep off witches, and still-born children are buried beneath it, every peasant crosses himself as he passes over it, diseased children are washed upon it, and a newly-baptised child is held over it to receive the blessing of the household spirits. Of these the most important is the Domovoy 1 ' Grand- father 2 Domovoy,' which is supposed to inhabit the stove, and to be especially attached to its own family, caring for its welfare. If anything goes wrong, Russians will abuse their Domovoy as Venetians abuse their Madonna. But if any real misfortune befalls a house, it is believed that Grand- father Domovoy has gone away in offence, and that a strange Domovoy has taken his place ; and with many penitential promises the family will implore their own spirit to return to them. On January 28 the peasants leave out a pot of stewed grain for the Domovoy, placed in front of the stove, sur- rounded by burning embers. ' The Domovoy often appears in the likeness of the proprietor of the house, and sometimes wears his clothes. For he is, indeed, the representative of the housekeeping ideal as it present itself to the Sla- vonian mind. He is industrious and frugal, he watches over the homestead and all that belongs to it. When a goose is sacrificed to the water-spirit, its head is cut off and hung up in the poultry-yard, in order that the Domovoy may not know, when he counts the heads, that one of the flock has gone. For he is jealous of the other spirits. 1 From doiti, a house. " Diedoitchka, diminutive of died. 156 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. He will not allow the forest-spirit to play pranks in the garden, nor witches to injure the cows. He sympathises with the joys and sorrows of the house to which he is attached. When any member of the family dies, he may be heard (like the Banshee) wailing at night ; when the head of the family is about to die, the Domovoy forebodes the sad event by sighing, weeping, or sitting at his work with his cap pulled over his eyes. Before an outbreak of war, fire, or pestilence, the Domovoys go out from a village, and may be heard lamenting in the meadows. When any misfortune is impending over a family, the Domovoy gives warning of it by knocking, by riding at night on the horses till they are completely exhausted, and by making the watch- dogs dig holes in the courtyard, and go howling through the village. And he often rouses the head of the family from his sleep at night when the house is threatened with fire or robbery. ' Each Domovoy has his own favourite colour, and it is important for the family to try and get all their cattle, poultry, dogs, and cats of this hue. In order to find out what it is, the Orel peasants take a piece of cake on Easter Sunday, wrap it in a rag, and hang it up in a stable. At the end of six weeks they look to see of what colour the maggots are which are in it. That is the colour which the Domovoy likes. In the governments of Yaroslaf and Nijegorod the Domovoy takes a fancy to those horses and cows only which are of the colour of his own hide.' - Ralston, ' Songs of the Russian Peopled If a family change their residence, there is considerable apprehension lest it should not be agreeable to the Domovoy. So, exactly at noon, after the furniture has been removed, the oldest woman in the family takes a new jar, and rakes into it the embers left in the stove and carries them in state to the new house, covered with a clean cloth. At the door stand the master and mistress of the house, with bread and salt. The old woman smites upon the doorposts and asks if the visitors are welcome. Then the hosts bow and say, 'Welcome, Grandfather Domovoy, to the new house.' Upon this, taking the towel from her jar, the old woman shakes it towards the four corners of the room, empties the ashes into the stove, breaks the jar, and buries its fragments under the floor. FORTRESS OF SCHLUSSELBURG. 157 A tragic part in Russian history has been played by the island fortress of Schliisselburg, with its low yellow bastion towers; and, as in the case of all the scenes of royal or imperial tragedies, permission to visit it is very rarely accorded, and then only imperfectly. Here, in 1741, the unfortunate young Emperor Ivan VI., grandson of Ivan V., and great- nephew of Peter the Great, was imprisoned in the revolution which placed his cousin Elizabeth upon the throne. ' The wretched captive, lately the envied emperor of a quarter of the globe, was lodged (for sixteen years) in a casemate of the fortress, the very loophole of which was immediately bricked up. He was never brought out into the open air, and no ray of heaven ever visited his eyes. In this subterranean vault it was necessary to keep a lamp always burning ; and as no clock was either to be seen or heard, Ivan knew no difference between day and night. His interior guard, a captain and a lieutenant, were shut up with him ; and there was a time when they did not dare to speak to him, not so much as to answer the simplest question. ' Tooke's ' Life of Catherine II. ' In 1762, after the accession of Catherine II., an attempt of one Vassili Mirovitch (second lieutenant of the garrison in the town of Schliisselburg) to get possession of the person of Ivan VI., in the hope of recovering through him some family estates which had been confiscated, resulted in the cruel death of the prince. ' The inner guard placed over the imperial prisoner consisted of two officers, Captain Vlassief and Lieutenant Tschekin, who slept with him in his cell. These had a discretionary order signed by the empress, by which they were enjoined to put the unhappy prince to death, on any insurrection that might be made in his favour, on the presumption that it could not otherwise be quelled. ' The door of Ivan's prison opened under a sort of low arcade, which, together with it, forms the thickness of the castle-wall within the ramparts. In this arcade, or corridor, eight soldiers usually kept 158 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. guard, as well on his account, as because the several vaults on a line with this contain stores of various kinds for the use of the fortress. . . . ' Having wounded and secured the governor, and being arrived at the corridor into which the door of Ivan's chamber opened, Miro- vitch advanced furiously at the head of his troop, and attacked the handful of soldiers who guarded Prince Ivan. He was received with spirit by the guard, who quickly repulsed him. He immediately ordered his men to fire upon them, which they did. The sentinels returned their fire, when the conspirators were obliged to retire, though neither on one side nor the other was there a single man killed, or even wounded in the slightest degree. ' The soldiers of Mirovitch, surprised at the resistance they met, showed signs of an inclination to retreat. Their chief withheld them ; but they insisted on his showing them the order which he said he had received from St. Petersburg. He directly drew from his pocket and read to them a forged decree of the senate, recalling Prince Ivan to the throne, and excluding Catherine from it, because she was gone into Livonia to marry Count Poniatofsky. The ignorant and credulous soldiers implicitly gave credit to the decree, and again put themselves in order to obey him. A piece of artillery was now brought from the ramparts to Mirovitch, who himself pointed it at the door of the dun- geon, and was preparing to batter the place ; but at that instant the door opened, and he entered, unmolested, with all his suite. ' The officers, Vlassief and Tschekin, commanders of the guard which was set on the prince, were shut up with him, and had called out to the sentinels to fire. But, on seeing this formidable preparation, and hearing Mirovitch give orders to beat in the door, they thought it expedient to take counsel together. . . . On this consultation, they came to the dreadful resolution of assassinating the unfortunate captive^ over whose life they were to watch. ' At the noise of the firing, Ivan had awoke ; and, hearing the cries and the threats of his guards, he conjured them to spare his miserable life. But, on seeing these barbarians had no regard to his prayers, he found new force in his despair ; and, though naked, defended himself for a considerable time. Having his right hand pierced through and his body covered with wounds, he seized the sword from one of the monsters, and broke it ; but while he was struggling to get the piece out of his hand, the other stabbed him from behind, and threw him down. He who had lost his sword now plunged his bayonet into his body, and, several times repeating his blow, under these strokes the unhappy prince expired. FINLAND. 159 * They then opened the door, and showed Mirovitch at once the bleeding body of the murdered prince, and the order by which they were authorised to put him to death, if any attempt should be made to convey him away.' ' Tooke's 'Life of Catherine //.' It was at Old Ladoga near Schltisselburg that the Tsaritsa Eudoxia, the discarded first wife of Peter the Great, and mother of his son Alexis, was imprisoned in 1718, being only released from captivity on the accession of her grandson Peter II. Our longest excursion from S. Petersburg was that to Imatra in Finland, for which at least three days are neces- sary. It is quite worth while, not so much from any beauty of scenery, but from the glimpse it gives of the Finns, though to the eye of a stranger they have little now to distinguish them from ordinary Russians. Finland, the Fen-land, Seiomen-maa, is a vast land of lakes and granite rocks. It is about as large as the whole of France, and has altogether about half as many inhabi- tants as London a proportion of seven to the square mile. In Eastern Finland, .* the Land of a Thousand Lakes,' more than half the country is occupied by stony basins of clear water, to which the rivers are only connecting links. Northern Finland has little vegetation except moss and lichen, and all over the rest of the country are vast desolate districts. Finland is twelve times less populous in propor- tion than France, even three times less populous in propor- tion than Russia itself. 1 Ivan was buried in the monastery of Titschina near S. Petersburg, The rest of the family of Brunswick Catherine, Elizabeth, Peter, and Alexis, children of the Regent Anne by Anthony Ulric, Duke of Brunswick, released from imprisonment under Catherine II., all died at Gorsens. 160 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Finland is the only European state, except Hungary, which has preserved the name of a nation not Aryan. Its people, called Chouds in the Slavonic Chronicles, preserve, at least in the north, their traditions and cultivate their language, which is Oriental, and nearly related to Hungarian. In the south they are becoming more amalgamated with the Russians. Of Mongolian race, they are the earliest inhabi- tants with whose history we are acquainted in the north of Russia, and are the natural inhabitants of the soil of S. Petersburg. Possibly they are the red-haired nation living in wooden cities, mentioned by Herodotus as lying to the north of his Sarmatians. In the days of the English Alfred, the Finns had a great city at Perm, with a gilt female idol, whom they worshipped ; and by means of the two rivers Volga and Tetchora, they carried on a great trade with the Caspian, the people of Igur, or Bukhara, and India. The Aurea Venus of Perm was mentioned by Russian chroniclers under the name of Saliotta Baba the golden old woman. After the Asiatic hordes had overrun Southern Russia, the Finns were driven out of their original settlements by the Bulgarians, and in their turn drove out the Lapps, who were compelled to take refuge in the extreme north. The Finns continued to be idolaters worshipping Ukko, the god of air and thunder ; Tapio, the god of forests ; Akti, the god of lakes and streams; and Tuoni, the god of -fire till the twelfth century, when Eric IX. of Sweden landed on the west coast with an army and with S. Henry, an Englishman, the first bishop and martyr of Finland, and conquered the country, physically and spiritually. The Swedes governed Finland as Sweden was governed, and gave the Finns a representation in the Swedish Diet. Having been Catholic FINLAND. 161 since the Swedish conquest, most of the Finns became Lutherans after the Reformation under Gustavus Vasa, when the convents were confiscated. The prevailing religion is now Lutheran : out of a population of 2,000,000 only 1,000 are Catholic. The part of Finland nearest to Russia was annexed by Peter the Great in 1703^ and the rest of Finland was, in 1808, ceded to the generous Alexander I., who respected both the customs and religion of the country, of which he made himself Duke. Though nominally subject to Russia and partially protected by her, Finland has since been substantially independent, with her own laws and customs. On their barren soil and with their cold climate, the Finns can never hope to be powerful either by numbers, industry, or riches. Granite and marble are abundant, and there are rich mines for all kinds of valuable metals, but the want of roads has hitherto made them unavailable. Famines have decimated the population. When the wheat cannot ripen before the cold weather, as is often the case, the utmost misery ensues. The inhabitants eat moss, shoots of trees, even straw. In 1868, a quarter of the population died of hunger in certain districts. Drunkenness has done much to keep the Finns in a state of barbarism, and, though often more instructed than the Russian peasants, they are behindhand in all social matters. As late as 1836 it was thought necessary to publish a ukase compelling the priests to add a family name to the name of a saint given at baptism. Where the family did not exist, what was the use of giving the child a name? If a Finn 1 In 1714 its most precious relic, the bones of S. Henry, were carried off frcm Abo to S. Petersburg. M 162 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. wishes to break his fast, he will still first turn the family icon with its face to the wall, that it may not see him : the icon, he believes, would inform against him to the priest. The Finns are fond of charms and all arts of magic and sacrifices are still sometimes offered. ' Blond comme un Finnois ' is a proverb. The people are silent and stolid, melancholy and suspicious ; but they are also grateful and patient, and have an honesty and simplicity of character unknown in Russia. Their ballads pass from mouth to mouth, but they also possess, in the ' Kalevala,' a national song, which is the Iliad, the Nibelungen of Finland, called by Max Miiller the fifth national epic of the world. They have had a modern poet Runeberg, born in 1804, and only recently dead. Tourgueneff says that * night is only a sick day ' here, and there is a Finnish legend which tells that Twilight and Dawn are a betrothed pair, long divided and ceaselessly seeking each other, till here, in the height of summer, they meet, and then their united lamps burn with splendour in the northern heavens. There are still many bears, wolves, lynx, gluttons, and foxes in Finland. The marten is nearly extinct. The last elan perished in the Russian invasion of 1809 ; though, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, Gustavus Adolphus had published an edict of death against every ' murderer of an elan.' Perpetual forests truly woods without trees, for there is nothing worthy of the name hem in the railway line from S. Petersburg to Wiborg. Passports are examined at the Finnish frontier, and a change of language and money takes place. Wiborg, which, derives its name from Vieh (cattle), FINLAND. 163 is a pretty prosperous little town, the third in Finland in importance, with comfortable inns, an old circular market- house, and a castle founded by Torkel, son of Canute, in 1293. In the little port under the picturesque towers of this old castle, where the Swedish governors lived like princes, we found a toy steamer, in which we proceeded across lakes where the course was marked by flags on both sides, and through their connecting canals. On Sundays, whilst the rowers sing, the population of whole villages is seen crossing some of these lakes in barges, for the Finns are great church-goers. All the scenery is pretty, but with the monotonous melancholy of Sweden. Even the trees are all sad funereal pines, weeping birches, sixty different kinds of willow, and here and there a service-tree, the holy tree of the ancient Finns. At one of the locks, we had to leave our first steamer and join another on a higher level, a number of little boys being in waiting to carry our luggage. At the station of Rattiarve we finally disembarked, and, after a long wait in a wooden room looking down upon a sad lake, were arranged in an open char-a-bancs with three horses abreast, driven furiously down every hill we came to, that we might have an impetus for the ascents. Here beggars were always waiting, who asked alms * for the love of Christ the heavenly Tsar,' and troops of children met us with birch-baskets and labkas (slippers of linden bark), stones worn into odd forms by the river rapids, and forest fruits and blackcock for sale. The most hideous, skeleton, and hopeless-looking horses do their work well here, and only require the voice of the Yemstchik. If many horses are wanted at the stations, travellers are liable to be detained, for they are out browsing in the forest. M 2 164 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The monotonous woods only opened a little towards evening into fields divided by rude fences supported by forked sticks. Here, where the forests have been burnt, a rich harvest is obtained from the soil which is mixed with ashes. On the ploughed fields were numbers of the crows whom the Finns regard as the spirits of dead brothers and sisters, and through the dry lands the peewits were crying peet, peet, as if begging for the rain, which soon afterwards came. Of these the legend tells : * When God created the earth, and determined to supply it with seas, lakes, and rivers, He ordered the birds to convey the water to their appointed places. They all obeyed except this bird, which refused to fulfil its duty, saying that it had no need of seas, lakes, or rivers, to slake its thirst. Then the Lord waxed wroth and forbade it and its posterity ever to approach a sea or stream, allowing it to quench its thirst only with that water which remains in hollows or among stones after rain. From that time it has never ceased its wailing cry of "Drink, Drink, Feet, Feet."' Ralston (from Tereschenko\ ' Riissian Folk Tales: As twilight was darkening into the blueness of the northern night, with the summer lightning which Russians associate with the wink of an evil eye, the lights in the large hotel at Imatra were a welcome sight, and little glasses of vodki, spirit made of rye, were a restorative before supper. The hotel stands above what is called the Falls of Imatra, which are not a cascade, but a rapid of milk-white foam by which the lake falls into the river through a gully of rocks. Pleasant winding walks lead to different points of view. All is pretty, but nothing is very striking, though it has great value as being the only bit of what is commonly called 'scenery' within many hundred miles of S. Petersburg. FINLAND. 165 We spent most of our day at Imatra in an excursion to a further lake and rapid, at Harakka, to which the carnage crossed by a ferry, and where the fishing-club at S. Peters- burg has a pleasant chalet at the foot of a steep bank. In the evening we heard singing, and were told the subject was that favourite with Russian poets, the sorrows of a bride on leaving her mother, on which the ' Kalevala ' gives these lines: ' Why abandon thus your mother? Why dost leave your native country ? Here you had no thought of trouble, Here no care your heart to burden. Cares were left to pines of forest, Troubles to the posts and fences, Bitter griefs to trees of marshes, Sad complaints to lonely birches. Like the leaf, you floated onward, Like the butterfly in summer- Grew a bay, a beauteous berry, In the meadow of your mother.' Only the length of the journey by rail prevented our going on from Wiborg to the modern capital of Hehingfors and the ancient capital of Abo, but it would probably have been well worth while. The Cathedral of S. Henry at Abo is the cradle of Finnish Christianity, and contains a number of mummies of distinguished persons, including that, in a copper coffin, of Queen Korsin, wife of Eric XIV. of Sweden, who abdicated the Swedish throne to return to Finland. i66 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. CHAPTER IV. NOVOGOROD THE GREAT. THERE are 500,000,000 acres of forest in European Russia, and through a good many of these the line from S. Petersburg to Moscow runs, straight as an arrow. When the engineers of the line went to the Emperor Nicholas to receive his directions, and bored him by the detail of their inquiries, he took a ruler, and drew a straight line from town to town, saying, ' You shall make your line thus.' And so it was made, absolutely straight for four hundred miles, in- conveniently evading every object of interest or importance to the right and left, and only passing through one town, Tver. What present inconvenience, however, can be thought of, if we remember that, as late as 1800, when the traveller Clarke went from S. Petersburg to Moscow, the whole road consisted of trunks of trees laid across, two million one hundred thousand trees having been used in the first hundred miles? A vessel rolling in the Atlantic was luxurious in comparison. The jolting can be imagined but never de- scribed ; only an abundant supply of feather-beds made it supportable. In winter, when all was frozen snow, travelling was RUSSIAN FORESTS. 167 quicker and easier, but there were the dangers of wolves and frost-bites to be encountered. ' Samovar postavit! ' (' On with the tea-kettle ! ') the half-frozen traveller never failed to shout from his sledge as he neared a post-station. 1 We could not take the express train, as it did not suit our branch line from Tchudova to Novogorod, but dawdled in a slow train through the forests, which are monotonous enough, though there is something fine in their boundless- ness. ' La foret lointaine ne varie pas, elle n'est pas belle, mais qui peut la sender? Quand on pense qu'elle ne finit qu'a la muraille de la Chine, on est saisi de respect : la nature, comme la musique, tire une partie de sa puissance des repetitions.' M. de Custine. In the song of Igor the Brave, the forests of Russia are due to the prayer of S. George : ' Forests, thick forests, grow, O dark forests, over all the famous land of Russia, by the commandment of God and the prayer of George.' These forests (Lyes) are regarded as the abode of the Lyeshy or wood-demon, a being, often a giant, with horns and hoofs and long hair. The hurricanes of the forests are the battles of the Lyeshy. The birds and beasts are his servants, but his especial friend is the bear, who guards him from the water-sprites. When the squirrels and mice go forth upon their annual migrations, they are supposed to be captives which one Lyeshy has taken from another, or to have been lost by their rightful Lyeshy in gambling. ' If anyone wishes to invoke a Lyeshy, he should cut down a number of young birch-trees, and place them in a circle with their tops in the middle. Then he must take off his cross, and, standing within the circle, call out loudly, " Dyedushka !" (Grandfather !) and the Lyeshy 1 See Kohl. 168 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. will appear immediately. Or he should go into the forest on S. John's Eve, and fell an aspen, taking care that it falls towards the east. Then he must stand upon the stump, with his face turned eastward, bend downwards, and say, looking between his feet, " Uncle Lyeshy ! appear not as a grey wolf, nor as a black raven, nor as a fir for burning : appear just like me ! " Then the leaves of the aspen will begin to whisper as if a light breeze were blowing over them, and the Lyeshy will appear in the form of a man. On such occasions he is ready to make a bargain with his invoker, giving all kinds of assistance in return for the other's soul.' Ralston, ' Songs of the Russian People.* A primitive old lady, who orthodoxly crossed herself whenever the carriage gave a jolt, recalled the capital de- scription of Tourgueneff. ' Arina Vlassievna was a true specimen of an old-fashioned Russian gentlewoman ; she ought to have come into the world two hundred years earlier, in the time of the Grand-Dukes of Moscow. Highly excitable and very devout, she believed in all kinds of fore-warnings, in divinations, in witchcraft, in dreams ; she believed in " Io2irodivi," in familiar spirits, in dryads, in evil chances, in the evil eye, in popular remedies, in the virtues of salt laid on the altar on Holy Thursday, in the approaching end of the world ; she believed that if the candles of the midnight mass at Easter did not go out, the harvest of buckwheat would be good, and that mushrooms never grow till a human eye has rested upon them ; she believed that the devil loves places where there is water, and that the Jews have a stain of blood upon their breasts ; she was afraid of mice, adders, frogs, sparrows, leeches, thunder, cold water, draughts of air, horses, he-goats, red men and black cats, and she considered dogs and crickets as unclean beasts ; she never ate veal, or pigeons, or lobsters, or cheese, or asparagus, or Jerusalem artichokes, or hare, or water-melon (because a cut melon recalls the severed head of S. John the Baptist), and the very idea of oysters, which she had never seen in her life, made her tremble ; she loved good eating, and fasted rigidly ; she slept ten hours a day, and never went to bed at all if Vassili Ivanovitch complained of a headache. The only book she had read was called "Alexis, or the Cottage in the Forest." She never wrote more than one or two letters a year, and was a proficient in the manufacture of jams and jellies, though she never herself laid her hand to anything, and did not usually like to move from her chair. Arina^ NO VO GO ROD THE GREAT. 169 Vlassievna was, nevertheless, very kind, and was not without a certain kind of good sense. She knew that the masters existed in the world to give orders, and the lower classes to obey, and for this reason she had no fault to find with the obsequiousness of her inferiors, with their bowings down to the ground ; but she treated them with great gentle- ness, and never passed a beggar without giving him alms, and never spoke harshly of anyone, though she was not averse to gossip. In her youth she had possessed an agreeable figure, she played the harpsichord and spoke a little French. But during the long journeys of her husband, whom she had married against her will, she had grown fat, and for- gotten her music and French. Whilst she adored her son, she was dreadfully afraid of him ; it was Vassili Ivanovitch who managed her property, and she left him full liberty in this respect ; she sighed, fanned herself with her handkerchief, and frowned timorously when her old husband began to speak to her of the reforms which were in pro- gress, and of his own plans. She was distrustful, was always on the watch for some great misfortune, and began to weep whenever anything sad came to her recollection. . . . Wonien of this kind are beginning to' become rare. God knows if it is a subject for rejoicing.' Parents and Children. Towards evening, the seventy minarets of Novogorod rose above the plain, and then the circle of proud monasteries which still ' mark the ribs of the great skeleton ' of the fallen city. On arriving at the station we found the muddy space in front of it crowded with droskies, but then first knew the terrible burden of luggage in a land where the only carriages are the smallest in Christendom. Any ordinary box looks as if it would crush one of these tiny vehicles ; and an English lady's usual luggage requires five or six of them. Our procession, once started along the stony road, deep here and there in quagmire, was soon arrested by another pro- cession, chanting, with banners and flowers, taking a famous image from one of the churches to a chapel on the other side of the bridge. We followed slowly, with bare heads i;o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. like our drivers, through the red walls of the Kremlin en- closure, and across the broad Volkoff to the good and reasonable Hotel Solovieff. As a relic of former grandeur, few places in Europe are more interesting or more melancholy than Gospodin Veliki Novogorod Lord Novogorod the Great which was long the political centre of north-western Russia. 1 According to Nestor, the earliest of Russian historians, its foundation is coeval with that of Kieff, in the middle of the fifth century, and it disputes with Kieff the honour of being the cradle of Russian power. But little is really known of its history till the ninth century, when Rurik made it his metropolis. A year after his death, and the accession of his son Igor (879), the seat of government was removed to Kieff, and for a century Novogorod was ruled by governors. In 9 70 Sviatoslaf, son of Igor, made his third son, Vladimir, Duke of Novo- gorod, who, when he succeeded his father on the throne of Russia, ceded the town to his son Yaroslaf, by whom, in 1036, great privileges were granted to the inhabitants. From this time Novogorod was governed by its own Dukes, who gradually became entirely independent, and the town increased in prosperity till ' Who can contend against God and the great Novogorod ? ' became a Russian proverb. By the Lake Ilmen and its communications with the Volkoff and Lake Ladoga on the north, and the Volga, Dniester, and Dnieper on the south, Novogorod became the inter- mediary of commerce between Europe and Eastern Russia, and even Asia. Oustreloff says that the territory of the republic of Novo- gorod reached on the south to Torjok; on the north to 1 Rambaud, Hist, de la Rnssie. NOVOGOROD THE GREAT. 171 Kexholm, a hundred miles beyond S. Petersburg ; on the east to the extremity of the modern governments of Arch- angel, Viatka, and Perm; and on the west to Esthonia : a district now containing about five million inhabitants. The fall of Kieff in 1169 seemed at the time to presage the fall of Novogorod, but, as Karamsin says, ' the people of Kieff, accustomed to change their rulers, and to sacrifice the conquered to the conquerors, fought only for the honour of their princes ; whilst the people of Novogorod were ever ready to give their blood for the defence of their rights and the institutions bequeathed to them by their ancestors.' l They were always ready to die for S. Sophia of Novogorod. The princes of Novogorod were chosen by the council called the Veche, in which, and not in the prince, the chief power vested. If the Veche complained of a prince after his election, he was deposed ; whence the proverb, ' An evil prince to the mud of the marsh.' 2 'It was the assembly of the citizens, summoned by the great bell to meet in the "Court of Yaroslaf," which was the true sovereign.' 3 ' Novogorod avait le choix entre les princes des families rivales. Elle pouvait faire ses conditions a celui qu'elle appelait a regner sur elle. Mecontente de sa gestion, elle expulsait le prince et sa bande d'antrustions. Suivant 1'expression consacree, elle " le saluait et lui niontrait le chemin" pour sortir de Novogorod. Quelquefois, pour prevenir ses mauvais desseins, elle le retenait prisonnier dans le palais du prelat, et c'etait son successeur qui devait lui rendre la liberte. ' Le pouvoir d'un prince de Novogorod s'appuyait non-seulement sur sa droujina qui suivait toujours sa destinee, sur ses relations de famille avec telle ou telle principaute puissante, mais encore sur un parti qui se formait en sa faveur au sein de la republique. C'etait lorsque le parti contraire Pemportait qu'il etait detrone, et que les Kostomarov, Histoire de Rnssie. 2 Ibid. 3 Rambaud, Hist, de la Rnssie. 172 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. vengeances populaires s'exe^aient sur ses adherents. Novogorod etan avant tout une grande cite comme^ante, ces divisions avaient frequem- ment pour cause des divergences d'interets economiques. ' Rambaud, ' Hist, de la Russie. ' In the fifteenth century the Grand-Princes of Russia, re- moving their residence from Kieffto Vladimir, and afterwards to Moscow, claimed feudal sovereignty over Novogorod also, but respected the greater part of its popular privileges. In 1471 the ambition of Martha Beretska, an absolute-mayoress elected by the Veche, caused the Novogorodians to throw off all subjection to Ivan III., and to negotiate an alliance with Poland. They were entirely defeated by the Russian armies, but pardoned on payment of a heavy fine. But in 1478 Martha incited a second rebellion, when the city was blockaded, compelled by famine to surrender, its Veche abolished, and its people forced to take an oath of obedience to the autocratic prince of Moscow ; in 1497 numbers of the inhabitants were massacred and exiled ; and in the sixteenth century Ivan Vassilivitch carried off to Moscow the great bell called ' Eternal,' revered as the palladium of the liber- ties of Novogorod, which he demanded as 'the larum of sedition.' Henceforward the Grand-Prince became absolute sovereign of Novogorod, building a Kremlin by which he might dominate the town ; but it continued, after Moscow, to be the largest and most commercial city in Russia. Thus Richard Chancelour describes it in 1554 : ' Next unto Moscow, the city of Novogorod is reputed the chiefest in Russia ; for although it be in majestic inferior to it, yet in greatnesse it goeth beyond it. It is the chiefest and greatest marte towne of all Moscovie ; and albeit the emperor's seate is not there, but at Mosco, yet the commodiousnesse of the river, falling into that gulfe which is NOVOGOROD THE GREAT. 173 called Sinus Finnicus, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, makes it more famous than Mosco itself.' Hakluyt, i. 252.' In 1570 Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Vassilivitch II.) dis- covered a treasonable correspondence between the citizens of Novogorod and Sigismund Augustus of Poland, and avenged it by the terrible 'tribunal of blood,' in which some say that thirty, some that sixty, thousand persons fell. ' A gentleman, sent by the King of Denmark, to this tyrant, eight years after the taking of the citie, relates, in his Itinerary, that persons of quality had assured him that there were so many bodies cast into "Wolgda, that the river, stopping, overflow'd all the neighbouring fields. The plague, which soon follow'd this cruelty, was so great that, nobody venturing to bring in provisions, the inhabitants fed on dead carcasses. The tyrant took a pretence from this inhumanity to cause to be cut in pieces all those who had escaped the plague, famine, and his former cruelty, which was no doubt more dreadfull than all the other chastise- ments of God. I shall alledge onely two examples relating to Novo- gorod. The archbishop of this place, having escap'd the first fury of the soldiery, either as an acknowledgement of the favour, or to flatter the tyrant, entertains him at a great feast in his archiepiscopal palace, whither the Duke fayl'd not to come, with his guard about him, but while they* were at dinner he sent to pillage the rich temple of S. Sophia, and all the treasures of the other churches, which had been brought thither, as to a place of safety. After dinner he caus'd the archbishop's palace to be in like manner pillaged, and told the arch- bishop that it would be ridiculous for him to act the prelate any longer, since he had not to bear himself out in that quality ; that he must put off his rich habit, which must thenceforth be troublesome to him, and that he would bestow on him a bagpipe and a bear, which he should lead up and down, and teach to dance, and get money ; that he must resolve to marry, and that all other prelates and abbots that were about the citie should be invited to the wedding, setting down the precise sum which it was his pleasure that everyone should present to. the newly-married couple. None but brought what he had a shift to save, 1 ' The Booke of the great and mighty Emperor of Russia, and Duke of Muscouia, and of the dominions, orders, and commodities thereunto belonging : drawen by Richard Chancelour ' (temp. Ed. VI.) 1553. i?4 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. thinking the poor archbishop would have had it. But the tyrant took all the money, and, having caused a white mare to be brought to the archbishop: "There is thy wife, get up on her, and go to Moscou, where I will have thee entertain'd among the violins, that thou may'st teach the bear to dance." The archbishop was forc'd to obey, and, as soon as he was mounted, they ty'd his legs under the mare's belly, hung about his neck some pipes, a fidle, and a timbrel, and would needs make him play on the pipes. He scap'd with his punishments, but all the other abbots and monks were either cut to peices, or, with pikes and halbards, forc'd into the river. ' Nay, he had a particular longing for the money of one Theodore KREMLIN OF NOVOGOROD. Sircon, a rich merchant. He sent for him to the camp near Novo- gorod, and, having fasten'd a rope about his waste, order'd him to be cast into the river, drawing him from one side of it to the other, till he was ready to give up the ghost. Then he caus'd him to be taken up, and ask'd him what he had seen under water. The merchant answer'd that he had seen a great number of devils thronging about the tyrant's soul, to carry it along with them to hell. The tyrant reply'd, "Thou art in the right on't, but it is just I should reward thee for thy prophecy," whereupon calling for seething oil, he caus'd his feet to be put into it, and continu'd there, till he had promis'd to pay him ten thousand crowns, which done, he caus'd him to be cut to peices, with his brother, Alexis.' 7^ravels of the Ambassadors of Holstein into Mus- covy. NO VO GO ROD THE GREAT. 175 From this decimation the town never recovered, and it finally collapsed when S. Petersburg was built. It once had different circles like Moscow, and the outer circle included the great convents, which are now seen stranded far away in the grassy plain. The commercial portion of SOPHIA OF NOVOGOHOD. the town is most miserable, but it retains its Gostinnoi Dvor or bazaar, with its covered galleries and ' guests' yard ' for foreign merchants. In the twelfth century endless foreign traders flocked to Novogorod as a centre. They were divided into the ' winter and summer merchants.' The 176 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. government undertook, at a fixed price, to send boatmen to meet them as far as Igera ; for these merchants, to evade the cataracts of the Neva and VolkorT, discharged their merchandise into light boats. A particular quarter of Novogorod was assigned where the traders from Germany and the Isle of Gothland enjoyed perfect independence, subject to their own laws, for the execution of which they chose the elders of their own body ; the ambassador of the prince alone had the right of entering their quarter. The Gothlanders had a chapel dedicated to S. Olaf at Novo- gorod, and the Germans a church dedicated to S. Peter. The Novogorodians had also a church in Gothland. It was the generous friendship of the foreign merchants alone which preserved Novogorod from total ruin in 1231, by gifts of corn, when, after an early winter had destroyed the harvest, forty-two thousand people had perished of starva- tion, and the survivors lived on moss, leaves, bark, cats, dogs, and had even killed one another for food. Now, there is no life left in the bazaar ; customers are so rare. The principal trade seems to be that of icons. These generally represent Bogotez (God the Father) or Bog Sun (God the Son), or the Holy Trinity, or the Bogoroditza (Mother of God) in Russian costume as the Kazan or Iberian Mother. Next comes S. Nicholas, being to the common people, in the world of spirits, what the heir to the throne is in the political world. 1 ' It is to St. Nicholas that at the present day the peasant turns most readily for help, and it is he whom the legends represent as being the most prompt of all the heavenly host to assist the unfortunate among man- kind. Thus in one of the old stories a peasant is driving along a heavy 1 See Kohl. NO VO GO ROD THE GREAT. 177 road one autumn day, when his cart sticks fast in the mire. Just then S. Kasian comes by. ' " Help me, brother, to get my cart out of the mud ! " says the peasant. '"Get along with you!" replies S. Kasian. "Do you suppose I've got leisure to be dawdling here with you ? " ' Presently S. Nicholas comes that way. The peasant addresses the same request to him, and he stops and gives the required assistance. ' When the two saints arrive in heaven, the Lord asks them where they have been. ' " I have been on the earth," says S. Kasian, "and I happened to pass by a moujik whose cart had stuck in the mud. He cried out to me, saying, ' Help me to get my cart out ! ' But I was not going to spoil my heavenly apparel." ' " I have been on the earth," says S. Nicholas, whose clothes were all covered with mud ; " I went along that same road, and I helped the moujik to get his cart free." 'Then the Lord says, "Listen, Kasian ! Because thou didst not assist the moujik, therefore shall men honour thee by thanksgiving once only in every four years. But to thee, Nicholas, because thou didst assist the moujik to set free his cart, shall men twice every year offer up thanksgiving." ' " Ever since that time," says the story, " it has been customary to offer prayers and thanksgiving (molebmd} to Nicholas twice a year, but to Kasian only once every leap-year." ' Ralston, ' Russian Folk Talcs.' From the * Legendtd' 1 of Afanasief. Almost all the historic buildings on the northern shore of the Volkoff have perished in the different conflagrations which have ravaged the city, including the church of S. George, in which Theodosia, mother of Alexander Nevskoi, was buried by her son Feodor in 1244. The arms of Novogorod, which we see frequently re- peated, somewhat ludicrously commemorate the first esta- blishment of Christianity. Two bears, supporters, are represented at an altar upon the ice, with crucifixes crossed before the Bogh, on which is placed a candelabrum with a N 178 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. triple lustre, emblem of the Trinity. We sometimes also see representations of the two-headed eagle, the arms of the Greek empire, which Ivan the Great assumed on his mar- riage with Sophia Paleologus, and which the sovereigns of Russia still retain. At the entrance of the bridge is a chapel, before which all drivers cross themselves, and where every peasant in CHAPEL ON THE BRIDGE OF NOVOGOROD. passing leaves a candle or a penny, but where beggars prostrate and touch the earth with their foreheads after each sign of the cross which they make. A strange disturbance of the waters below the bridge, which always prevents the river from freezing there, is sup- posed to be due to the spirits of those drowned here by Ivan the Terrible, when, as the Russians ironically said, the * waters of the river were used to assuage the fury of their father.' THE KREMLIN OF NOVOGOROD. 179 This ancient bridge of the Volkoff is celebrated in the epic songs the bylines of Novogorod. It was here that the hero Vassili Boulaevitch, with his faithful dronjinaj- standing up to his knees in blood, kept in check the moujiks of Novogorod, whom he had defied to combat. How striking the view is over the broad expanse of the beautiful and limpid river which Russians believe to have flowed back towards its source as a presage of the misfor- tunes which followed the death of Yaroslaf ! 2 At the same time that the famous statue of Peroun, the god of thunder,, was thrown into the river at Kieff by Vladimir, a similar statue of the god, which stood on the banks of this river, made of wood, with a silver head and golden moustaches, was thrown into the Volkoff. Beyond the river rise the red walls of the Kremlin, the ancient acropolis, with towers which recall the encircling wreath of Lucerne. The steep bank from which it rises is overgrown with wild geranium, much used in Russia for dressing all kinds of wounds. The form of the fortress is oval. In fulfilment of a horrible religious custom, its first stone was laid on a living child. It was rebuilt in 1491 by Solario of Milan for Ivan the Great, as is recorded in an inscription over the gate. Amongst the many remarkable scenes which the ancient walls of Novogorod have witnessed, perhaps the most striking was that in 1170, when, terrified by the fate of the churches of Kieff, which had been pillaged by in- vaders, the whole people swore to give up the last drop of 1 The immediate followers of the early heroes and of the early Grand -Princes their bodyguard in time of war, their council in time of peace were thus called. The droujina generally included a bard, who, at banquets or festivals, recited the deeds of Askold, Dir, Oleg, and other Varangian heroes. 2 See Karamsin. N 2 i8o STUDIES IN RUSSIA, their blood in defence of S. Sophia. The archbishop Ivan, followed by all the clergy, took the image of the Virgin and carried it to the walls. While the chant of the sacred hymn mingled with the cries of the combatants, one of the shower of arrows which fell within the fortress pierced the holy icon, which is said to have deluged the robes of the archbishop with its tears. In any case, something occurred which caused a panic to seize the besiegers, and the people of Novogorod, obtaining a brilliant victory, instituted the festival of November 27 in honour of the Virgin to com- memorate their deliverance. 1 Within the walls of the Kremlin, which once contained eighteen churches and a hundred and fifty houses, is now for the most part an open space. The first object which catches the eye of a stranger is the bell -like Monument, erected in 1862 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the Russian empire, for it was in 862 that the Slavonians invited the Variag tribe called Rus to send them rulers, and three brothers accepted the office Ruric in Novogorod, Sineno in Bielo-ozero, Truvor in Iborsk. The other brothers died ; but Ruric the Rus ruled and administered justice, whence the name of Russia. On the right of the road are the belfry, the cathedral, the bishop's palace, and the veche tower an historic group of marvellous interest. The strange low cathedral of S. Sophia, though, like all Russian churches, much spoilt externally by whitewash, is, with its many gilt domes, most quaintly picturesque. As of all the older Russian churches, its model is to be found in Constantinople. It was founded in 1044 by Vladimir Yaro- * Karamsin, iii. S. SOPHIA OF NOVOGOROD. 181 slovitch on the site of a wooden church, which was built c. i ooo by the first archbishop, Joachim, and it was finished in 1051. ' A magnificent monument of the glorious times of Yaroslaf remains to us in the temple of S. Sophia of Novogorod, erected by Vladimir, son of Yaroslaf, who died while only a youth, and was buried there CATHEDRAL OF S. SOPHIA, NOVOGOROD. together with his mother. This church has not suffered materially either from wars or time, and has been preserved in all its grandeur, as a jewel above price to the country.' Mouravieff, ' Hist, of the Church of Russia^ ch. ii. It is probably owing to the decline of the city of Novo- gorod that its principal church has been so little altered or modernised from the earliest times. Its bronze doors, of Italian twelfth-century work, recall those of S. Zenone at 182 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Verona. They were brought hither from Cherson, where Vladimir the Great was baptised, and were a gift to Novo- gorod from the famous Archbishop Basil, endeared to the people from his self-devotion during the terrible visitation of the plague called the Black Death in 1349, in which he himself became the victim of his Christian patience and fortitude. This church of S. Sophia has served as a type for thousands of later Russian churches, as the constant wars of the country and the dread of Tartar invasions have pre- vented any development of art in Russia, though, indeed, under the most favourable circumstances, the Slavonic race has seemed incapable of architectural development. All the great churches at Kieff are by Greek, those at Moscow by Italian or German, those at S. Petersburg by Italian, German, or French artists, though, in each case, only second-class foreigners have been employed. Glorious is the blaze of colour solemnised by the dim light which pervades the interior. The heavy pillars sup- port tall narrow round arches. The walls are covered with frescoes on a golden ground, resembling those painted at S. Maria Novella by Greek artists in the thirteenth century, which so struck Cimabue, and made him steal away from school to watch them ; probably these are by artists from Constantinople. The chronicles of Novogorod recount that Christ appeared to the artist, who was charged to paint the cupola, and said, ' Do not represent me with a hand ex- tended in blessing, but with a hand closed ; for in that hand I hold Novogorod, and when it opens, the town will perish.' l 1 Rambaud, p. 115. S. SOPtfSA OF NOVOGOROD, 183 Magnificent bronze candlesticks stand in front of the golden iconastos, and above waves the banner of the Virgin, which, displayed upon the city walls, has so often encou- raged the imprisoned citizens to resist their besiegers. Here also, as in all the most important Russian churches, a throne like a pulpit (to stand, not sit in) is placed before 'the altar, prepared for any sudden appearance of the Emperor. In the dim splendour and magnificence of this cathedral we find the especial burial-place of the saints of north- western Russia. Raised aloft to the right of the altar is the archbishop S. Nikita, whose prayers extinguished a great conflagration in the city, and who has a silver tomb, bearing a gilt effigy of the venerable old man. Behind, nearer the entrance, under gates studded with jewels, is the Grand Prince, S. Mistislaf the Brave (1176), who 'feared nothing but God,' and bravely defended Novogorod against the powerful Andrew of Sonsdalia. His dead hand, perfectly black, is left exposed to the kisses of the faithful : l the rest of his body is covered with cere-cloth. ' The boyars and the citizens showed the most touching feeling, in the evidence of their grief for the death of Mistislaf the Brave, a prince generally beloved. They delighted to speak of his manly beauty, of his victories ; to recall his generous projects for the glory of his country, his simple goodness united to all the fire and all the pride of a noble heart. This prince, according to the evidence of his contemporaries, was the ornament of his age and of Russia ; whilst others made con- quests from avarice,, he never fought except for glory. He despised gold more than clangers, and gave up all his spoils to the churches, and to his warriors, whom he was accustomed to encourage in battle by these words " God and right are on our side ; we may die to-day or 1 For centuries in the Church of Alexandria, and still in the Church of Armenia, the dead hand of the first bishop has been employed as the instrument of consecration in each succeeding generation. 1 84 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. to-morrow, but at least we die with honour." There was no part of Russia which did not wish to obey him, and where he was not sincerely lamented.' Karanisin^ iii. INTERIOR OF S. SOPHIA, NOVCGOROD. In the eastern aisle rests S. Anne, mother of Mistislaf, daughter of the Eastern emperor Romanus, with Alexandra, sister-in-law of Mistislaf, and his father Vladimir, son of Yaroslaf the Great, 1020. In the northern aisle, raised as 5. SOPHIA OF NOVOGOROD. 185 on a bed, is S. Ivan. His aged veined hands are visible, and the lid of his sarcophagus can be raised so as to disclose his face. Another tomb (brought from the monastery of S. George) is that of Feodor, brother of S. Alexander Nevskoi, who died in 1228. ' The bones of a martyr are inoffensive and passive. A man must be indeed brutalised who can deny to them that honour and affection which even heathens sometimes bestow .by natural instinct on the re- mains of their dead. Nor will he deny that such honour and affection may be expressed outwardly, as well as felt inwardly : and in con- formity with established custom, as well as incidentally of spontaneous emotion. And if it chance that a sick man or a demoniac approach the relics of a martyr and is healed, or if a blind man receives his sight, there is no room to quarrel either with the martyr who sought no wor- ship, or with the relics which are inanimate, or with the man healed, who, perhaps, uttered no word, or with the free grace and power of God.' Palmer. It was in this church that Alexander Nevskoi, the great * defender of the orthodox faith,' knelt to receive the bene- diction of the archbishop Spiridion before going forth against the Scandinavian army to gain his famous victory. To this he was encouraged by the report of a vision. A boat manned by two radiant warriors had been seen to glide through the night : they were the sainted brothers Boris and Gleb, who had come to ensure his success. In the Sacristy, amongst other relics, is shown the white mitre of the famous Archbishop Basil, 1 sent to him by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Basil was the first Russian archbishop to receive pontifical habits adorned with the cross. A mitre of the same kind, in Greece, was formerly the attribute of a bishop who was not a monk. 2 1 This archbishop (1340) looked for Paradise in the White Sea, and believed the statement of some merchants of Novogorod that they had seen it in the distance. 2 See Karamsin, iv. 1 86 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' " Their war-cry bore testimony to the piety of our ancestors ; the cathedral church was the heart of each of their cities, and its name served as the pledge of victory. For S. Sophia ! " " For the House of the most holy Trinity ! " resounded terribly in the ranks of Novo- gorod and Pskoff, when their hero-saints overthrew the Swedes or the Sword-bearers. ' Mouravieff. Close to the cathedral stands the Palace of the Arch- bishops of Novogorod) who long played so important a part in history. ' II est le premier personnage en dignite de la republique. " Bene- diction de la part de 1'archeveque Moise, dit une lettre patente ; salut du possadnik Daniel et du tysatski Abraham." Sur le prince il a cette superiorite d'etre un enfant du pays, tandis que le descendant de Rou- rik est un etranger. En revanche les revenus du prelat, le tresor de Sainte-Sophie, sont au service dela republique. Au quatorzieme siecle, nous voyons deux archeveques clever a leurs frais, 1'un les tours, 1'autre un kremlin de pierre. Au quinzieme siecle, les richesses de la cathe- drale sont employees au rachat des prisonniers russes enleves par les Lithuaniens. C'est une eglise essentiellement nationale que celle de Novogorod ; les ecclesiastiques se melent des affaires temporelles, et les lai'ques des affaires spirituelles.' Rambaud, ' Hist, de la RussieS In the pretty green courtyard near the Archbishop's Palace is the picturesque tower in which the bell of the Vetche l hung till it was carried off to Moscow the famous bell which summoned the council which had the power of deposing or imprisoning princes, electing archbishops, de- ciding peace and war, and judging the criminals of state the majority having always the resource of drowning the minority in the Volkoff ! Sometimes the assembly met at S. Sophia, sometimes in the Court of Yaroslaf on the other side of the river ; and Novogorod has even seen two rival vetches and their adherents come to blows upon its bridge. * 1 The word vcch means assembly. 2 See Rambaud, p. no. S. SOPHIA OF NOVOGOROD. 187 One of the most singular services which a foreigner can attend in these historic Russian churches is the annual cursing of heretics, political as well as religious, in which anathemas are called down upon a number of people by name on the false Demetrius, on Boris GodunorT, Mazeppa, Senka Rasin, and Pugatsheff amongst the political heretics. The mention of each is followed by a thunder of * anafema, anafema.' With Boris Godunoff alone is a distinction made ; for though an unpopular he was a wise ruler, and well disposed to the priests * For the good he wrought may he enjoy the heavenly blessing ; for the evil, " anafema, anafema."' After the last anathema follows a prayer for the whole house of Romanoff and all its descendants, past and present and blessings are called down upon them and their memory. The singing in these old churches is often most beau- tiful and striking, while strangers have a great loss in seldom understanding the words. ' In the greater Compline, which is used at certain seasons, there is a manifest relic of those primitive times when the Church was in the catacombs under Jewish and heathen persecution. And it is impos- sible to hear the singing of this relic without feeling ourselves to be as it were breathed upon by the breath of that living energy which first selected and accommodated its words from those of the prophet Isaiah. ' " God is with us ! understand, O ye nations, and submit your- selves : for God is with us ! " " Ki Immanu EL" This is sung first by the choir on one side : Then the same a second time by the choir on the other side : then as follows, verse and verse alternately Give ear unto the ends of the earth : for God is with us ! Ye mighty, submit yourselves : for God is with us ! For if ye wax powerful again, ye shall again be broken in pieces : for God is with us ! And though ye take counsel together, the Lord shall bring it to nought : for God is with us ! 1 88 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. And if ye speak the word, it shall not stand : for God is with us ! Your terror will we not fear, neither be troubled : for God is with us ! But the Lord our God, Him will we sanctify, and He shall be our fear : for God is with us ! And if I trust in Him, He shall be unto me for a sanctuary : for God is with us ! And I will trust in Him, and I shall be saved through Him : for God is with us ! Behold I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me : for God is with us ! The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light : for God is with us ! We that dwelt in the valley and shadow of death, upon us hath the light shined : for God is with us ! For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given : for God is with us ! And His name shall be called The Messenger of the Great Counsel : for God is with us ! Wonderful, Counsellor : for God is with us ! The mighty God, the Lord of power, the Prince of peace : for God is with us ! The Father of the world to come : for God is- with us ! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost : for God is with us ! Both now, and ever, and world without end, Amen : for God is with us ! ' And, lastly, both the choirs sing together " For God is with us ! " (" Ki Immanu-El")' IV. Palmer, 'Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion^ The saints (not Biblical, after the Virgin and Apostles) mentioned in the Offertory or Celebration of the Divine Mystery are ' Our holy fathers, the high priests, Basil the Great, Gregory the Divine, and John Chrysostom, Athanasius and Cyril, Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, Peter and Alexis, and Jonas and Philip of Moscow, Nicetas, bishop of Novogorod ; Moetias, bishop of Rostoff, and all holy high priests. S. ANTHONY. 189 ' The great apostle, proto-martyr, and archdeacon Stephen ; the holy and great martyrs Demetrius, Georgius, Diodorus the tyrant, Diodorus the warrior, and all holy martyrs, men and women Thecla, Barbara, Cyriaca, Euphemia, Parascovia, and Catharina, and all hoiy female martyrs. ' Our venerable and inspired fathers, Anthonius, Euthymius, Sabbas, Onuphrius, Athanasius of Mount Athos, Antonius and Theodosius of Pecherskoi, Sergius of Radonige, Balaam of Chutuiski, and all vene- rable fathers ; and all venerable matrons Pelagia, Theodosia, Ana- stasia, Eupraxia, Pleuronia, Theodulia, Euphrosyne, Mary of Egypt and all holy and venerable matrons. ' The holy wonder-workers, the disinterested Cosmas and Damia- nus, Cyrus and John, Pantaleon and Hermolaus, and all unmercenary saints. ' The holy and venerable parents of God, Joachim and Anna (and the saint whose day it is), and all saints. ' By the intercession of these, look down upon us, O God.' ' At Novogorod we were first present at one of the singular services called a Moleben. When anyone has a particular act in view, or day in the calendar with an especially dear association, or when he wishes to offer espe- cial thanksgivings, he goes to the priest and gives him a rouble for a Moleben. The priest takes him into the church, and, assisted by an inferior priest, reads prayers, sings, and burns incense, whilst he in whose behalf it is done bows and crosses himself without ceasing. The prayer is not addressed to God, but to the Angel Chranitel or Guardian Angel ; hence the Moleben is often read on the name-day, which should rather be called the day of the guardian angel, held so sacred by the Russians. S. Anthony the Roman is said to have started from Italy on a mediaeval voyage. With a millstone round his neck he was thrown into the Tiber, and thus, in two days and 1 See King. 190 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. nights, 1 he passed from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, and by the Baltic and the Neva to Lake Ladoga, whence the Volkoff brought him hither ' the rivers of Russia being the threads by which its religious destinies have always been curiously interwoven.' 2 S. Anthony is commemorated at Novogorod by the great convent of his name. ' Opposite the Kremlin, on the same side with the city, is the con- vent of S. Anthony, who came from Rome on a millstone, down the Tiber, across the sea, and by the Volga to Novogorod. By the way he met certain fishermen, with whom he bargained for the first draught they should take, and they brought up a chest full of priest's vestments to say mass in, books, and money. The saint afterwards built a chapel there in which the Muscovites say that he lies interred, and that his body is there to be seen, as entire as when he departed this world. Many miracles are wrought there, as they say ; but they permit not strangers to go in, thinking it enough to show them the millstone upon which the saint performed this pretended voyage, and which indeed may be seen lying against the wall.' Travels of the Ambassadors of Holstein, 1633-1639. A short excursion should be made from Novogorod to the magnificent Yurieff Monastery ^ the finest of those whose golden domes gleam across the green plain of the Volkoff. ' During the episcopate of S. Nicetas (1124-1127), two celebrated religious houses were founded in Great Novogorod : one, the Yurieff monastery, by the zeal of Prince Mistislaf, though some traditions refer its foundation to Yaroslaf the Great ; the other, that of S. Anthony the Roman, who sailed from the West up the Volkoff, and lived as a hermit on its banks, near the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, which he is said to have built. In like manner, as in Novo- gorod and Kieff, so also in many other chief district-towns, wherever the dawn of spiritual enlightenment so much as penetrated, monasteries were gradually formed, which spread it abroad over all the surrounding parts ; and the Word of God, carried about by holy solitaries, was let 1 Palmer. 2 Stanley's Eastern Chiirch. RUSSIAN HOTELS. 191 fall into the depths of the vales and forests as the quickening seed of a future life, which should bring forth its fruit in due season.' Moura- vieff, 'Hist, of the Church of Russia' At Novogorod we were first in a Russian hotel where the native guests ate quantities of sour cabbage and cucumbers, and drank kvass, which tastes like vinegar and water ; foreigners dislike it at first, but soon become accus- tomed to it. ' Fortunately it is a light and wholesome beverage. A pailful of water is put in the evening into an earthen vessel, into which are shaken two pounds of barley-meal, half a pound of salt, and a pound - and-a-half of honey. This mixture is put in the evening into a kind of oven, with a moderate fire, and constantly stirred ; in the morning it is left for a time to settle, and then the clear liquid is poured off. The kvas is then ready, and may be drunk in a few days ; in a week it is at its highest perfection. As kvas is thought good only when prepared in small quantities, and in small vessels, every household brews for itself. In great houses a servant is kept for this purpose, who finds in it wherewithal to occupy him for a whole day, and has as many mysterious observances in the preparation as if it were a spell, or as if there were as much significance in his labours as in those of Schiller's Bell-founder. 'Kohl. As ordinary Russians prefer food half-ripe, they like vegetables half-cooked and hard as bullets, and eat their bread half-baked. One of the favourite dishes is Shtshee. ' The mode of preparing this remarkable dish varies greatly, and there are almost as many kinds of shtshee as of cabbages. Six or seven heads of cabbages chopped up, half a pound of barley-meal, a quarter of a pound of butter, a handful of salt, and two pounds of mutton cut into small pieces, with a can or two of " kvas," make an excellent shtshee. With the very poor the butter and the meat are of course left out, which reduces the composition to the cabbage and the kvas. In the houses of the wealthy, on the contrary, many ingredients are added, and rules laid down to be closely observed; "bouillon" is used I 9 2 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. instead of kvas, the meat is salted and pressed for six-and-thirty hours, and is put raw to the already boiling cabbage ; thick cream is added, and the whole mixture when complete is pronounced unsurpassably excellent. ' In " Posdnoi Shtshee " or " Fasting Shtshee " fish is used instead of meat, oil instead of butter, &c. The lower classes eat it with a kind of fish not larger than a sprat, boiled skin and all to a pulp, and to give it additional flavour a portion of thick oil is added. '"Botvinya" is another right Russian dish, and nearly akin to shtshee. The latter is the staple of the Russian table the whole year through ; but "Botvinya" is only eaten in the summer. The ingre- dients, which are warm in the shtshee, are put cold into the botvinya, cold kvas, raw herbs, red berries, chopped cucumbers, and lastly, salmon or some other fish cut into square lumps. At the better tables slices of lemon are sometimes added, toasted black bread cut small, and, to make it yet cooler, small lumps of ice.' Kohl. At Novogorod, the waiter, who acted as caller in the morning, lingered in the room, perfectly certain that one could not dress oneself a relic of serfdom. The plague of mosquitoes which is so wearisome at Novogorod is attributed to the neighbouring forests and lake. It was always thus. * From Revel to Moscow are nothing but woods, fens, lakes, and rivers, which produces such abundance of flies, gnats, and wasps, that people have much ado to keep them off, having their faces so spotted, as if they were newly recovered from the small-pox.' Ambassadors of Holstein, 1633-1639. In the rugged street of wooden houses which is now the main street of Novogorod, we first heard the street- singers, who are so characteristic of Russia, and who have carried on orally for many hundreds of years its old traditions and stories. They are of two kinds the skaziteli, who sing for their pleasure and that of their friends, and the kalieki, who sing for their daily bread, wandering from village to village, singing whatever they know, and con- THE KALIEKL 193 tinually learning new songs, thus increasing and dispensing their poetic store. 1 Amongst the most popular subjects are the story of ' Mother Volga ' of ' Vladimir the beautiful sun,' or the feats of Ilia de Mourom, the Samson or Hercules of Russian mythology. ' Dans une chanson que colportent les Kalieki, ils expliquent a leur facon comment a pris naissance leur corporation. Elle a une sainte origine, et c'est une mission divine qu'ils ont recue. ' C'etait au milieu de 1'ete brulant, la veille de 1' Ascension du Christ ; la confrerie des pauvres etait tout en pleurs : Helas, Christ, tsar du ciel, a qui nous laisses-tu ? a qui nous confies-tu ? qui voudra nous nourrir ? qui nous donnera des vetements et des chaussnres, nous pro- tegera contre la sombre nuit ? Et le Christ, le tsar du ciel, leur dit : "Ne pleurez pas, confrerie des pauvres, je vous donnerai une mon- tagne d'or. Vous saurez bien la posseder, la partager entre vous ; alors vous serez rassasies et contents, habilles et chausses, proteges contre la sombre nuit." Et Jean Bouche d'Or prend la parole: "Christ, tsar du ciel, permets-moi de dire un mot pour la confrerie des pauvres, des malheureux. Ne leur donne pas une montagne d'or ; ils ne sauront pas la posseder, ni prendre 1'or, ni le partager entre eux. Bientot decouvriront cette montagne les princes et les bo'iars. Bientot les eveques et les puissants, bientot les marchands. Ils leur prendront leur montagne, leur montagne d'or ; ils partageront 1'or entre les princes, et les riches ne laisseront rien aux pauvres diables. II sera 1'occasion de maint massacre, de maint egorgement, et les pauvres n'auront rien pour vivre. . . . Donne a la confrerie des pauvres ton saint nom. Ils s'en iront par le monde, ils glorifieront le Christ, ils le loueront a chaque heure ; alors ils seront contents et rassasies, habilles et chausses, proteges contre la sombre nuit." Et le Christ, le loi du ciel, dit : " Tres bien, Jean Bouche d'Or ! Tu as su dire ton mot pour la. confrerie des pauvres ; pour toi voici une bouche d'or." Et nous, nous chantons : Alleluia ! ''Alfred Rcunbaud, 'La Russie EpiqueS ' Les chanteurs ne coinprennent pas toujours ce qu'ils chantent : la langue a vieilli, et plus d'un vers s'est altere. Si on leur demande compte d'une expression singuliere ou d'un passage obscur, ils repondent invariablement : " Cela se chante ainsi," ou bien : " Les anciens chan- taient ainsi : nous ne savons ce que cela veut dire." Aucun detail 1 Re-cue des Deux-Mondes, Dec. 15, 1874. O 194 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. merveilleux ne leur semble incroyable ; ils admettent tres bien qu'Ilia cle Mourom ait pu brandir une massue de 1,600 livres ou tuer d'une seule fois 40,000 brigands. Ils pensent simplement que les hommes etaient plus forts en ce temps-la qu'aujourd'hui.' Ibid. Tourgueneff describes the song of a peasant enthusiast in a trial of skill with a rival in a tavern. ' Yakof silently gazed around him, then he hid his face in his hands. Everyone watched him eagerly. When he uncovered his face it was pale as that of a corpse, the gleam of his eyes was scarcely seen through their drooping lashes. He sighed deeply, and he sang. The first sound was feeble and hesitating, and did not seem to come from his chest, but from far away, as if an accident had wafted it into the room. This so-trembling sound produced a weird effect upon us ; we looked at one another, and the wife of the publican shuddered. The first sound was followed by another, firmer, and more prolonged, but still quite trembling ; one might have said that a cord had been sud- denly set in motion, and was breathing its last sigh. Then the song, gaining warmth and breath, burst forth in floods of melodious sadness. . . . Rarely can I say that I have heard a voice equal to it ; its powers were perhaps upon the wane, and even slightly broken ; it may have had something of weakness, but in its depths were true and deep passion, youth and power, sweetness, and a melancholy appealing, captivating. A true ardent Russian soul breathed forth in it and went straight to your heart. The song continued. Yakof passed into a kind of ecstasy ; his timidity had disappeared : his genius held possession of him. His voice no longer hesitated ; though it still trembled, but it was with that inward trembling beyond the reach of passion, which strikes like an arrow to the heart of the auditor : it even rose and rose higher in its intensity. . . . He sang, entirely oblivious of his rival and of all of us ; yet, like a bold swimmer borne upon the waves, he was stimulated by our silent and passionate sympathy. He sang, and every note breathed forth an inexpressible degree of nationality, of space ; it was as if the steppe unrolled before us in its distant infinity. I felt my heart swell, and my eyes fill with tears. Smothered sobs suddenly drew my attention ; I looked ... it was the wife of the tavern-keeper who was weeping, leaning against the window. Yakof rapidly glanced at her, and his voice took a softer intonation. The tavern-keeper was buried in thought ; Morgatch had turned aside ; Obaldou'i, as if petrified, sate open-mouthed ; the peasant in the grey RUSSIAN SINGERS. 195 clothes sobbed quietly in a corner, and shook his head with a low moan ; upon the bronzed face of Sauvage, and from his motionless eyelashes, rolled a great tear ; the rival lifted his closed fist to the sky. We were all so overcome that I do not know what would have become of us if Yakof had not stopped suddenly short upon one of his highest, most ringing notes. No one uttered a sound, no one moved, all seemed to wait what was coming. Yakof stared as if our silence astonished him ; then, having looked at us with a questioning air, he saw that the victory was his.' The Singers. O 2 196 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. CHAPTER V. MOSCOW. (THE INNER CIRCLES.) FORMERLY the journey from Novogorod to Moscow was most painfully accomplished in ninety hours in a kibitka a cart, or rather a cradle for two, in which the driver, wrapped in his long greatcoat, called an armiak, sate close to the horses' tails, the hinder part of the cart being shaded by a semicircular hood of laths covered with birch bark. These vehicles have no springs, and are fastened together by wooden pegs. The luggage is placed at the bottom, and covered by a mattress, upon which an abundant supply of feather-beds alone renders the jolting endurable. The drivers wear belts with bells affixed to them, though they have to procure an order (poderosnoy) which is neces- sary for this. In winter 1,000 sledges bearing food from Moscow to S. Petersburg used to travel along the main road daily, sometimes accomplishing the journey in twenty- four hours. Now, happily, it is only necessary to resort to kibitkas in out-of-the-way places, and the Russian railways would be luxurious, if it were not for the strong tobacco which all the natives smoke incessantly in every carriage, even ladies VALDAI. 197 demolishing ten or twelve cigarettes during a night. There is a long halt at Tchudova, where trains are changed and where there is an excellent buffet, though those who are unaccustomed to it will be overpowered by the fumes of the cabbage-soup which Russians think so delicious. A proverb says that the three mightiest gods of the Russians are Tshin, Tshai, and Shtshee rank, tea, and cabbage-soup. ' " My son Wassaja is dead, "said the woman in a low tone, and the pent-up tears flowed afresh clown her hollow cheeks, " and now my end also is near. The head of my living body has been taken away from me ! . . . But is that any reason for spoiling the soup ? It is nicely salted.'" Ivan Tourgueneff, ' SeniliaS The country is almost entirely forest, always pretty, but offering nothing to remark, except, for the thousandth time, that there are scarcely any trees fn Russia except fir, alder, and willow, and the melancholy birch, with its shimmering leaves, which accompanies a traveller from the frontier to Moscow. The wooden stations all have brilliant little gardens. There are very few towns in European Russia, as only a tenth part of the population live in towns. Indeed, there are only eleven cities with as many as 50,000 inhabitants. The only town the railway passes through is Tver. Before reaching this, we skirt the heights of Valdai, conical hillocks, but considered mountainous in this country. In the eyes of the common people they are eyesores. Russian folk-lore, which has a reason for everything, thus accounts for their existence: ' When the Lord was about to fashion the face of the earth, He ordered the Devil to dive into the watery depths and bring thence a handful of the soil he found at the bottom. The Devil obeyed ; but 198 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. when he filled his hand, he filled his mouth also. The Lord took the soil, sprinkled it around,- and the Earth appeared, all perfectly flat. The Devil, whose mouth was quite full, looked on for some time in silence. At last he tried to speak, but was choked, and fled in terror. After him followed the thunder and the lightning, and so he rushed over the face of the earth, hills springing up where he coughed, and sky-cleaving mountains where he leaped.' Ralston (from Tereschenko], * Russian Folk Tales. ' Valdai is celebrated for the sweetness of its silver-toned bells, and for its lake, and the monastery which the Tsar Alexis founded as a halfway house for the famous Nikon on his frequent journeys between Novogorod and Moscow. It has been said that the heart of the Russian empire beats at Tver, which is a prosperous manufacturing town. The traveller interested in Russian history u ill linger there (Miiller's Hotel), for there, ;n the Otroch Monastery (Otrotchi Monastyr), S. Philip, the Becket of Russia, was martyred under Ivan the Terrible. There is also an interesting cathedral of 1682, in which many of the princes of Tver are buried, and the feeble and treacherous Grand-Prince Yaroslaf, who died in 1272 after an ignominious submission to the Tartars. Of the princes of Tver, who have graves here, the most remarkable was Michael, who in 1400 touch- ingly besought the benedictions of his people, even of the beggars in the church porch, just before his death. 1 A more interesting tomb is that of the Grand-Prince Michael II., whose succession was illegally disputed by his cousin George Danielovitch of Moscow. Brave as a hero, Michael was entirely victorious over the armies of George, though the latter was supported by the troops .of the Tartar Khan, whose sister he had married. George, his wife, and the 1 Karamsin, v. TVER. 199 Tartar generals fell into the hands of Michael, and as they were kindly treated, the Tartars swore to be his friends for the future. But, unfortunately, the Mongol princess Kontchaka died in the camp, and George set abroad the report that she had been poisoned by the conqueror. The Prince of Tver was then persuaded to go in person to the trial of his cause before the tribunal of the Khan, where George was permitted to seize him, and to drag him, laden with irons, to Dediahof. ' Des bo'iars de Michel lui avaient propose de fair ; il refusa, ne voulant pas exposer son peuple a payer pour lui. Georges se donna tant de mouvement, repandit tant d'argent, qu'enfin 1'ordre de mort arriva. Un des pages de Michel entra tout effrayedans la tente qui lui servait de cachot, pour lui dire que Georges et Kavgadi approchaient, suivis d'une multitude de peuple. "Je sais pourquoi," repondit le prince, et il envoya son jeune fils Constantin chez 1'une des femmes clu Khan qui clevait le prendre sous sa sauvegarde. Ses deux ennemis mirent pied a terre pres de la tente, disperserent les bo'iars de Tver et envoyerent leurs sicaires assassiner le prince. On le terrassa, on le foula aux pieds ; comme pour Michel de Tchernigof, ce ne fut pas un Mongol qui le poignarda et lui arracha le coeur, mais un renegat nomme Romanetz. Alors Georges et Kavgadi entrerent et contem- plerent le cadavre completement nu : "Eh quoi !" dit le Tatar au prince de Moscou, " laisserez-vous outrager le corps de celui qui fut votre oncle ? " Un sevviteur de Georges jeta un manteau sur la victime. Michel fut pleure par les Tveriens. Son corps, incorrompu comme celui d'un martyr, fut plus tard depose a la cathedrale de Tver dans une chasse d'argent. II est devenu le bienheureux et le patron de sa cite. Sur les murailles de la cathedrale, des peintures anciennes et modernes rappellent son martyre et fletris-sent le crime du Moscovite.' Rambaud> ' Hist, de la Russie. ' George was eventually killed (1305) by the hand of ' Dmitri of the Terrible Eyes,' son of Michael, who paid with his own life for this vengeance for his father. His brother and successor, Alexander, last sovereign prince, 200 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. falsely accused by Ivan Kalika, of Moscow, was beheaded, with his son Feodor, and Tver soon after fell into complete subservience to Moscow, to which its great bell was sent in token of submission. (From Tver an excursion, by Volga steamer, may be made to Uglitch (125 miles), an ancient town dating from the middle of the tenth century. In its palace, which stands in the principal square, and was built in 1462, the Tsaritsa Marpha Feodorovna (Nagoi), seventh wife and widow of Ivan the Terrible, was forced to live in a sort of honourable exile during the reign of her stepson Feodor Ivanovitch and his successor, and hence she was summoned by the false Demetrius, and compelled to acknowledge him as the son Dmitri whom she had seen cruelly murdered in this same old palace of Uglitch by order of Boris Godunof.) After leaving Tver, the Moscow line passes through A7/, the ancestral residence of the house of Romanoff. The night is spent in repose, not sleep. The constant stop- pages interrupt it, and the cries of ' Tchai, tchai ! ' (tea, tea) (boiling hot in glasses) from the platforms. In the morning you drink some of this, with slices of lemon in it, and pre- pare to enter Moscow ' Our holy Mother Moscow,' as the peasants call it, even apostrophising the road which leads to it as 'our dear mother the road which leads to Moscow.' ' There is no beauty in the approach to Moscow 'the white-walled,' the matouchka, long the centre and embodi- ment of the ancient Russian character. The huge rough station with the rugged dusty plain by way of a square, in front of it, are only characteristic of the whole place, which is twenty-four miles round and nine miles across, which 1 Haxthausen, iii. 151. THE DIVISIONS OF MOSCOW. 201 possesses nine cathedrals, 484 churches, and twenty-two convents ; and yet which has never arrived at being a town, and has always remained a gigantic and ill-conditioned village. The different quarters of Moscow radiate in circles round the Kremlin, and it is a long drive through them from the station in an omnibus. First, we have the vast and shabby Sloboda or suburb, then the Semlainogorod, so called from the circular earthen rampart which encompasses it. Next comes the Biclgorod, or White Town, so called from its white wall, within which the Tartars made the Russian in- habitants reside, when they turned them out of the inner city. Lastly, we reach the Khitaigorod, or Tartar Town, beyond which is the Kremlin. As we jolt over the horrible pavement, through seas of mud or clouds of dust, we see a good specimen of the jumble which makes Moscow wretched hovels next door to stately dwellings, houses of rough timber, brick, or plaster ; innumerable churches, which have all the appearance of mosques, with domes of copper or tin, gilt or painted green the whole forming a conglomeration, than which it is impossible to imagine anything more irregular or uncommon, more extraordinary or contrasted ; some parts having the aspect of a sequestered desert, others of a populous town some of a contemptible village, others of a great capital. 1 But however mean and uncivilised Moscow may at first appear to the eyes of the stranger who enters it, he must remember that in Russian eyes it is beautiful, holy, and noble beyond description ; and, if he keeps his own eyes open, he will soon cease to find fault, and see much to 1 See Coxe's Travels. 202 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. admire in it. Those who mix with the nation will always find that Slavophils contrast the old capital very favourably with the modern S. Petersburg, 1 and the ancient tsars with the modern emperors. The Russian Mouravieff graciously considers Rome to be interesting because it reminds him of Moscow; 'but then it is Moscow without the Kremlin.' 2 Certainly no place, except Rome and Jerusalem, has a hold upon so large a portion of Christendom as Moscow. ' La vraie Russie est a Moscou. La vieille et sainte capitale est restee le coeur et I'ame de. 1'empire. C'est le foyer de la vie nationale, c'est la "mere," conime le Russe 1'appelle, et quand son regard decouvre les coupoles d'or du Kremlin, il se signe, s'agenouille et prie.' Victor Tissot. A wall and gate of Tartar architecture guard the Khitai- gorod, which Voltaire, in his 'Life of Peter the Great,' writes of aj ' la partie appelee ville chinoise, ou les raretes de la Chine s'etalaient.' This division of the town, how- ever, bore its name long before there was any intercourse between Russia and China ; the word Cathay or Khitai, 3 which probably means the Middle Town (between the Kremlin and Bielgorod), having been introduced by the Tartars when they turned out the Russian inhabitants, and made them build outside in the Bielgorod. The impression that this was the ' Chinese Town ' must partly have arisen from the appearance of the surrounding towers, huge at the base, 1 Since the creation of S. Petersburg, Moscow has always evinced a more inde- pendent spirit than the rest of Russia. Catherine II. used to call it her 'haughty little republic.' " Questions Religieuses, p. 270. 3 There is another town in the Ukraine called Khitaigorod, and another of the same name in Podolia, both provinces unknown to the Chinese, and overrun with Tartars. THE KHITAIGOROD. 203 diminishing with each story like those in China, and crowned by octagonal or four-sided spires. The towers, however, were really erected by an Italian architect, under the regency of the Grand-Princess Helena, mother of Ivan the Terrible. Beside the strange gate of the Khitaigorod stands a church with the quaintest pineapple-tower imaginable. Under its shadow we enter a street which contrasts strangely with the deserted thoroughfares outside the walls of the quarter, and into which all the traffic of Moscow seems to be compressed. The centre is filled with droskies with vociferating drivers, and the pavement crowded with foot-passengers, whilst between the two stand the itinerant vendors, who deafen you with their shouts, especially fruit- sellers with piles of pears and little purple and green grapes, fresh from the Crimea, and of marvellous cheapness. In a deafening hubbub you are landed at the Slavonski Bazaar, the huge hotel to which most travellers resort who wish to study Russian life. Groups of servants in short black blouses with belts, jack-boots, and round caps en- circled by peacock's feathers, are always standing round the door. The refreshment-room is enormous, of colossal height, with a great buffet at one end, whither the Russians resort before dinner for the customary zakuska of pickles, sardines, vodki, &c. In the centre of the hall are a fountain and tank full of fish. You sit down at one of the little tables by the tank, and indicate the fish which you wish to eat, and it will forthwith be caught and prepared for you. Sterlet and sturgeon, cooked in different ways, are the chief deli- cacies of a Moscow dinner. The hotel has a bill of fare generally very nasty fare for the day. Almost all the meats are stewed, almost all the vegetables are nearly uncooked ; 204 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. a strong rancid smell of cabbage pervades everything. Strangers will probably find it best, Russian fashion, to pay for every meal, as soon as they have consumed it, with the addition of a few kopecks for the waiter, for the confusion is indescribable. The bills for your rooms, lights, attendance, &c., are brought to you daily ; if they are not paid at once, they should be carefully preserved till you leave the hotel, as a very necessary check upon the charges at the end of your stay. All the principal hotels in Moscow are now very clean, 1 and greatly improved since the beginning of the century, when a traveller wrote : ' They demand three roubles a day for a single room, or kennel, in which an Englishman would blush to keep his dogs. The dirt on the floor may be removed only with an iron hoe, or a shovel. These places are entirely destitute of beds. They consist of bare walls, with two or three old stuffed chairs, ragged, rickety, and full of vermin. The walls themselves are still more disgusting, as the Russians load them with the most abominable filth.' Clarke's ' Travels.' Almost every one whom strangers are likely to fall in with at Moscow is one that the English mind will consider more or less of a thief. The driver of your droski, who is so civil in saluting everyone he meets, and so devout in bowing before every icon or chapel, will usually contrive to steal something, if it be only of the value of a piece of string, that he may not return home quite empty-handed. In this respect matters are not much improved since the traveller Clarke was in Moscow. His companion lost his hat. The servants said that it had been stolen by a young nobleman, but their masters would not believe it. Some days afterwards, 1 Hotel Billo and Hotel Dusaux are probably the best. THE FOUNDATION OF MOSCOW. 205 as Clarke was riding to the New Jerusalem, he was joined by a party of the societe de noblesse on horseback. The hat of one of them was blown off, and when Clarke succeeded in picking it up, he saw the name of his companion and the address of his hatter on the inside. There is a Russian proverb which says, 'Our Saviour would rob also if His hands were not pierced.' In ancient times the plains of the south were far more open than the forests of the north to the manifold attacks of Avares, Khazars, Magyars, Petcheneques, Koumanes, Turks, and Mongols ; thus the Russians were perpetually driven north, the seat of government moving with them. Moscow is said to have been originally founded by Oleg, brother-in-law of Rurik, in 882, but it was refounded and entirely rebuilt by George Vladimirovitz, who married his son Andrei to its heiress, Vlita, daughter of Stephen Ivano- vitz Kutchko, in 1155. The name Moscow first appears in chronicles bearing the date of ii47- 1 Under the successors of Vladimirovitz the city fell into decay, and it was again refounded by Daniel, son of Alexander Nevskoi. The early princes of Moscow were contented to take the humble title of servants of the Tartar Khans, and thus, and thus alone, rose to become powerful monarchs. 2 The original Kremlin was built by Daniel, who received the title of Duke of Moscow. Becoming attached to the place, he continued to reside there after he succeeded his brother Andrew Alexandra vitch as Grand- Duke of Vladimir. But Moscow did not become recognised as the capital of Moscovy (instead of Vladimir) till the reign of Ivan Kalita, 3 Rambaud, Hist, de la Russie. ' See Karamsin. :1 From kalita, the bag full of money which he always carried for his alms to the poor. 2o6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. son of Daniel (Ivan I., 1328-1340), who induced the metro- politan Theognostes to move to Moscow from Vladimir, whither he had been brought from Kieff. Ivan greatly en- larged the town, and in 1367 his son Dmitri Ivanovitch surrounded the Kremlin with a brick wall. This, however, was insufficient to protect it from the Golden Horde under Tamerlane, who captured the town in 1382, after which, through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Moscow re- mained under the rule of the Tartars ; who were only finally expelled by Ivan Vassilievitch, commonly known as Ivan III., or the Great, to whom the city owes its chief splendour. l In spite of Tartar ravages, in spite of the great fire under the French occupation of 1812, 'Nasha drevnaya stolitza' 'our old capital,' as the natives affectionately call it has been changed marvellously little by the lapse of years. The Baron d'Herbestein, ambassador from the Emperor Maxi- milian to the Grand-Duke Vassili, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, has left a description of the town, and especially a description of the Kremlin, which would almost stand for them as they are now. The impress of its long Tartar occupation still remains upon Moscow, on its buildings, on its customs, on the barbaric splendour of its ceremonial. Long after the Eastern rule had ceased, Eastern customs prevailed at its court. A picture at the entrance of the great hall of the Kremlin, representing Joshua taking off his shoes, commemorated that practice which was long observed in the presence of the Tsars. The Terem and its customs continued to recall the harems of the East. The arrangements are still to be seen 1 Some say that the name of the Khitaigorod comes from a nickname of the prince. THE GREAT BAZAAR. 207 which permitted the Tsaritsa to hear mass during the forty days after her confinement in which she was not permitted to enter a church. The very name, of ' Christianin,' as given to a Russian peasant, is a relic of the Tartar occupation, when it was a distinctive feature. The Tartars still always speak of the Emperor of Russia as 'the White Khan.' Truly Asiatic also are still the long narrow passages of the Great Bazaar Gostinnoi Dvor which opens on the left of the main street of the Khitaigorod, the Tartar ' City of Kathay,' as we go towards the Kremlin. Whenever you are too hot elsewhere, you may plunge into its cool inviting shadows, and you are sure to find amusement there. One arcade is full of icons ancient and modern ; another has gold and silver stuffs and brocades ; another has bird shops, where the song of nightingales resounds through the night, and they have a brisk sale, for the birds are great favourites, and sing as well in Moscow houses as in the woods. Some of the fifty-five open galleries are broad and almost silent ; others, narrow and crowded, are busy as a beehive. In the latter, touters are always lying in wait, who will try to lure you, almost to drag you, into the different stalls. Here a pur- chase is very laborious. The customer must begin by offering not more than half what is demanded. The price comes down, but very slowly. At last the purchaser grows wearied, the article is put back upon the shelf, and he goes away. Very soon he is pursued by the tout, with a smiling, ' You shall have it ! ' And the purchaser may be sure that he has made nothing by his bargain. Peter the Great said that it needed three Jews to deceive one Russian ; and to the Jews who asked leave to live in his Empire, he answered, ' Your position in Russia would be too miserable : you have the 208 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. reputation of cheating all the world, but my Russians would be too much for you.' ' II est vray que les Moscovites ne manquent point d'esprit ; mais ils 1'employent si mal, qu'il n'y a pas une de leurs actions, qui ait pour le but la vertu, et la gloire, qui en est inseparable. . . . Leur Industrie et la subtilite de leur esprit paroist principalement en leur traffic, oil il n'y a point de finesse, ny de tromperie dont ils ne se servent, pour fourber les autres, plustost que pour se defendre de 1'estre.' ' Voyage <T Olearius ,"* i. 145. ' Et d'autant que la tromperie ne s'exerce point sans faussete, sans menteries et sans defiances, qui en sont inseparables, il scavent mer- veilleusement bien s'ayder de ces belles qualites, aussi bien que de la calomnie.' Ibid. p. 146. Now we reach the Krasnoi Ploshtshad, the Red Square, a rude rambling space which is girt on one side by the walls of the Kremlin. On this side the square is planted with miserable trees which have just enough life to prevent their dying, laden with dust in summer, buried in snow in winter, and lopped, cropped, and mutilated all the year round. A group of sculpture by the Russian artist Martop represents Minin, the cattle-dealer of Nijni, urging the patriot prince Pojarskoi to free his country, then invaded by the Poles, and giving up his wealth for this heroic enterprise. 1 At the end of the square the coloured nightmare known as the church of the Protection of the Virgin, S. Basil the Beatified (Vassili Blagennoi), 2 the strangest of all Russian * Minin was buried at Nijni, amongst the tombs of its ancient dukes, but tombs and church have been moved from their ancient site. On the subject of the expul- sion of the Poles by Minin and Pojarskoi, see the novel of Zagoskin. called Youri Miloslavski. 2 The first name had its origin in the vision of Andrew Salos at Constantinople in the time of Leo the Great, when he saw the Virgin in the clouds. The Greeks call the festival in honour of this ' the Protection of the Mother of God. '--See ' Travels of Ma.ca.rius,' iii. 315. S. BASIL THE BEATIFIED. 209 churches, displays its 'incoherences of architecture,' as Laveau graphically calls them. This church was founded by Ivan the Terrible (1534-1584) who had sent an embassy for the purpose of engaging German artists, of whom he secured not less than a hundred and fifty for his service. The Germans, however, must have worked from Tartar designs, and have left a purely Tartar building. It is a 5. BASIL THE BEATIFIED. central octagon, surrounded by eight smaller ones, raised on a platform, and with a crypt beneath. The interior is a labyrinth of chapels with immensely thick walls, painted in arabesque. Napoleon ordered ' that mosque ' to be destroyed, but his orders were fortunately forgotten. ' Figurez-vous une agglomeration de petites tourelles inegales, composant ensemble un buisson, un bouquet de fleurs ; figurez-vous plutot une espece de fruit irregulier, tout herisse d'excroissances, un P 2io STUDIES IN RUSSIA. melon cantaloup, a cotes brodees, ou mieux encore une cristallisation cle mille couleurs, dont le poli metallique a des reflets qui brillent cle loin aux rayons du soleil comme le verre de Boheme ou de Venise, comme la faience cle Delft la plus bariolee, comme 1'email de la Chine le mieux verni : ce sont des ecailles des poissons dores, des peaux de serpents etendues sur des tas de pierres informes, des tetes de dragons, des armures de lezards a teintes changeantes, des ornements d'autel, des habits de pretres ; et le tout est surmonte de fleches dont la peinture ressemble a des etoffes de soie mordoree : dans les etroits intervalles de ces campaniles, ornes comme on parerait des personnes, vous voyez reluire des toits peints en couleur gorge de pigeon, en rose, en azur, et toujours bien vernis ; le scintillement de ces tapisseries eblouit 1'ceil et fascine Fimagination. Certes, le pays oil un pareil monument s'appelle un lieu de priere, n'est pas 1'Europe : c'est PInde, la Perse, la Chine.' M. de Cttstine. 1 Some of the stones of the cupolas are cut on the sides, others not ; some are three-sided, some four-sided ; the sides are sometimes smooth ; some are ribbed, or fluted ; some of the flutes are perpendicular, and some wind in spiral ribs round the cupola. To render the kaleidoscope appearance yet more perfect, every rib and every side is painted of a different colour. Those neither cut in sides nor ribbed are scaled with little smooth, glazed, and painted bricks ; and, when these scales are closely examined, they even are seen to differ from one another ; some are oval, others cut like leaves. The greater part of the cupola-crowned towers have a round body, but not all ; there are six-sided and eight- sided towers. In short, when from one of the upper galleries we look down on all the jagged and pointed confusion, we are inclined to believe we are gazing on a field of giant thistles, some half and some fully blown, that have sprung from antediluvian seed, and been changed to stone by the stroke of an enchanter.' Kohl. Ivan the Terrible is said to have watched the creation of this extraordinary building, seated under the strange pagoda-like canopy which is still to be seen upon the Kremlin wall. The church commemorated the taking of Kazan, which is to the Russians what the taking of Granada is to the Spaniards. ' This church, half Oriental, half Gothic, is a glorious monument of victory, and a sort of image of the conquered city of Kazan which had S. BASIL THE BEATIFIED. 211 come under the shadow of the antique sanctuary of Moscow.' Mouravieff, ch. v. The idiot ' S. Basil of Moscow,' who had been buried in an earlier wooden church on the site in 1552, was removed to the place of honour in the midst of the intricate labyrinth of passages and chapels which make up the interior, where he reposes, with his iron chains and collar above his grave ; and another idiot, Ivan, called the Big Cap, from the iron helmet which he wore as penance, was laid here by Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible, in 1589. Both the holy idiots were probably of the type described by Dr. Giles Fletcher in 1588: ' There are certain eremites who use to go stark naked, save a clout about their middle, with their hair hanging long and wildly about their shoulders, and many of them with an iron collar or chain about their necks and middles even in the very extremity of winter. These they take as prophets and men of great holiness, giving them a liberty to speak what they list without any controlment, though it be of the very highest himself. 1 So that if he reprove any openly, in what sort soever, they answer nothing, but that it is Po Grecum^ " for their sins" And if any of them take some piece of sale ware from any man's shop as he passeth by, to give where he list, he thinketh himself much beloved of God, and much beholden to the holy man for taking it in that sort. The people liketh very well of them, because they are as pasquils (pasquins) to note their great men's faults, that no man else dare speak of. Yet it falleth out sometimes that for this rude liberty which they take upon them, after a counterfeit manner by imitation of prophets, they are made away in secret ; as was one or two of them in the late Emperor's time for being over bold in speaking against the government. ... Of this kind there are not many, because it is a very hard and cold profession to go naked in Russia, especially in winter.' The idiot Basil himself is mentioned by Fletcher. 1 Peter the Great, who took a common-sense view of these ' eremites,' ordained that, at their consecration, all Russian bishops should swear to give up to the civil authorities all 'impostors who go about as possessed, with bare feet and in their shirts, that they may drive out the evil spirits from them with the knout. 1 P 2 212 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' One there was whom they called Basil, that would take upon him to reprove the old Emperor for all his cruelty and oppression done towards the people. His body they have translated into a sumptuous church near the Emperor's house in Moscow, and have canonised him for a saint.' Many cures are declared by the Russian Church to have been performed at the grave of Basil. It was to this grave, however, that, refusing to listen to the doctors, the Tsar Boris Godunof carried his dying son in the bitter winter of 1588, and the child died. 1 In front of S. Basil is the Lobnoe Mihto? a circular stone tribune, whence the ancient Tsars proclaimed their edicts. Here, during his temporary reformation, in 1547, Ivan the Terrible bewailed his misrule and promised amendment, and from hence the patriarch Nikon gave his blessing to Alexis. It was here that, at Easter, after the reading of the Gospel, the patriarch used to mount the ass, which the Tsar himself led by the bridle to the cathedral of the Rest of the Virgin. This was the famous * place of executions,' which has witnessed so many terrible scenes. Here, where he had made (1547) his touching public confession of the sins of his youth, after his conversion by the hermit Sylvester, Ivan the Terrible, after the death of his first wife Anastasia (1565), began that series of executions which have rendered his name so infamous. ' The first victim was the celebrated voievode, Prince Alexander Gorbati-Schou'iski, descendant of S. Vladimir, of Vsevolod the Great, and of the ancient princes of Souzdal. That profound thinker and able soldier, animated alike in the cause of religion and his country, who 1 See Karamsin, x. 2 Public place, literally Place of the Skull, Golgotha, from the executions. EXECUTIONS UNDER IVAN IV. 213 had powerfully contributed to the subjugation of the kingdom of Kazan, was condemned to death, with his son Peter, a young man of seven- teen. They both approached the place of execution with calm dignity, without fear, and holding each other by the hand. In order not to witness his father's death, Peter was the first to present his head to the sword ; but his father made him stand aside, saying with emotion, " No, my son ; do not let me see you die ! " The young man gave up his place to him, and the head of the Prince was immediately severed from his body ; his son took it in his hands, covered it with kisses, and then, with perfect serenity, gave himself up to the hands of the executioner. The brother-in-law of Gorbati, Prince Khovrin, of Greek origin, the chief officer Golovin, the Prince Soukhoi-Kachin, the chief cupbearer, and Peter Gorenski, were beheaded the same day. The Prince Scheviref was impaled ; it is said that this unfortunate man lived through a whole day of horrible suffering, but that, sustained by religion, he continued to sing the praises of Jesus,' &c. But it was not till five years later (1570) that the cruelties of Ivan the Terrible seemed to attain their climax. ' On July 25 eighteen gibbets were erected in the great market- place of the Khitaigorod ; the instruments of torture were displayed, and an immense bonfire was lighted, above which a huge cauldron filled with water was suspended. On seeing these terrific preparations the people of Moscow were convinced that their last hour was come, and that the Tsar was determined at once to make an end of his capital and its inhabitants. Beside themselves with terror, they fled and hid themselves wherever they could, abandoning in their open shops both their merchandise and their money. Soon the place was deserted, and nothing was seen but a troop of Opritchniks l ranged round the gibbets and the burning pile, in profound silence. Suddenly the air resounded with the roll of drums ; the Tsar appeared on horseback with his eldest son, the object of his affection. He was accompanied by the boyars, the princes, and by his guard, marching in order, followed by the con- demned, to the number of more than three hundred, like spectres in ap- pearance, wounded, torn, bleeding, scarce able to drag themselves along. Arrived at the foot of the gibbets, Ivan looked around him ; and being astonished to see no spectators, he ordered his guard to assemble the 1 Ivan'sguard of 1,000: satellites, gentlemen and boyars of Moscow. Literally trans- lated, the word appropriately means ' familiars,' as of a fiend. 214 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. inhabitants and bring them to the square. Impatient at their delay, he ran himself to summon them, calling the Moscovites to witness the spectacle he had prepared for them, and promising them pardon and safety. The citizens did not dare to disobey ; they came out of the cellars, of the hiding-places where they were concealed, and, trembling with fright, hastened to the place of execution, which they filled in a few moments; even the walls and roofs were covered with spectators. Then, with a loud voice, the Tsar said to them : " People of Moscow, you are going to witness tortures and executions ; but I am punishing traitors. Answer me ! does my judgment seem to you just ? " At these words loud acclamations were raised on all sides : " Long live the Tsar, our lord and master, and may his enemies perish ! " Ivan then ordered eighty persons to be drawn out of the crowd, to whom, as the least guilty, he granted their lives. The secretary of the privy council, unfolding a roll of parchment, then published the names of the victims. After this he made Viskovaty advance, and read his condemnation aloud. . . . The executioners threw themselves upon him, gagged him, hung him up by his feet, and hacked him to pieces. Maluta-Skouratof, de- scending from his horse, was the first to cut an ear from the sufferer. ' The second victim was the treasurer Founikof, the friend of Viskovaty, also accused, upon very slight foundation, of treason. They poured boiling and iced water alternately upon the body of this wretched man, who died in terrific agonies. The rest had their throats cut, were hung, or hewn to bi'ts. The Tsar himself, on horse- back, with a tranquil air, ran an old man through with his lance : in the space of four hours more than two hundred men were put to death ! Finally, their horrible duties accomplished, the murderers, bathed in blood, brandishing their smoking swords, gathered in front of the Tsar, with the cry of joy : " Hoi'da ! hoi'da ! " ' lauding his justice. Ivan, going through the square, examined the heap of corpses ; but, though surfeited of murders, he was not yet surfeited of the despair of his subjects. He desired to see the unhappy wives of Founikof and of Viskovaty ; he went to their houses, laughed at their tears, and put the first to the torture, demanding her treasures. He wanted also to put her daughter, aged fifteen, to the torture, but upon her cries of despair, he changed his mind, and gave her to his son, the Tsarevitch Ivan. She was eventually shut up with her mother and the wife of Viskovaty in a convent, where -they all three died of grief. ' The inhabitants of Moscow who witnessed this terrible day did not see either Prince Viazemski or Alexis Basmanof amongst the 1 A cry of the Tartars, by which they excite their horses. EXECUTIONS UNDER PETER I. 215 victims. The first had died under the torture ; and as to the end of the second, in spite of the atrocities we have described, it may seem incredible, but contemporaries state that Ivan forced young Feodor Basmanof to kill his father. (He had also caused, at this time of before, the Prince Basil Prayravsky to be assassinated by his brother Nicetas !) However, this unnatural son did not save his life by a parri- cide ; he was executed with the rest. Their goods were confiscated to the treasury. ' The tyrant rested for three days, for it was absolutely necessary 'to bury the corpses, but, on the fourth, he brought out upon the square new victims whom he put to death. Maluta-Skouratof, chief of the executioners, hewed the bodies of those who were executed in pieces with an axe, and the bleeding fragments, deprived of burial, remained for eight days exposed to the greediness of the dogs, who fought over them. The wives of the gentlemen executed, to the number of eighty, were drowned in the river.' Karamsin^ ix. The Krasnoe Ploshtshad witnessed another terrible series of executions in the early years of Peter the Great, after the rebellion of the Streltsi had been excited by the Tsarevna Sophia, who had been already some years in the Novo- Devichi Monastery. ' Les longues barbes avaient ete 1'insigne de la revolte ; elles torn- baient partout. Pierre ordonna a tous les gentilshommes d'avoir a se raser, et lui-meme rasa de sa propre main les grands seigneurs. Le meme jour, la Place Rouge se couvrit de potences ; le patriarche Adrien essaya vainement de conjurer la colere du tsar en se presentant devant lui avec 1'image miraculeuse de la mere de Dieu. " Pourquoi as-tu deplace cette sainte icone?" lui cria le tsar. " Retire-toi et la reporte a sa place. Sache que je n'ai pas moins de veneration que toi-meme pour Dieu et sa mere, mais sache aussi que mon devoir est de proteger le peuple et de punir les rebelles." Le 30 septembre (ancien style) on vit arriver a la Place Rouge un premier convoi de deux-cent-un prisonniers, traines dans des charrettes, des cierges allumes dans les mains, presque tous deja brises par la torture, suivis de leurs femmes et de leurs enfants, qui couraient derriere les voitures en leur chantant les complaintes des funerailles. Ils furent pendus apres la lecture de leur sentence ; le tsar ordonna a plusieurs officiers d'aider le bourreau. Jean-Georges 216 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Korb, agent autrichien, qui nous a laisse, comme temoin oculaire,' un recit authentique des executions, entendit raconter que "cinq tetes de rebelles venaient deja d'etre abattues a coups de hache par la plus noble main de la Russie." Le terrible charpentier de Saardam tra- vailla et obligea ses bo'iars a travailler a cette horrible besogne. Sept autres journees furent consacrees aux supplices ; un millier de victimes perirent. Quelques-unes furent devouees a la roue et a d'autres sup- plices raffines. On defend it d'enlever les corps des executes, et pendant cinq mois Moscou cut le spectacle de cadavres pendus a tous les creneaux du Kremlin et les autres remparts de la ville, ou exposes sur les places ; pendant cinq mois d'hiver, des Streltsi accroches aux barreaux de. la prison de Sophie lui presentment la supplique par laquelle ils 1'avaient exhortee a regner. Deux de ses confidentes avaient ete enterrees vives ; elle-meme, ainsi que la femme de Pierre, Eudoxie Lapoukhine, 1'epouse repudiee pour son attachement obstine aux anciennes coutumes, eurent la tete rasee et furent enfermees dans des monasteres.' Rambaud, 1 Hist, de la It is said that the relations of the victims of Peter ' the Great,' after the rebellion of the Streltsi, only obtained per- mission to remove their heads from the battlements, where they were exhibited, when the spaces were required for the heads of the unfortunate adherents of the Tsarevitch Alexis. Opposite S. Basil rises the magnificent Spaskoi Vorota, the Gate of the Redeemer, built by the Milanese architect, Pietro Solario. in 1491. It is painted red with green spires. Till recently it was entered by a long narrow bridge over a fosse, which is now filled up. 1 Here is the famous picture of ' the Redeemer of Smolensk ; ' the Palladium of the Russian Empire. It is calculated that 10,880 persons visit it every twelve hours. The picture has been famous for the efficiency with which it has always defended itself against foreign invaders. The Tartars thought its frame was of gold and wanted to remove it, but every ladder they 1 See Heber's Journal. THE HOLY GATE. 217 raised for the purpose broke in the middle. The French brought a cannon to batter it down, but an angel always wetted their powder ; and when, driven to desperation, they made a fire of coals over the touch-hole, it exploded the THE GATE OF THE REDEEMER (INTERIOR). wrong way. The picture has imparted its sanctity to the Porta Sacra beneath. Woe be to any man who attempts to go through it without baring his head ! He is speedily reminded of his negligence by the loud cries of ' Shlapa, shlapa, batiushka, ' The hat, the hat, little father.' Formerly 218 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. fifty compulsory prostrations were extorted from everyone who passed the gate without uncovering. 1 ' I wished to see if the absurd rule was rigorously enforced, and, feigning ignorance, entered beneath the arch with my hat on. A sentinel challenged me ; but, without taking notice of him, I walked forward. Next a bare-headed peasant met me, and, seeing my head covered, summoned the sentinels and people with -very loud expressions of anger ; who, seizing me by the arms, very soon taught me in what manner to pass the Holy Gate for the future.' Clarke's ' Travels.' The uncovering at the gate dates from 1613, the time of the deliverance of Russia from the Poles, for the picture of the Redeemer is that which was carried before the victorious army of Prince Pojarskoi, when he went forth against the invaders at the bidding of the monk Dionysius of the Troitsa. Pojarskoi made his triumphant entry after- wards by this gate. Once every Russian city had its Porta Santa. The girdle of strange towers which encircles the Kremlin dates from the time of Ivan III. (the Great) when they were begun by the Italian Antonio Aleviso (1485), the fortifica- tions which had been constructed under Dmitri Donskoi having fallen into ruin to such a degree that the town was at that time almost without fortifications. ' Persuadez-vous bien que la citadelle de Moscou n'est nullement ce qu'on dit qu'elle est. Ce n'est pas un palais, ce n'est pas un sanctuaire national oil se conservent les tresors historiques de 1'empire ; ce n'est pas le boulevard de la Russie, Pasile revere oil dorment les saints pro- tecteurs de la patrie : c'est moins et c'est plus que tout cela ; c'est tout simplement la prison des spectres. ' Heritage des temps fabuleux, oil le mensonge etait roi sans con- 1 It is thought by some that the uncovering and crossing at the Holy Gate w suggested by some such text as ' Thou shall call thy walls salvation, and thy gat praise ' (Isaiah Ix. 18). TERRACE OF THE KREMLIN. 219 trole : geole, palais, sanctuaire, boulevard centre 1'etranger, bastille centre la nation, appui des tyrans, cachot des peuples : voila le Kremlin ! ' Espece d'Acropolis du Nord, de Pantheon barbare, ce sanctuaire national pourrait s'appeler 1' Alcazar des Slaves.' M. de Custine. We now enter upon the vast open space in the interior of the Kremlin. Ill-kept, weed-grown, dust-laden, it teems with glorious historic memories. It was here that Dmitri Donskoi hoisted his black flag against Mamai the Tartar, after his ride with his prophetic relation Dmitri cf Volhynia, who, descending from his horse and lying upon the earth, had told him how from the depths of the earth came voices promising victory, but with great weeping and wailing over the slaughter which would take place. Here also Ivan the Great trod under foot the image of the Khan, to which the Tsars had previously done homage. The view from the terrace of the Kremlin has a reminis- cence faint, washed out, and colourless, but still a palpable reminiscence of the view of Rome from the Pincio. The materials are the same ; the low distant Sparrow Hills take the place of the Janiculan, the new cathedral with its great dome represents S. Peter's, the Moskva answers to the Tiber, and the plain is filled with the same brown roofs and houses, broken ever and an6n by the domes of the churches, here, however, sparkling from their metal casing, as if they were in polished armour. 'The new Rome which is Moscow.' 'Travels of Mac an us J i. 355- ' Voila Rome tatare ! ' was the exclamation of Madame de Stae'l, as she looked upon this view, with its marvellous conglomeration of domes and spires like melons, pumpkins, 220 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. pineapples, pears, strawberries ; ornamented with spirals, circles, zigzags, and spots ; hung with veils of chains, crescents, discs, and stars. Pious individuals frequently bequeath legacies towards the perpetual regilding or re- painting of a .particular dome in Moscow. Strangers will be struck, all over Russia, but especially here, by the way in which the crosses on the churches are VIEW FROM THE KREMLIN. represented as rising from crescents. The Tartars, who were masters of Russia for two hundred years, had changed the churches into mosques and fixed the crescent upon them. When the Grand-Duke Ivan Vassilivitch drove out the Tartars, and restored the churches, he left the crescents, but planted the cross upon them in sign of victory, and Russia has since continued the practice. THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW. 221 The second cross-bar which is almost universally seen placed crooked on the lower part of the cross is because the Russians believe our Saviour to have been deformed to have had one leg shorter than the other. He wished to drink to the utmost the degradation of humanity. * He hath no form or comeliness. . . . We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. ... It pleased the Lord to bruise him : he hath put him to grief.' Paying due respect to the icons, strangers may wander about these sacred courts at their will, but endless difficulties attend them if they want to draw. Populace and officials are alike suspicious of such a strange proceeding, and even when armed with orders of permission from the Governor of Moscow and the head of the police, the artist is sure to be arrested and carried off twice a day to the police-station. None of the police can read, and every fresh man on the beat thinks it necessary to take him up. When his order has been examined, he is treated civilly, and released ; but the waste of time and chronic trial of temper are most wearisome. The name Kremlin comes from a Tartar word meaning fortress. Every Russian city formerly had a Kremlin, which answered to an Alcazar in Spain, but here it had a greater significance. What the Acropolis is to Athens, and the Capitol to Rome, that the Kremlin is to Moscow. It is a city in itself, and not only the centre, but the source of the capital. Yet, like everything else in Moscow, it is here a strange jumble of magnificence and ruin. The vast sandy space of the interior, covered with rough grass and weeds, and girded on one side by the terrace with the view, is ' fringed on the other by a succession of buildings eminently 222 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. historic, yet so covered with paint, stucco, or whitewash, as to possess little that is striking externally except their golden domes. Grouped around the great Tower of Ivan Veliki are the three old cathedrals, that of the Rest of the Virgin, called by Englishmen the Assumption, in which the Tsars were crowned ; that of the Annunciation, in which they were baptised and married ; and that of the S. Michael, in which they lie buried. Then, behind the cathedrals, rises the vast red mass of the palace. * II y a de tout au Kremlin : c'est un paysage de pierres.' M. de Ciistine. At the foot of the great tower stands Tsar Kolokol, the Emperor of Bells, a second recast of 1733 from the material of a bell dating from the reign of Boris Godunof. He thought he could atone for the crimes through which he waded to the Russian throne, by giving Moscow a bell 288,000 Ibs. in weight. But, as it seemed to be the fashion to measure the piety of sovereigns by the weight of bells, the Empress Anne had the bell of Godunof recast, and added nearly 2,000 Ibs. to it. Peasants now visit the bell on festa days as they would a church, as an act of devotion. The story of the bell having been broken by a fall is only a fable repeated from one writer to another. It remains where it was cast, and was never hung. A fire in the Kremlin in 1737 caught the temporary shed from which it had not yet been moved, and the water thrown upon the burning building caused the fracture of the heated metal. The Cathedral of the Assumption or ' Rest of the Virgin ' Uspenski Sobor l was built 1473-79, and has been little 1 The word in the Russian signifies 'rest, 'or 'falling asleep,' and is a literal translation of the word always used in the Greek, CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 223 altered since. Its architect Aristotele Fioraventi, of Bologna, had already become known through his services to Cosimo de' Medici, Francis I., Gian Galeazzo of Milan, and Pope Sixtus IV. Tolbusine, ambassador of Ivan the Great, meeting him at Venice, had engaged him for the service of the Tsar. 1 The church has no sign whatever of Italian architecture, though built by an Italian architect, for he went to Vladimir to study the ancient Cathedral of the Coronations in that city, and strove to reproduce it as much as possible in Moscow. The interior blazes with gold and colour, and is filled with historic monuments- of indescribable interest. It is scarcely larger than a chapel in an English cathedral, yet so intensely full is it that its size is quite forgotten in the im- portance of its contents. In the nave of this Russian Rheims, all the Tsars from Ivan the Terrible to the present day have been crowned. It is greatly to be regretted that the gorgeous regildings for the coronation of Alexander III. have done much to mar the effect and destroy the antiquated appearance of the interior. Nevertheless, in this cathedral, may still be seen the nearest likeness of that worship which the envoys of Vladimir saw at Constantinople, and which made- them feel that 'there in truth God had his dwelling with men.' 2 Here also, for more than four centuries, the ancient Byzantine rites have been followed in all their splendour, except during the interval of the Polish invasion (1605), when Latin services were, for a short time, chanted here, and 1 Archbishop Plato says that Aristotle of Bologna understood how to cast bells and cannon and to coin money, as well as the work of an architect, but yet received only ten roubles (about 7 1.) a month as salary. " Mouravieff. 224 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the abhorred music of the organ sounded through the arcades. ' On a peine a croire que 1'Assomption soit de la meme epoque et des memes artistes que les lumineuses eglises de la Renaissance. L'archi- tecte ou ceux qui 1'ont inspire out cherche a reproduire ici la myste- rieuse obscurite des vieux temples d'Egypte et d'Orient. Cette cathedrale n'a pas de fenetres, mais plutot des meurtrieres, d'etroites fentes grillees qui ne laissent tomber dans 1'interieur qu'un jour douteux, comme celui qui filtre par le soupirail d'un cachot. Cette pale lumiere vient effleurer alors les massifs piliers couverts d'un or bruni, sur le sombre eclat du- quel se detachent, severes et graves, des figures de saints etdedocteurs ; elle accroche ca et la les saillies de Viconostase d'or, couverte d'images tniraculeuses, parsemee de diamants et de pierreries. Toute la partie superieure du temple est en quelque sorte enveloppee d'ombres comme les hypogees pharaoniques ; on ne distingue que vaguement les pein- tures qui decorent la voute ; 1'artiste evidemment les a faites pour Pceil de Dieu, non pour celui de Phomme ; car 1'oeil de 1'homme ne peut guere les contempler que dans les rares occasions, comme au jour de 1'Assomption oule jour de couronnement, lorsque 1'eglise s'illumine tout entiere et se laisse penetrer jusque dans ses derniers recoins par la lumiere des cierges innombrables. ' Rambatcd, ' Hist, de la Russie." Like all Russian churches, the cathedral has three parts : the first called by the Greeks -rrpoVaos and by the Russians trapeza ; secondly, the body ; thirdly, the shrine. All the walls are covered with frescoes, possessing nothing of beauty in detail, yet infinitely beautiful in their general effect. Smaller figures are seen in the spaces below, huge faces with staring eyes above. These pictures are the favourite religious instructors of the people, who may con- stantly be seen explaining them to each other. The earlier paintings date from the reign of Simeon the Proud, when they were executed by Greek artists for the Metropolitan Theognostos. The whole of the western wall is occupied by a vast fresco of the Last Judgment, in which Paradise, CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 225 divided into many compartments, keeps before the minds of those who look upon it a tenet which has dropped out of the existing religion ' In my Father's house are many mansions/ This picture is also of historic value as com- memorating the representation which led to the first step in the conversion of Vladimir, the first Christian Russian prince. ' A certain Greek philosopher, a monk named Constantine, after having exposed the insufficiency of other religions, eloquently set before the Prince those judgments of God which are in all the world, the re- demption of the human race by the blood of Christ, and the retribution of the life to come. His discourse powerfully affected the heathen monarch, who was burdened with the heavy sins of a tumultuous youth ; and this was especially the case when the monk pointed out to him, on an icon which represented the Last Judgment, the different fate of the righteous and wicked. " Good to those on the right hand, but woe to those on the left," exclaimed Vladimir, greatly moved, though his sensual nature still struggled against the heavenly truth.' Mouravieff. The five domes, here said to typify the Metropolitan and his deacons, are supported by huge pillars covered with figures of the Russian saints in venerable fresco, executed by Giovanni Spissatelli for Vassili Ivanovitch in 1514. ' Here the veneration for pictorial representations has reached a pitch which gives an aspect to the whole building as unlike any European church ,as the widest differences of European churches can separate each from each. From top to bottom, from side to side, walls and roof and screen and columns are a mass of gilded pictures ; not one of any artistic value ; not one put in for the sake of show or effect, but all cast in the same ancient mould, or overcast in the same vene- rable hue ; and each one, from the smallest figure in the smallest compartment, to the gigantic faces which look down with their large open eyes from the arched vaults above, performing its own part, and bearing a relation to the whole. Only one other style of sacred archi- tecture is recalled by this strange sight. It is as if four columns (for there are but four in an Orthodox Eastern church) had been transplanted Q 226 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. from the mighty forest of pillars in the great temple of Egyptian Thebes. High and massive as those pillars do these four columns rise up, and round and round they are painted, with ever-recurring pairs, as those of Egyptian gods, so here of Christian saints. And as the walls there are clothed from head to foot with battle-pieces or sacred processions, so here with apostles, prophets, patriarchs, parables, history, legends, &c. The seven Councils of the Church follow in exact and uniform order, closing on the western wall with the representation of the Last Judgment. In one sense, the resemblance to Egypt is purely accidental ; but in another sense it is almost inevitable. Egypt and Russia are the only two great nations in which pictures or pictorial emblems have entered so deeply into the national life and religious instruction of the people. Hieroglyphics and pictures con- stituted more than half the learning of those grown-up children of the ancient world ; they still constitute more than half the education of these grown-up children of the modern world. And when we remember that some of these pictures have, besides their interest as the emblems of truth to a barbarian and childlike people, acquired the historical association involved in the part they have taken in the great national events, it is not surprising that the combinations of religious and patriotic feelings in Russia should have raised their veneration to a pitch to us almost inconceivable.' Stanley ; ' The Eastern Church.'' Many bodies of the saints lie around, those of greatest importance occupying the corners of the edifice, here, as in all Oriental buildings, the place of honour. High in the central of the five domes is the little chapel of the Praise of the Mother of God, where the Russian patriarchs were elected ' near the grace-communicating tombs of the great wonder-workers,' as was stated in their proclamation. On the left of the iconastos, in a narrow chapel, is the tomb of S. Peter, the first Metropolitan, and the founder of the church ; and hard by hangs a picture of the Repose of the Virgin, which he is said to have painted. ' The Metropolitan S. Peter foresaw the future glory of Moscow while it was as yet poor, and persuaded Ivan to lay in it the foundation of the stone Cathedral of the Assumption. " If thou wilt comfort my CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 227 old age," said he, "if thou wilt build here a temple worthy of the Mother of God, then thou shalt be more glorious than all the other princes, and thy posterity shall become great. My bones shall remain in this city, prelates shall rejoice to dwell in it, and the hands of its princes shall be upon the necks of our enemies ! " ' Thus, in the words of the ancient patriarch Jacob, the man of many labours, who in the hour of death foretold the lion strength of the tribe of Judah, S. Peter, also a man of many labours, when about to depart in peace from his pilgrimage, spoke in the spirit of prescience to Ivan ; and his word of commandment was obeyed, his prophecy was fulfilled. In that same temple, in the wall of which he prepared for himself beforehand a tomb, in the view of his uncorrupted remains, and as it were before the face and presence of the prelate himself, are crowned the successors of Ivan, now no longer princes of Moscow only, or Vladimir, but rulers over the ninth part of the globe, which scarcely finds room upon its surface for one such empire as Russia.' Monra- vieff. Close by, nearer the altar of the same chapel, is the tomb of S. Theognostos, who succeeded S. Peter as Metro- politan in 1326, and died of the black plague in 1353. In the corner of the cathedral opposite this chapel is the tomb of S. Jonah, who succeeded to the Metropolitan throne at the time when Dmitri Shemiaka had seized the temporal throne, having put out the eyes of Basil, its lawful possessor. Afterwards when that prince wished to abandon the capital, besieged by the Tartars, Jonah swore to save the Kremlin, or that he would be buried beneath its ruins with the people. 1 On account of the fall of the Greek empire, he was the first Metropolitan appointed by a council of Russian bishops, and he was also the last bishop of Moscow who bore the title of Metropolitan of Kieff. 2 ' He continued for seven years to show forth an example of all the virtues of a good pastor on the episcopal throne ; he consoled the capital under its sufferings from conflagrations and from a dreadful 1 Karamsin, v. 2 See Mouravieff. Q 2 228 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. invasion of the Tartars, who all but got possession of the Kremlin ; and ever during his life he was glorified from above by the gifts of prophecy and healing ; having, like S. Peter, foretold the deliverance of Russia from the yoke of the infidels, and its future glory.' Mouravieff. It is said that when Napoleon was in Moscow, he opened the coffin of Jonah to see if he was ' uncorrupt,' but the saint shook his finger, and the emperor started back in terror. In the corresponding corner of the western wall is the tomb of Cyprian, Metropolitan at the time of the invasion of Tamerlane (1395). ' Cyprian died at a great age. Some days before his death, in 1406, he addressed to Vassili (the Grand Prince), to all the Russian princes, to the boyars, clergy, and laymen, a letter, in which he gave them his blessing, and asked them, as a Christian, for forgiveness of all his offences. When the letter was read to the people in the Church of the Assumption by Gregory, Archbishop of Rostof, sighs and sobs resounded on all sides ; and from this time, when their death is at hand, all Metropolitans of Moscow have composed similar letters of farewell, desiring that they may be read after their burial. ' Karanisin. By the side of Cyprian lies his successor Photius, in whose time Vladimir was destroyed by the Tartars. Close by, a most picturesque shrine covers a relic supposed to be the seamless coat of our Saviour,~"which is claimed by Moscow as well as by Treves. ' Philaret received from the Shah Abbas of Persia, then famous in the East, the Seamless Coat of our Saviour, which, according to an ancient tradition, was brought into Georgia by one of the soldiers who parted his garments at the foot of the Cross, and was preserved for many ages in the cathedral of Mtschet. Abbas could not have selected a better guardian for such a holy relic ; and the Tunic of our Lord, which was distinguished by the working of numerous cures in the CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 229 Russian Capital, was placed by the patriarch in the cathedral of the Rest of the Virgin, under the shade of a brazen tabernacle, near which he himself is laid down to his everlasting rest. ' Monravieff. Adjoining this, on one side is the tomb of the Patriarch Hermogenes, who ruled in the troublous times of the Pretenders and of the Polish invasion. On the other side (in front of Cyprian and Photius) is the tomb of his suc- cessor, the Patriarch Philaret, who was the founder of the House of Romanoff, which was so called from his grand- father, Roman. Philaret's secular name was Feodor, and he was descended from Andrew, a Prussian prince, who came to Russia in the middle of the fourteenth century. He was the son of Nikita Romanovitch, and his aunt had been the .beloved Tsaritsa Anastasia, first wife of Ivan IV. (the Terrible). The jealousy of Boris Godunof had forced him to become a priest, when he had changed his name to Philaret. But, upon the accession of Demetrius, he was released from the monastery in which he had been confined, and made archbishop of Rostof. When, upon the deposition of Vassili Shuiski, it was decided to elect Ladislaus, son of Sigismund III. of Poland, as Tsar, Philaret was sent as ambassador for the purpose, but finding the king engaged in the siege of Smolensk, he rebuked him for dismembering a country which was likely to belong to his son. Sigismund, in his anger, imprisoned him in the castle of Marienburg, where he was detained for nine years, but meantime the veneration for him in Russia became such as to lead to the elevation of his son Michael, aged only seventeen, to the throne. In 1619, Philaret was released, and, on reaching Moscow, was consecrated patriarch. From that time he became the real sovereign of the country, guiding his son, 250 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. with whom he was associated in everything, till his death in 1633. The remaining corner, on the right of the iconastos, is occupied by the tomb of the Metropolitan S. Philip (1565- 1568), the one martyr of the Russian Church. * Alone of the primates of Russia, Philip came into collision with the power of the Tsar, and that was expressly and distinctly with the personal cruelties, not with the secular authority, of Ivan the Terrible. " As the image of the Divinity, I reverence thee ; as a man, thou art but dust and ashes." It is a true glory to the Russian Church, and an example to the hierarchy of all Churches, that its one martyred prelate should have suffered, not for any high ecclesiastical pretensions, but in the simple cause of justice and mercy. " Silence," he said, as he re- buked the Tsar, " lays sin upon the soul and brings death to the whole people. ... I am a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, as all my fathers were, and I am ready to suffer for the truth. Where would my faith be if I kept silence ? . . . Here we are offering up the bloodless sacrifice to the Lord, while behind the altar flows the innocent blood of Christian men." As he was dragged away from the cathedral, his one word was " Pray."' Stanleys 'Eastern ChurchS ' Ivan sent his worthy assistant, Maliouta Skouratoff, as if for Philip's blessing, to the Otroch monastery at Tver. But S. Philip quietly said to him, " Execute thy mission," and was strangled in his cell, suffering for the truth like another John the Baptist. ' The Church of Russia has been distinguished by many great prelates, but among them all there is only this one martyr, and his glory is incorruptible, even as are his holy relics themselves. The living words which he spoke have kept, as it were, life and power even in his dead body, and this im- movable pillar which supports the Church crumbles not away. On four such pillars the Church of Moscow and of all Russia rests : Peter, Alexis, Jonah, Philip. Who can shake so firm a foundation ? The relics of the holy martyr lie in the cathedral ; in vain the Solovetsky monastery desired to have them in the days of the mild Feodor, that he, who had aforetime chosen the rocky cave of the ocean to be his lone retreat, might rest within hearing of its hoary waves. It was 1 According to Archbishop Plato, the followers of Skouratoff smothered the Metro- politan with pillows. The date of martyrdom coincides with the early years of the reign of Elizabeth in England. CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 231 right that the good shepherd, who had laid down his life for the sheep, should repose on the spot where he had laboured and suffered.' In the service for ' Orthodox Sunday,' so striking here, where those mentioned are lying around, the Russian Church offers ' to the most holy Russian patriarchs, John, Hermogenes, Philaret, Joasaph, Joseph, Nicon, Joasaph, Peterimus, Joachim, Adrian, ever- lasting remembrance.' In front of the choir stand three thrones, for the Tsar, the Patriarch, and the Tsaritsa. That for the Tsar, called the throne of Vladimir Monomachus, is very curious. The Tsars did not sit down, but stood in their thrones during service, as in a pulpit. The throne of the Patriarch being equal to that of the Tsar, indicated his supposed equality in ecclesiastical power, though he had very little power in- dependent of the sovereign. Yet two of the patriarchs (Philaret and Nikon), like the Tsar, were called the ' Great Lord ' (veliki gosudar). There were eleven Russian patri- archs, of whom the greatest was Nikon. . ' External changes affected very slightly the character and bearing of those who filled the see. An almost uniform spirit breathes through them all. They were mostly blameless and venerable men ; some had not unimportant parts to play in the leading events of Russian history. The personal veneration shown to them probably exceeded the respect attaching to ecclesiastics of the West.' Stanley's 'Eastern ChurcJiS The last patriarch, who died in 1700, was Adrian, to whom Peter the Great refused to appoint a successor. Stephen Yavorsky, archbishop of Novogorod, chief of the conservative clergy, who aspired himself to become patriarch, 232 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. urged Peter to remove or fill the throne in the cathedral. He replied, ' This chair is not for Stephen to sit in, nor for Peter to break.' 1 The throne remains, but the dignity of patriarch was formally abolished in 1721, the archbishops of Moscow having since been only metropolitans, as they were before 1587, when the patriarchate was established by Feodor. The edict which Peter published when suppressing the patriarchate sets forth as his reasons that ' The common people are incapable of understanding the distinction between the spiritual power and the temporal power : dazzled by the virtue and splendour which illumine the chief pastor of the Church, they imagine him to be a second sovereign, equal in power to the auto- crat and even superior to him ; if a disagreement arises between the patriarch and the Tsar, they are inclined to espouse the cause of the former, imagining that in it they espouse the cause of God himself.' Since the abolition of the Patriarchate, the ' Most Holy Synod,' which Peter established in its place, has been the highest ecclesiastical power, but in this the Tsar ' the supreme defender and preserver of the dogmas of the dominant faith ' is still, as was said of Peter the Great, * the mainspring, and the pendulum his understanding.' The synod consists of eight members, of whom six are bishops, and two (representing the White clergy) are arch-priests, being the high almoners of the army and fleet. Here, in the Cathedral of the Assumption, above the ' royal doors ' of the iconastos are seen the Four Evan- gelists, typifying that through those portals are received the tidings of the Eucharist. On either side Adam and the Penitent Thief are represented, as the first fallen and the first redeemed. Beyond these are the Virgin and the Baptist. 1 Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion. CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION. 233 Upon the screen itself hang the most sacred pictures in Russia. The first is the Virgin of Vladimir, attributed to S. Luke, which is supposed to have saved Russia from the Tartars, and which persuaded Boris Godunof to accept the throne. It is adorned with jewels valued at 45,ooo/. l Next comes the Virgin of Jerusalem, being a copy, which was made for the patriarch Nikon, of a picture brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople in 453, and to Russia in 898 by Vladimir, the original having been lost during the French invasion. The third icon is 'the Saviour in the Gold Chasuble,' painted by the Emperor Manuel, and brought from Novogorod the Great in 1478. ' The history of a single picture becomes almost the history of the nation. Brought by Vladimir from Cherson, believed to have been painted by Constantine the Great, used on every great occasion of national thanksgiving and deliverance, deposited in the most sacred of Russian cathedrals, the picture, as it is called, of " Our Lady of Vladi- mir " represents exactly the idea of an ancient palladium ; whilst the fact that it is not a graven statue vindicates it in Russian eyes from all, likeness to a pagan idol.' Stanley. It is interesting here, whilst surrounded by the memorials of three of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, to hear their names mentioned in one of the prayers which are in most frequent use : ' O most merciful Lord, Jesus Christ our God, who rulest over all, through the prayers of our most honourable Lady, the mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary ; through the aid of the holy, heavenly, immate- rial virtues of the venerable prophet, forerunner, and Baptist John ; of the holy, glorious, and illustrious apostles ; of our holy fathers, and universal great doctors and prelates, Basil the Great, Gregory the divine, 1 The Russian Church acknowledges only three pictures of the Virgin as the work of S. Luke, the Madonna of Vladimir, a picture in the Morea, and one in Cyprus. 234 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. and John Chrysostom ; of our holy father Nicholas, archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the wonder-worker ; of our holy fathers the wonder- workers in Russia Peter, Alexis, Jonas, and Philip ; of the holy, glorious, and victorious martyrs ; of the holy and illustrious parents of God, Joachim and Anna (of the saint whose church it is, by name) ; and of all saints, let our prayers be well-pleasing unto Thee ; grant us forgiveness of our sins ; hide us under the shadow of Thy wings ; drive away from us every enemy and every adversary ; grant us a useful life ; have mercy on us, and on Thy world, and save our souls ; for Thou art good, and the lover of mankind.' King. Everything in this conservative cathedral belongs to the old religion. There is no tomb later than the f'me of the reformer Nikon. Of the reformer himself we may be re- minded by the iron pavement upon which he threw down the icons painted after the Frankish models which he loathed, and dashed them to pieces, and by the holy gates, through which, in 1658, Nikon emerged bearing the staff of S. Peter the first Metropolitan, and laid it down before the most sacred of the icons as he announced his abdication. The coronations which take place in this church are preceded by fasting and seclusion on the part of the Emperor. In the ceremony itself the monarch is no passive recipient, but the leading actor in the scene ; himself re- citing the confession of the orthodox faith ; himself alone, upon his knees, offering the intercessory prayer for the empire ; himself placing the crown on his own head ; him- self entering the doors of the inner sanctuary, and taking from the altar the bread and wine, of which, in virtue of his consecration, he communicates with the ecclesiastics pre- sent. 1 The cathedral should be visited on one of the great church festivals when the Metropolitan officiates in person. 1 Boris Godunof also rent his robes at his coronation to signify that he should always ba ready to divide his goods with the poor. CATHEDRAL OF THE ANNUNCIATION. 235 ' The position of the Metropolitan (officiating in the cathedral) was such as might have excited envy in the minds not only of English ritualists, but of the greatest Popes and cardinals of the West. Never have I seen such respect paid to any ecclesiastic ; not only during all the elaboration of the Russian ceremonial when with the utmost sim- plicity he bore the clothing and unclothing, and even the passing to and fro of the broad comb through the outstanding flakes of his hair and beard or when he stood on the carpet where was embroidered the old Roman eagle of the Pagan empire. But still more at the moment of his departure. He came out for the last time in the service to give his blessing, and then descended the chancel steps to leave the church. Had he been made of pure gold, and had every touch carried away a fragment of him, the enthusiasm of the people could hardly have been greater to kiss his hand, or lay a finger on the hem of his garment. The crowd frantically tossed to and fro, as they struggled towards him men, officers, soldiers. Faintly and slowly his white cowl was seen moving on and out of the church, till he plunged into another vaster crowd outside ; and when at last he drove off in his coach, drawn by six black horses, everyone stood bareheaded as he passed. The sounding of the bells in all the churches in each street as the carriage passed by, made it easy to track his course long after he was out of sight.' Stanleys ' Essays on Church and State? The little Cathedral of the Annunciation Blagovestchen- ski Sobor distinguished by its many golden domes, is almost overshadowed by the immense palace which rises behind it. It occupies the site of a church erected by Andrew III., son of Alexander Nevskoi, in 1291, but chiefly dates from the time of Ivan the Terrible. It is approached by a passage lined with frescoes of Homer, Thucydides, Pythagoras, and Plato as preparers of the way for Christianity. * There is here no dim religious light, only gorgeous barbaric splendour, and a pavement of agate and jasper, upon which the marriages of the Tsars were celebrated. To the foreigner, there would seem to be more of idolatry ' The same pioneers are represented in many other churches of the Eastern Church. 236 STUDIES IN RUSSIA to the icons here, than to the most sacred images of the Roman Catholic Church. The ruder the art, the more intense appears to be the devotion aroused ; a blackened painted board, gaudily tinselled over, excites the deepest religious feelings of the Russians. Of the icons in this cathedral, the most famous is the CATHEDRAL OF THE ANNUNCIATION. Virgin of the Don, which was carried at the battle of Kuli- kovo (1380), and was again taken out against the enemy by Boris Godunof in 1591, when defending Moscow for his brother-in-law, the Tsar Feodor Ivanovitch, against Kazi Hirey, the Khan of the Crimea. 'With the greatest goodwill in the world, the French did not dis- cover all the gold here. A rent was made with hammer and tongs in the frame of the Virgin of the Don, which is of pure gold, but they were smitten with blindness, and rejected it as copper. The priests CATHEDRAL OF THE ANNUNCIATION, 237 would not allow the rent to be repaired, and show it triumphantly to strangers as a proof of the miracle. The golden cross that graces the central cupola also escaped. The French had heard of a massive golden cross in one of the churches of the Kremlin, and supposed the great far-off glittering cross of the "Great Ivan" to be the right one. Napoleon caused it to be taken down, and convinced himself that it was made of wood, covered with copper-gilt ; while the real golden cross remained safely among his three mock brethren. ' Thus the French twice exposed themselves to the ridicule of the Russians : once by rejecting gold as copper, and once by carrying off copper for gold.' Kohl. * The ballad of Dmitri, the conqueror of Kulikovo, is one of the most striking of those sung by the kalieki. The scene is laid in this church nine years after the famous battle against the Tartars. ' ' On the eve of the Saturday of S. Dmitri, in the holy cathedral of the Annunciation, S. Cyprian the metropolitan was singing the mass, and the prince Dmitri was assisting with his princess Eudoxia, with his princes and boyars, with his famous captains. ' Suddenly Prince Dmitri ceased to pray ; he leant against a pillar, he was suddenly rapt in spirit ; his spiritual eyes were opened : he had a strange vision. 'He no longer saw the candles burning before the icons : he no longer heard the -music of the sacred choirs : it was the wild country, the battle-field of Kulikovo, which he saw. It was sown with the corpses of Christians and Tartars, the bodies of the Christians like melting wax, the bodies of the Tartars like black pitch. ' On this field of Kulikovo, the holy Mother of God was walking. Behind her were the angels of the Saviour ; the angels and the holy archangels, with burning tapers : they sang the holy songs over the relics of the orthodox warriors ; it was the Mother of God herself who incensed them, and crowns descended upon them from heaven. 'And the Mother of God asked, " Where is the Prince Dmitri? " The Apostle Peter answered her, " The Prince Dmitri is in the town of Moscow, and in the holy cathedral of the Assumption ; he is hear- ing the liturgy with his princess Eudoxia, with his princes and boyars, with his famous captains." ' Then the Mother of God said : " The Prince Dmitri is not in his 2.38 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. place : he should be leading the choirs of the martyrs ; but as for his princess, her place is in my flock." ' Then the vision vanished. The candles were burning in the church, the precious stones sparkled upon the altars. Dmitri came to himself, wept abundantly, and spoke thus : ' " Know that the hour of my death is at hand, soon I shall be laid in the coffin, and iry princess will take the veil." ' And in memory of this strange vision, he instituted the Saturday of S. Dmitri.' The Cathedral of the Archangel Michael -Arkhangelsk! Sober was originally built to commemorate the deliverance of Russia from famine in 1333. The existing building is due to Aleviso of Milan in 1507, but has since been restored. Ivan the Great removed hither the remains of the earlier princes who had been buried in a more ancient church from the time of its builder Ivan Kalita, grandson of Alexander Nevskoi (1341), and the sovereigns continued to be interred here till the time of Peter the Great, whose grandson, the Emperor Peter II., has been the only prince buried here since. The tombs are arranged in genealogical order, ' a sepulchral chronicle of the Russian monarchy.' * Forty-five princes lie within the walls of the church, their simple tombs covered with palls. Many are brothers or sons of sovereigns, who frequently, like the uncles of Ivan the Terrible, died unnatural deaths. Above the grave of each prince who was a sovereign is his figure, painted in the white robes, not of canonisation, but of the consecration at his coronation, immediately after which he always visited this church. Here, that he might call to mind more vividly their exploits and their virtues, Dmitri of the Don came to pray amid the tombs 1 Stephen qf Moldavia. CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL. 239 of his ancestors immediately before his victorious expedition against the Tartars, 1 and here (1389) S. Sergius assisted at the funeral rites of the hero himself. Amongst the earliest princes transferred here from the old church, are Ivan Kalita (1341), its founder, and his son, Simeon the Proud, who died of the Plague (whose will is the first document on paper, not parchment, existing in Russia). Next to these are Ivan II. (1359), and his grandson Dmitri Donskoi (1389), who gained the great victory of Kulikovo over the Tartar Mamai", which was, however, so useless in protecting Moscow from the Tartars, by whom it was sacked and burnt, that Dmitri, weeping afterwards over the ruins of his capital, cried, ' Our fathers, who gained no victories over the Tartars, were happier than we.' Next follow Vassili Dmitri - vitch (1425), and Vassili the Blind (1462), under whom the Tartar punishment of the knout was introduced into Russia. The tombs contemporary with the existing church begin with that of its founder Ivan III., or the Great (1462-1505), who established the Russian monarchy, that strange victor of Kazan ' who triumphed over his enemies whilst remaining quietly at home.' l In his reign the knowledge of gun- powder and the art of casting cannon were brought into Russia, and the kremlins of Moscow and Novogorod were built by Italian architects. His second wife was Sophia Paleologus, the last of her line, through whom Russia in- herited the ceremonial of the Byzantine empire. ' Ivan became one of the most illustrious monarchs of Europe ; honoured and respected from Rome to Constantinople, from Vienna to. Copenhagen, equal to the emperors and the proud sultans. Without 1 Karamsin, v. 240 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. study, without other guide than his own genius, he taught himself wise precepts of external and internal policy : ' employing force and craft in turn to establish the independence and integrity of Russia, to destroy the empire of Bati Khan, to repress and divide Lithuania, to annihilate the liberty of the Novogorodians, to resume the appanages formerly granted, and reunite them to the Grand-Principality, to extend the Moscovite domains as far as the deserts of Siberia and to the Norwegian Laponia. He created, on the basis of a far-sighted moderation, a prudent system of war and peace, which his successors had only to follow in order to consolidate the power of the State. ... He wished, by all possible external means, so to raise himself above his fellow men, as to make a strong impression upon the imagination ; having at length penetrated the secret of autocracy, he became like an earthly god to the eyes of the Russians, who began from that time to astonish all other nations by their blind submission to the will of their sovereign. He was the first in Russia to receive the surname of the Terrible, but he was terrible only to his enemies and to rebels. Meanwhile, without being a tyrant, like his grandson Ivan IV., he had a certain natural harshness of character, which he knew how to subdue by his strength of will. It is said that a single glance from Ivan, when he was in a paroxysm of fury, was enough to make timid women faint away ; that suppliants dreaded to approach his throne ; that even at his table, the nobles trembled before him, not daring to utter a single word or to make the slightest movement. Whilst the monarch, fatigued with noisy converse, and warmed with wine, gave himself up to sleep towards the end of the repast, all, seated in profound silence, waited for a fresh order to amuse themselves before they presumed to be merry.' Karamsin, vi. The space on one side of Ivan the Great is occupied by his father Vassili Vassilievitch, Basil the Blind, whose eyes were put out by his cousin Shemiaka, when he had seized his throne, and hoped thus to disqualify the Grand- Prince from reascending it, though he was eventually re- instated by the affection and pity of his subjects. On the other side of Ivan III. rests his son, Vassili Ivanovitch (1505-1533), under whom the movement was continued, 1 See The Laws of the Grand Prince Ivan III. Vassilievitch. and of the Tsar Ivan IV. Vassilicvttch) edited by Kalai'dovitch Stroef (Moscow, 1819). CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL. 241 THE GRAND-PRINCES AND TSARS OF MOSCOW AND THEIR SONS. DANIEL, fourth son of Alexander Nevskoi, and sixth in descent from Vladimir Monomachus .1 Youri Alexander Boris IVAN I. (Kalita), Athanasius 1328-1341 I , i i SIMEON (the Proud), 1340-1353 IVAN II., 1353-1359 Andrew | j Vladimir the Brave DMITRI (Donskoi), 1363-1389 Ivan I i . ' : . I ! " I Daniel VASSILI I. (Dmitrivitch), Youri Andrew Peter Ivan Constantine 1389-1425 Ivan VASSILT IT. (the Blind), Anne, who married Manuel, son of the Emperor 1425-1465 of Constantinople, 1414 I i I ! . I ! i Youri IVAN III. (the Great), Youri Andrew Boris Andrew 1462-1505 I I I I . I i I Ivan VASSILI III. (Ivanovitch), Youri Dmitri Simeon Andrew 1505-1533 Dmitri IVAN IV. (the Terrible), Youri | i Dmitri Ivan FEODOR (Ivanovitch), S. Dmitri 1584-1598 BORIS GODUNOF (brother-in-law of Feodor), by popular election, 1598-1605 FEODOR BORISVITCH, by succession to his father, 1605 DMITRI, the Usurper, 1605-1606 VASSILI SHOUISKI, by election of the Moscovites only, 1606 MICHAEL ROMANOFF (Feodorovitch), by popular election, 1613-1645 ALEXIS (Michailovitch), 1645-1676 I I I I FEODOR (Alexievitch), IVAN, PETER THE GREAT 1676-1682 1682-1695 1682-1700 242 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. which impelled Russia towards unity and autocracy. The next tomb of a sovereign prince is that of his son and suc- cessor Ivan IV. 'the Terrible' (1533-1584), the first ruler who took the name of Tsar. 1 Having been treated with the greatest harshness and insolence by the boyars after his father's death, and still more after that of his mother the Regent Helena, who perished by poison, he confounded his enemies by an extraordinary coup d'etat when he was only thirteen years old, and seized the supreme power, which he never let go again. Rendered famous early in his reign by the final conquest of Kazan, it is to this prince that Russia owes its first written code of laws ; he it is who instituted the first standing army ; who abolished the use of the bow, and trained his soldiers to the use of firearms ; who introduced printing into Russia, 2 promoted commerce, encouraged foreign merchants ; who granted free exercise of their religion to foreigners, and formed the design, cut short by his death, of instituting colleges for the cultivation of the Latin and German languages. These virtues, and the increasing devotion of the Russians to their sovereign, caused the whole people to implore him to retain his throne when he wished to abdicate, though by his vengeance for the severity with which he had been treated by the boyars in early life, he well deserved, as a man, the surname by which he is remembered. Endless are the terrible stories which are 1 ' This word is not an abridgment of the Latin " Caesar," as many learned persons believe without foundation. It is an ancient Oriental name known in Russia through the Slavonic translation of the Bible. Applied at first to the emperors of the East, and then to the Tartar khans, it signifies in Persian the throne, the supreme authority, and it may be observed in the termination of the names of kings of Assyria and Babylon, such as Phalassar, Nabonassar.' Karamsin, vi. 2 The printing press was established in 1553, but the first printed volume, the ' Acts of the Apostles,' preserved in the Imperial Library at S. Petersburg, did not appear till 1564. CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL. 243 told about him. It is said that if, when he was out walking, he met with anyone whose appearance displeased him, he would order his head to be struck off at once, and he would let bears loose upon the crowds in the streets of Moscow, that he might divert himself with their outcries. There is a characteristic, though fabulous story, that he ordered the hat of the English ambassador, Sir Jerome Bowes, to be nailed to his head, because he did not remove it in his presence. When he was already married to his fifth wife. he proposed for Lady Mary Hastings, under the impression that she was cousin to Elizabeth of England, though when the lady heard of his cruelties and of how often he had been married already, she persuaded her father to refuse to let her go. Eventually Ivan died of grief for the death of his son Ivan from a blow on the head which his own hand had given with the same iron-pointed staff with which he is said to have pinned to the ground the foot of the messenger who brought him the news of Prince Andrew Kourbsky's having deserted to the Poles, leaning upon it whilst he read the letter. ' II faut vous decrire, une fois pour toutes, quelques-uns des raffine- ments de cruaute inventes par lui centre les soi-disant coupables qu'il veut punir : il les fait bouillir par parties, tandis qu'on les arrose d'eau glacee sur le reste du corps : il les fait ecorcher vifs en sa presence ; puis il fait lacerer par lanieres leurs chairs mises a nu et palpitantes ; cepen- dant ses yeux se repaissent de leur sang, de leurs convulsions; ses oreilles, de leurs cris ; quelquefois il les acheve de sa main a coups de poignards, niais le plus souvent, se reprochant cet acte de clemence comine une faiblesse, il menage aussi longtemps que possible le cceur et la tete, pour faire durer le supplice ; il ordonne qu'on depece les membres, mais avec art et sans attaquer le tronc ; puis il fait jeter un a un ces tron9ons vivants a des betes affamees et avides de cette miserable chair dont elles s'arra- chent les affreux lambeaux, en presence des victimes a demi-hachees. ' Quand il se venge, il poursuit le cours de se? justices jusqu'au \ R 7. 244 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. dernier degre de parente, exterminant des families entieres, jeunes filles, vieillards, femmes grosses et petits enfants ; il ne se borne pas, comme les tyrans vulgaires, a frapper siniplement quelques families, quelques individus suspects; on le voit, singeant le Dieu des Juifs, tuerjusqu'a des provinces sans y faire grace a personne ; tout y passe, tout ce qui a eu vie disparait ; tout, jusqu'aux animaux, jusqu'aux poissons qu'il em- poisonne dans les lacs, dans les rivieres, le croirez-vous ? II oblige les fils a faire 1'office de bourreaux centre leurs peres ! . . . et il s'en trouve qui obeissent ! ' Se servant de corps humains pour horloges, Ivan invente des poisons a heure fixe, et parvient a marquer avec une regularite satis- faisante les moindres divisions de son temps par le mort de ses sujets, echelonnes avec art de minute en minute sur le chemin du tombeau qu'il tient sans cesse ouvert pour eux ; la precision la plus scrupuleu.se preside a ce divertissement infernal.' M. de Custine. And yet ' Neither tortures nor dishonour had the power of weakening the devotion of the Russians to their sovereign. Of this we will give a remarkable proof. The Prince Sougorsky, sent on a mission to the Emperor Maximilian in 1576, fell sick whilst he was crossing Courland. From respect to the Tsar, the Duke frequently enquired after the health of the ambassador by his own minister, who heard him constantly repeat " My health is nothing, if only that of our sovereign continues good." The minister, astonished, asked him " How can you serve a tyrant with so much zeal ? " " We Russians," said Prince Sougorsky, " are always devoted to our tsars whether they are good or cruel." And as a proof of what he affirmed, the sick man recounted that, some time before, Ivan had caused one of his nobles to be impaled for a slight fault, and that this unfortunate man had lived twenty-four hours in terrific agonies, conversing from time to time with his wife and children, and ceaselessly repeating, "Great God, protect the Tsar ! " ' Karanisin. ' Ivan was a goodlie man of person and presence, well-favoured, high-forehead, shrill voice, a right Sithian, full of readie wisdom, cruel, bloudye, merciless ; his own experience mannaged by direction both his state and commonwealth affares. He was sumptuously interred in Michell Archangell Church, where he, though guarded day and night, remaines a fearfull spectacle to the memorie of such as pass by or hear his name spoken of, who are entreated to cross and bless CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL. 245 themselves from his resurrection again.' Sir Jerome Horsey, A ml as- sador> MS. in Brit. Mits. An old Russian song describes the burial of Ivan Ah ! thou bright moon ; father * moon, Why dost thou not shine as of old time ? Not as of old time, as before ? Why art thou hidden by a dark cloud ? It happened to us in holy Russia In holy Russia in Moscow, the stone-built In Moscow, the stone-built, in the golden Kremlin. At the Ouspenski Cathedral Of Michael the Archangel They beat upon the great bell They gave forth a sound over the whole damp mother earth. All the princes the boyars came together, All the warrior people assembled, To pray to God in the Ouspenski Cathedral. There was a new coffin made of cypress wood : In the coffin lies the orthodox Tsar - The orthodox Tsar, Ivan Vassilivitch the Terrible. At his head lies the life-giving cross ; By the cross lies the imperial crown ; At his feet lies the terrible sword ; Around the coffin burn the holy lights ; In front of the coffin stand all the priests and patriarchs ; They read, they pray, they repeat the valediction to the dead, To our orthodox Tsar Our Tsar Ivan Vassilivitch the Terrible.' Trans, in MorfilFs ' Russia. ' Near Ivan lies his second son and successor Feodor (Theodore) Ivanovitch (1584-98), a weak, though religious prince, so incapable as to be entirely ruled by the brother of his beautiful wife Irene, the Boyar Boris Godunof, who became his successor. In spite of his failings, his death 1 ' Moon ' in Russia is masculine. 246 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. was lamented with anguish, because in his person the male line of the house of Ruric came to an end after a rule of more than seven hundred years. ' As the grave was opened to place the coffin of Feodor by that of Ivan, the people expressed aloud their gratitude to the dead, for the happiness enjoyed during his reign, praising with tears the personal virtues of this angel of sweetness, which he had received as a heritage from his mother Anastasia, of eternal memory. They did not speak of Feodor as a Tsar, but as a tender father, and in the reality of their sorrow, they forgot the weakness of his character. When the corpse was lowered into the grave, the Patriarch and all the people, lifting up their hands to heaven, besought the Most High that He would preserve Russia and take them under His protection.' -Karamsin, ix. But the devotion paid to all the relics of Virgin or saints in this church pales before that which is given to the tomb of a child of nine years old, Dmitri, youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, by his seventh wife, the last descendant of S. Vladimir, of Monomachus, of the Ivans and Georges, who is believed to have been murdered at Uglitch by order of Boris Godunof, and who, had he lived, would have been the natural successor of Feodor. In this country it is rightly said that the Russian religion is far more regarded than the Christian. ' Whence art thou, that thou knowest not the tomb of S. Dmitri ? ' characteristically exclaimed an indignant priest to Clarke the traveller. The murder of Dmitri shocked Russia more than all the cruelties of his father. Many innocent Russian princes had been put to death before, but it was by order of the Tsar ; in the case of Dmitri a simple boyar had sacrificed to his ambition the son of his benefactor, the only remaining descendant of the founders of Russia. CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL, 247 ' A tender mother watched over Dmitri : warned by secret friends, or by her own heart, she redoubled her care for the child of her heart. She never left him by day or night ; she never quitted his chamber except to go to church ; she, and she alone, prepared his food, and would not entrust him, either to the treacherous Volokhoff, his governess, or to his devoted nurse Irene. A considerable time elapsed, after which the assassins, despairing of being able to commit their crime in secret, resolved to carry it out openly, in the hope that the powerful and crafty Godunof, to save his honour, would find a mean^ of concealing the act from the eyes of his dumb slaves, for they only thought of men and not of God ! On the fifteenth of May, a Saturday, at the sixth hour of the day, the Tsaritsa came back from church with her son, and was preparing for dinner. Her brothers were away from the palace, and the servants were occupied with their domestic duties. At that moment the governess Volokhoff called to Dmitri to take him out for a walk in the court ; the Tsaritsa wished to follow, but unfortu- nately her attention was called off, and she lingered. The nurse wished to prevent the Tsarevitch from going out, though from no reason which she could account for, but the governess drew him forcibly into the ves- tibule, and thence, upon the staircase, where they were met by Joseph Volokhoff, Daniel Bitiagofsky, and Katchatoff. The first of these, taking Dmitri by the hand, said, " Sire, you have a new collar on." The child, raising his head with an innocent smile, said, " No, it is an old one." At that moment the knife of the assassin struck him, but, whilst only slightly wounded in the throat, he slipped from the hands of Volokhoff. The nurse then raised piercing outcries, clasping her infant sovereign in her arms. Volokhoff took flight. But Daniel Bitiagofsky and Katchatoff snatched the Tsarevitch from his nurse, stabbed him, and threw him down the staircase, at the very moment when the Tsaritsa made her appearance, coming from the vestibule. The young martyr, of nine years old, already lay bleeding in the arms of his nurse, who had tried to defend him at the risk of her life. " He palpitated like a dove," and breathed his last without hearing the cries of his frantic mother. The nurse pointed out with her finger the wicked governess, trembling at the crime, as well as the assassins who were crossing the court. No one was then at hand to arrest them, but the Divine Avenger was pre- sent. ' Karamsin. ' Within the Church of the Archangel, amidst the tombs of the tsars, the one coffin glittering with jewels and gold is that of the young child Demetrius, whose death or martyrdom was lamented with an everlasting lamentation, as the cause of the convulsions which followed upon it." 1 -- Stanley. 248 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The early sovereigns of the house of Romanoff, under whom the wounds of the kingdom caused by the usurpers (who succeeded Feodor and Boris Godunof) were healed, all lie in the body of the church, between the pillars. 1 Of these the first was Michael Feodorovitch (1613-1645), who owed his election in his seventeenth year partly to the reputation for ability and virtue of his father, the patriarch Philaret, 2 who was then in a Polish prison, and partly to his bearing the name of Romanoff, a family allied, by his first marriage, to Ivan IV., which at that time expressed the essence of the national sentiment. 3 When the deputies came to the young Michael at Kostroma announcing his election, he burst into tears and refused to accept it, but yielding afterwards to importunity, he reigned prosperously for twenty-three years, owing much to the guidance of his father, who was released and returned to Moscow in 1618. Next to Michael lies Alexis Michailovitch (1645-1676), his son by Eudoxia Strechnef, admirable as well for his virtues as for his institutions and for the discipline which he introduced into the army. His people called him ' the most debonair.' He introduced shipbuilders from Amster- dam and made vessels for the Caspian. Unfortunately, the latter part of the reign of ' the new Caesar of the Empire of Orthodoxy,' as he was addressed by the German emperor, 1 The Tsar Boris Godunof and the two usurpers who followed him lie away. Godunof, who is now looked upon as the originator of serfdom, was cast out of the Church by the false Dmitri, and now rests at the Troitsa ; the body of Dmitri was dragged to the place called ' Kettles,' seven versts from Moscow, on the SerpoukofF road, where it was burnt and his ashes thrown to the four winds. For Shuiski (elected Tsar as Vassili V. May 19, 1606, who abdicated peacefully, and died a monk at Warsaw) a little chapel was erected, and a tomb on which he is styled Knas and Tsar, but not Velikoi Knas, or Grand-Duke. " Martha, mother of Alexis, was afterwards a nun in a convent at Kostroma. 3 See Rambaud, Hist, de fa Rnssie. CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL. 249 was troubled by his disputes with the Patriarch Nikon, under whom the Russian Church was rising to the powerful position it has since occupied ; yet it was the Tsar Alexis who traced all the outlines which were filled in later by his illustrious son Peter the Great ' Si Alexis ne fit pas la reforme, son regne en fut la preparation.' Rambaud. More than any other, sovereign of the Romanoff dynasty, Alexis was devoted to the practices of religion. ' Doctor Collins, an Englishman, who was physician to the Tsar Alexis for nine years, says, that during Lent he would stand in church for five or six hours at a time, and make as many as a thousand prostra- tionson great holidays even fifteen hundred.' Eugene Schuyler. By his first wife, Marie Ilinitchna Miloslavski, Alexis had thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters ; by his second wife, Natalia Naryskin, a son and a daughter. The two sons of his first marriage who lived to grow up, Feodor and Ivan, rest opposite to him. Of these, Feodor Alexievitch (1676-1682), who succeeded to the throne, ruled under the guidance of Sophia, one of his sisters, and became chiefly remarkable as the founder of the first Academy in Moscow for lectures in Greek and Latin, philo- sophy and theology. Ivan, who suffered from epilepsy, and was rather blind, rather lame, and half-idiotic, was afterwards nominally united with his healthy, brilliant, and precocious half-brother Peter in the sovereignty, but remained a mere state puppet ; he became, however, the father, by Praskovia Soltikoff, of the Empress Anne. Since the death of Ivan all the Russian sovereigns have been buried at S. Peters- burg, except Peter II. (1727-1730), who lies here. He was 250 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the son of Alexis Petrovitch, the unfortunate son of Peter the Great by his first marriage, was born in 1715, and suc- ceeded his step-grandmother, Catherine I., in 1727. When he was only fifteen, he died of the small-pox, on the day which had been appointed for his marriage with Princess Catherine Dolgorouki. 1 His last words were, 'Get ready the sledge; I want to go to my sister'" (Natalia, who had died three years before). In this prince the direct male line of the house of Romanoff became extinct, and the elder period of Russian history came to an end. One of the most striking services held in this cathedral is that for the repose of the Great Princes and Tsars who are buried here. ' I saw the Metropolitan Philaret on the festival of the beheading of S.John the Baptist the day of the funeral services of the dead tsars celebrated in the Cathedral of S. Michael, where they all lie in- terred. Philaret and his clergy were there in deep black mourning, and one by one the departed sovereigns were named, with a prayer for " the pardon of their sins, voluntary and involuntary, known to themselves or unknown." There was a hope left even for Ivan the Terrible. The Metropolitan was lifted up to kiss the coffins of the two canonised princes the murdered Demetrius, and Chernikoff, the champion of Russia, slain in the Tartar wars : a striking contrast to watch the aged, tottering man at the tomb of the little blooming child- -the gentle, peaceful prelate at the tomb of the fierce, blood-.stained warrior.' . Stanley, ' Essays on Church and State. ' On leaving the cathedials, many travellers will ascend the great Tower of Ivan Veliki, which was built by the usurper Boris Godunof in 1600, to commemorate the de- liverance of Russia from a famine. 1 Catherine Dolgorouki, torn from her former fiance, was betrothed against her will to Peter II. Upon his death she became a momentary sovereign, was impri- soned through the reign of Anne, released by EIi?abeth, and eventually married Count Bruce. TOWER OF IVAN VELIKI. 251 * The name of John (Ivan) is a symbolic name with the Russians, as with most other nations ; it denotes nationality, the people's character, their chief tendencies and inclinations, and, above all, the national vogue or way. As in German the " Hanschen," the " Hans- wurst ; " in French the "Jean Potage ; " in English " John Bull," so is the Russian " Ivan Ivanovitch" the national, good-natured, phlegmatic, roguish fool. The Russians denominate everybody thus whose name they do not know, and whom they wish to turn into ridicule ; even the Tsar Ivan Vasilievitch the Terrible is, in the popular tradition, altogether good-natured, completely resembling the "bon roi Dago- bert " of the French popular song. He says to his head attendant, his chief chamberlain, who, like a good Russian, is lolling upon the stove, 41 Ivan Ivanovitch, come down, and pull my boots off!" Ivan Ivano- vitch, however, has no inclination to do so, but lies still, merely raising his left leg like a post in the air, and slapping with his hand upon the stove, says " Stove, I order you, carry me to the Tsar ! " ' " Tsar. But, Ivan Ivanovitch, the stove does not obey you." ' " Ivan. That is unfortunate, O Tsar, then come to me," &c. ' An isvoshtnik, on seeing for the first time the train with the locomotive on the railway from Tsarskoe Selo, exclaimed, "Look, look, there is an Ivan Ivanovitch riding on his stove to the Tsar ! " Everybody who looks awkward and stupid, and also every isvoshtnik, is called " Ivan," or, with the diminutive, " Vanka. "Haxthansen, ' The Russian Empire S Though this is the finest belfry in Russia, it has no special beauty, but being 269 feet high, towers finely above all the other buildings of the Kremlin in the distant views Halfway up is a gallery, whence the sovereigns from Boris to Peter the Great used to harangue the people. The exquisite bells are only heard in perfection on Easter Eve at midnight. On the preceding Sunday (Palm Sunday) the people have resorted in crowds to the Kremlin to buy palm branches artificial flowers and boughs with waxen fruits to hang before their icons. On Holy Thursday the Metro- politan has washed the feet of twelve men, representing the Apostles, in the cathedral, using the dialogue recorded in 252 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. John xii. 1 Then at midnight on Easter Eve the great bell sounds, followed by every other bell in Moscow ; the whole city blazes into light ; the tower of Ivan Veliki is illuminated from its foundation to the cross on its summit. The square below is filled with a motley throng, and around the churches are piles of Easter cakes, each with a taper stuck in it, waiting for a blessing. The interior of the church of the Rest of the Virgin is thronged by a vast multitude bearing wax tapers. The Metropolitan and his clergy, in robes blazing with gold and precious stones, have made the ex- ternal circuit of the church three times, and then, through the great doors, have advanced towards the throne between myriads of lights. No words can describe the colour, the blaze, the roar of the universal chant. Descending from the throne, the Metropolitan has incensed the clergy and the people, and the clergy have incensed the Metropolitan, whilst the spectators have bowed and crossed themselves incessantly. After a service of two hours, the Metropolitan has advanced, holding a cross which the people have thronged to kiss. He has then retired to the sanctuary, whence, as Ivan Veliki begins to toll, followed by a peal from a thousand bells announcing the stroke of midnight, he emerges in a plain purple robe, and announces * Christos voscres ! ' Christ is risen. Then kisses of love are univer- sally exchanged, and, most remarkable of all, the Metro- politan, on his hands and knees, crawls round the church, kissing the icons on the walls, the altars and the tombs, and, through their then opened sepulchres, the incor- ruptible bodies of the saints. After this no meetings take 1 The service of humility and brotherly love, called the Lavipedium, has been ascribed to S. Gregory the Great in the sixth century, but it is evident from AmbrosCj Augustine, and others, that it existed in the Church long before his time. TOWER OF IVAN VELIKI. 253 place without the salutation Christos voscres, and the answer, Vo istine voscres (He is risen). Of the many bells in the tower the most remarkable was the historic bell of Novogorod, which summoned the council of the Vetche' to assemble, and which was carried off to Moscow by Ivan the Great : it is now said to be lost. The square at the foot of the tower, and the pavement be- tween it and the cathedral, is still used at Easter as a place of assembly for religious disputations. ' From ancient times it has been the custom in Moscow for the people to assemble in large numbers every morning during the week after Easter in the Kremlin, in the square before the Uspenski Sobor, to hold religious disputations. The people alone are present ; neither the clergy, officials, or nobles share in the proceedings. The police take no notice of these meetings, and are never seen at them : indeed, their presence is quite uncalled for, as the utmost quiet and order prevail, and no excesses ever occur ; and the people themselves maintain order, and even punish any word spoken too loudly. On one side assemble the followers of the Orthodox Church, and opposite to them the Raskolniks of all sects, especially the Stanovertzi, of every different shade. Various groups are formed, in each of which disputants are found, who defend or attack some religious proposition. The discussion is carried on with the greatest courtesy and harmony ; the disputants take off their hats, bow low to their opponents, and beg to be allowed to answer their positions or questions. No one interrupts another during his speech. The discussion is, at the same time, carried on with the greatest logical acuteness ; if one stops short, or can go no further, another of those standing behind steps forward to assist him, or to continue the discussion himself. If anyone grows violent, or exclaims loudly, or even only says, "That is false," his friends imme- diately caution him, saying, " Pashla na da i met" (yes and no prove nothing), and if he does not become quiet, they draw him back into the crowd.' Haxthausen^ ' The Russian Empire^ Behind the cathedral rises the mass of the Great Palace, Bohhoi Dvorets, of which the older part, Granovita'ia Palata 254 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. (the Granite Palace), was built (probably by the Italian Antonio) for Ivan the Great The rest of the abode of the ancient Grand-Princes has been often rebuilt and the modern part of the edifice as it exists now only dates from the reign of the Emperor Nicholas. The most remarkable part of the group, on the side facing the cathedral, is the many-domed sacristy, by the side of which is the famous Red Staircase, leading to the Hall of S. Vladimir, and con- nected with so many terrible scenes in Russian history. ' ' The dreadful moment that his own conscience and innocent martyrs had long predicted, was silently approaching for Ivan the Terrible, although the prince had attained no great age, and though he preserved, together with his mental powers, all the violence of his passions. He enjoyed robust health, and believed that he might live many years longer, but what constitution can resist the unbridled passions which agitate the dark existence of a tyrant ? The continual frenzy of rage and fear, remorse without repentance, the torments of shame, powerless fury at defeat, finally, the gnawing worm of infanticide a torment which anticipated those of hell had, for Ivan, passed the limit of human endurance. He often experienced a painful faintness, which seemed to prelude dissolution, but he contended against it, and his health only began to break up in the year 1584. It was then that a comet appeared, of which the tail bore the form of a cross. Having come out upon the Red Staircase to see it, the Tsar watched it for a long time, and said to those who were near him, " It is the warning of my death ! " . . . Soon afterwards Ivan was attacked by alarming illness. His entrails began to putrify and his body swelled.' Karam- sin. On the same staircase, when the false Dmitri had gained possession of Moscow, the bodies of the young Tsar Feodor Borisvitch and his mother, the Tsaritsa Maria, widow of Boris Godunof (murderer of the true Dmitri), were exposed to the people. ' The young Feodor, with his mother Marie and his sister Xenie, guarded in the very palace whither the ambition of Boris had dragged THE RED STAIRCASE. 255 them as the theatre of a fatal grandeur, had a presentiment of their fate. The people still respected the sanctity of sovereign rank in their persons, and perhaps that of innocence ; perhaps even, till the climax of the rebellion, they would have wished that Dmitri should show mercy, and that, whilst seizing the crown, he should at least spare life to these unhappy ones, were it only in the solitude of some isolated cloister. But, on this occasion, clemency did not enter into the policy of the false Dmitri. The more the legitimate Tsar, whom he had just de- throned, displayed of personal qualities, the more he appeared danger- ous to a usurper, who had reached the throne by the crime of a few, and the errors of many. The triumph of one treason always paves the way for another, and no solitude would have concealed the young sovereign from the pity of the Russians. Such was without doubt the opinion of Basanoff, but he would not openly participate in a horrible crime. Others were bolder : the princes Galitzin and Massalsky, the dignita- ries Moltchanoff and Scherefedinoff, having taken three fierce strelitz with them, went on the tenth of June (1605) to the house of Boris, where they found Feodor and Xenie, quietly awaiting the will of God by the side of their mother. They snatched these tender children from the arms of the Tsaritsa, made them enter separate rooms, and bade the strelitz do their work. These at once strangled the Tsaritsa Marie, but the young Feodor, endowed with extraordinary strength by nature, contended for a long time with four assassins, who with difficulty succeeded in suffocating him at last. Xenie was more unfortunate than her brother and mother : they left her her life. The usurper had heard of her charms ; he ordered Prince Massalsky to remove her to his house. ' It was announced in Moscow that Marie and her son had poisoned themselves. But their bodies, savagely exposed to insult and outrage, bore the certain evidence of their violent death. The people pressed around the miserable coffins in which the two crowned victims were placed, the wife and son of the ambitious man who was at once their adorer and destroyer, giving them in the throne a heritage of horror and the most cruel of deaths. " The sacred blood of Dmitri," say the annalists, " demanded pure blood in expiation : and the innocent fell for the guilty. Let the wicked tremble for their dear ones : the moment of vengeance and reprisals must come sooner or later." ' Karamsin. ' ' The young Tsar and his unhappy mother were smothered by murderers like those who had been employed to make away with 1 This story is the subject of the last act of Pouchkine's famous drama, I'orh Godunof. For the story of Boris Godunof see also the tragedy of the Tsar Boris, by Count Alexis Tolstoi. i86q. 256 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Dmitri ; for the Lord sometimes visits the sins of the father on the children. ' Mouravieff. In accordance with an old Russian proverb Koli khud knyaz Tak y gryaz ' If the prince is bad, into the mud with him ' it was down this staircase also that the body of Gregori Otrepieff, the false Dmitri, was thrown to the fury of the people, when he had been denounced as a usurper by the Tsaritsa Marpha (who had previously been forced to acknowledge him as the son whom she had seen murdered at Uglitch). ' It is asserted that when the usurper was asked, "Who are you, wicked one?" he still answered, "You know it. I am Dmitri," and he referred to the religious Tsaritsa. Prince Ivan Galitzin replied to him : " Her testimony is already known to us ; she gives you up to death." The false Dmitri answered, " Take me to the great square, there I will confess the truth in the presence of all." But at this moment the impatient people, bursting open the door, demanded if the criminal confessed ; they were answered in the affirmative, and two shots from a pistol terminated at once the enquiry and the life of Otrepieff. The crowd fell upon the body, hacked it, pierced it with their lances, and hurled it to the bottom of the staircase upon the body of his adherent Basanoff, crying, "You were friends in this world, be equally inseparable in hell." The enraged populace then tore the corpses from the Kremlin, and dragged them to the place of execution : the body of the impostor was placed upon a table, with a mask, a flute, and a bag- pipe, viz. , as signs of his taste for sensuous pleasures and for music ; and that of Basanoff upon a stool, at the feet of the false Dmitri.' Karamsin. The Red Staircase witnessed an almost more terrible scene during the disturbances which followed the death of Feodor Alexievitch in 1682. The power had been disputed by the factions who represented the two wives of the THE RED Sl^AIRCASE. 257 Emperor Alexis, Maria Miloslavski, mother cf Feodor and Ivan, and Natalia Naryskin, mother of Peter (the Great). From the depths of the * terem,' the intriguing Tsarevna Sophia gave her important support to the former, and by circulating a report that her brother Ivan had been strangled by the Naryskins, roused the people of Moscow and caused the tocsin to be sounded from four hundred churches of the holy city. Upon this, the streltsi, followed by an immense multitude, marched upon the Kremlin. On the Red Stair- case Natalia showed herself with the two children, Ivan and Peter, and the Miloslavski would have failed in their plans, if Prince Dolgorouki from the windows of the palace had not burst into the most violent abuse of the Streltsi. This reawakened their fury. They threw themselves upon Dolgorouki and hurled him down the staircase to be caught upon the pikes of the soldiers. Under the eyes of the Tsaritsa, they murdered her adopted father Matveef, the minister of Alexis, and then rushed through the palace, ex- terminating all that fell into their hands. A brother of the Tsaritsa, Athanase Naryskin, was thrown from the window upon the points of the lances. Upon the following day, the scene recommenced. Her father Cyril, and her brother Ivan, were torn from the arms of the Tsaritsa, the one to be tortured and cut to pieces ; the other to be cruelly mal- treated, shaven, and sent into a monastery. 1 Finally, seven years after, in 1689, it was from the top of the Red Stair- case that Peter the Great, clad in his robes of state, showed himself to the people as their lawful ruler, after the im- prisonment of Sophia. 2 1 See Rambaud, Hist, de la Rnssie. - See Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great. 258 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. On this side of the palace was the place where the sovereigns used to sit to receive the petitions of the people. The petition was placed on a certain stone in the court below, where the Tsar could see it, and if he thought proper, he sent for it. The Sacristy, once of the Patriarchs Patriar- shaya Riznitsa now of the Holy Synod, contains a vast number of precious robes and jewels which belonged to the Patriarchs, the most interesting being the Saccos of the Metropolitan S. Peter (1308-1325), a robe sent by the Emperor of Constantinople to the Patriarch Joseph, 1642, upon which the Nicene Creed is embroidered in pearls, and some of the mitres and robes of Nikon. In an adjoining room the holy chrism or mir is prepared, with which every orthodox Russian is anointed at baptism, all sovereigns at coronation, and all churches at consecration. This holy ointment (probably taken from that described in Exodus xxx. for the anointing of the priests and tabernacle) can only be consecrated by a bishop, only on one day in the year- Holy Thursday in Passion week and only in two places, this sacristy for great Russia, and Kieff for little Russia, from which point it is distributed to the several churches in each country. The ointment is a mixture of roses, oil of lavender, marjoram, oranges, rosemary, balsam of Peru, cedar, mastic, turpentine, and white wine. ' The chrism is a mystery peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and immediately follows the im- mersion at baptism, when the priest anoints the person baptised on the principal parts of the body with an ointment, consecrated with many curious circumstances for that purpose by a bishop. This cere- mony is always used at the reception of a proselyte from any other church whatever. The Scriptures on which this mystery is said to be founded are Acts viii. Peter and John " when they were come down LIBRARY OF THE PATRIARCHS. 259 (i.e. to the Samaritans, who had been baptised by Philip), prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, for as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus." And also I John i. 27, Isaiah Ixi. 6, 2 Cor. i. 21, 22, Gal. iii. S In the Library of the Patriarchs is preserved the famous copy of the Evangelists brought by Nikon from Mount Athos, and many other historic books. ' Des vengeances du Terrible nous est reste un tres-curieux monu- ment : c'est le synodique du monastere de Saint-Cyrille, dans lequel il demande nominativement pour chacune de ses victimes les prieres de 1'Eglise. Cette liste donne un total de 3,470 victimes, dont 986 noms propres. Plusieurs des noms sont suivis de cette mention sinistre : " avec sa femme," " avec sa femme et ses enfants," "avec ses filles," " avec ses fils." C'est ce que Kourbski appelait " des exterminations par families entieres," usiorodno. La constitution de la famille russe etait si forte a cette epoque que la mort du chef devait fatalement entrainer celle de tous les siens. D'autres indications collectives ne donnent pas moins a penser. Par exemple : " Kazarine Doubrovski et ses deux fils, plus dix hommes qui etaient venusason secours," " vingt hommes du village de Kolomenskoe," " quatre-vingts de Matveiche : " c'etaient sans cloute des paysans ou les enfants-boiars qui avaient voulu defendre leurs seigneurs. Voici la mention relative a Novogorod : " Souviens-toi, Seigneur, des ames de tes serviteurs, au nombre de 1,505 personnes, Novogorodiens. " Louis XL n'avait-il pas des tendresses de ce genre? il priait avec ierveur pour 1'ame de son frere, le due de Berry.' Ram-. baud, ' Hist, de la Rtissie. ' Strangers enter the main building of the palace at the entrance opposite the terrace towards the town. The mag- nificent Hall of S. George, the Alexander Hall, and the Hall of S. Andrew are the chief features of the modern building. The Chapel of the Nativity of the Virgin is that of the ancient Grand- Princesses. From a gallery, into which the dismal rooms of the ladies-in-waiting open, the S 2 26o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. visitor enters the Golden Hall or Zolotaya Palata, said to have been built by the Patriarch Jonah in 1451. Here it was that the Patriarch Jeremiah of Constanti- nople (1587) had his minutely described interviews with the Tsar Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible. ' In the beautiful corner of the Golden Hall of the Sign Manual, on a magnificent throne, was seated the religious sovereign himself, with his crown on his head, clad in royal robes, and holding a richly 'carved sceptre in his hand, a golden orb, figurative of the universe, lying by his .side. Around him stood his boyai-s, the lords of the presence-chamber, and the courtiers, in robes covered with gold.' It was probably also here, as being the Audience Chamber of the Tsaritsa, that Ivan and Peter the Great gave their audiences as children. ' We got off our horses, and, handing our swords to a servant, walked up some steps and passed through a building magnificent with gilded vaults, and then through an open stone passage, again to the left, and through an ante-room to the audience hall, the floor of which was covered with Turkish carpets, where we came to the "piercing eyes " of their Tsarish majesties. Both their majesties sat, not in the middle, but somewhat to the right side of the hall, next to the middle column, and sat on a silver throne like a bishop's chair, somewhat raised and covered with red cloth, as was most of the hall. Over the throne hung a holy picture. The Tsars wore, over their coats, robes of silver cloth woven with red and white flowers, and, instead of sceptres, had long golden staves bent at the end like bishops' croziers, on which, as on the breastplate of their robes, their breasts and their caps, glittered white, green, and other precious stones. The elder dre"w his cap down over his eyes several times, and, with looks cast down on the floor, sat almost immovable. The younger had a frank and open face, and his young blood rose to his cheeks as often as anyone spoke to him. He constantly looked about, and his great beauty and his lively manner which sometimes brought the Moscovite magnates into confusion struck all of us so much that, had he been an ordinary youth and no imperial personage, we would gladly have laughed and talked with him. The elder was seventeen, the younger sixteen years old. When THE PALACE. 261 the Swedish envoy gave his letter of credence, both Tsars rose from their places, slightly bared their heads, and asked after the king's health, but Ivan, the elder, somewhat hindered 'the proceedings through not understanding what was going on, and gave his hand to be kissed at a wrong time. Peter was so eager that he did not give the secretaries the usual time for raising him and his brother from their seats and touching their heads ; he jumped up at once, put his own hand to his hat, and began quickly to ask the usual question : "Is his Royal Majesty, Carolus of Sweden, in good health ? " He had to be pulled back until his elder brother had a chance of speaking.' MS. Diary of Engelbert Kdmpfen, July^ 1683.' A curious relic of the self-association in the government of the Tsarevna Sophia with her brothers may be seen in a piece of plate in the neighbouring chapel of S. Catherine, made 'by order of Ivan, Peter, and Sophia, aristocrats of all the Russias.' This is one of a very interesting group of chapels, of which the most remarkable is that of the Cruci- fixion, built by the Tsar Alexis, and containing his oratory. On the side towards the cathedral, the window is still shown where Alexis Michailovitch sate to receive petitions, and also the window whence young Athanase Naryskin, uncle of Peter the Great, was thrown down upon the pikes of the streltsi. From the windows of the palace on the other side, we look into an inner court, which contains the Church of the Saviour in the Wood Spass na Bom said to date from the twelfth century when it was built in a wood on the site now occupied by the Kremlin, long before Moscow was a city. It contains the relics of S. Stephen of Perm, a saint greatly honoured in Russia. ' Great Perm, whither the hunters of Novogorod went for their furs, was acquired to Russia by a single monk, through the preaching of the 1 Given in Schuyler's Peter the Great. 262 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. name of Christ. S. Stephen, penetrated with apostolic zeal, felt pained by the gross heathenism of the inhabitants of Perm ; and having thoroughly known their tongue from a child, he invented letters for it. He went alone to preach Christ in the deep and silent woods of Perm, and by faith overcame all the opposition of the heathen priests. He founded their first church, a poor and humble building on the river Viuma, whence the doctrine of salvation was gradually diffused. He was himself consecrated Bishop of Perm by the hand of the Metropo- litan Pimen, and, after many years of labour, died in Moscow, where his relics are still preserved in the Church of the Saviour.' Moura- vitff. In the Granitovitaya Palata, the Banqueting Hall, built by Ivan the Great, was used for audiences, as well as for banquets by his successors. ' Les murs de la salle etaient tendus de magnifiques tapisseries ; la vaisselle d'or et d'argent, aux formes fantastiques, resplendissait sur des estrades de velours : le Tsar, couronne en tete, sceptre en main, assis sur le trone de Salomon, dont les lions mecaniques faisaient entendre des rugissements, entoure de ses ryndis en longs cafetans blancs et armes de la grande hache d'argent, de ses boi'ars somptueusement vetus, de son clerge en costume severe, recevait des lettres de creance.' Rainbaud, ' Hist, de la Russie. ' Vassili Ivanovitch gave banquets of great magnificence here, sending messes, as Joseph did, from his own table to his most favoured guests, when they rose and saluted him. The first dish always consisted of roast swans. 1 In the reign of his successor, Ivan the Terrible, we read ' The tables were covered onely with salt and bread, and after that we had sitten a while, the Emperour sent unto every one of us a piece of bread, which were given and delivered unto every man severally by these words : " The Emperour and Great Duke giveth thee bread this day ; " and in like manner three or four times before the dinner was ended, he sent to every man drinke, which was given by these 1 Karamsin, vii. THE PALACE. 263 words : "The Emperor and Great Duke giveth thee to drinke." All the tables aforesayd were served in vessels of pure and fine golde, as well basons and ewers, platters, dishes, and sawcers, as also of great pots, with an innumerable sorte of small drinking pottes of divers fashions, whereof a great number were set with stone. As for costly meates I have many times scene better; but for change of wines, and divers sorts of meads, it was wonderfull ; for there was not left at any time so much void roome on the table, that one cuppe might have bin set, and as far as I could perceive, all the rest were in like manner served. ' In the dinner time there came in sixe singers, which stood in the midst of the chamber, and their faces towards the Emperour, who sang there before dinner was ended three severall times, whose songs or voyces delighted our eares little or nothing. ' The Emperour never putteth morsell of meate in his mouth, but he first blesseth it himselfe, and in like maner as often as he dririketh : for after his maner he is very religious, and he esteemeth his religious men above his noble men.' Anthonie Jenkinson, 1557- We have also a description of a reception here in the time of Michael Feodorovitch, the first of the Romanoffs. ' The Great Duke's chair was opposite the door, against the wall, rais'd from the floor three steps, having at the four corners pillars which were vermilion gilt, about three inches about, with each of them, at the height of an ell and a half, an imperial eagle of silver, near which the canopy or upper part of the chair rested upon the same pillars ; besides which the said chair had at the four corners as many little turrets of the same stuff, having also, at the ends, eagles, after the same manner. ' The Great Duke sate in his chair, clad in a long coat, embroidered with perls, and beset with all sorts of precious stones. He had above his cap, which was of martins'-skins, a crown of gold, beset with great diamonds, and in his right hand a scepter of the same metall, and no less rich, and so weighty, that he was forc'd to relieve one hand with the other. On both sides of his majesty's chair stood young lords, very handsome, both as to face and body, clad in long coats of white damaske, with caps of linxs'-skin, and white buskins, with chains of gold, which, crossing upon the breast, reach'd down to their hips. They had laid over their shoulders each a silver ax, whereunto they pt their hands, as if they had been going to give their stroke. On 264 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the right side of the chair, upon a pyramid of silver, carv'd through, stood the imperial apple, of massy gold, representing the world, as big as a cannon bullet of 48 pound weight : and at a like distance on the same side, a basin and ewer and a napkin, to wash and wipe the Great Duke's hands, after the ambassadors and those of their retinue have kissed them. The principal bo'iars or lords of the court, to the number of fifty, were all sat upon benches by the wall-side, on one side, and opposite to the Great Duke, very richly clad, with great caps, of a black fox furr, a good quarter of an ell high. The chancellor stood on the right hand, some five paces from the chair.' ' Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors of Frederick i Duke of Holstein, 1633-1639.' The most curious part of the whole palace is the TetemJ- the residence of the Tsaritsa and Tsarevnas, almost answer- ing to an oriental harem. It is built in four stories, each story diminishing in size, and surrounded by a balcony sup- ported upon the walls of the story below it. A curious old stone staircase, of most oriental character, leads to the Terem. Here we find dining-room, council hall, oratory, bedroom, all low and small, with vaulted ceilings. The rooms are all painted in gay barbaric colours, and are very curious. The furniture is not really ancient, but a series of exact copies of what was here originally. The old furniture, being considered to be falling into decay, was copied, and then sold without mercy ; for that which is called the pre- servation of antiquities here is often the baptising of novelties with ancient names. 2 Here we may imagine the Tsars 1 'The word terem (plural terema) is defined by Dahl, in its antique sense, as " a raised, lofty habitation, or part of one a boyar's castle a seigneur's house the dwelling-place of a ruler within a fortress," &c. The " terem of the women," some- times styled "of the girls," used to comprise the part of a seigneur's house, on the upper floor, set aside for the female members of his family. Dahl compares it with the Russian tyurma, a prison, and the German Thurm. But it seems really to be derived from the Greek Te'pe/mi-or, "anything closely shut fast, or closely covered, a room, a chamber," c.' Ralston. - See Custine. THE TEREM. 265 amusing themselves with the oddities of their dwarfs, whilst the ladies were listening to endless 'bilini.' l ' In the family of the Tsar the seclusion in the Terem, or women's apartments, was almost complete. This was in part due to a super- stitious belief in witchcraft, the evil eye, and charms that might affect the life, health, or fertility of the royal race. Neither the Tsaritsa nor the princesses ever appeared openly in public ; they never went out except in a closed litter or carriage ; in church they stood behind a veil made, it is true, sometimes of gauze ; and they usually timed their visits to the churches and monasteries for the evening or early morning, and on these occasions no one was admitted except the imme- diate attendants of the court. Von Mayerberg, imperial ambassador at Moscow in 1663, writes, that out of a thousand courtiers, there will hardly be found one that can boast that he has seen the Tsaritsa, or any of the sisters or daughters of the Tsar. Even their physicians are not allowed to see them. When it is necessary to call a doctor for the Tsaritsa, the windows are all darkened, and he is obliged to feel her pulse through a piece of gauze, so as not to touch her bare hand ! Even chance encounters were severely punished. In 1674, the cham- berlains, Dashkof and Buterlin, on suddenly turning a corner in one of the interior courts of the palace, met the carriage of the Tsaritsa Natalia, who was going to prayers at a convent. Their colleagues sue ceeded in getting out of the way ; Dashkof and Buterlin were arrested, examined, and deprived of their offices, but as the encounter was proved to be purely fortuitous and unavoidable, they were in a few days restored to their rank. Yet this was during the reign of Alexis, who was far less strict than his predecessors. ' The household of the Tsar was organised like that of any great noble, though on a larger scale. Of the women's part, the Tsaritsa was nominally the head. She had to attend to her own wardrobe, which took no little time, and oversee that of her husband and her children, and had under her direction a large establishment of sewing women. She must receive petitions and attend to cases of charity. She must provide husbands and dowries for the many young girls about her Court, and then keep a constant look-out for their interests and those of their families. She had, too, her private estates, the accounts of which she audited, and the revenues of which she collected and expended. What little time was left from household cares and religious 1 See M. Zabielin, Domestic Life of the Tsars. 266 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. duties could be spent in talk, in listening to stories and songs, in laughing at the jests of the Court fools, in looking on at the amusements of the girls in the play-hall, or in embroidering towels and napkins, robes for the Tsar and princes, and altar-cloths and vestments for the Church. ' Etigene Schuyler. ' Lorsque le tsar voulait se marier, il adressait aux gouverneurs des villes et des provinces une circulaire qui leur enjoignait d'envoyer a Moscou les plus belles filles de 1'empire, celles du moins qui apparte- naient a la noblesse. Comme Assuerus dans la Bible, comme 1'empereur Theophile dans les chroniques de Byzance, comme Louis le Debonnaire dans le recit de FAstronome^ il faisait son choix entre toutes ces beautes. Pour Vassili Ivanovitch on reunit 1,500 jeunes filles ; apres un premier concours 500 furent envoyees a Moscou ; le grand prince fit un nouveau triage de 300, puis de 200, puis de 100, puis de 10, qui furent d'ailleurs examinees par des medecins et des sages-femmes. La plus belle de toutes, et la plus saine, devenait la souveraine ; elle prenait un nouveau nom, en signe qu'elle comme^ait une nouvelle existence ; son pere, devenu beau-pere du tsar, changeait aussi de nom ; ses parents deve- naient les proches du prince, constituaient son entourage, s'emparaient de toutes les charges et gouvernaient les Ktats comme la maison de leur imperial allie. Les ministres et les entours evinces essayaient en secret de reconquerir le pouvoir en faisant perir la nouvelle souveraine, et n'hesitaient pas a recourir au poison et a la magie. Beaucoup de ces fiancees imperiales ne survecurent pas a leur triomphe, et, attaquees tout a coup de maladies mysterieuses, moururent avant le jour du couronne- ment. Tous les successeurs de Vassili Ivanovitch, jusqu'a Alexis Mikhailovitch inclusivement, instituerent ces concours de beaute pour choisir leurs epouses. C'etait le privilege des souverains de Moscou et des princes de leur sang.' Raniband^ ' Hist, de la RussieS The first Tsaritsawho rebelled against the rigid seclusion of the Terem was Natalia Naryskm, the second wife of Alexis, and mother of Peter the Great. In the house of her uncle, the minister Matveef, who had married a Scotchwoman, she had been accustomed to see her aunt take a part in the daily life and conversation of men, and after she was married to the Tsar she astonished Moscow by going about with the curtains of her litter undrawn, allowing her face to be seen THE TEREM. 267 and she acted before the town in little dramas taken from Scripture history. The first Tsarevna to emancipate herself was the famous Sophia, then aged twenty-five, one of the six surviving daughters of Alexis Michailovitch by Maria Miloslavski. The Terem was entirely abolished by Peter the Great, who was the first to institute assemblies and balls, where men and women met and even danced together. The memory of Ivan the Terrible is the chief spectre w r hich haunts these weird apartments. ' Ivan IV, le tyran par excellence, fut Fame du Kremlin. Ce n'est pas qu'il ait bad cette forteresse, mais il y est ne, il y est mort, il y revient, son esprit y demeure.' M. de Custine. Many of the plaintive songs still popular in Russia keep up the memory of the Tsaritsas two of his seven wives, and the two wives of his son, deposed by Ivan the Terrible. ' All is sad with us in Moscow : sadly sounds the great bell. The Tsar is angry with the Tsaritsa ; he sends the Tsaritsa far from his sight ; far away to the town of Sousdal, to the Pokrovski monastery. ' And the Tsaritsa walked in the palace, and bewailed her fate. " O you, palaces of stone, palaces of white stone, palaces of purple ! Can it be true that I shall never walk here again ? Shall I never sit again at the tables of cypress wood ? Shall I never taste of the sugared food ? Shall I never eat of the black swan ? Shall 1 never hear again the sweet voice of my Tsar?" ' And she went forth, the Tsaritsa went forth, upon the staircase ; she cried aloud, cried with her soft voice, '* O you, my little squires, my little squires, my runners on foot, prepare the chariot, but . . . not too quickly ; go forth from Moscow, but ... not too hastily; for it may be that the Tsar will soften, it may be that he will bid me return." And what did the young squires answer? " O you, our mother, the Tsaritsa, Matfa Matfeevna, possibly the Tsar will soften, possibly you will return." ' But the hopes of the Tsaritsa were illusive : slowly, slowly, her chariot passed out of Moscow ; and from the gates of the convent, the 268 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. abbess and her nuns advance in procession to receive her. They take her by her white hands and lead her to her cell " not for an hour, not for a day, but for her whole life." ' l From one of the terraces of the Terem you enter the chapel of ' Spassa solotuyu rishotkoyu The Redeemer behind the golden Balustrade. In a room near this are preserved a number of loaves presented to the Emperor on his various visits to Moscow ; for when in the Kremlin, the Emperor pleases the people by always eating kalatsch, the peculiar, circular, light, hollow bread of the place. It was in one of these rooms that Ivan the Terrible died. 2 ' Surrounded by the shades of murdered men, he set as a blood-red sun in mists. The Metropolitan Dionysius, in accordance with his wish, gave him the tonsure in the name of his favourite monastery of Bielo-ozero, and so from the terrible Ivan he became the simple monk Jonah, and as such gave up his soul to the heavenly Judge of his dreadful reign on earth.' Mouravieff. In these rooms also, Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constanti- nople, visited Ivan's daughter-in-law, the beautiful Tsaritsa' Irene, sister of Boris Godunof. ' The central apartment of the Tsaritsa, which was a rotunda, shone with the purest gold ; and by the ingenious disposition of the architect, there was an audible echo in it even of what was spoken in a whisper. The walls were adorned with the costliest mosaics, which pourtrayed the acts of the saints, choirs of angels, martyrs, and bishops ; while above the magnificent throne, shone through a blaze of jewels a large icon of the most holy Immaculate Virgin, with the eternal Child in her arms, surrounded by choirs of saints, crowned with gold and adorned 1 Prince Serebranny, a novel of Count Alexis Tolstoi, translated into French by Prince Galitzin, depicts the manners and the terrors of the court of Ivan the Terrible. - One of the most striking dramas ever written for the Russian stage is The Death of Ivan the Terrible, of Count Alexis Tolstoi'. With this the tragedies of the Tsar Feodor and the Tsar Boris form a trilogy. THE TREASURY. 269 with pearls, rubies, and sapphires. The floor was covered with cun- ningly wrought carpets, on which the sport of hawking was represented to the life ; and other figures of birds and animals, carved in precious metals, glittered on all sides of the apartment. In the centre of the arched roof, an exquisitely sculptured lion held in his mouth a serpent twisted into a ring, from which golden lamps were suspended. ' But the dress of the Tsaritsa exceeded in splendour all that sur- rounded her. Her necklace, bracelets, and collar were made of heavy, uniform pearls, and her robe, trimmed with sables, was fastened by dark emeralds and brilliants ; whilst her crown, which was priceless, shone with every variety of precious stone : twelve battlements, like the wall. of a town, surrounded it, in memory of the Twelve Apostles, and diamonds hung down from it, in large drops, upon the pure forehead of the Tsaritsa. And for all this, the angelic beauty of that forehead itself eclipsed the splendour of her royal ornaments. When she saw the patriarchs, the Tsaritsa arose graciously from her throne, and met them in the middle of the hall, and humbly asked their blessing. . . . After this she retired a few steps, and stood nearly in her own royal place, having the pious Tsar on her right hand, and on her left her brother, the boyar, with his head uncovered, while a little behind her stood in order the wives of the princes, each according to her rank, attired in white, with their hands crossed upon their breasts, and their faces inclined to the ground. At a sign from the Tsar they all, one after the other, reverently advanced to receive the blessing of the most holy patriarchs ; while the orthodox Tsaritsa, having received from the hands of her first lady a precious golden chalice, studded with six thousand seed pearls and other precious stones, presented it with her own hand to the patriarch ; and then sat down herself, and desired him also to be seated.' The right wing of the Palace is occupied by the Treasury Orujeinaya Palata supposed to be freely shown to travellers, but of which importunate officials only allow them the most hurried glimpse. It seems always to have been thus, and complaints of the way in which visitors are hurried will be found in * Clarke's Travels,' and also in the ' Voyage de deux Francois.' Yet nothing in Russia is more worth seeing in detail, for the treasure of the Kremlin is the 270 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. chronicle of its country, as much a history in precious stones as the Roman forum is in stones of building. Ascending the staircase we pass through several rooms containing specimens of ancient armour, and see how in later times the bows of the streltsi were changed to match- locks by Ivan II., and to muskets by Alexis, and (in the second room) the standard of Ivan the Terrible. One room is hung with Romanoff portraits, which include a picture of Catherine II. represented as a good-looking young man in a blue coat, tight breeches, and a cocked hat, on horseback. Here are several of the later coronation chairs. A room, to the right of this, contains the most precious relics of the collection, the throne of Poland taken from Warsaw in 1833 ; the Eastern ivory throne of Sophia Paleologus, which she brought with her in 1473 on ^ er marriage with Ivan the Great ; and a gorgeous jewelled throne brought from Persia in 1660, and used by Alexis. Here also is the famous orb, said to have been sent to S. Vladimir with other treasures by the Greek Emperors Basil and Constantine. The next room is surrounded by a kind of wardrobe of coronation robes, including that robe of Catherine II. which was so heavy with gold and jewels that it needed twelve chamberlains to support it. Here we see a succession of crowns upon pedestals standing before the empty thrones of those who wore them, and the crown falsely attributed to Vladimir Monomachus, still used in coronations. The crowns of Kazan, Astrakan, Georgia, Siberia, and Poland, are all covered with jewels, some of them the largest, almost the most precious in the world ' crowns upon crowns, sceptres upon sceptres, rivers of diamonds, oceans of pearls.' The crown of the Crimea is the simplest a golden circlet. THE TREASURY. 271 How insignificant all other treasuries seem compared with this ! ' Les couronnes de Pierre I, de Catherine I, et d'Elisabeth m'ont surtout frappe : que d'or, de diamants . . . et de poussiere ! ' M. de Cits tine. The more ancient collections are described on the visit of Chancellor in 1555. He saw the * goodly gownes,' two of them * as heavie as a man could easily carrie, all set with pearles over and over, and the borders garnished with sapphires and other good stones abundantly.' It used to be the custom to dress up tradesmen and others in these robes of the treasury to add to the effect on days of high ceremonial. ' We entred sundry roomes, furnished in shew with ancient grave personages, all in long garments of sundry colours : golde, tissue, baldekin, and violet, as our vestments and copes have bene in England, sutable with caps, jewels, and chaines. These were found to be no courtiers, but ancient Moscovites, inhabitants, and other their mer- chants of credite, as the maner is, furnished thus from the wardrobe and treasurie, waiting and wearing this apparell for the time, and so to restore it.' Henry Lane to Sanderson, 1555. Hakluyt, ' Voyages," 1 i. The double throne which is shown was made for the twofold coronation of Ivan and Peter, and has the aper- ture behind through which his sister Sophia was able to prompt her feeble-minded brother. ' Ce meuble singulier est le symbole de ce gouvernement inouT en Russie, compose de deux tsars visibles et d'une souveraine invisible.' Rambaud. The last and largest of the upper rooms contains an immense collection of ancient gold and silver plate, cups of 272 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. jewels and precious stones, and priceless embroideries and caparisons of horses. Historical relics here are the wrought, helmet of S. Alexander Nevskoi ; the comb, ivory sticks, and ivory cup of Marina, wife of the false Dmitri; and a copy of the laws of Alexis Michaelovitch, begun in 1648 and written on rolls. A great deal of handsome English plate was presented by James I., Charles I., and Charles II. We see the plate used to reward public service a cup with a cover and the spread eagle, which was given to persons of the highest rank ; a simple cup to the next ; and a coin of gold, with a hole drilled through it, for military service. In the collec- tion of coins, we see that the older coins were not struck, but punched on the reverse, and two pieces of silver joined together, so as to seem a fresh coin. The coins which show Sophia on one side and her two brothers on the other, are a curious testimony to her ambition. On returning downstairs we see in the first room an extraordinary model of the Kremlin, as Catherine II. pro- posed to reconstruct it. The model cost 50,000 roubles. It was made by Andrew Wetmann, a German, after a design of the architect Bajarof, pupil of Vailly. l A room filled with Polish portraits carried off from Warsaw, leads to a third room which is filled with ancient court-carriages. The most interesting are the magnificent chariot sent by Elizabeth of England to Boris Godunof; the little coach of Peter the Great as a child, with windows of mica ; the huge state coach of the Empress Elizabeth, and her still larger traveling carriage on runners, lined with green baize and fitted up with table and benches. 1 I T oyage de deux Franfais. THE ASCENSION CONVENT. 273 Here also is the camp bed of Napoleon taken in the flight from Moscow, when his private papers were found in the pocket of the pillow-case. We must now visit the Ascension Convent Voscresenski Devitchi which stands back in a garden court between the cathedral and the Redeemer's Gate. It was founded in 1389 by Eudoxia, wife of Dmitri of the Don. ' The devotion of Eudoxia and her love of church-building cause her to be compared with Mary, wife of Vsevolod the Great, grandson of Monomachus. It is she who founded, in the Kremlin, the monastery of the Ascension, for women ; the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, and other temples decorated and painted by the Greek Theophanes and Simeon the Black. This pious princess cherished virtue as much as she abhorred the pretence of it. In order to conceal, under an appearance of well-being, the wasting of her frame, which was the result of per- petual fastings and mortifications, she wore several dresses, adorned herself with pearls, and always appeared with a radiant aspect ; nothing rejoiced her more than when she heard slander raise doubts about her virtue, declare that Eudoxia was always seeking admiration, and even that she had lovers. These rumours appeared outrageous to the sons of Donsko'i, especially to Youri Dmitrievitch, who could not conceal from his mother how much they troubled him. Eudoxia at last called them, and removed a portion of her garments in their presence, " Believe now," she cried to her sons, horror-stricken at the sight of her body wasted and worn by excess of fasting, " believe that your mother is chaste ; but let what you have seen remain for ever a secret for the world. She who loves Jesus Christ ought to bear calumny, and to thank God for having sent her this trial." The slander was soon reduced to silence. A short time before her death, Eudoxia abandoned the world, and entered the monastery, where she took the name of Enphrosyne, and ended her days, honoured with that of saint.' Karamsin. After Eudoxia was buried here, the church became the burying-place of the illustrious house of Moscow for T 274 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. all the Grand-Princesses and their daughters, whose tombs are ranged side by side beginning with hers. 1 Almost immediately follow the sarcophagi of the wives of Ivan the Great the beloved Mary of Tver, who died at Kolomna of poison in extreme youth (1467), and the unloved but brilliant and energetic Sophia (1503), daughter of the Emperor of the East. Then attention will be drawn to the tomb of Helena, widow of Vassili Ivanovitch, and sovereign regent of Russia during the minority of Ivan the Terrible, who died of poison in 1538. Next comes the tomb of Ivan IV.'s first wife Anastasia (1560), his good angel, with whom his prosperity came to an end, followed by those of his succeeding wives. Mary (1569), and Marpha (1571), who both died of poison. Near these rests the young Tsarevna Theodosia, the child of Feodor and Irene, hailed with the most extreme delight by her parents, but taken away from them in infancy. Perhaps the greatest interest centres around the tomb of Irene Godunof, widow of the Tsar Feodor, who died a nun in the Novo Devichi Monastery. - ' Through six years she had never left her voluntary retreat, unless to go to the chapel, which was erected near her humble dwelling. Illustrious by her mental qualities, and by her extraordinary destiny, her fortune had come to seek her, when, bereft of father and mother, she was pining in sad isolation. Though brought up and cherished by Ivan (the Terrible), she remained virtuous. First female sovereign regnant in Russia, she shut herself up, whilst still young, in a convent. Pure herself before God, she is stained in history by her relationship to a cruel adventurer, to whom, though unintentionally, she pointed out the way to the throne. Blinded by the attachment she felt for him, and by the lustre of his seeming virtues, she was either ignorant of his crimes, or never believed in them. . . . Irene, who never interfered 1 See Mouravieff, ch. v. THE ASCENSION CONVENT. 275 with Boris during his reign, served as his guardian angel by attracting towards him the affections of the people, who never ceased to regard her, even in her cell, as the true mother of her country. Irene was happy in her death ; she did not witness the loss of all that she still loved vipon earth.' Karamsin, xi. The wives of Michael and Alexis Romanoff have tombs here. The last sarcophagus is that of Eudoxia, first wife of Peter the Great. All the tombs are covered by velvet palls, with borders of gold and silver lace. The place is watched over by a number of sweet-looking nuns, ex- tremely busy, even in the church, in the sale of their needle-work and icons, at exceedingly low prices. They are dressed in robes of black stuff, with black veils and forehead-cloths and black wrappers under the chin. The abbess is only distinguished by a robe of black silk. Meat is entirely prohibited in this convent. The service on Orthodox Sunday is especially striking here, when the Russian Church gratefully and publicly offers ' To the religious Great Duke Vladimir equal to the Apostles, and to Olga his grandmother, and to all other religious princes and prin- cesses of Russia, everlasting remembrance. ' To the religious princesses, daughters of tsars and great duchesses, Anna Petrowna, Natalia Petrowna To the religious princesses, daughters of the sons of tsars and great duchesses, Tatiana Michael- owna, Irene Michaelowna, the nun Anthya Michaelowna, the nun Sophia Alexiewna, the nun Margarita Alexiewna, Theodosia Alex- iewna, Eudoxia Alexiewna, Catherina Ivanowna, Parascovia Ivanowna : to the religious princess and great duchess Natalia Alexiewna. and the rest of the imperial family, and all who are born of great dukes of Russia, everlasting remembrance.' It was to this convent that the Tsaritsa Marpha, seventh wife of Ivan the Terrible, and mother of the murdered T 2 276 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Dmitri, was dragged from her convent at Bielo-ozero, to be treated with feigned honours, forced to recognise the usurper as her son, and to receive his Polish bride Marina as her future daughter-in-law ; here also she eventually summoned courage to denounce the false Dmitri, and caused his downfall and death. Nearer the gate is Chitdof 'or Miracle Monastery, founded in 1365 by S. Alexis, on ground given to him by Taidula, wife of the Tartar Khan Djanibek, who considered that he had cured her from illness by a miracle, whence the name. It was here that, in 1440, the Patriarch Isidore, who attended the council of Florence and horrified Russian orthodoxy by acknowledging the supremacy of the Pope, was imprisoned on his return, though he soon escaped and fled to Rome. Here also the intrusive Patriarch Ignatius, who had blessed the false Dmitri, was imprisoned in 1606, and here in 1612 the Patriarch Hermogenes was starved to death by the Poles, the Tsar Vassili Shu : ski having already been compelled to become a monk in the convent. The church contains the body of ' S. Alexis the wonder- worker ' (Thaumaturge), in a silver shrine. It was discovered after the retreat of the French, untouched, though Marshal Davoust had his quarters in the sacristy and slept there. It is said that he asked, ' Whose tomb is this ? ' and being told, said, ' Let the old man rest.' Every sovereign on his entrance into Moscow visits the grave of Alexis, and all children, on being first taken to school, are brought hither to implore the saint to watch over their studies. The robes of Alexis are preserved near his shrine, and his will is in the sacristy. CHUDOF MONASTERY. 277 ' Long before the reign of Vassili Ivanovitch, say the chroniclers, had the relics of the holy Metropolitan Alexis the power of healing the sick ; but in 1519, this miraculous power was confirmed by a sacred ceremony. The Metropolitan Varlaam having informed the monarch that many blind persons, filled with lively faith as they kissed the reliquary of S. Alexis, had recovered their sight, the clergy assembled at the sound of all the bells with an innumerable multitude of people, and these miracles, with the proofs in support of them, were announced with pomp : the Te Deum was sung upon the holy tomb ; the Great Prince, filled with emotion, was the first to prostrate himself, rendering thanks to the Divine Pity, which, in his reign, had " opened a second source of blessing and salvation for Moscow." S. Alexis was henceforth placed, in the opinion of the people, in the same rank as the Metro- politan Peter, the ancient patron of Moscow.' Karamsin, vii. In this church the idolised Grand-Prince Vassili Ivano- vitch (father of Ivan the Terrible), ' the good and affable Prince,' lay in state, having received the monastic tonsure just before his death in 1533. On this occasion the grief of the people was indescribable ' They were like children at the burial of their father,' say the annalists. The dedication of the monastic church to S. Michael recalls the touching story of the murder of that early Grand- Prince in 1319 by the Tartars, and his burial in the earlier building on this site, 1 in which the Ivan Kalita (Ivan I.) took the monastic habit before his death in 1340. The ' cells ' or apartments of the Metropolitan are in this monastery, which has been rebuilt since the French in- vasion of 1812. Behind the monasteries is the Arsenal, constructed 1701-1736. Along the square in front of it are ranged a quantity of cannon ' taken from the enemy on Russian territory by the victorious army and the brave and faithful 1 Karamsin, iv. 278 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Russian nation.' Many of the guns, left behind in the retreat when winter was avenging Moscow, are inscribed La Tempete, L'Acharne, L'Hercule, &c. Others bear Latin mottoes, * Vigilate Deo confidentes,' 'Concordia res parvae crescunt,' * Pro gloria et patria ; ' others are marked ' Strasbourg, le 26 Fructidor.' 1 The huge cannon nearest the cathedrals is called the Tsar Pushka or Tsar Cannon, and bears the effigy of the Tsar Feodor, during whose reign (1586) it was cast. This cannon was spared by a special Ukaz of Peter the Great, when he ordered the rest of the old cannon to be recast. The cannon destroyed included some interesting works executed under Vassili Ivanovitch. ' Basilius dyd furthermore instytute a bande of harqabusiers on horsebacke, and caused many great brazen pieces to be made by the workmanshyp of certayne Italians : and the same with theyr stockes and wheeles to be placed in the castle of Mosca.' Eden's 'Hist, of Travayles, p. 301. The gate which opens into the Krasnaya Ploschad, near the Arsenal, is the Nicholas Gate Nikolski, which dates from 1491, and bears the miraculous icon of S. Nicholas of Mojaisk, which is supposed to have caused Napoleon's powder-wagons to explode when they attempted to pass it. The other two gates are called Borovitski and Troitski. By the last the French both entered and left the Kremlin. ' Apres avoir vu le Kremlin, on ferait bien de s'en retourner tout droit dans son pays : 1'emotion du voyage est epuisee.' M. de Custine. The most striking view of the Kremlin is that just beyond the bridge over the Moskva, reached by the steep 1 Not a single gun was carried by the French across the Niemen on quitting Russia. THE MOSKVA. 279 descent below S. Basil. Owing to the gold with which they are covered, the domes and spires sparkle even after the sun has set, and when the towers are mere shadows against the blue sky of night. ' There is a massive beauty about the churches of the Kremlin, which no one who has not seen them can form an idea of. No out- lines, nor even any coloured drawings, can give it. To be realised they KREMLIN, MOSCOW. must be seen with their massive snowy walls and their golden cupolas standing out against the pellucid sky and resplendent with the midday sun, or even in greater beauty embossed upon the blueness of a summer night.' ' The Builder ^ ' Jan. 26, 1884. It was here that the ancient Tsars used to assist at the Benediction of the Waters, as we read in * Hakluyt's Voyages.' ' The 4 of January, which was Twelftide with them, the Em- perour, with his brother and all his nobles, all most richly appareled 280 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. with gold, pearles, precious stones, and costly furres, with a crowne upon his head, of the Tartarian fashion, went to the church in proces- sion, with the Metropolitan and divers bishops and priests. Then he came out of the church, and went with the procession upon the river, being all frozen, and there standing bareheaded, with all his nobles, there was a hole made in the ice, and the Metropolitan hallowed the water with great solemnitie and service, and did cast of the sayd water upon the Emperor's sonne and the nobility. That done, the people with great thronging filled pots of the said water to carie home to their houses, and divers children were throwen in, and sicke people, and plucked out quickly againe, and divers Tartars christened : all which the Emperour beheld. Also there were brought the Emperour's best horses, to drink at the sayd hallowed water. All this being ended, he returned to his palace againe, and went to dinner by candle light, and sate in a woodden house, very fairly gilt. There dined in the place above 300 strangers, and I sate alone opposite the Emperour, and had my meat, bread, and drinke sent me from the Emperour.' Letters of Master Anthonie Jenkinson, 1557. Till very recently the Moskva was only crossed by a kind of raft, called by the Russians 'a living bridge,' because it bent under the weight of a carriage. Now there are several bridges. Near that at tne foot of the Kremlin on the west is a church set apart for the benediction of apples ; and this is not given until the first apple drops from the tree and is brought to the priest with much ceremony. More willingly would a Mahometan eat pork than a Russian unconsecrated fruit. 28l CHAPTER VI. MOSCOW. THE OUTER CIRCLES. VERY near the bridge, below the Kremlin of Moscow, is the Foundling Hospital Vospitatelny Dom. ' La Maison Imperiale d'Education,' which Madame de Stael calls ' une des plus touchantes institutions de 1'Europe,' was founded by Catherine II., and greatly fostered by the Empress Marie (widow of Paul), whose schools, charities, and hospitals make a prominent mark in Russian history. The hospital is an immense building with 2,228 windows, which receives between 2,000 and 3,000 children annually. No questions are asked on admission, except whether the child has been christened and what its name is. At a font in the entrance- room on the ground floor, at five o'clock daily, those chil- dren are admitted into the pale of Christianity who are brought to the hospital without having a little cross hung round their necks the sign of a Greek Christian. Women may come here for their delivery, and leave their babies behind them. The children are sent to nurses in the country till they are five years old, and then are received back, as fast as there are vacancies, to stay till they are 282 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. eighteen, when they are dismissed with thirty roubles and two suits of clothes. The boys are liable to military service, but the greater number of them become agricultural la- bourers. Many of the girls are trained as hospital nurses. If they marry before their eighteenth year, they are provided with a trousseau. It is worth while to come to the Sunday services here for the sake of the singing, which is very beau- tiful. ' Unfortunately, this famous refuge has corrupted all the villages round Moscow. Peasant girls who have forgotten to get married send their babies to the institution, and then offer themselves in person as wet nurses. Having tattooed their offspring, each mother contrives to find her own, and takes charge of it by a private arrangement with the nurse to whom it has been assigned. As babies are much alike, the authorities cannot detect these interchanges, and do not attempt to do so. In due time the mother returns to her village with her own baby, whose board will be well paid by the State at the rate of 8s. a month, and possibly next year and the year after she will begin the same game over again.' 'The Russians of To-day J 1878. Beyond the farther or stone bridge, nobly conspicuous in all the views from the Kremlin, we see the snowy mass and golden domes of ' the New Cathedral ' of the Saviour Khram Spassitelia, which was begun in 1812, and is only just finished. It is by far the finest modem church in Russia. Built to commemorate the deliverance of Moscow from the French, it bears the motto, ' God with us ' over the entrance. In the interior, typical frescoes of Joshua's entrance into Palestine, Deborah encouraging Barak, David returning from the slaughter of Goliath, and the coronation of Solomon, alternate with scenes from Russian history. The views of the interior from the upper galleries are most gorgeous and striking. DOM PASHKOVA. 283 ' The services of Christmas Day are almost obscured by those which celebrate the retreat of the invaders on that same day, the 25th of December, 1812, from the Russian soil ; the last of that long succes- sion of national thanksgivings, which begin with the victory of the Don and the flight of Tamerlane, and end with the victory of Beresina and the flight of Napoleon. " How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning !" this is the lesson appointed for the services of that day. " There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity." " Look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh" this is the gospel of the day. "Who through faith subdued kingdoms, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens " this is the epistle.' Stanley ', ' The Russian Church. ^ Not far from the cathedral, high above the surrounding buildings, rises Dom Pashkova, formerly the magnificent residence of the Pashkof family, and the finest private residence in Moscow. It is now used as a museum, but contains little which will be interesting to foreigners, and the collection of pictures is a wretched one : only Ivanoff's great picture of the Baptist showing Christ to his Converts is very expressive and striking. The museum, which comprises almost every kind of object, has for Russians an extraneous interest, as showing the extraordinary progress of science in the ancient capital during the last century, especially when it is remembered that as late as the time of Alexis a Dutch surgeon was con- demned to be burnt with his skeleton, because he kept one for anatomical purposes ; and a German painter, in whose studio a skull was found, was with difficulty rescued from the same fate. A hundred years ago, out of the 8,360 private houses in the city, 6,400 were the property of the nobles, who mostly passed their winter in the town ; now the greater part belong 284 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. to merchants and manufacturers. A stranger, calling at one of these great houses, need never expect to see the ladies of the family ; sufficient of Eastern custom still prevails to prevent such an indiscretion. After a time the master of the house will appear, and then tea and slices of lemon will be handed round. The state-rooms are never inhabited. According to our ideas, domestic life of less than the highest rank in old-fashioned Russian houses is most uncomfortable. The men seldom take off more than their shoes and coats at night, and their beds are only covered by a sheet and a quilt. For breakfast a cup of tea is considered quite sufficient till noon. Ablutions consist in a servant pouring a little water on the hands : indeed, in all classes, it is the custom to throw water on to the hands, or to turn it on from a cock, never to immerse them. There is nothing like ' Sir ' or ' Madam ' in Russia ; the formula is to address a person by his Christian name coupled with that of his father, as thus : ' Augustus, son of Francis,' * Olga, daughter of Ivan.' Half the servants in the great houses have next to nothing to do, and sleep half the day. Even at the hotels a number of idle servants are kept, whose chief duty seems to be to lounge about the entrance and make an effect, with circles of peacocks' feathers round their caps. The Countess Orloff, residing at Moscow, had so many servants that she re- quired to have a special hospital for them in case of sickness. To a resident, who is in the habit of visiting in Russian houses, the fees expected by servants at the New Year are an absurd expense : where you are an habitual visitor the servants expect five roubles, and where you have only called once, one rouble. THE ROMANOFF HOUSE. 285 ' The nobles, with their families and serfs, lived in a mixture of Oriental and European luxury. The peasant worked and paid a poll- tax to his lord, which the latter, with his family and domestic slaves, generally expended in Moscow. The greatest luxury was displayed in the number of horses and servants ; and the Government was fre- quently obliged to issue regulations regarding the equipages, decreeing who might drive with six,, four, two horses, &c. Of the luxury dis- played in servants it is impossible for us to form an idea ; it is asserted that in the larger palaces there were as many as a thousand, or more : even nobles of minor consequence and fortune had at least from twenty to thirty ; and a more wretched, lazy, disorderly crew was not to be found. It was impossible to give sufficient occupation to this crowd of people, and it was often ridiculous to see the way in which the house- hold duties were divided amongst them : one had nothing in the world to do but to sweep a flight of stairs, another had only to fetch water for the family to drink at dinner, another for the evening tea. The expense, however, of their maintenance was little enough. They lived, like Russian peasants, on bread, groats, shtchi (cabbage-soup) and kvas (sour beer) : their dress was that of the peasants, and they lived in the isbas (black rooms), which are always found in Russian court- yards.' Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire.* If we follow the lower side of the Bazaar from the Red Place, we may soon find our way to the Romanoff House Palata Boyar Romanovykh in which Feodor Romanoff, afterwards known as the Patriarch Philaret, lived, and where his son Michael, afterwards tsar, was born. The house was restored 1856-59 : indeed, almost entirely rebuilt ; and is chiefly interesting as showing the character, even to minute details, of an ancient Russian boyar-house. The Romanoffs were merely boyars till 1613. We may return hence by the boulevard on the out- side of the Kitaigorod, which will give us an opportunity of admiring the intensely picturesque towers on its walls. It was in one of them that a Countess Soltikoff was im- 286 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. prisoned for many years with great severity, on account of her cruelty to her slaves. We re-enter the Kitaigorod by the Sunday gate Voss- kreosenkaya Verota by which we came in from the railway station. On the outside is the little Chapel of the Virgin 'the Iberian Mother,' Iverskaya Chasovnia containing an icon brought from Mount Athos in the time of the Tsar Alexis, which has ever since been the palladium of Moscow. When the French were approaching the town, the inhabitants implored to be led against them by the Iberian Mother. At all hours of the day people are kneeling in the chapel, or on the steps and platform in front. Every passer-by crosses himself, and innumerable gifts are made to the Virgin, which priests live close by to ' take care of.' The shrine collects at least 10,000 roubles a year, a large portion of which pays the salary of the Metropolitan ; and ' that the income of the Metropolitan may not be less ' is the excuse given for setting a representation of the Iberian Mother in her place ' to collect her revenues ' during her absences. The devotion which the Emperor pays to this venerated icon, always lingering at her shrine on his way from the station to the Kremlin, is a matter of political importance, a real bond of attachment between him and his people. The Virgin keeps a carriage and four, and pays visits ; and her carriage may always be recognised in the streets by the passengers uncovering, and even the coachman driving without his hat. When a new house is built, the owner sends to ask the Iberian Mother to come and give it a blessing. She will also attend weddings and visit the sick for a gratuity of from fifty to a hundred roubles ; but if the demand for her company is too frequent, the answer sent THE IBERIAN MOTHER. 287 is, 'The Mother is fatigued to-day, and cannot come.' A princess who coveted the largest diamond worn by the Mother, and who extracted it with her teeth from her dress whilst kissing it, was sent to Siberia for life. ' The Iberian Mother sits in the half-darkened background, in the midst of gold and pearls. Like all Russian saints, she has a dark- brown, almost black complexion. Round her head she has a net made of real pearls. On one shoulder a large jewel is fastened, shedding brightness around, as if a butterfly had settled there. Such another butterfly rests on her brow, above which glitters a brilliant crown. On one corner of the picture, on a silver plate, is inscribed, rj ^rr?p 0eov roDv 'Iftepcav. Around the picture are gold brocaded hangings, to which angels' heads, painted on porcelain with silver wings, are sewed ; the whole is lighted up by thirteen silver lamps. Beside the picture there are a number of drawers containing wax tapers, and books having reference to her history. Her hand and the foot of the child are covered with dirt from constant kissing ; it rests like a little crust in raised points, so that it has long ceased to be the hand and foot that have been kissed, but the concrete breath of the pious. The doors of the chapel stand open all day long, and all are admitted who are sorrowful or heavy-laden ; and this includes here, as everywhere else, a great number. I have often watched with amazement the multitudes that streamed in, testifying to the inordinate power which this picture exercises over their minds. None ever pass, however pressing their business, without bowing or crossing themselves. The greater part enter, kneel devoutly before the Mother, and pray with fervent sighs. Here come the peasants early in the morning before going to market ; they lay aside their burdens, pray awhile, and then go their way. Hither comes the merchant on the eve of a new speculation, to ask the assistance of the angels hovering round "the Mother." Hither come the healthy and the sick, the wealthy, and those who would become so ; the arriving and the departing traveller, the fortunate and the un fortunate, the noble and the beggar ! All pray, thank, supplicate, sigh, laud, and pour but their hearts before " the Mother." There is really something touching in seeing the most sumptuously clad ladies, glittering with jewels, leave their splendid equipages and gallant attendants, and prostrate themselves in the dust with the beggars. On a holiday I once counted two hundred passing pilgrims, kneeling down before "the Iberian Mother." 288 STUDIES IN RUSSIA, ( I had almost forgotten to mention the principal point ; namely, that there is a very little scratch in the right cheek of the picture, that distils blood. This wound was inflicted, nobody knows when or how, by Turks or Circassians, and exactly this it is by which the miraculous powers of the picture were proved ; for scarcely had the steel pierced the canvas when the blood trickled from the painted cheek. In every copy the painter has represented this wound, with a few delicate drops of blood. As I was speaking of this and other miracles to a monk, he made, to my imprudent question whether miracles were now daily wrought by it, the really prudent reply, " Why, yes, if it be God's pleasure, and where there is faith ; for it is written in the Bible that faith alone blesses."' Kohl. These are the principal sights of Moscow ; but to obtain some knowledge of the place and people many rambles must be made beyond the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin. Much is uninteresting, and most is dusty and ugly, but generally some curious church will repay the architect or artist for his excursion, and the people are always original. The ambassadors of Holstein narrate that, at the time of their visit (1633-1639), there were 2,000 churches and chapels in Moscow : c no one but hath his private chapel, nor any street but hath many of them.' ' The Mosco itself is great : I take the whole towne to bee greater than London with the suburbes : but it is very rude, and standeth without all order. Their houses are all of timber very dangerous for fire.' Richard Chancelour, 1553. * Moscow is in everything extraordinary ; as well in disappointing expectation, as in surpassing it ; in causing wonder and derision, pleasure and regret. One might imagine all the states of Europe and Asia had sent a building, by way of representative, to Moscow : and under this impression the eye is presented with deputies from all countries, holding congress ; timber-huts from regions beyond the Arctic ; plastered palaces from Sweden and Denmark, not whitewashed since their arrival ; painted walls from the Tirol ; mosques from Con- SIDE STREETS IN MOSCOW. 289 stantinople ; Tartar temples from Bucharia ; pagodas, pavilions, and verandahs from China ; cabarets from Spain ; dungeons, prisons, and public offices from France ; architectural ruins from Rome ; terraces and trellises from Naples ; and warehouses from Wapping.' Clarke's ' Travels: Many of the so-called streets are really quiet lanes, where wooden gates open into courtyards planted with lilacs, acacias, and senna, and peopled by a multitude of dogs, goats, or poultry, sometimes even a cow. Here children are brought up in sunshine, and the enjoyment of a rude, quiet country life ; the younger women do their washing at great troughs, and the older members of the family sit knitting or spinning in the wooden verandah or gallery which surrounds the primitive house. ' The streets of the new quarter of the noblesse are not broad, but as the houses are all low and stand in gardens away generally from the street-side, and as there is not much traffic among them, there is a freshness and a brightness of the air and a repose and soothing quiet which make a saunter along them particularly pleasing. Here and there children are about in the gardens, or domestics are lazily occupied in the stable-yards cleaning the harness by the stable-door, or lounging about, enjoying the far niente ; while the noisy hum of the busy city is just audible beyond the precincts of the quarter. ' The noble builds his house, in town or country, on a cottage plan. He raises a low wall of stone or brick of some four feet in height, and on this he builds a wooden house of one storey. It is long and wide, and a passage or hall intersects it from one extremity to the other, and the rooms on either hand open on to this, and communicate with each other. Often, too, there is a small superstructure rising from the centre of this wide basement, but this is generally only a small addition in fact, a small cottage built in the centre of the top of a large one. Sometimes, but rarely, the upper structure is as large as the lower one, and forms a complete one-storeyed house. But beyond this no truly Russian house ever rises. A broad flight of steps in the centre of the front leads up to the level of the floor of the building at four feet from the ground, and a verandah, deep and shaded, runs all along this ' U 290 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. front, and sometimes this extends down the two sides to the back. As a rule, the whole building is of wood.' G. T. Loivth. In one of the suburbs of the town ready-made portable wooden houses may be purchased and removed. Owing to the number of wooden buildings, fires are still very frequent, though much less so than formerly. ' There hardly passes a month in Moscow, nay not a week, but some place or other takes fire, which, meeting with what is very com- bustible, does in a moment reduce many houses, nay, if the wind be anything high, whole streets unto ashes.' Ambassadors of Holstein, 1633-1639. Many of the churches in remote parts of the city not only have golden domes, but a veil of golden chains falls over them from the cross on the summit, producing a most extraordinary effect. On the festivals of the patron saints of the churches, the streets in front of them are strewn with fir-boughs. The great drawback to walking arises from the horrors of the pavement, which is usually rough beyond imagination, though in some, but very rare, cases, the street or footway is boarded with planks like a floor. In all rambles amongst the people, no one can fail to be struck with their good humour ; however much they cheat and lie. they are always good-tempered. They are also very kind-hearted, and much as they storm at and abuse their horses, they never beat them ; societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals are utterly uncalled for in Russia. In- temperance is much more rife at Moscow than at St. Peters- burg, ' There is a national difference between the St. Petersburg and Moscow expectants of drink-money. That everybody in Russia de- mands or receives drink-money is acknowledged, but the St. Peters- THE THIEF MARKET. 291 burger, infested with European culture, lisps out in honeyed accents, "Natchai" (tea), whilst the Moscovian honestly asks " Na vodku " (brandy).' Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire.' 1 Yet, in the cabarets, even here, drosky-drivers may be seen, who will go on drinking nothing but tea from morning to night. If convicted of stealing or cheating, a Russian is comi- cally little ashamed of it ; it is quite in the course of nature. Not far from the Red Place is * the Thief Market,' where everything that is sold, and quite openly, is supposed to have been stolen. People who have lost anything that they care for go thither to look for their lost goods. ' This market is a premium on ingenuity. No one in the world is more ingenious than a Russian about money. . . . One day a man sold a watch here. Another watched the sale, marked the buyer, and followed him. Passing through one of the Kitai gates, he, the follower, met a soldier, to whom he said a few words, giving him a rouble. They both came up to the purchaser of the watch. Said the man, addressing the purchaser, "Friend, you have bought a watch in the market it is mine ; it was stolen from me last night." " How do I know that?" replied the other ; "what was your watch like?" The man described the watch, adding, " Here, show it to my friend, this soldier ; he knows it well." Of course, on seeing it, the soldier swore fiercely to it as his friend's watch. "Now," said the man, " you give me up my watch, or I follow you till we meet a policeman, and I will tell him all about it." The man gave up the watch, and the other went back into the market and sold it. * A rich fur cloak was sold in this market. Two men marked the buyer go and pawn it. These men in the evening disguised themselves as police, and going to the pawnbroker, a Jew, they said, " You have a fur cloak," describing it "pawned to you to-day ; we are in search of that cloak ; it was stolen some days since." " Well," said the Jew, ' ' there it is. I lent forty roubles on it ; if you pay me that sum, there is the cloak." "Pay you forty roubles! The Government does not pay for the recovery of stolen goods. If you do not give it up, you must come before the authorities, and you lose your license." So the U 2 292 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Jew, being frightened, gave up the cloak, which the men, their dis- guise thrown off, brought and sold in the Thief Market the next day. ' One day a servant went with ten roubles to the market. He returned presently in great alarm to say that he had dropped his purse with the roubles in it in the street. His master sent him at once to the nearest police-station. On his way there, and near the station, a drosky driver saw him searching about, and hearing he had lost his purse the driver said, " I saw a policeman of that station," pointing to it, "pick it up." The servant taxed the policeman with having the purse, but he denied it ; but the driver coming up repeated his asser- tion " I saw him pick it up." The policeman, being threatened with exposure, at last produced the purse, and then claimed the reward of trover one-third of the property found. The driver and the police- man quarrelled over the matter, and then it appeared that both of them had seen the servant drop the purse, and the policeman had refused to go shares with the driver in its contents, and hence his denunciation. " This is not a case of trover at all," said the servant, " but a robbery, for you saw me drop the purse." However, the policeman took his three roubles as trover, and returned the rest. If the policeman had but consented to share the contents with the driver, it is probable that the latter would have gone off to a church, and on his knees have thanked the Virgin for her goodness in letting the servant drop his purse, and for thus sending him five roubles.' G. T. Lowth. ' Thieves and policemen are the great pests of Russian towns, but especially policemen. Russians are not thieves by nature, judging by their honesty in country districts, where there are no police ; but once they get into towns, the evil example set them by official persons, and the venal connivance they can obtain from the police, prove too tempt- ing. A man who has resided some time in Russia even doubts whether the notions of meum and tmim are comprehended there as they are in other countries. If you pay a visit and leave a cloak on the seat of your carriage, that cloak is gone when you come out. If you walk out with a dog unchained, the dog vanishes round a street-corner. Shop- keepers are afraid to place articles of value in their windows. House- holders are liable to have their horses and carriages stolen if they do not keep a sufficient number of stable servants, and take care to see before going to bed that one at least of these menials is sober. A man who goes out for a night strcll unarmed may be set upon within sight of a drosky-stand and stripped of every article he wears, including shirt and small clothes. The drosky drivers will not give him a helping hand ; they will rather start off altogether in a panic lest they should be summoned to give evidence ; as for the police, they hurry up SUHAREF TOWER. 293 afterwards, and make the despoiled man pay twice the value of the things he has lost in fees for investigation.' ''The Russians of To-day, ' 1878. This market was once the ' Hair Market,' whither (1636) ' the inhabitants used to go to be trimmed, by which means this place came to be so covered with hair that a man might tread as softly as on a feather-bed.' Though theft is the common practice of life, long custom has made some things sacred from it. No Russian thief ever touches the tables of the public money-changers, and no one would ever think of interfering with the cows which are allowed to wander alone here, as they do in no other country, and are considered to be under the protec- tion of the public. Those dwellers in the town who keep cows will open their gates in the early morning to let them out. Each cow knows her way to a certain barrier of the city, where other cows join her. At the barrier is a man blowing a horn, and waiting to conduct them to a pasture outside the town and take care of them through the day. In the evening he brings them back as far as the barrier, and thence each cow takes care of herself, and finds her own way home. Moscow cows will often walk six miles to their pasture. 1 Cows are very cheap here : if they are of a northern breed, about twenty roubles is t a good price for a cow ; if of a southern breed, about forty roubles, or 6/. Strangers will probably go to visit the Suharef Tower Suhareva Bashnia erected by Peter the Great to mark the north-eastern gate of the town, which was kept by the one regiment of the streltsi which, under Colonel Suharef, remained faithful when the rest revolted, and which con- 1 See Lowth. 294 STUDIES IN RUSSIA, ducted him and his mother for safety to the Troitsa. The tower is now used as a reservoir, and its waters supply the whole of Moscow. Near the foot of the tower a very remarkable market is held early every Sunday morning, and old Russian silver, curious icons, or brass bowls and dishes may be obtained there at much lower prices than in the shops. Of the Moscow tradesmen the carpenters are probably the most remarkable, as well as the most prosperous. ' The plotniki (carpenters) are a very characteristic class. As the majority of buildings in Russia are of wood, and are almost entirely built of it, the carpenters are in number and importance such as exist in no other country. Every peasant is a carpenter, and knows how to frame, build, and fit up a house. The plotniki in the towns, especially in Moscow, are the elite of the ordinary peasants, and not, as in Ger- many, workmen expressly educated to the business. They constitute a complete and well-organised community, with connecting links and sections, household arrangements in common, and leaders chosen by themselves, to whom implicit obedience is shown. ' The genuine Russian plotnik properly carries no other implement than an axe or a chisel : with the axe in his belt he traverses the empire from one end to the other, and seeks and finds employment. It is incredible what he can do with his axe ; all the manifold instruments of our accomplished artisans are quite unknown to him, and still his work is not inferior, nay is often better adapted to the purpose, than that of any of our highly educated workmen. It is often difficult to believe that such charming decorations and carvings as are found on Russian ships and houses can have been produced with a clumsy axe and common chisel. Lycurgus prohibited the Spartans from employing other tools than the axe and the saw, in order to avoid all elegance as effeminate and injurious to morals. The Russian plotnik could have shown him that the natural inclination for ornament, neatness, and decoration is not destroyed by rendering difficult the means of attaining them.' Haxthazisen, ' The Russian Empire S The comical arts of the peripatetic street vendors are well worth observation. STREET VENDORS. 295 1 1 often loitered near one of the ice-vendors to divert myself with his acting, and one morning I took the trouble of writing down some of the eloquence with which he sought to allure his customers. ' " Move potshtenie ! " (your most obedient servant, sir), he called out to a gentleman at a little distance who was not thinking of him and his ice, "what is your pleasure? ready directly ! Oh ! how hot it is to-day ; one wants something to cool one ! How ! you will take vanilla? What nothing ! I am very, very sorry ! Moroshniye, moroshniye ! sami svasheye ! ice, ice, the freshest, the coolest. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, rose-ice, all of the very best, who tastes my exquisite ice my flower-bloom?" (so he called one particular ice.) " My ice is like a poppy ; come, my loveliest girl, will you taste my poppy ice ? " (The girls of Little Russia wear in spring a number of showy poppies in their hair.) " Taste it only ! It is sweeter than the kiss of your bridegroom. You like it mixed, perhaps ? Good, dearest, mixed it shall be, like your cheeks, red and white will you please to taste ? " ' And hereupon he hands the ice temptingly mingled in a graceful tapering mass of red and white. The girl looks embarrassed, but ends by taking the wooden spoon he flourishes in his right hand, and eating the offered delicacy. "Zvatni zvetot." "Blooming flower, poppy bloom, vanilla blossom, coffee blossom ! Who will take my most delicious ice ? See here, my good old father, red, red as a rose, and yellow as gold. Ah ! you simpleton, give your copper for my gold." (Here he puts a little in a glass and holds it in the sun.) " Ah ! how superb ! How I should like to eat it myself ! But I am not rich enough. I can't afford it. Come, father, buy some of it, and then I can have a taste. There, take it, father, and much good may it do you ! For your little son as well ? Moroshniye ! Ugh, how hot it is ! I am half melted. I must have some ice." He then tastes a little, turns up his eyes, and raises his shoulders as if it were pure ambrosia. "Ha! good mother, what are you gaping at? Does it make your mouth water ? Truly I cannot bear to see you there melting in the sun before my eyes. There, try it." And he holds out his wooden spoon with a sample. The old woman laughs, must taste, and cannot get off under eight kopecks. And then the tempter begins his strain again, which is scarcely ended when the sun has already ended his course for the day.' Kohl. 296 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Moscow may be looked upon as the headquarters of the many strange religious sects which have diverged from the Russian Church, of which there are three million members, besides 'Old Believers,' who number seven millions. Archbishop Dimitri, of Rostof, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, wrote a book upon these sects, of which he mentions no less than two hundred. Many of these, however, are now extinct. Amongst the strangest of the newer sects which exist here are the Begslovestnie or dumb ! Anyone who joins them becomes dumb from that moment, and nothing will ever force a syllable from his lips. Pestel, the governor-general of Siberia under Cathe- rine II., tortured them in the most horrible manner, but they never uttered a sound. 1 Almost equally silent are the Sect of the Beatified Redeemer, who live constantly absorbed in the contemplation of the holy portrait, which is supposed to produce heavenly bliss and ecstasy. The Sect of the Subotniki (Sabbatarians), commonly regarded as wizards, was begun at Novogorod as early as 1470, under the Jew Zacharias, of KierT, who persuaded certain priests that the law of Moses was the only Divine law. The jewellers of Moscow mostly belong to the strange sect of the Skoptzi, who believe that Christ never died, but wanders constantly, without sex, and in different forms, over the earth. Many of them believe that he assumes the form of Peter III., whom they also declare never to have died as recorded (in the Catherine II. revolution), but to have fled to Irkutsk, and they all make a point of possessing his por- trait, with a black beard and a blue caftan trimmed with ' Haxthausen, RELIGIOUS SECTS. 297 fur. Soon, they say, he will come again, and sound the great bell of the Uspenski Sobor, that his disciples, the Skoptzi, may assemble around him, and inaugurate their everlasting empire over the world. They do not believe in the resurrection of the body, or recognise Sunday ; but they have a mystic communion through bread, sanctified by the grave of one of theifr saints, of which each person eats a morsel on Easter Day. The Skoptzi are all eunuchs, but they adopt children. They call themselves Korablik, which signifies a small vessel tossed by the waves. At their meet- ings they sing such songs as 4 Hold fast, ye mariners ; Let not the ship perish in the storm ! The Holy Spirit is with us ! Fear not the breakers, fear not the storm ! Our Father and Christ is with us ! His mother, Akulina Ivanovna, is with us ! He will come ! He will appear ! He will sound the great bell of Uspenski ! He will collect all true believers together ! He will plant masts that shall not fall ! He will set sails that shall not be rent ! He will give us a rudder that will steer us safely ! He is near us, He is with us ! He casts his anchor in a safe harbour ! We are landed ! We are landed ! The Holy Spirit is with us ! The Holy Spirit is among us ! The Holy Spirit is in us ! ' But the strangest of all the sects which prevail in Moscow is that of the Khlistovstchina the Jumpers or Flagellators, who meet to dance and scourge themselves, after which convulsions often ensue, in which ' the spirit moves them 1 See Haxthausen. 298 STUDIES TN RUSSIA. and they begin to prophesy.' Their meetings are said to be followed by terrible orgies. ' On one day in the year the men, after their mad jumping and stamping^ sink down about midnight upon benches, which are placed around, and the women fall under the benches ; suddenly all the lights are extinguished, and horrible orgies commence. They call this svatni grekh sins committed in running round together. A secretary of mine in Moscow, who had opportunities of becoming acquainted with members of the sect, described the Klisti or Klistovstchina as by no means harmless, but an extremely cruel sect. Among other things, he related that on Easter night the Skoptzi and Klisti all assemble for a great solemnity, the worship of the Mother of God. A virgin fifteen years of age, whom they have induced to act the part by tempting promises, is bound, and placed in a tub of warm water : some old women come and first make a large incision in the left breast, then cut it off, and staunch the blood in a wonderfully short time. During the operation a mystical picture of the Holy Spirit is put into the victim's hand, in order that she may be absorbed in regarding it. The breast which has been removed is laid upon a plate, and cut into small pieces, which are eaten by all the members of the sect present : the girl in the tub is then placed upon an altar which stands near, and the whole congregation dance wildly round it, singing at the same time Po pliaskhom ! Up and dance ! Po gorakhom ! Up and jump ! Na Sionskvyn Goru ! Towards Sion's hill ! The jumping grows wilder and wilder : at last all the light? are suddenly extinguished, and the orgies above described commence. My secretary had become acquainted with several of these girls, who were always afterwards regarded as sacred, and said that at the age of nineteen or twenty they looked quite like women of fifty or sixty. They generally died before their thirtieth year ; one of them, however, had married and had two children.' Haxthatisen, ' The Russian Empire.' 1 Besides these minor sects, Moscow is the headquarters of the Raskolniks, 1 the old religionists, who maintain the 1 From ras, asunder, and kolot, to split. THE RASKOLNIKS. 299 forms and observances of the ancient Russian Church in opposition to the reforms of Nikon, and still more to those of Peter the Great. ' They assert that with Peter I. commenced the dominion of Antichrist over the world, since which time there have been no real bishops and priests, this being the night before the coming of our Lord, in which sacraments are no longer necessary, except baptism, which every believing father of a family can administer. Is it not written in the Bible, they say, that Antichrist would change the times and seasons ; and did not Peter I. transpose the New Year from the 1st of September to the 1st of January ? Did he not abolish the designation of time from the beginning of the world, and adopt that of the Latin heretics, who count the years from the birth of Christ ? Is it not written that Anti- christ will demand gold and payment from the dead, and did not Peter I. introduce this custom in the Revisions ? It was perfect blas- phemy to tax the soul the immortal breath of God instead of worldly possessions. ' Haxthausen. Of the ancient faith, the beard, 'commanded by the Levitical law,' was one of the most distinguishing character- istics, and to this day no Raskolnik has a shaven chin. In the seventeenth century, the Council of Moscow pronounced that to shave a beard ' was a sin which even the blood of martyrs could not expiate.' 1 It was petitioned against a patriarch, whom Peter the Great wished to appoint in 1690, that ' his beard was not long enough for a patriarch.' Peasants forced to cut off their beards used to keep them to be buried with them, for fear ' they should not be recognised at the gates of Paradise ; ' though for the actual beard a coin was afterwards substituted, bearing a face, with moustache and beard. The Raskolniks, who consider it mortal sin to bless with three fingers instead of two, 2 consider it equally mortal 1 Strahl, 282. 2 Kohl gives an amusing story illustrating the importance of the three fingers to the Russian mind. ' I had been speaking of different subjects with an old Greek 300 STUDIES IA 7 RUSSIA. sin to pronounce the name of Jesus in three syllables instead of two. The monks of Solovetsk protested that the change from Isus to lisus was a sin too fearful even to be thought of, and for seven years successfully defied patriarch, council, and tsar. The course of the sun, say the Raskolniks, indicates sufficiently that the course of processions must be from left to right. To eat potatoes is heresy, for are they not the forbidden fruit of paradise ? Tobacco is even more abomi- nable. Peter the Great asked them if smoking was worse than brandy. ' Certainly,' was the answer, * for is it not written that not that which goeth into a man, but that which cometh out, defileth him ? ' Everything ecclesiastical that is ' old,' that is before the time of the reformer Nikon, is sacred to the Raskolniks. They are devoted to the Tsar, but it is to the Tsar with whom they are familiar in ancient pictures, not to the existing emperor. ' One of the Starovertzi, who refuse an oath, was taken as a recruit ; when called upon to swear fidelity to his colours, he refused. " Why will you not ? " " My religion forbids me," was the reply, " but even were it allowed, I would not take the oath to him whom you call Emperor ; I would only do to the real, the White Tsar. Our books and pictures contain his true likeness, with the crown upon his head, the sceptre and imperial globe in his hands, and clothed in a long gold robe ; but this Emperor wears a hat and uniform, and has a sword at fisherman on the shores of the Black Sea, and came at last to the differences in religious belief. After sundry remarks on the subject, my companion expressed his sentiment thus : " The only true Christians are those of the Greek Church. That is evident. For what is Christianity? It is the Holy Trinity, and the three fingers mean the Holy Trinity. We make the cross in the only right way with three fingers. The Lutherans don't make the sign of the cross at all. I won't say that they are heathens exactly, but there is very little Christianity in them. And the Catholics, my God ! "and here he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter" they make the cross with thumps and punches in the ribs ! " He could hardly recover himself from the excess of his mirth at the folly of the wrong-believing Catholics.' Travels in Russia. THE RASKOLNIKS. 301 his side like a common soldier ; he is like ourselves, he is not the true Tsar." The enforcement of the oath was afterwards abandoned in the case of these people.' Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire.'' All the reforms of Nikon and the edicts of Peter the Great appear as devices of Satan to Raskolniks, most of all the new calendar, for the world could not have been created in January, as Eve would not have found an apple to eat at that season ! Persecuted in Russia by the Ortho- dox Church (which followed Nikon and Peter), the noncon- formists fled to other countries. Many took refuge in the forests of the north ; others, when they were unable to escape, set fire to their houses and monasteries, and perished in the flames. Two thousand seven hundred died thus in 1687 in the Paleostrofski monastery. Under Catherine II. the Raskolniks were permitted to return to their homes, and since her time they have been allowed to follow their own devices, on condition of their never failing to contribute to the income of the regular parish priests, just as if they belonged to the faithful. In later times the schismatics have divided into the Staro- obriadtsi, or Old Ritualists, who retain the ancient ecclesi- astical observances, employing priests, and, as soon as they can procure them, bishops, who have formally renounced the Nikonian errors ; and the Bez-popoftsi, or priestless people, who maintain that as the priests of schismatics are not duly consecrated, their sacraments have ceased to be efficacious. Eventually these became subdivided into the Pomortsi, or Dwellers by the Sea (i.e. the White Sea), who accepted the Tsar, and prayed for him, and paid their taxes ; and the utterly irreconcilable Theodosians, who took their name from a fanatic peasant leader, and refused to regard 302 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the Tsar as other than Antichrist. With these, as they had no consecrated priests, marriage was long considered impos- sible. Their strangest representatives were the Stranniki, or Wanderers, who consider they must flee from the wrath to come by being homeless and houseless, and especially by dying in the open air. Those who are interested in the Russian dissenters will not fail to pay a visit to the Transfiguration Cemetery Preo- brajesnkoye Kladbistche and its neighbourhood. 1 * There are some hundreds of the Starovers or dissenters at Moscow, who, since the reign of Catherine II., have intrenched themselves in two or three large settlements on the outskirts of the city. Let us follow them thither. A visit to one such community will give us an adequate impression of all. Beyond the outermost barrier of Moscow we find ourselves on the edge of the primeval forest, which here comes up almost to the town itself. An intricate road through lanes or gullies, worthy of the days before the deluge of Peter's changes, brings us to a wild scattered village, the village of Preobajensk, or the " Transfigura- tion." It is celebrated as the spot to which Peter in his youth withdrew from Moscow, and formed out of his companions the nucleus of what has since become the Imperial Guard, who from this origin are called the Preobajensky regiment. But there is no vestige of Peter or the Imperial Guard in what now remains. A straggling lake extends itself right and left into the village, in which the Raskolniks baptise those who come over to them from the Established Church. On each side of it rise, out of the humble wooden cottages, two large silk factories, the property of the chief amongst the dissenters ; for they number amongst their members many merchants and manufacturers, and (as amongst the Quakers) there is a strong community of commercial interests in the sect, which contributes much to its vitality, and main- tains the general respectability of the whole body. Hard by, within the walls as of a fortress, two vast inclosures appear. These are their 1 A careful bargain should always be made with a drosky driver; and the Moscow droskys are such a tight fit for two, that the best way is to give a signal and for both to sit down at the same moment ; there is at least the advantage that it would be impossible for one to be shaken out without the other. These difficulties conquered there are many drives to be taken. THE RASKOLNIKS. 303 two main establishments one for men, the other for women. For in this respect also they exhibit a type of the ancient Russian life, in which the seclusion of the women was almost Oriental in its character. Within the establishment for men stand two buildings apart. The first is a church belonging to the moderate section of the Starovers ; those namely who retain still so much regard to the Established Church as to be willing to receive from them ordained priests. The clergy who seceded in the original movement of course soon died out, and hence- forth the only way of supplying the want was by availing themselves of priests expelled from the Established Church for misconduct, and of late years they have been fortunate enough to secure from the metro- politan of the Orthodox Greeks in Hungary the loan of a bishop, who has continued to them a succession of new priests. But there has also been an attempt on the part of the Government and the clergy to incorporate them to a certain extent, by allowing them a regular priest of the Establishment, who is permitted to conform to their usages ; and not long ago a considerable step was taken by the metropolitan, who agreed to consecrate a part of the church never consecrated before, himself in some particulars, as in the order of the procession, adopting their peculiar customs. Even to this church of Occasional Conformists, as they may be called, the studious exclusion of all novelty gives an antique appearance, the more remarkable from its being in fact so new. Built in the reign of Catherine II. , it yet has not a single feature that is not either old, or an exact copy of what was old. The long meagre figures of the saints, the ancient form of benediction, the elaborately minute representations of the sacred history, most of them collected by richer dissenters from family treasures or dissolved convents, are highly characteristic of the plus qttam restoration of mediaeval times. The chant, too, at once carries one back two hundred years. The church resounds, not with the melodious notes of modern Russian music, but with the nasal, almost puritanical, screech which prevailed before the time of Nikon, which is believed by them to be the "sole orthodox, harmonious, and angelical chant." But the principle of the Old Believers admits of a more significant development. Within a stone's- throw of the church which I have just described is a second building, nominally an almhouse or hospital for aged dissenters, but, in fact, a refuge for the more extreme members of the sect, who, in their excessive wrath against the Reformed Establishment, have declined to receive even runaway priests from its altars, and yet, in their excessive adherence to traditional usage; have not ventured to consecrate any for themselves. As the moderate Raskolniks are called " Popofchins" or " those with 304 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. clergy," so these are called " Bezpopofchins " or "those without clergy." It is a division analogous to that of the Lutherans and Cal- vinists in the German, of the Presbyterians and Independents m the English, Reformation. Accordingly, the service of the extreme dis- senters is conducted by laymen, just so far as, and no farther than, could be performed without an altar and without a priest. Their only link with the National Church consists in their retention of a few particles of consecrated oil, and of consecrated elements, preserved by constant dilution. The approaches of their milder brethren to the Establishment they regard, naturally, as a base compromise with Babylon. In many respects the ritual of the two sects is the same. In both buildings alike we see the same gigantic faces, the same antique forms. But, unlike the chapel of the Popofchins, or any church of the Establishment, the screen on which these pictures hang, the iconostasis, is not a partition opening into a sanctuary beyond, but is the abrupt and undisguised termination of the church itself. You advance, thinking to pass, as in the ordinary churches, through the painted screen to the altar, and you find that you are stopped by a dead wall. In front of this wall this screen which is not a screen an aged layman, with a long sectarian beard, chanted in a cracked voice such fragments of the service as are usually performed by the deacon ; and from the body of the church a few scattered worshippers screamed out the responses, bowing the head and signing the cross in their peculiar way as distinctly as so slight a difference will admit. That scanty con- gregation, venerable from its very eccentricity, that worship in the dim light of the truncated church, before the vacant wall which must con- stantly remind them of the loss of the very part of the ceremonial which they consider most essential, is the signal of all triumphs of the letter that kills over the spirit that quickens ; a truly Judaic faith, united with a truly Judaic narrowness, such as no Western nation could hope to produce. It shows us the legitimate conclusion of those who turn either forms, or the rejection of forms, into principles, and of carrying out principles so engendered to their full length.' Stanley, f 7^he Eastern Church.' The Starovertzi are in general more simple, sober, and moral than other Russian peasants. They can usually read and write, but they only know the old Slavonic letters, for they regard modern Russian writing as heretical. They know the Bible almost by heart, and are fond of theological THE GERMAN SUBURB. 305 subtleties. In a dialogue with a Starovertz, he thus gave his reasons for his opinions : ' It is clear from the New Testament that whatever in the law of Moses has not been expressly abolished by Christ continues binding upon Christians. ' But the Ten Commandments incontestably belong to those laws which are retained ; and it stands written in the same nineteenth chapter of Leviticus in which the Ten Commandments are expounded " Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." ' l Alexander I. protected and showed kindness to the Raskolniks, and since his time they have enjoyed religious freedom. The father of Peter's famous favourite Mentchikoff, who had served in the Guard, is buried, with his wife, at Preo- brajenskoye. In going to Preobrajenskoye the German Suburb is passed through, where the young Duke John of Denmark, who died when he came to be married to the beautiful and unfortunate Xenie, daughter of Boris Godunof, was buried in the church. His body was afterwards moved to Roskilde in Denmark. It was here that Peter the Great used so often to dine and drink, act best man at the mar- riages of the merchants' daughters, and stand godfather to their children. In this suburb, also, was the home of his mistress, Anna Mons, daughter of a German jeweller. Preobrajenskoye was the favourite residence of Peter, and from that place of prophetic name (Transformation) 2 he subdued the power of Sophia, and seized the reins of government. He established here the secret ' Chancery of 1 Sec Haxthausen. 2 Rambaud. 3 o6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Preobrajenskoye,' a torture-chamber outrivalling the iniqui- ties of the Spanish Inquisition ; and, apart from this, the life which he led here, and the earliest of his so-called 'reforms ' dated from hence, had, by offending the national prejudices, made him endless enemies. ' Des pretres enseignaient deja que 1'Antechrist etait ne ; il etait clit en effet que 1'Antechrist naitrait d'une adultere ; or, Pierre etait fils de la seconde epouse d'Alexis ; sa mere Natalie etait \z.fausse vierge, la femme adultere des proprieties. Les charges de plus en plus lourdes qui pesaient sur le peuple etaient un autre signe que les temps etaient venus. D'autres, revokes du gout que manifestait le tsar pour les habits allemands, les langues etrangeres, les aventuriers du dehors, affirmaient qu'il n'etait pas le fils d'Alexis, mais celui de Lefort le Genevois, ou qu'il etait ne d'un chirurgien allemand. Us se scandalisaient de voir un tsar s'exposer aux gourmades dans ses aimisements militaires comme un autre Gregori Otrepief. Le has peuple etait indigne de voir proscrire les longues barbes et les longs vetements nationaux, les raskolniks de voir autoriser "1'infection sacrilege du tabac " ! Le voyage d'Occiden acheva de troubler les esprits et les cceurs. Avait-on jamais vu un tsar de Moscou sortir de la sainte Russie pour courir les royaumes des etrangers?' Rambatid, 'Hist, de la Russie.'' A short distance out of Moscow on the Tver road is the Palace of Petrofski, built in the bastard Gothic of the end of the last century. It is seldom inhabited now, except by the sovereigns, coming for their coronations, before they make their public entry into the town. Hither Napoleon I. fled from the Kremlin when Moscow was burning. The Park of Petrofski, as well as that of Soloniki, is much resorted to on popular festivals. The dances of the gipsies, accompanied by the music of the balalaika, and clapping of hands, may then be seen, but there is little grace in the Russian gipsies, who dance for money, and much' coarseness and vulgarity. The so-called gipsy songs THE SPARROW HILLS. 307 are here little better than shrill hootings, and their imperti- nence of manner, combined with their banging of guitars, and their discordant voices, is only calculated to excite disgust. A more interesting drive to strangers is that to the Sparrow Hills Vorobyovy Gory. It leads through the Lamenloi Gorod the southern part of the town, beyond the Moskva the quarter most destroyed by fire during the French occupation by gay churches with veils of metal, by huge barracks, and then by gardens of fruit and gourds. Hence there is a long dusty ascent, where the terrific pave- ment, which has almost jolted you to a jelly, gives place to deep ruts and clouds of dust. At the top of the hill the favourite place of the Moscovites, a sort of Richmond are a series of wooden restaurants, with people eternally drink- ing tea, and a little churchyard, with a lovely view of the wooded bend of the river, and of the distant town, seen beyond the great enclosure of the Novo Devichi monastery, and the Devichi-pole, or Maiden's Field, where the feasts of the people are held at coronations. This is the ' Hill of Salutation,' whence the French first beheld the city, with shouts of ' Moscou ! Moscou ! ' According to the popular belief, Napoleon was struck to the ground with awe at the sight of its thousand towers ; the fact being that, on seeing it, he exclaimed, ' There is the famous city at last : it was high time ! ' The same sight had caused dissensions amongst the Russian generals retreating upon Moscow from the battlefield of Borodino, forty miles to the west, on which eighty thousand fell, and of which both sides claimed the victory. x 2 3o8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1 Koutouzoff reunit un conseil de guerre sur une des collines qui dominent Moscou, et la vue de cette grande cite, de la ville sainte etendue a leurs pieds condamnee peut-etre a perir, causait une emotion mdicible aux generaux russes. La seule question etait celle-ci: " Fallait- il essayer de sauver Moscou en sacrifiant la derniere armee de la Russie ? " Barclay declara que "quand il s'agissait du salut de la Russie et de 1'Europe, Moscou n'etait qu'une ville comme une autre." D'autres disaient, comme 1'officier d'artillerie Grebbe : "II est glorieux de perir sous Moscou, mais ce n'est pas de gloire qu'il s'agit." . . . Koutouzoff ecouta tous les avis et dit, " Ici ma tete, qu'elle soit bonne ou mauvaise, ne doit s'aider que d'elle-meme," et il ordonna de com- mencer la retraite a travers la ville. II sentait bien cependant que Moscou n'etait pas "une ville comme une autre." II ne voulut pas y entrer, et, pleurant, il passa par les faubourgs.' A. Rambaud, 'Hist. dj la RussieS 'Salute Moscow for the last time,' said Rostopchine, the governor of the town, to his son, * in half an hour you will see her in flames.' Whilst he conducted the people out of the city, and provided them with shelter in the neighbour- ing towns, the plan he had devised for the conflagration was efficiently carried out. In all the principal buildings, except churches and hospitals, he had left bombshells and com- bustible materials, releasing three hundred criminals from the prisons, and placing them under directors each to fire a certain portion, so that not a single house should escape. The nobles had all left servants in their houses, with orders to ignite them, all earnestly hoping that their ruined homes would become the grave of the invaders. ' Who would have thought that a nation would burn its own capital ? ' said Napoleon afterwards. ' Had it not been for that, I should have had everything my army wanted excellent winter quarters, stores of all kinds. Alexander would have made peace, or I should have been at St. Petersburg. Oh, the burning of Moscow was the EXILES TO SIBERIA. 309 most grand, sublime, and terrific sight the world has ever beheld \ ' l Russian exiles condemned to Siberia are always assembled at Moscow. Their prisons on the Sparrow Hills are lofty, airy, and warm in winter, and their food is good. They set out from hence in bands every Sunday afternoon, thus taking their leave here in a last view of their * holy mother Mos- cow,' a place whose hold upon Russian sentiment it is con- sidered impossible for a foreigner to fathom. They journey from eight to twelve miles a day, and have regular sleeping- places. They only carry chains of four pounds' weight upon their hands and feet on their march ; but patriots, murderers, thieves and conspirators, are all chained together. Formerly about sixty thousand exiles to Siberia passed through Kazan; now the number is perhaps ten thousand. About fifteen per cent, still probably die on the road, but formerly only a third reached their destination. If a prisoner, however, is well off and can pay for it, he may often travel at his own expense and take his family and any amount of luggage with him, but in this case he must always pay for his guards, who are never less than five in number. Legally, a Siberian exile is dead, and his wife, if she does not wish to accom- pany him, may marry again. The exiles are allowed to talk to one another on their journey and even to sing their sad wailing choruses. It is generally arranged that they should pass through the towns at night, but universal pity is felt for them, and in the villages which lie on their way, the kind-hearted peasantry bring out bowls of tchai, jugs 1 ' Father Paris, you shall now pay for Mother Moscow,' was the Russian excla- mation when the French capital was taken by the allies. For the story of the French invasion and retreat, the War of Count Leon Tolstoi may be read with interest. 310 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. of vodki) and piles of bread, for them ; all this is done in silence, for no one may speak to a prisoner. * The condition of Siberian convicts, when arrived and settled in the country, is certainly favourable. The severity of their punishment consists in the loss of home, the disruption of early family ties, and the dangers and difficulties of the long journey. ' In Siberia, the ancient, simple, and noble patriarchal manners still prevail, and in this respect it is still the veritable old Russia in the best sense of the term there is the greatest hospitality and mutual goodwill. ' The convicts sent out as colonists are mostly transported to the districts of southern Siberia, which are described by all who have seen them as truly paradisaical. The country is romantically beautiful, the soil incredibly fertile, and the climate healthy ; the cold, indeed, is severe in winter, but with a perpetually clear sky ; and nowhere are there so many vigorous old people. The peasants, descended from the early convicts, are all very well off, some of them very rich ; they only require industry, good behaviour, and exertion for a few years to acquire a substantial position. Their whole outward condition is from the first favourable : as soon as they arrive in Siberia, their past life not only lies like a dream behind them, but is legally and politically completely at an end ; their crime is forgotten ; no one dares to remind them of it, or to term them convicts ; both in the public official reports and in conversation they are only termed " the unfor- tunate." ' Haxthausen, ^The Russian Empire.'' Prettily situated on the Sparrow Hills is Neskutchnaya, once belonging to Count Orloff, and presented by him to the Empress Marie Alexandrovna. The late Empress, ' our good mother,' as the people called her, had another favourite residence at Ilyink, thirty miles from Moscow. At Beleff, eighty versts from Moscow in this direction, died the Empress Elizabeth Alexievna, widow of Alexander I. It is pleasant to linger on the hills and enjoy stakan tchai and fresh rusks and butter with the natives, till the blue shadows have gathered over the glorious distant city and OSTANKINO. 311 its cathedrals, and rows of coloured lights at the tables of the little restaurants gleam against the dark trees. We should advise all visitors to Moscow to drive out to Ostankino, on the west of the city. The drive takes one through the suburbs, which melt gradually into dusty hedgeless roads, leading through open country with groves of birch, remnants of ancient forest. As Moscow cares OSTANKINO. for no road beyond the limits of its pavement, the ruts are awful, the mud appalling. When the drosky reaches a fear- ful bridge, the driver calls out * Nitchevo' ('It is all right'), makes the sign of the cross, and urges his horse across the creaking, rocking boards. ' On ne peut appeler route un champ laboure, un gazon raboteux, un sillon trace dans le sable, un abime de fange, borde de forets maigres et mal venantes ; il y a aussi des encaissements de rondins, longs parquets rustiques ou les voitures et les corps se brisent en 312 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. dansant comme sur une bascule, tant ces grossieres charpentes on d'elasticite. Voila pour les chemins.' M. de Custine. Ostankino is a large village, with a well-proportioned palace, built of painted wood, and a handsome red Russo- Saracenic church, on the shore of a lake. This is one of the principal residences of the Sheremetief family, said to be the richest subjects in Russia. In 1806, the income of Count Sheremetief was 800,000 roubles, and he possessed 150,000 male serfs and 300,000 souls. Many of 'these pur- chased their liberty for not less than 30,000 roubles. Now the abolition of serfs and the division of family property, of which even every daughter takes a fourteenth share, has reduced the Sheremetief income. Of this family was the famous Boyar, Boris Sheremetief, the great traveller of Peter the Great's time ; l Marshal Sheremetief, to whom Peter attributed the victory of Poltava ; and Natalia Shere- metief, who was engaged to the unfortunate Prince Ivan Dolgorouki, who was sent into exile on the death of Peter II. She was so warmly attached to him that, in spite of the remonstrances of her family, she insisted on accompanying him in his exile, writing afterwards, in 1771 : ' Just think what consolation or honourable advice it would be for me to marry him when he was in prosperity, and to refuse him when he was unfortunate; but I had determined, when I gave my heart to another, that I would live or die with him, and allow no one else to have a share of my love. It was not my way to love one person one day and another the next, as is now the fashion ; but I showed the world that I could be faithful in love. I was my husband's companion in all his sufferings, and I speak the entire truth when I assert that, in the midst of my misfortunes, I never either repented of my marriage, nor murmured against God.' 2 1 His journey from Moscow to Cracow occupied five months and a half ! Rouskii, Archiv, vol. v., p. 15. OSTANKINO. 313 But the sorrows of Natalia did not end in Siberia. Solovief l tells how slowly and with what feminine hate the vengeance of the Empress Anne against the Dolgorouki was accomplished. First they were exiled to their estates ; then they were sent to Beresof, far in Siberia ; thence they were brought back to the torture. Natalia had to see her husband broken alive upon the wheel at Novogorod. All her jewels were confiscated ; she had nothing but her wedding-ring with which to bribe the executioner to put a speedy end to his sufferings. This is the subject of a favourite popular song : ' On the highway it is not a merchant, it is not a boyar they are leading, it is the Prince Dolgorouki himself. On the right and the left are two regiments of soldiers. In front marches the terrible executioner. Behind follows the lady, all pale, with her eyes red. ' She weeps : it is a river which flows. Her tears fall : it is a wave which rolls. " Do not weep, my lady, lady of the pale face, of the red eyes." ' " How can I help weeping? They have taken away my peasants : I have no money left : I have nothing but my ring, but my ring of gold." ' " Give the ring, O give the ring to the executioner, that he may let me die more quickly." ' After the death of her husband, Natalia still remained for nearly two years in Siberia with her two children. She became a nun by the name of Nectaria in 1758, and died in 1771. Russian country life in such a house as the palace of Ostankino, or in many smaller houses, is only usually known to strangers through translations of the Russian novels. The novels of Ivan Tourgueneff, the novelist of domestic 1 Solovief "s History of Russia to the Reign of Catherine //., in twenty-nine volumes, is full of interest, but, unfortunately, has never been translated. 3 H STUDIES IN RUSSIA. life the dullest domestic life describe many such houses. ' A Society of Gentlefolks in the Country,' exactly depicts the life in such a house. Gogol (ob. 1852), pourtrays the sleepy, good-humoured self-indulgence of the country pro- prietor in Staroovetski Pomystchiki (' Proprietor of the Olden Time).' Describing such a sleepy Russian country house as Ostankino, he tells how each of the doors had a separate sound as it turned on its hinges, and an articula- tion for those who could comprehend it. A picture of the life of a great Russian noble his luxury, parade, and superstitions is given in the ' Historical Sketches and Tales ' of M. Shubinski. Returning to Moscow from Ostankino, we may visit a Hospital on the north of the boulevard in the high part of the town, built by Prince Michael Sheremetief for a hundred old men and a hundred old women. In this part of the town is the Passion Monastery Strasni Monastir with a tall tower, which is often ascended for the view, and near it a good Statue of the Russian poet, Alexander Pouchkine, ob. 1837, whose best-known works are the ' Prisoner of the Caucasus ' and the drama of ' Boris Godunof.' The boulevards which surround the Bielgorod, and which are three times the width of Portland Place, were made by the Emperor Paul. The student of Russian history will make an excursion to Alexandrovsky, 86 miles, or 107 versts, from Moscow, in the province of Vladimir, intimately interwoven with the story of Ivan the Terrible. ' Alexandrovsky became a town adorned with churches, houses, and shops in stone. The famous Church of Our Lady glittered ex- ternally with brilliant colours, enriched by gold and silver ; on every ALEXANDROVSKY. 315 brick a cross was represented. The Tsar inhabited a great palace surrounded by a moat and a rampart ; the officers of his court, the civil and military functionaries, occupied separate houses ; the guards had their particular street, and so had the merchants. It was expressly forbidden to enter or go out without the knowledge of the Tsar ; and, to carry out this measure of surveillance, a cordon of guards was placed at three versts from the palace. In this threatening castle, surrounded by dark forests, the Tsar gave up the greater part of his time to the services of the Church, seeking to soothe the agitation of his mind by the practices of devotion. He even conceived the idea of transforming his palace into a monastery, and his favourites into monks. He gave the name of brothers to three hundred guards chosen amongst the dregs of the people, took the title of abbot ', and then instituted Athanasius Viazemsky treasurer, and Maluta Skouratof sacristan. After having distributed ecclesiastical caps and cassocks to them, under which they wore dresses glittering with gold and fringed with marten's fur, he composed the Rule of the convent, and gave the example in its strict observance. Listen to the description of this singular monastic life. At three in the morning the Tsar, accompanied by his children and Skouratof, went to ring the bell for matins ; all the brethren immediately hastened to the church, and if anyone failed in this duty he was punished by eight days in prison. During the service, which lasted from six to seven, the Tsar chanted, read, and prayed with such fervour that the marks of his prostrations always remained upon his forehead. At eight o'clock all met again to hear mass ; and, at ten, everyone sate down to a meal, except Ivan, who read aloud, standing, from instructive writings. The repast was abundant, wine and hydro- mel were bounteously supplied, and every day seemed a fete day. The remains of the banquet were carried to the public square to be distributed to the poor. The abbot that is, the Tsar dined after the others ; he discoursed with his intimates on religious subjects, then he took a nap, or sometimes went to the prisons to order some unfor- tunates to be put to the torture. This horrible sight seemed to amuse him ; he came back every time with a face radiant with satisfaction. He joked and conversed more gaily than before. At eight o'clock all went to vespers. Finally, at ten, Ivan retired to his bedroom, where, one after the other, three blind men told him stories, which sent him to sleep for some hours. At midnight he rose and began his day by prayer. Sometimes reports upon the affairs of the government were brought to him in church ; sometimes the most sanguinary orders were given during the chanting of matins, or during mass.' Karamsin, ix. 3 i6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. CHAPTER VII. THE MONASTERIES NEAR MOSCOW. THE venerable Doctors known as the Greek Fathers are S. John Chrysostom, S. Basil, S. Athanasius, and S. Gregory Nazianzen. Banished from religious representa- tions in the West, their majestic figures meet us repeatedly in the sacred art of Eastern Christendom, generally with the addition of a fifth figure, that of S. Cyril of Alexandria. In Western Christendom they are only represented in places where Byzantine artists have been employed, as at S. Mark's at Venice and Monreale in Sicily. Of the Greek Fathers, S. Basil is the one whose image is always with us in Russian travels, represented in every church, sold in every icon-shop. He was the founder of monasticism in the East, and implicit faith is placed in his intercessory powers. Armenian Christians believe that the prayers of S. Basil can not only redeem lost souls from purgatory, but fallen angels from hell. There is no book in English or French which will enable an English traveller to study the labyrinthine history of the saints of the Greek Church. Most of those who will meet a Western stranger in Russia will be utterly unfamiliar to him. How few know anything, for instance, of the S. Dionysiijs THE GREEK CHURCH. 317 so constantly celebrated in the hymns and prayers of the church services. The few Greek martyrs accepted by the Latin Church are.: S. Pantaleon, S. Cyprian, and S. Phocas ; S. Dorotea, S. Tecla, S. Justina, S. Apollonia, and, more especially, S. Euphemia the Great, who suffered at Chalcedon c. 307. The last saint placed (1832) in the Russian calendar is S. Metrophanes, bishop of Voronege in the time of Peter the Great. ' The Oriental or Greek Church is incontestably the most ancient of all Christian Churches. At the Council of Sardis in Illyricum, in the year 347, the first jealousies between the Eastern and Western Churches broke out, though a total separation did not ensue till the time of Photius, who was elected patriarch of Constantinople in the year 858 by the Emperor Michael, in the place of Ignatius, whom that prince drove from his see. Pope Nicholas took part with the exiled patriarch, con- demned the election as unwarrantable, and excommunicated Photius. Photius, a high-spirited prelate, and the most learned and ingenious man of the age he lived in, assembled a council at Constantinople, and in return excommunicated the Pope. From this period the opposition and distinction between the two Churches must be dated ; but there is the strongest historical evidence in favour of the antiquity of the Eastern. It is well known that the first Churches were those of Greece and Syria ; we have no proof that ,S. Peter was ever at Rome, but we are certain he was a long time in Syria, and that he travelled as far as Babylon. Paul was of Tarsus in Cilicia, and his works were written in Greek ; all the Fathers of the four first ages down to Jerome were of Greece, Syria, and Africa ; all the rites and ceremonies of the Latin Church testify even by their names that their origin was Greek ecclesi- astic^ Paraclete, liturgy, litany, symbol, Eticharist, agape, Epiphany and all clearly show that the Western Church was the daughter of the Eastern. It may be granted that the Roman pontiff had acquired a spiritual establishment, or rather a temporal jurisdiction, before the patriarch of Constantinople, and perhaps before any other Oriental patriarch ; but, beyond a doubt, the first Christian Church or society %vas established at Jerusalem.' King. John Faber, a German Dominican, called * Malleus 318 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Haereticorum,' who died Bishop of Vienna in 1541, thus describes the Russian Church : l ' The Muscovites follow the Christian faith, which, they say, was first preached to them by the Apostle S. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Also all that was decreed under Constantine the Great by the three hundred and eighteen bishops at Nice of Bithynia, in the first Nicene Council, and all the tradition and teaching of Basil the Great and S. John Chrysostom, they believe to be so sacred, authoritative, and authentic that it has never been lawful for any to depart therefrom so much as a hair's breadth, any more than from the Gospel of Christ itself. And such is their sobermindedness that whatever has once been decided by the holy fathers in their councils no one of their pro- fession ever dares to make a question of it afterwards. But if any difficulty either about faith or ritual matters arise, it is all referred to the archbishop and the rest of the bishops, to be determined solely by their judgment. Nor is anything left to the variableness and diversity of popular opinion.' The Orthodox communion has five patriarchates: Alex- andria, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia. Before the erection of its patriarchate, the highest dignity in the Russian Church was that of the metropolitan of Moscow ; then came the six archbishoprics of Novogorod, Rostoff, Smolensk, Kazan, Pskoff, and Vologda ; then the six bishoprics of Riazan, Tver, Kolomenskoe, Vladimir, Sousdal, and Kroutiski or Sarai, of which the dioceses were immense. In later years many other bishoprics have been added. The Russian Church has kept itself singularly free from politics, and, except as peacemakers or as patriots when the country is in danger, its authorities have seldom interfered in temporal matters. 1 DC Russorum, Moscovitorum, et Tartarorum R-eligione^ &c. Spirae : Anno MD. LXXXII. BLACK AND WHITE CLERGY. 319 ' In spite of their splendour, in spite of the important part which they have played, the Russian clergy have never showed the boundless ambition with which history fairly reproaches the clergy of the Roman Church. They have been, in the hands of the grand princes, a useful instrument, but have never disputed with them the temporal power. With the mutual consent of both sides, but without any legal right, the metropolitans have served as arbiters in the quarrels of the princes ; they have guaranteed the sincerity and the sanctity of oaths ; they have appealed to the conscience whilst abstaining from having recourse to the temporal sword, with which the Popes have usually threatened those who have dared to brave their pontifical will ; and if they have sometimes broken the laws of charity and Christian humility, it has only been out of submission to the princes on whom they were entirely dependent,' and who raised them to the rank of metropolitan, or lowered them at their will. In short, the Russian Church has always preserved its primitive character ; its principal object has always been to civilise manners, to calm the violence of passions, and to preach Christian and civil virtues.' Karamsin. Russian ecclesiastics are divided into the ' White Clergy ' and the 'Black Clergy.' The White Clergy, 1 who are the parish priests, are miserably poor (for all the ecclesiastical wealth is absorbed by the monks), being chiefly dependent upon baptismal or burial fees, which they have great diffi- culty in extracting from the peasantry. Formerly the priests in country villages were treated like serfs, and often most contemptuously ; near one great country house the priest used frequently to be ducked in a pond to amuse the landlord and his guests. At the time of their ordination, the White Clergy are expected to be married to be 'the husband of one wife ' but not on that account to have fallen in love. The bishop finds their wives for the clergy a maiden always, for ecclesiastics may not marry widows and generally (being the protector of clerical widows 1 The White Clergy do not wear white gowns and cassocks, but any other colour which suits their taste and convenience, except black. 3 2o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. and orphans) the bishop expects a priest to marry the daughter of his predecessor, with whom he has also pro- bably, as a natural consequence, to undertake the care and maintenance of the widow, his mother-in-law. ' The customary portion which the pope requires of his bride is as follows : (i) The long priest's c tick with the silver knob, which costs about twelve roubles ; (2) the round and broad priest's hat, which also costs about ten to twelve roubles ; (3) a complete bed, costing forty roubles ; (4) twelve new shirts and twelve pocket-handkerchiefs ; (5) the viza, or long silk robe of the pope, which costs forty to fifty roubles, and three hundred to five hundred roubles in money.' Haxlhausen.) ' The Russian Empire.* In former times the White Clergy were elected by the parishioners from any class of the population, and when chosen were presented to the bishop, who if he found the candidate satisfactory, ordained him at once. But gradually the extreme ignorance of the candidates presented by the people led the bishops to take the matter into their own hands, and make their own selec- tion. Their choice usually fell on the sons of priests, and after episcopal seminaries were established for the educa- tion of the clergy, none others were chosen. Indeed, the children of priests are called ' little popes ' from babyhood, and are encouraged to play at the christening, marrying, and burying of their dolls. The fact that outsiders are now pre- vented aspiring to the priesthood has made the clergy into a distinct class, legally unable to mix with the rest of the population. ' The people do not respect the clergy, but persecute them with derision and reproaches, and feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the popular comic stories the priest, his wife, or his labourer is held up THE WHITE CLERGY. 321 to ridicule ; and in all the proverbs and sayings where the clergy are mentioned, it is always with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why do the people not respect the clergy ? Because it forms a class apart ; because, having received a false kind of education, it does not introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the spirit, but remains in the mere dead forms .of outward ceremonial, at the same time despising these forms even to blasphemy ; because the clergy itself continually presents examples of want of respect to religion, and transforms the service of God into a profitable trade. Can the people respect the clergy when they hear how one priest stole money from below the pillow of a dying man at the moment of confes- sion, how another was publicly dragged out of a house of ill-fame, how a third christened a dog, how a fourth, whilst officiating at the Easter service, was dragged by the hair from the altar by the deacon ? Is it pos- sible for the people to respect priests who spend their time in the gin- shops, write fraudulent petitions, fight w r ith the cross in their hands, and abuse each other in bad language at the altar ? One might fill several pages with examples of this kind in each instance naming the time and place without overstepping the boundaries of the province of Nijni-Novogorod. Is it possible for the people to respect the clergy when they see everywhere amongst them simony, carelessness in per- forming the religious rites, and disorder in administering the sacra- ments ? Is it possible for the people to respect the clergy when they see that truth has disappeared from it, and that the consistories, guided in their decisions not by rules, but by personal friendship and bribery, destroy in it the last remains of truthfulness ? If we add to all this the false certificates which the clergy give to those who do not wish to partake of the Eucharist, the dues illegally extracted 'from the old Ritualists, the conversion of the altar into a source of revenue, the giving of churches to priests' daughters as a dowry, and similar phe- nomena, the question as to whether the people can respect the clergy requires no answer.' Report of M. Mdnikoffto the Grand Duke. -.Con- st antine, as given in Wallace 's ' Russia. ' ' If anyone ask a Russian who may already have dined to eat again, he will often answer, "Am I a priest that I should dine twice over ? " This almost proverbial way of expressing themselves refers to. the moving about of the popes from one funeral feast or one christening banquet to another, at which they enjoy themselves more than anyone else. A Russian driving out, and meeting a pope, holds it for so bad an Y 322 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. omen, that he will rather turn back if he have not by immediate spit- ting warded off the evil influence. ' " Niel ! on ne iss nashikh ! No ! our priest is good for nothing ; he is not one of us ; he won't drink with us ; he won't sing with us ; he does as if he did not know us ; he is so proud we will not know him either, and make our gifts and presents to another priest." Such is the frequent judgment of the peasants.' Kohl. ' The White Clergy accuse the Black of diverting from them the benefactions of the faithful, and of misappropriating the church reve- nues generally ; the Black reply that the white are a set of dissolute fellows, who have more than enough money as it is, and grow fat by roguery. The people, viewing with equal eye the merits of the two clergies, think there is little to choose between them in the matter of peculation ; but they despise the White Clergy most, because the mal- practices of the popes are more palpable. The budget of the secular clergy amounts to 5,ooo,ooo/. , which, distributed among 36,00x3 parishes, gives about 1407. to each. By rights there should be in each parish a pope, a deacon, and two clerks ; but there are only 12,000 deacons and 60,000 clerks in the whole empire ; consequently, as half the income of each priest should go to the pope, every pope ought to receive about 857. a year. He gets nothing like that, for the bishops act as if the establishment of deacons and clerks was complete, and put the surplus salaries into their pockets. The synods also rob him, and at times (for instance, during the war) neglect to pay him at all. ' The pope, therefore, swindles for a living. But one need not pity him overmuch, for the sums which he makes by his extortions more than counterbalance the salary of which he is defrauded.' 'The Russians of l^o-day,' 1878. There are often, of course, exceptions to this ; and happily there are many parish priests still honoured and deserving of honour. These are generally the older priests ; indeed, it will often be found that the more ancient and ghostlike a priest is, the more supernatural his voice, the more popular he will be. Such was the old metropolitan of St. Petersburg unable to hold a book, and with no sight to read it. But a book was held before him, and a prompter THE WHITE CLERGY. 323 whispered the words which his trembling voice repeated. The people adored that metropolitan. ' As the monks all wear black, the secular priests, almost without exception, choose brown for their ordinary dress ; when they are officiating as ministers of religion, it is of course different. They wear long brown coats buttoned from top to bottom, and over them long, full open tunics, with wide sleeves. The hair and beard are worn like those of the monks. On their heads they wear high brown or red velvet caps trimmed with handsome furs, and carry excessively long brown sticks studded with wrought silver knobs. Such is the appear- ance of the Russian secular priest as he marches with stately step through the streets. ' Poor as the Russian clergy are with respect to revenue (a Bishop of Durham or Canterbury has perhaps alone as much as half the Duk- hovenstvo or hierarchy of Russia) they are rich enough in titles, which are sometimes a yard long. If a person enter the apartment of a metro- politan and address him, the title mns thus : Vuissokopreosswashtshen- naishi Vladiko, or if he write to him : Yeivo Vuissokopreossiuashtshen- stvo Milostivaishu Gossudarin i Archipastuiru. The principal word may be translated His most holy highness. The whole address is something like His most high highness, the most dear and gracious lord, the lord archpastor.' Kohl. The ranks of the clergy are so terribly overcrowded that there are many of the priests who live entirely by begging for shrines and tombs. Happily, it is not very usual now to see a priest drunk ; still, there are many priests who are sent to Valamo as a punishment for being seen in the state the ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein describe from Novogorod : 'I saw a priest coming out of a tippling-house, who coming by our lodging would needs give the benediction to the strelitz who stood sen- tinel at the door ; but, as he lifted up his hands, going to make the inclination used in that ceremony, the head, fraught with the vapours of the wine, was so heavy that, weighing down the whole body, the pope fell down in the dirt. Our strelitz took him off with much Y 2 324 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. respect, and received his draggled benediction ; it being, it seems, a thing very ordinary among them." To Protestants the Russian clergy are always extraordi- narily tolerant, and the rites of burial in a Russo-Greek ceme- tery are never refused to them. But no Russian is tolerant to the sects of his own Church, and he is always ready to spit in his neighbour's face on religious grounds. With regard to science, it must be allowed that, if the Russian Church has done nothing to advance it, it has at least, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, done nothing to repress it. Ecclesiastical administration is entirely in the hands of the Black Clergy all monks of the Order of S. Basil, devoted to prayer and contemplation. Originally poor, and devoted to evangelical work, successive gifts and legacies have richly endowed them ; and, though the church lands were secularised, and the number of monasteries greatly reduced under Catherine II., the Black Clergy remain the ruling body in the Church. The Greco-Russian monks are of three degrees : novices, those who take ' the lesser habit ' after three years' noviciate, and those who take the 'great angelical habit' The latter, when they take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, renounce, not only the sins and vanities of the world, but wife and children, relations and friends, and every earthly connection and possession. Monks are not necessarily priests, but, when ordained, are called the ' regular clergy,' and engross all the dignities and influence of the Church. Bishops are always taken from this order, and all the higher offices are filled from it ; the White Clergy can have no aspirations. A Russian monk never eats flesh, and for him there are THE BLACK CLERGY. 325 many days of total abstinence. No monk is bound till he is thirty ; before that time he can only be a novice. Without a particular order from the Holy Synod, no nun can be bound till she is fifty ; before that time she has power to give up the monastic life, or to marry. In monasteries of the third degree, which are very rare, the inmates must lower their hoods, and never allow their faces to be seen. There are still five hundred convents in Russia, with six thousand monks and three thousand nuns. The prin- cipal of a monastery is called an archimandrite, from fjidvSpa, a fold ; or hegumen, from ^yov/xat, duco. The former is the abbot or father, having the government of the monks, who are brethren. The hegumen is the prior, or chief of a smaller convent. An abbess is called hegumena. 1 The names of the monasteries recall the Thebaid ; the larger are called Laura (lavra), the smaller Sketa, or desert (poustynia], Basilian monks wear a black habit, fastened with a girdle of cord or leather. The novice only wears the cassock ; the simple monk wears also the gown, and the Ka^XavKLov. The mantle, worn over the gown on certain occasions, is the badge of the piKpov o-x^/xa, or lesser habit. The great angelic habit, or simply oyrjw is associated with the idea of total seclusion and preparation for death ; and the scapulary and other badges of it are covered with emblems of death and Christian faith. 2 All the Black Clergy wear the kloboiik (/ca/A-j/Aav/aov), a high cap, with a veil covering it, and falling on the shoulders behind. 1 See King. " See notes to Mouravieff. 326 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The great monastery of Simonof, about four miles dis- tant, will probably be the first which travellers will visit from Moscow. The drive would be a pleasant one if the pavement were not so agonising. We turn to the left by the bridge beneath the Kremlin, and skirt the river for some distance. There are many views worth painting, especially towards evening. On the river are barges of corn, which are said to be each accompanied by 50,000 of the privileged pigeons (emblems of the Holy Spirit), eating most vora- ciously. On the low hill which we cross is the huge Monastery of the New Redeemer (Novospaski Monastir), so called because it was built by Ivan III. in the place of the original Spassky monastery of his great-grandfather Kalita. It is surrounded by high walls, and approached by a gateway. Its immense quiet enclosure contains several churches. In the principal church, approached by a picturesquely frescoed corridor, are the graves of many of the Romanoff family, be- fore any of its members were elected to the sovereignty. But the graves of the family include that of Martha, mother of the Tsar Michael, who had become a nun when her husband, afterwards the patriarch Philaret, became a monk. Her son Michael and her grandson Alexis are represented on the walls near the ikonastos. Alexis gave the monastery to the famous Nikon, who resided here till his accession to the patriarchate, and went hence every Friday to the Kremlin, to converse with the Tsar after the church service. Almost more than the churches in the Kremlin does the church of Novospaski seem to be crowded with venerable icons, to which a stranger present in the church would say that the most unmitigated idolatry was paid, yet : THE NOVOSPASKI MONASTERY. 327 The Eastern Church nominally regards the invocation of saints as sinful, because there is only ''one Mediator between God and man," but declares that as we are taught to pray for one another and desire the prayers of others for ourselves, there is a secondary sense, in which, under Christ the primary Mediator, there may be many others ; and in this sense they consider such expressions as " Pray for us ; obtain for us by thy prayers; grant to us; give us," and even "save us," as justifiable. They even declare that they put their whole trust in some saint, or even in some icon, and that the Virgin is " the only hope of Christians" or "of the whole race of mankind." 'W. Palmer, 'Dis- sertations on the Orthodox or Eastern-Catholic Communion. 11 In the striking service of *' Orthodox Sunday,' also, we hear : ' To those who cast reproaches on the holy images which the holy Church receiveth, in remembrance of the works of God and his saints, to inspire the beholders with piety and to incite them to imitate their examples, and to those who say that they are idols, Anathema.' Very beautiful and melodious, though somewhat mo- notonous, is the singing in these great monastic churches, where we may constantly hear monks singing the ' eternal memory ' of a departed soul. Good bass voices are espe- cially appreciated in the Ectinia, which answers to the Litany of the Latin Church. Extracts from the Old Testament and from the Epistles are read in the services, as collected in the books called Minacon and Octoahos. When the Gospel is going to be read the deacon arouses the attention of the congregation by the loud exclamation of ' Wisdom, stand up, let us hear the Holy Gospel ! ' One of the most striking parts of the ordinary service is the hymn called Trisagion, or thrice-holy, a hymn so called from the word holy being thrice repeated. It is of high antiquity in the Church, and owes its origin, as is pretended, to a miracle in the time of 328 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople. An earthquake happened at Constantinople which lasted four months, but at length, while the Emperor Proclus and his people were making a solemn procession to implore the mercy of God, a boy, from the midst of the procession, and in sight of all the people, was taken up into the air, where he heard the angels singing, * O holy God, O holy Mighty, O holy Im- mortal, have mercy upon us,' which he desired the people to imitate, and immediately on their doing so, the earthquake ceased ; therefore thenceforth, 'by order of the Emperor Theodosius Junior, the words were inserted into the daily service. 1 The sermons preached in these old cathedrals are usually such as appeal far more to the feelings than to the intellect, and are thus the more adapted to the Russian mind. The following passage from a sermon of Archbishop Inokenti (Innocent), metropolitan of Kieff, preaching over the coffin of our Saviour on Good Friday, is an illustration of discourses of this kind : ' A pious hermit had once to speak to his brethren, who were wait- ing to be taught by him. Filled with a sense of the poverty of man- kind, the old man, instead of attempting any teaching, said, " Brethren, let us weep !" and they all fell upon the ground and wept. I know that you now expect from me words of instruction, but, in spite of myself, my lips are closed before the sight of our Lord in his coffin. Who can speak when He is silent ? Can I say anything more to you of God and His truth, of man and his untruth, which can affect you as these wounds can ? Those who are not moved by them can never be touched by the word of man. On Golgotha there was no preaching, only sobs and smiting of breasts : and by this coffin there is no place for preaching, only for repentance and tears. Brethren, our Lord and Saviour lies there ! Let Us weep and pray ! ' 1 See King. SIMONOF. 329 In the open burial ground of the Novospaski monastery is the tomb of the nun Dosythea, who was Tarakovna, a daughter of the Empress Elizabeth, by Razumofsky. The present walls of the monastery were built 1640-1642 by the nun Martha, whose son, Michael Romanoff, had then long occupied the throne. It was to Novospaski that the metro- politan Athanasius retired after resigning his office, aghast at the cruelties of Ivan the Terrible. Between Novospaski and Simonof we pass a very pictu- resque ancient Russo-Saracenic gateway. Then through a bit of wild open country we come to a grove of trees, beyond which, on the edge of a steep, rise the walls of the great monastery of Simonof, which was founded in 1370 by a nephew of S. Sergius, on a site chosen by the saint himself. The imposing circle of towers on the walls resisted many sieges, but in that of the Poles the place was taken and sacked. It once possessed twelve thousand male serfs and many villages ; now it has neither serf nor village. Its six churches, once too few, are now too many. The central gate, under the great bell- tower, has long been closed, and we approach the monastery by a sandy lane between the walls and the cliff. Hence we enter the enclosure a peaceful retreat with an avenue, and, in the centre, a tall church, with the five bulbous cupolas, said to represent Christ and the four Evangelists, in the same way that thirteen are said to represent Christ and the twelve Apostles. All around are little houses with gay gardens of marigolds and dahlias, and bees humming in hedges of spiraea. The famous metropolitan, S. Jonah, lived here as a monk. On the ikonastos of the church is the icon with which S. Sergius blessed Dmitri of the Don, when he went 330 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. forth against the Tartars, and beneath are buried' his two warrior monks, who perished in the combat. 1 ' At the very moment of the decisive battle of the Don, which first shook the empire of the Mongols over Russia, the aged S. Sergius was supporting Demetrius by his prayers. His two monks, Peresvet and Osliab, fought in the ranks, with the schema under their coats of mail ; and Peresvet began the engagement by a single combat with a gigantic Tartar, the champion of the horde. He sealed with his blood the approaching deliverance of Russia, and was the precursor of those hero- monks of the Trinity Laura, who so gloriously distinguished them- selves in other days of no less danger and distress to their country. The bodies of Peresvet and Osliab were laid as the foundation of the Simonof monastery, when it was first built on the original site.' Mourauieff. In this and other Russian monasteries, strangers are received with kindness, but with more than rigid simplicity. The Rule of S. Basil enjoins hospitality on its monks, but they are forbidden to provide anything more than the neces- saries of life for strangers ; to do so, it says, would be as absurd as if they should put on better clothes in which to receive them, adding that if only an austere diet is provided, the monks will soon be rid of all merely idle visitors of a worldly spirit. 2 Most pictorial was the view upon which we looked towards sunset from the monastic gate the rich colour on the old red walls ; the sandy road winding along the edge of the height, and peopled by groups of children in the brilliant pink and blue which Russians love ; the soft bril- liant green of the meadows below fading into the silvery grey 1 They had been soldiers, and had abandoned the military for the ecclesiastical life. Possibly they were White Brethren, amongst whom former soldiers are not uncommon at the present day. 2 Regulaefusiits exphcatae. Reg. 20. SIMONOF. 351 of groves of willows so ancient as to recall the olives of Italy ; and the domes of distant monasteries, purple upon an amber sky. Often a fair is held in these meadows, and is a very pretty sight : milk, pans of honey, and melons at 10 kopecks (3^.) are sold there. Amongst the costumes, the passion for red is always predominant, and all the IN THE CONVENT OF SIMONOF. moujik dandies, in black knickerbockers and well-shaped boots reaching to the knee, wear scarlet shirts. * La chemise rouge ou blanche des paysans, boutonnee sur la clavicule et serree autour des reins avec une ceinture, par-dessus laquelle le haut de cette espece de sayon retombe en plis antiques, tandis que le bas flotte comme une tunique, et recouvre le pantalon ou on ne 1'enferme pas ; la longue robe a la persanne souvent ouverte, et qui lorsque 1'homme ne travaille pas recouvre en partie cette blouse, les cheveux longs des cotes separes sur le front, mais coupes ras par derriere un pen 332 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. plus haut que la nuque, ce qui laisse a decouvert la force du col : tout cet ensemble ne compose-t-il pas un costume original et gracieux ? L'air doux et sauvage a la fois des paysans russes n'est pas denue de grace : leur taille elegante, leur force qui ne nuit pas a la legerete, leur souplesse, leurs larges epaules, le sourire doux de leur bouche, le melange de tendresse et de ferocite qui se retrouve dans leur regard sauvage et triste, leur seul aspect aussi different de celui de nos laboureurs que les lieux qu'ils habitent et le pays qu'ils cultivent sont differents du reste de 1'Europe.' M. de Custine. In such clear summer evenings, in which all the beauty depends upon the pellucid sky and the atmospheric effects, how many scenes one meets with which recall one of the word-pictures of TourguenerT ! ' The day was rapidly drawing to a close ; the sun was hidden behind a little wood of aspens situated half a verst distant, and cast a boundless shadow over the motionless fields, a peasant on a white horse was trotting along the narrow path which skirted the wood ; although he was in shadow, his whole figure was distinctly visible, and one could even see a patch upon his coat at the shoulder ; the horse's feet moved with a regularity and precision pleasant to the eye. The rays of sun penetrated the wood, and traversing the thicket, coloured the stems of the aspens with a warm tint which gave them the appear- ance of pine-trunks, whilst their foliage, almost blue, was relieved upon a pale sky, slightly empurpled by the twilight. The larks were flying very high ; the wind had entirely gone down ; the belated bees were feebly buzzing in the syringa flowers, as if they were half asleep ; a column of gnats was dancing over a solitary branch which stretched into the air. ' Parents and Children. To reach the Novo Devichi (the Newly-saved) Monastery, we follow the road we took to the Sparrow Hills as far as the outskirts of Moscow. Thence a wide street, with shabby houses scattered along it, leads to a sandy dusty plain, NOVO DEVI CHI. 333 whence rise, as from a desert, the battlemented walls and weird lofty gate of the monastery, which was founded in 1524 in commemoration of the capture of Smolensk. The exterior is perhaps the strangest, the interior the prettiest of all the monasteries. Masses of flowers, carefully tended by the multitude of nuns, cluster round the graves, which fill most of the space between the little houses and the church, with its many domes shrouded in a veil of chain NOVO DEVICHI MONASTERY. work. Little raised paved pathways for winter lead in every direction. Silvery bells chime from the great tower. A myriad birds perch upon the aerial webs of metal work the hated sparrows, as well as the honoured swallows. * When the Jews were seeking for Christ in the garden, says a Khar- kof legend, all the birds, except the sparrow, tried to draw them away from his hiding-place. Only the sparrow attracted them thither by its shrill chirruping. Then the Lord cursed the sparrow, and forbade that men should eat of its flesh. In other parts of Russia tradition tells us that before the crucifixion the swallows carried off the nails provided for the use of the executioners, but the sparrows brought them back. And while our Lord was hanging on the cross the sparrows were mali- ciously exclaiming, Jif! Jif! or " He is living ! He is living ! " in order 334 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. to urge on the tormentors to fresh cruelties. But the swallows cried, with opposite intent, Umer ! Umerl "He is dead! He is dead!" Therefore it is, that to kill a swallow is a sin, and that its nest brings good luck to a house. But the sparrow is an unwelcome guest, whose entry into a cottage is a presage of woe. As a punishment for its sins its legs have been fastened together by invisible bonds, and therefore it always hops, not being able to run.' Ralston (from Afanasief], ' Rzts- sian Folk Tales.'' Theie are multitudes of small birds, but it is affirmed that there are no magpies within thirty miles of Moscow. The golden trowel of the metropolitan was once carried off when he was about to lay a foundation stone. The work- men were accused, knouted, and sent to Siberia, and then the bell-ringers discovered that magpies had carried it off to the top of the belfry, and the birds were cursed accordingly. The abbess of Novo Devichi came and talked to us whilst we drew amongst the flowers, gathered nosegays of zinnias, sweet-peas, and scabious for the ladies of our party, and lamented her sorrows in the perversion of a niece, who, after the privilege of being educated in a convent, had de- clared that she had a vocation for matrimony ! Catherine II. founded an institution here for the education of two hundred noble young ladies and two hundred and forty other girls, and in this the nuns are chiefly employed. In the church, with its huge pillars, matted floors, and gorgeous ikonastos, we were present at a litany, in which a solitary nun sang the responses like a wail ; all the others, in their long black robes and peaked hoods, only crossing themselves " incessantly. We observed here how different the way the "Russians make their poklon, or sign of the cross, is to that of Catholics. The little and third finger are drawn NOVO DEVICHI. 335 back into the hand ; the two others and the thumb alone project, as a mystic symbol of the Trinity ; and the whole body is bowed at the same time. ' Grace, affectation, self-complacency, devotion, coldness, pride, all the human virtues and human weaknesses are mirrored in these bowings and crossings. There is no end of them in the churches, and a Russian congregation engaged unceasingly in these exercises, certainly offers the strangest spectacle in the world. On the festival of the Poklonenie AndraiJ- the monks must make two hundred crossings, bowings, and prostrations, one after another. ' The oddest of all the applications of the sign is made when yawning. Whenever the mouth involuntarily opens for this operation, which may well excite all sorts of strange fancies among a superstitious people, seeing that we yawn quite against .our will the Russian thinks it is the work of the Evil One ; and that the devil may not slip in to snap up the soul, the sign of the cross must be made before the mouth. This notion is cherished by none more than by venerable matrons, and nothing can be droller than to see an old Russian woman thus busied in defending, against the devil, the mouth that she finds it so difficult to keep shut.' Kohl. It was in this convent of Novo Devichi that the 'dis- consolate Tsaritsa ' Irene, widow of Feodor, and daughter- in-law of Ivan the Terrible, became a nun after the death of her husband, * in whose person the race of Rurik, after six centuries, bade its final farewell to Russia, and by whose departure the royal house of Moscow was left tenantless.' 2 Though Irene had refused to accept the crown which was offered to her, all public business continued to be trans- acted in her new monastic name of Alexandra, till, at the suggestion of the patriarch Job, her brother, the boyar Boris Godunof, was elected to the sovereignty. ' For a long time Boris refused the crown, and even concealed him self in the cell of the Tsaritsa his sister. Then the patriarch went in 1 Crossings in honour of S. Andrew. 2 Mouravieff. 336 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. procession with the cross, accompanied by all his clergy, and with great difficulty persuaded him to accept it, for the sake of the icon of our Lady of Vladimir, which they had brought to him to the convent.' Sfourceoieff. But the chief historic associations of Novo Devichi are connected with the Tsarevna Sophia Alexievna, who governed Russia during the minority of Peter the Great. She was bom in 1658, being the fourth daughter of Tsar Alexis by his first wife Maria Ilinitchna, of the family of the Miloslavski, whose quarrels were incessant with the family of the Narysh- kins, to whom Natalia, second wife of Alexis, belonged. The cleverness of the Princess Sophia, and her attention to her brother Feodor during a long illness, gave her a complete ascendency over him. and she was practically the ruler of Russia during his reign, acting under the advice of Vassili Galitzin, who had distinguished himself by his political abilities under Alexis. Feodor died in 1682, when his weak, feeble-minded, whole brother Ivan was excluded from the sovereignty, and his brilliant half brother Peter declared Tsar. The partisans of Peter said that this was, first, by the express appointment of Feodor, and secondly, by the unanimous voice of the nation. The fact was that, when the courtiers, officers, and eccle- siastics met. according to custom, at the Kremlin to kiss the hands of the dead Tsar, they also kissed those of both Ivan and Peter. But the patriarch Joachim took the unusual step of demanding which of the brothers they would nomi- nate as Tsar, and they then chose Peter. A record in the office for Foreign Affairs also states that Ivan renounced his rights, because it was desirable that his brother should be elected, to avoid complications with the Tsaritsa Natalia, THE TSAREVNA SOPHIA. 537 who was still alive. The report that the election of Peter was unanimous is extremely improbable, owing to the power of the Miloslavski and Galitzin. Still he was elected, and, during his childhood, the power fell to his mother, Natalia. Then Sophia and her maternal relations, the Miloslavski, persuaded the strelitzi or streltsi--the regiment of guards to seize the Kremlin, by spreading a report that Ivan Alexievitch was murdered. He was produced to them alive, and, after seeing him, the streltsi would have dispersed peacefully, if Prince Dolgorouki had not had the imprudence to threaten them with punishments, upon which they hacked him to pieces, and massacred a great number of the Naryshkin faction. Henceforth, Ivan and Peter were declared joint sovereigns : but, on account of the incapacity of Ivan and youth of Peter, the real ruling power rested with Sophia. She even adopted some of the outward signs of sovereignty. Her image, with crown and sceptre, was stamped on one side of coins, on the other side of which her two brothers are represented. In public processions she appeared with the insignia of royalty, and at the cathedral services she usurped the throne intended only for the Tsaritsa. It is said, but falsely, that, the better to preserve her position, she neglected the education of Peter, and encouraged him, by evil com- panions, to profligacy and excess. It was in September, 1689, that Peter determined to eman- cipate himself and imprison his sister, who is groundlessly asserted to have tried to anticipate her fall by his assassi- nation. Having been joined at the Troitsa, whither he had fled, by the nobles, soldiers, and even the patriarch Joachim, Peter assembled 60,000 men at the church of S. Basil, gained a complete victory, banished Vassili Galitzin for life, and 338 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. shut up Sophia in Novo Devichi. Here she was at first allowed well-furnished rooms looking out on the Devichi plain, though she was never allowed to go out, or to receive any visitors except her aunts and sisters, and these only on great festivals of the Church. 1 ' Sophia s'etait emancipee de la reclusion du terem comme Pierre s'etait emancipe de la reclusion du palais pour courir les rues et naviguer sur les fleuves. Tons deux avaient tenu une conduite scandaleiise, d'apres les idees du temps, 1'une haranguant les soldats, presidant des conciles, marchant la fata levee, 1'autre maniant la hache comme un charpentier, ramant comme un simple kosak, frayant avec les aventurier etrangers, se colletant avec les palefreniers dans les combats simules. Mais pour 1'une cette emancipation n'est qu'un moyen pour arriver au pouvoir ; pour 1'autre, 1'emancipation de la Russie, comme la sienne, c'est le but. II veut degager la nation des antiques entraves qu'il a brisees pour lui-meme. Sophie reste une Byzantine, Pierre aspire a etre un Europeen. Dans le conflit entre la tsarevna et le tsar, ce n'est pas du cote du DivitchiM<mastyr<ya?e&t le progres.' Alfred Rambaud. In 1698, the revolution of the streltsi in favour of Sophia, though she was probably innocent of it, led to the severe imprisonment of the Tsarevna in the convent (in which she had already resided nine years) under a guard of a hundred soldiers. She was now forced to take religious vows, and, as the nun Susanna, was not allowed to see even the members of her family, except under the strictest precautions. Never- theless, though many of the prisoners were put to the torture to induce them to avow it, no proofs could be brought against Sophia of the murderous plots against Peter of which she was accused. Two thousand streltsi were executed; and, to strike terror into the unfortunate Tsarevna, a hundred and ninety-five of them were hanged on a square 1 See Schuyler's Life of Peter ths Great. THE DONSKOI MONASTERY. 339 gallows in front of her cell ; and three were left hanging all winter so close to her windows that she could have touched them, 1 one of the corpses holding in his hands a folded paper to represent a petition. It is interesting to possess a portrait of the captive princess, though it is not a pleasant one. ' Her mind and her ability bear no relation to the deformity of her person, as she is immensely fat, with a head as large as a bushel, hairs on her face, and tumours on her legs, and at least forty years old. But in the same degree that her stature is broad, short, and coarse, her mind is shrewd, unprejudiced, and full of policy.' De Netmille, 1689. The unfortunate Sophia died July 1704, and was buried in the church with several of her sisters. Her tomb is in- scribed : 'A.M. 7213. On the third of July died Sophia Alexievna, aged forty-six years, nine months, and six days : her monastic name was Susanna. She had been a nun five years, eight months, and twelve days. She was buried on the fourth in this church, called the Image of Smolensko. She was the daughter of Alexis Michailovitch, and of Maria Ilinitchna.' Peter had always admired the genius of Sophia. ' What a pity,' he said, ' that she persecuted me in my minority, and that I cannot repose any confidence in her, otherwise, when I am employed abroad, she might govern at home.' 2 There is but a short distance between Novo Devichi and the Donskoi Monastery. An ugly suburban street ends near 1 Gordon, pp. 95, 100. * Sophia had considerable literary power. She translated Le Medecin malgre lui of Moliere into Russian, and composed a tragedy the first extant in the Russian language. Z 2 340 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the monastic walls girt with richly ornamented towers. The monastery was founded in 1592 to commemorate the gift of a sacred picture by Kalmucks of the Don to Dmitri, 1 the same picture which in after times was carried by Dmitri at the famous battle of Kulikovo when he gained his great victory over the Tartars, and by Boris Godunof in the battle of Moscow. A stone church was built at the monastery in its honour. 2 THE DONSKOI MONASTERY. It was from the Donskoi monastery that Archbishop Ambrose was dragged by the people and torn to pieces in the reign of Catherine II., because, to prevent contagion during the plague, he had removed a favourite icon to which they had crowded, and shut it up. 3 There are pretty fields with groups of fine trees and a wooden village, beyond the monastery. The grey monoto- 1 Strahl, 168. " Karamsin, x. 3 See Voltaire, Lettres de fimperatrice de Russie. Lett. 94. VILLAGE LIFE. 341 nous tints of life amongst the peasantry in such a village are described in the poems of Nicholas Nekrasov, who died in 1877. Better known, however, are the descriptions of Gogol (1808-1852) the Russian Dickens; his characters have become known through the length and breadth of the empire, and his descriptions are all taken from real life. In these wooden villages there is the stillness and calm of ages. ' There is noise in the capitals, the orators thunder, The war of words rages ; But here, in the depths of Russia, Is the silence of centuries, Only the wind gives no rest To the tops of the willows along the road, And kissing mother earth, The ears of the illimitable cornfield Bend themselves in an arch. ' Nekrasov (trans, by W. R. MorfiH}. A good-natured, stolid, grave taciturnity is the character- istic of the Russian moujik. ' Le peuple, serieux par necessite plus que par nature, n'ose guere rire du regard ; mais a force de paroles reprimees, ce regard, anime par le silence, supplee a Peloquence, tant il donne de passion a la phy- sionomie. II est presque toujours spirituel, quelquefois doux, lent, plus souvent triste jusqu'a la ferocite ; il tient de celui de la bete fauve prise au piege.' M. de Cttstine. Ralston gives a pleasant picture of a holiday in a village of this kind. ' When a holiday arrives, in fine spring weather even the saddest - looking of Russian hamlets assumes a lively aspect. In front of their wooden huts the old people sit " simply chatting in a rustic row ; " the younger men and women gather together in groups, each sex apart from the other, and talk about their fields and their flocks, their families and 342 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. their household affairs. Across the river they see their horses, free from labour for the day, browsing in the green meadows ; above the copse rises the blue cupola of a neighbouring church ; beyond the log- houses a streak of road stretches away into the distance, and loses itself among the woods which darken the plain and fringe the horizon. Along the village street and the slope towards the river stroll the young girls in their holiday array, merrily wending towards the open space in which the Khorovods are always held, and singing as they go.' ' Songs of the Rtissian People.'' The queen of the monasteries of Great Russia, the holy of holies, is undoubtedly the famous Troitsa, forty versts, or thirty miles, from Moscow, which is now reached in an hour and twenty minutes by rail on the line to Yaroslaf : but devout Russians still make the pilgrimage on foot. The Greek Princess Sophia, wife of Ivan the Great, thus made this pil- grimage, in the hope of obtaining a son, upon which S. Sergius appeared to her, bearing a beautiful male child, and ' threw it into her bosom,' and it was born nine months after- wards. 1 Hither Ivan the Terrible came, with his first wife Anastasia, to return thanks for the bir^h of his eldest son Dmitri. Sir Jerome Horsey records the first pilgrimage hither of the Tsaritsa Maria, daughter of the infamous Malouta Skouratof, but herself the gentle wife of Boris Godunof, after their popular election and coronation, in June 1584. ' The Empresse of deuotion tooke this journey on foot all the way, accompanied with her princesses and ladies, no small number ; her guard and gunners were in number 20,000.' Boris Godunof and Maria came again on pilgrimage to the Troitsa, and spent nine days at the tomb of S. Sergius, 1 Karamsin, vi. THE TROITSA. 343 imploring the blessing of heaven upon the marriage of their daughter Xenia with Duke John of Denmark, but on their return to Moscow, before the marriage could take place, the bridegroom died ; for this time the Tsaritsa had not made the pilgrimage on foot, but in a magnificent coach drawn by ten horses ! The Empress Catherine II. made the pilgrimage on foot with all her court, only going' five miles a day, with vessels of Neva w r ater always ready to refresh her. The railway-line, as usual, leads through the eternal forests of fir-trees, which the Russians regard with a con- tempt indicated in the well-known proverb : * Koli khleba kra'i, tak y pod yeliu rai.' ' Where there is plenty of bread it is paradise, even under the fir-tree.' The monastery of Troitsa is about half a mile from the station, covering the summit of a low 7 hill with its glittering domes and cupolas, all encased in metal and rising from em- battled walls above the little town. It dates from 1342, w r hen it was founded by S. Sergius of Radonegl (1315-92, canonised 1428), a hermit of these central forests, the hero of a thousand legends, amidst which one story shines out as a fact : that when Dmitri of the Don, himself almost a saint, shrank rom the Tartars, it was Sergius who urged him on to the great victory which gave him his illustrious name. The monks Peresvet and Osliab accompanied him to the battle and fought beside him in coats of mail as he sang the forty-sixth Psalm on the battle-field. 1 ' \\ ith the name of Sergius a new monastic world opens itself in the north. The commencement of his lonely hermitage in the woods near Moscow is a point of as much importance in Russian history as the 1 See Mouravieff, 62. 344 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. excavation of the cave of Anthony on the banks of the Dnieper. . . . Sergius built by his own labour in the midst of the forest a wooden church, by the name of the Source of Life, the ever-blessed Trinity, which has since grown into that glorious laura whose destiny has become inseparable from the destinies of the capital, and from whence on so many occasions the salvation of all Russia has proceeded.' Mouravieff. ' Ce qui avail fait la gloire de Kieff, 1'ancienne metropole, c'etait cet illustre monastere de Petcherski, avec les saintes catacombes et les torn beaux de tant d'ascetes et de thaumaturges. Cet heritage de vertus et de glorieuse austerite, Moscou 1'eut aussi en partage. Dans une profonde foret oil il n'eut d'abord pour compagnon qu'un ours, sur le cours d'eau qui n'avait d'autres riverains que les castors, Saint Serge fonda ce monastere de Troitsa (la Trinite} qui devait devenir 1'un des plus veneres et les plus opulents de la Russie orientale. Par la suite, en effet, ses richesses s'accroissant, il dut s'entourer de remparts ; et ses epaisses murailles de briques, avec un triple etage d'embrasures, ses neuf tours de guerre, toutes ses fortifications encore aujourd'hui subsis- tantes devaient braver plus tard les assauts des catholiques et des infideles.' Rambaiul, ' Hist, de la Russie. * In 1408 the monastery was sacked by the Tartars, but it was re-established in 1423. ' In the early part of the seventeenth century the Troitsa was the centre of the national resistance to the Polish rule. It spent its enor- mous wealth in the deliverance of the country. In 1609 it successfully withstood a siege of sixteen months from the Poles, under Lissovski and the Hetman Sapieha. Then the Poles sought, equally in vain, to gain it by bribery for the false Demetrius. When the siege was raised, the monastery sent its treasures to be sold at Moscow, to provide for the troops. When Moscow fell under the Polish rule, after the fall of Shuiski, the nucleus of resistance was again formed at the Troitsa. The Abbot Dionisi and the steward Abrami Palitzin assembled an armed force, and summoned all faithful boyars to the deliverance of their "holy mother Moscow." They induced Prince Troubetskoi to risk the battle, by which he gained possession of the greater part of the city and drove the Poles behind the walls of the Kitaigorod. The summons which the Troitsa sent to Kazan and Nijni Novogorod eventually led to the general revolt, under Minin and Pojarskoi, which freed Russia THE TROITSA, 345 from the Polish yoke. In 1615 the Troitsa was again besieged by the -Polish prince Vladislaf, who claimed the Russian throne in opposition to the Romanoffs. But after a bloody assault he was repulsed, and, in 1619, under the walls of the monastery, a peace was concluded, ever since which the balance of power has inclined towards Russia. ' Finally in the monastery of Troitsa, the brother-Tsars Ivan and Peter found a refuge from the strelitzes in 1685, and again Peter I. took refuge here in 1689, and whilst here destroyed the power of his sister Sophia.' From the ' Life of S. SergiusJ by Philard, Metropolitan of Moscow* The lands of the monastery, curtailed by Peter the Great, were taken away by Catherine II. At the confiscation it was found that the Troitsa possessed 107,000 peasants, which at present would represent an estate of about 3,750,0007. Napoleon sent out from Moscow to destroy the Troitsa, but it is believed that the Virgin and S. Sergius saved it. The great office of archimandrite of the Troitsa has long been considered too great to be held by any but the metropolitan, and the hegumenos or prior, one of the greatest dignitaries in Russia, still lives in the greatest state, though supported now entirely by the offerings of pilgrims. The ' monastery ' is surrounded by embattled walls, one mile in circuit, upon which a raised covered way affords a most agreeable walk. In one of the towers is a dungeon and oubliette, made by Ivan the Terrible. ' A fine arched gateway opens from the public square into the outer courts, and entering you find yourself in the sacred precincts large grassy places, shady trees, paved pathways, broad and orderly, churches, offices, halls a picturesque carelessness of arrangement, a rich and beautiful seclusion, a place of repose and rest, of study and meditation. That peculiar charm pervades it which one experiences on entering a cathedral. You feel inclined to sit down and be silent, and let your spirit partake of the beauty and sentiment of the genius lociSG* T. Lowth. 346 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. As the Kremlin of Moscow is not merely a palace but a town, so the Troitsa is not merely a monastery but a town, with an imperial palace, archiepiscopal palace, nine churches, a hospital, a bazaar, and innumerable dwellings. Avenues of lime trees intersect the enclosure, in which a vast republic of crows and ravens dwells unmolested. In the centre is the great bell-tower of Rastrelli (1769), two hundred and fifty feet high, with a chime of thirty-five bells. The oldest of the churches is the Troitsa (Trinity), which is entered through a portico used as a bazaar, full of tapers, icons, oil-cans, and printed forms urging visitors not to be beguiled into buying outside, as the church wares are better. The lamps and tapers are to be offered to S. Sergius, whose shrine of silver weighs 936 Ibs. ' They showed me a coffin covered with cloth of gold which stood e upon one side within their church, in which they told me lay a holy man, who never eate or dranke, and yet that he liueth. And they told me (supposing that I had beleeued them) that hehealeth many diseases, and giueth the blind their sight, with many other miracles, but I was hard of belieuf because I saw him work no miracle whilest I was there.' Anthonie Jenkinsoii) 1 557. Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV.), brought hither from Moscow ten days after his birth, was laid upon this tomb by his father, Vassili Ivanovitch, with the prayer that S. Sergius would be his guide and protector through life. 1 Painted on portions of the coffin of the saint are two portraits of him, which are copied in a hundred thousand icons all over Russia. With one of the original portraits in his hands, the unfortunate Grand Prince Vassili (1446) vainly sought a refuge in the church against the myrmidons of his 1 Karamsin, vii. THE TROITSA. 347 cruel cousin Shemiaka, by whom he was dragged to Moscow, where his eyes were put out. The Tsar Alexis, and after- wards Peter the Great, carried one of the portraits into battle ; for Peter, who had a small opinion of icons in general, had a great veneration for those of the Troitsa, which twice gave him a refuge from the streltsi in his early life. The picture of S. Sergius he looked upon as a palladium in all his campaigns, and it is inscribed with the names of all the battles and sieges at which it has been present. It is believed that S. Sergius has already several times appeared to warn his country of dangers, or to avert them ; and, according to Innocent of Odessa, he has still to appear again. 1 The Church of the Rest of the Virgin (Uspenski Sobor) is the largest and most gorgeous of the monastic churches. It has five cupolas. The baluster pillars of the entrance sup- port an arch with a pendant in the middle a strange design, which Russian architects are never weary of repeating, but which is at least original. The great roll over the door may also be observed as a peculiar (and ugly ?) characteristic of Russian architecture. Within the church we may see the representation often repeated in Russia of S. Sophia (Divine Wisdom) and her three daughters, Vera, Nadezhda, and Liubof (Faith, Hope, and Love). In this church rests at last the Tsar Boris Godunof (1584-1605). After the death of Feodor Ivanovitch, who had married his sister Irene, he had been raised to the throne, elected, chiefly through the influence of the landed proprietors and the clergy. The former he had gained over by per- suading Feodor to publish a ukaz interdicting peasants for 1 See his sermon at Sebastopol. 348 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ever from passing from the lands of one proprietor to those of another, and thus instituting in Russia the serfdom of the East. With this he combined great views for the education of his people. The clergy he had conciliated by inducing Feodor to found the patriarchate. ' Les ecclesiastiques russes se plaignaient avec raison d'obeir a ties patriarchies qui etaient eux-memes des esclaves des infideles. L'ancienne Rome etait souillee par le papisme ; Constantinople, la seconde Rome, etait profanee par le Turc ; Moscou, la troisieme Rome, n'etait-elle pas en clroit d'avoir au moins 1'independance ? Boris encourageait les reclamations. II profita du passage a Moscou de Jeremie, patriarche de Constantinople, pour 1'engager a fonder le patriarchal russe.' Rainbaud. In 1605 Boris fortunately died in peace (though some say of poison), recommending his son to the care of the powerful boyar Basmanof, and, after the custom of dying Tsars, receiving the monastic habit, and changing his name (to Bogolup). But the false Dmitri was then approaching Moscow. Basmanof betrayed his young master, who was murdered together with the widowed Tsaritsa j and the body of the Tsar Boris, buried in state with his predecessors, was exhumed from the church of S. Michael, and treated with great ignominy. It is at the Troitsa that Boris has at length found a resting-place ; and to the same grave, from the monastery where they were first buried, have been trans- ferred the bodies of his innocent son Feodor, a youth of great promise, and of his wife Maria, who, as daughter of the infamous Malouta Skouratovitch, the ciuel instrument of Ivan the Terrible, had inherited a legacy of popular hatred, yet had lived to overcome it by a life of gentleness and chanty. In this church we also find tombs of the THE TROITSA. 349 Princes Odeyevski, Galitzin, Trubetskoi, Volinski, Soltikov, Glinski, Varotinski, Shuiski, Pojarskoi, Skopni, and Mest- cherski names which occur frequently in the history of Russia. The traveller Clarke was present here at the funeral of Prince Galitzin. 1 The lid of the coffin being removed, the body of the prince was exposed to view, and all the relatives, servants, slaves, and other attendants, began the salutation, according to the custom of the country. Each person, walking round the corpse, made prostration before it, and kissed the lips of the deceased. The venerable figure of an old slave presented a most affecting spectacle. He threw himself flat on the pavement with a degree of violence ; and, quite stunned by the blow, remained a few seconds insensible ; afterwards, his loud lamentations were heard, and we saw him tearing off and scattering his white hairs. He had, according to the custom of Russia, received his liberty upon the death of the prince ; but choosing rather to consign himself for the remainder of his days to a convent, he retired for ever from the world, saying, " Since his dear old master was dead, there was no one living who cared for him."' Clarke's ' Travels.* Outside the church is the tomb of Maria, Queen of Livonia, the only person who bore that title, a grand- daughter of Ivan Vassilievitch. She married Magnus, Duke of Holstein, made titular king of Livonia by Ivan Vassiiie- vitch II., who removed him ignominiously from his throne four years later. During the reign of Feodor, Queen Maria and her daughter Eudoxia were shut up in a convent ' by Boris Godunof, who dreaded their claim to the throne on the death of the sovereign. They rest together near the tomb of their persecutor. A two-headed eagle commemo- rates the concealment of Peter the Great from the streltsi in this church. 1 See Karamsin. 350 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' Natalia (the Tsaritsa) was permitted to conceal herself, not only within the precincts of the convent, not only within the walls of the principal church, but behind the sacred screen, beside the altar itself, where, by the rules of the Eastern Church, no woman's foot is allowed to enter. That altar (still remaining on the same spot) stood between the past and the future destinies of Russia. On one side of it crouched the mother and her son ; on the other, the fierce soldiers were waving their swords over the head of the royal child. " Comrade, not before the altar ! " exclaimed the more pious or the more merciful of the two assassins. At that moment a troop of faithful cavalry galloped into the courtyard, and Peter was saved." Stanley r , ' The Eastern Church." 1 ' Very near this church is a well, which is said to have been dug by S. Sergius, though only discovered in 1644, when the convent was grievously in need of water. The Church of S. Sergius, built 1692, contains curious frescoes. In the Church of S. Peter is a remarkable picture of the Temptation. For forty days after death, it is said, the soul is attended by its guardian-angels who conduct it on the road towards heaven, but it is met by the remem- brance of all its sins, and assailed by all temptations which have been victorious in its past life. The Church of the Descent of the Holy Ghost was founded by Ivan the Great after the capture of Kazan. It was Archbishop Bassian of Rostoff, formerly prior of the Troitsa, who had urged the Tsar to battle when he had returned from his camp to Moscow. ' Dost thou fear death ? ' he wrote ; ' thou too must die as well as others. Death is the lot of all, of man, beast, and bird alike ; none can avoid it. Give thy warriors into my hand, and, old as I am, I will not spare myself, and will 1 It is said that twenty years after Peter recognised the soldier who had threatened him, though disguised in a seaman's dress, and started back with an instinct of horror. Peter forgave him, but forbade him ever to appear again in his presence, as not daring to trust himself to look at the man who had once so filled him with terror. See Stahlin, 26. THE TROITSA. 351 never turn my back upon the Tartars.' Upon this Ivan took courage, and went back to his camp : Achmet Khan fled without fighting, the Golden Horde had armed itself for the last time, and Russia was set free for ever. The Church of Philaret the Benefactor was only conse- crated in 1867, on the fiftieth anniversary of the episcopate of the beloved metropolitan Philaret, who was buried at the Troitsa, November 1867. Of all well-known Russian monks, Philaret was perhaps the one who most devoutly endeavoured to follow the teachings of the founder, S. Basil, by whom a monk was defined as one whose prayer is continual, who mingles it with the daily duties of life, whose heart is con- stantly lifted up to God, and whose chief object in study is to purify his soul by ceaseless meditation on the teaching of Holy Scripture. 1 The tombs of the metropolitans and bishops buried at the Troitsa are amongst the most interesting objects it contains, but it will be difficult for strangers to distinguish them from the explanation of their Russian guides. They are mostly covered with rich palls, and many have burning lamps. They include the tombs of S. Serapion, the deposed Lord of Novogorod (1511), who died here in the act of prayer, and by his side the holy metropolitan Joasaph (1539), also deposed, early in the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The treasury is full of priceless robes, jewels, and plate, offered to the monastery, for in the offerings of its pilgrims the Troitsa maybe regarded as the Loretto of Russia, indeed there are said to be more pearls here than in all the rest of Europe put together. In one of the mitres of the archi- mandrite is a ruby valued at five thousand roubles. An- 1 See the Letters of S. Basil to S. Gregory Nazianzen. 3 C2 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. other mitre is worth fifty thousand roubles, and a panagion thirty thousand, both presented by the Empress Elizabeth. 1 Nothing, however, is so interesting as the rude wooden chalice and paten, and the primitive hair dress of the founder, S. Sergius. The hunting-coat of Ivan the Terrible, an ivory ball which Peter the Great turned when he was here, and a polished agate on which a crucifix appears by a freak of nature, are shown amongst the curiosities. ' On dit qu'un homme en Russia avait propose cle composer un alphabet avec des pierres precieuses, et d'ecrire ainsi la Bible. II con- naissait la meilleure maniere d'interesser a la lecture 1'imagination des Russes. ' Madame de Stacl. There is a noble Refectory, always smelling terribly of the cabbage they adore, where the four hundred monks dine, and an outhouse for the pilgrims, who are fed on rye bread and soup, and permitted to sleep upon sacking in a kind of loft. There is also a Hospital for the pilgrims, with a separate room on the ground floor for those who are dying. The Theological Academy, founded by Elizabeth in 1749, has above a hundred students. The little residences of the monks are very comfortably furnished, and their inmates may have their own books, birds, and flowers. Multitudes of pigeons flit about the whole enclosure, always sacred in Russia as a living picture (obraz) of the Holy Spirit. At a baker's shop the holy bread of S. Sergius is sold to visitors and pilgrims. It is much sought after, partly no doubt on account of its real excellence as bread. The most glorious days of the monastery were those 1 King. THE TROITSA. 353 when the rest of Russia was most miserable, the troublous times of the usurpers who succeeded Boris Godunof, for : ' When there was no longer either Tsar or Patriarch, when Moscow itself, as one might almost say, had ceased to exist, being weighed down for a year and a half under the Polish yoke, the Laura became the heart of all Russia. Its superior Dionysius alone took the place of all the other authorities, and as the visible representative of the protec- tion of S. Sergius, overshadowed with his influence the whole land of Russia, and drew her together around the ruins of the capital. ' Motiravieff. Since that time the Troitsa has ever been one of the most sacred places in Russia, and pilgrimages to the grave of S. Sergius have never ceased. We read of the Court procession of Alexis to the Troitsa in September 1675 ' Immediately after the carriage of the Tsar there appeared from another gate of the palace the carriage of the Tsaritsa. In front went the chamberlains with two hundred runners, after which twelve large snow-white horses, covered with silk housings, drew the carnage of the Tsaritsa. Then followed the small carriage of the youngest prince, 1 all glittering with gold, drawn by four dwarf ponies. At the side of it rode four dwarfs on ponies, and another one behind.' Adolph Lyseck (Secretary to the Austrian Embassy}. A tower is pointed out whence the boy Peter shot ducks when he was taking refuge here with his mother from the streltsi. When, in 1689, he escaped hither again, flying from Sophia and the streltsi, he arrived at 6 A.M., so weary that he had to be lifted from his horse and put to bed. His mother, his wife Eudoxia, and his sister Natalia, arrived two hours later. About two miles from the Troitsa, prettily situated near a lake in the woods, is the religious establishment of Vefania 1 Peter the Great. A A 354 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. (Bethany), a very singular place, which became a centre of ecclesiastical education under the famous metropolitan Plato, at the beginning of the present century. Several churches are distributed over the pretty garden enclosure, brilliant with flowers in summer, where long-robed, long-haired priests are always pacing between the box hedges, and the hum of bees mingles with the eternal wail of the church music. The simple, quiet, pretty rooms of Plato are preserved, with a lovely view of flowers and verdure. An inscription here records a visit when the Emperor Paul, with his wife and children, came to dine with him. Over the door is inscribed, ' Let him who enters here forbear to carry out the dirt he finds within.' Archbishop Plato used to converse with his visitors in Greek. He was tutor to the Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine,and composed a liberal catechism for their use. Many anecdotes are recorded showing his in- dependence of spirit ; amongst others, of his being desired to draw up a form of prayer for the success of the Russian arms, and refusing to do so. ' If the Russians are really penitent, let them shut up all their places of public amusement for a month, then I will celebrate public prayers.' The old Church of the Mount of Olives (' the Mountain of the Ascension of Jesus Christ ') contains a curious repre- sentation of the hills and valleys round Jerusalem, with their olive trees, and shepherds with their flocks. On the altar is a reliquary adorned with enamel pictures which belonged to Louis XVI., and was given by Louis XVIII. to the metro- politan Plato. Beneath the rock is a subterranean chapel warmed by a stove, having on the right a cell which contains two coffins, one bitten through by peasants suffering from toothache, being that of the founder, the other being that of BETHANY AND GETHSEMANE. 355 Plato, bearing his figure, standing upon the spot which he pointed out to Reginald Heber in 1805. His robes are pre- served in cases. ' The space beneath the rocks is occupied by a small chapel, fur- nished with a stove for winter devotion ; and on the right is a little narrow cell containing two coffins, one of which is empty, and destined for the present archbishop ; the other contains the bones of the founder of the monastery, who is regarded as a saint. The oak coffin was almost bit to pieces by different persons afflicted with the toothache ; for which a rub on this board is a specific. Plato laughed as he told us this, but said, "As they do it de ban cceur, I would not undeceive them."' Reginald Hebe^s ' Journal. ' When the Emperor Joseph II. returned from Russia, being asked what he had found most admirable there, he re- plied, ' The metropolitan, Plato.' A very short walk takes us from the ' -gay retreat M of Bethany to the hermitages of Gethsemane, connected with the next great metropolitan, Philaret, of austere and severe character. He worked and scolded incessantly, so that it used to be said that his daily fare was ' one gudgeon and three priests.' He was one of the three persons to whom the great State secret was known, which transferred the empire from Constantine to Nicholas on the death of the Emperor Alexander, and he crowned both Nicholas and Alexander II. ' I saw him on the festival of the Sleep of the Virgin, in the cathe- dral of the Kremlin. His position there was such as might have ex- cited envy in the minds not only of English Ritualists, but of the highest Popes and Cardinals of the West. Never have I seen such respect paid to any ecclesiastic ; not only during all the elaborations of the Russian ceremonial when with the utmost simplicity he bore the 1 A. P. Stanley. 356 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. clothing and unclothing, and even the passing to and fro of the broad comb through the outstanding flakes of his hair and beard or when he stood on the carpet where was embroidered the old Roman eagle of the Pagan Empire - - but still more at the moment of his departure. He came out for the last time in order to give his blessing, and then de- scended the chancel steps to leave the church. Had he been made of pure gold, and had every touch carried away a fragment of him, the enthusiasm of the people could have hardly been greater to kiss his hand, or lay a finger on the hem of his garment. The crowd franti- cally tossed to and fro, as they struggled towards him -men, officers, soldiers. Faintly and slowly his white cowl l was seen moving on and out of the church, till he plunged into another vaster crowd outside ; and when at last he drove off in his coach, drawn by six black horses, everyone stood bareheaded as he passed. The sounding of all the bells of all the churches in each street as the carriage went by, made it easy to track his course long after he was out of sight.' A. P. Stanley ', ( Essays on CJmrch and State, ,' In the Church of the Gethsemane is another rocky plat- form, whence there is a descent to a crypt, which is crowded by pilgrims, especially on the ' Women's Day,' the only one in the year when they are admitted. Hence visitors descend with lighted tapers into some small catacombs, in which one cavern has a fountain and another a well. Even recently anchorites have been shut up here for years together, never seeing the light of day. At a convent in a wood at Khaloff, a few miles from the Troitsa, the traveller may venerate the relics of SS. Cyrillus and Mary, parents of S. Sergius. A very interesting circular tour may be made by con- tinuing the line of railway to Rostoff and Yaroslaf, descending 1 A white klobduk, or cowl, is the distinguishing mark of all prelates who bear the title of metropolitan in Russia as those of S Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, and Kazan. THE PLESTCHEIEF LAKE. 357 the Volga to Kostroma and Nijni Novogorod, and returning to Moscow by Vladimir. A little to the left of the line to Rostoff, about fifty miles beyond the Troitsa, near Pereyaslavl, is the Plestcheief Lake, where Peter the Great, as a boy of thirteen, in 1688-89. built boats with the help of Dutch workmen. On its east shore is the site of a church dedicated to S. Mary of the Ships, and the decaying remains of piles under water, which formed a land- ing-stage. 1 Of Peter's whole flotilla only one small boat re- mains, preserved in a special building, under the guardianship of the local nobles. His first launch is, however, annually commemorated in a festival on the sixth Sunday after Easter, when all the clergy of Pereyaslavl, attended by a throng of people, sail in a barge to the middle of the lake, to bless the waters. 2 It was hence that Peter wrote : ' To my most beloved and, while bodily life endures, dearest little mother, Lady Tsaritsa and Grand -Duchess Nacalia Kirilovna, Thy little son, now here at work, Petrushka, I ask thy blessing, and desire to hear about thy health, and we, through thy prayers, are all well, and the lake is all got clear from the ice to-day, and all the boats, except the big ship, are finished, only we are waiting for ropes, and therefore I beg your kindness that these ropes, seven hundred fathoms long, be sent from the Artillery Department without delaying, for the work is waiting for them, and our sojourn here is being prolonged. For this I ask your blessing. From Pereyaslavl, April 29 (O.S.) 1689.' The oft-repeated story of Peter's terror of water and the convulsions it caused, is entirely without foundation. 3 The historic town of Rostoff has a grand cathedral dedicated to The Rest of the Virgin, dating from 1213-31. The railway may be followed from hence to Yaroslaf( Hotel 1 See Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great, i. 273. 2 Ustrialof, ii. 332. J Schuyler. 358 STUDIES IN RUSSIA Kokiief) which retains part of its ancient Kremlin, and possesses several very fine churches, chiefly of the seven- teenth century. There is a famous Legal College here, owing its foundation, in 1805, to the head of the house of DemidofT, which has risen during the last century to be one of the richest and most important in Russia. 'The Demidoffs are descendants of a very industrious working miner, who had a small iron mine on the confines of Siberia. Peter the Great, on visiting the spot, was much pleased with the activity and reputation for honesty of Demidoff; and being anxious to encourage the working of mines, and also to set an example of emulation for others, made him and his heirs for ever a present of an extensive district immediately surrounding his small patrimonial mine, with full liberty to work it. The enormous extent of ground thus obtained proved a source of inexhaustible wealth to the good miner, for it was found to cover some of the richest veins of iron, of the finest quality, in Russia. The produce soon enriched the industrious proprietor, and his son having continued to work the mine, and to explore more ground, was enabled to employ the enormous capital thus acquired in purchasing additional estates, and, amongst others, one in which a gold mine was discovered soon after, that has yielded, on an average, 1 00,6797. annually in pure gold. ' When Peter learned how valuable a subject he had rewarded in old Demidoff, he wished to see him placed in the class of nobles. After some hesitation the old man consented to receive his sovereign's further bounty, and, being asked what his arms should be, he answered, "A miner's hammer, that my posterity may never forget the source of their wealth and prosperity.'" A. B. Granville. A thousand years ago the whole province of Yaroslaf was inhabited by the Finns, who, as a rule have been absorbed by 'the pure Slavonians, but a few Finnish villages remain. At Yaroslaf we find the mighty Volga 'great mother Volga' l which rises near the plateau of Valdai and flows 1 One of the famous songs of the Bourlaki begins ' In descending the Volga, our mother.' KOSTROMA. 359 for 2,320 miles through the length of Russia into the Caspian. The river steamer may be taken to Kostroma (Hotel Kostroma) a place of great interest, with a grand cathedral of The Rest of the Virgin, built in 1239, and little altered, being still of extreme interest and picturesque- ness. Outside the town is the Monastery of Ipatief, where Michael Romanoff was concealed during the Polish in- vasion, and where he was found by the boyars when they came to oifer him the crown of Russia. The chair is still shown in which they saw Michael, a boy of fifteen, seated on their arrival. It is said that when the Poles learnt his election, they sent armed men to seize Michael at Kostroma. A peasant, Ivan Soussanine, being employed as their guide, purposely misled them into the depths of the forest, where he died under their blows that he might save his prince from their hands. This is the subject of the famous opera of Glinka ' Life for the Tsar.' The unanimity of all classes in the election of Michael is very striking. ' It was decided that all Christian men should fast for three days, and pray to God that He would graciously bestow upon them a just and religious sovereign, and that their choice might proceed from the King of kings, and not from men. Consequently a general fast was observed, so strictly that neither men, women, nor children ate or drank anything for three days, and even infants were not allowed to take the breast. After this they proceeded to the election, it having previously been decided that every class of subject should give in writing the name of him whom they preferred. ' The assembly were astonished on examining all the papers, for they all named one and the same person, namely, Michael, the nephew of the Tsar Feodor Ivanovitch, and the son of him who was once the great boyar Feodor Niketivitch Romanoff, but who was then named Philaret, metropolitan of Rostoff, and was at that time suffering on behalf of his country in Warsaw.' Archbishop Plato. 360 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. The river steamer affords the pleasantest journey from Kostroma to Nijni-Novogorod (Hotel Lopashef), the Lower Novogorod, which was a colony from Novogorod the Great. This place would not be much worth visiting except at the time of its famous fair, unless it were for its magnificent position on the great river, which is here joined by the Oka. There is a very fine view from the citadel which rises above the small town of common life on the south bank of the Volga. On the plain on the northern bank, approached by roads deep in dust or heavy mud, is held the Yarmarka (Jahrmarkt), or fair, with its streets and alleys of Muscovite, Armenian, Turkish, Chinese, and Tartar sheds. The Chinese houses have an especially odd effect, with their projecting roofs and .yellow bells at the corners ; but the picturesque effects and costumes of the fair, so often described, have been greatly exaggerated. Of late years, since the introduction of railways, the importance of the fair has been dwindling. ' Why should not the goods be brought to Moscow ? ' is the constant cry ; and a traveller's visit to Nijni-Novogorod will soon be a tale of the past. Those who go there now will be amused by a dinner at the great restaurant, where sterlets of the Volga are the fashion- able delicacy. In this town of many nations, Mahommedan mosque and' Armenian church stand side by side with the Orthodox cathedral. It will be remembered that, during the Polish occupa- tion ' It was in Nijni that the spark of pure self-devotion broke out in the heart of the citizen Minin, who found his example responded to by the whole nation. There also the military force which was to free DESCENT OF THE VOLGA. 361 the country was concentrated under the command of Pojarskoi.' Afouravieff, (Steamers leave Nijni at n A.M. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for Kazan, returning at 8 A.M. on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This voyage, which may be performed with tolerable comfort, will show an ordinary traveller far more than he can otherwise have an opportunity of seeing, of the interior of Russia. The scenery is very monotonous and never more than slightly pretty. The right bank is sometimes steep, but on the left it is always flat and marshy. Between Nijni and Kazan the steamer passes through several of the Tcheremiss villages of Finnish origin, whose industrious inhabitants are almost pagan in their faith and customs. They believe, however, in another life after death, in which they are punished or rewarded, bad men becoming evil spirits, who return to torment the living. They believe that there is constant warfare between the good and bad gods, and that the chief of the latter is Shaitan, whose Tcheremiss name is Y6, who dwells in the west, and whose time of power is the dinner- hour. Except weeding the ground, the Tcheremiss do no work for a period of three weeks during the corn blossom, considering it sinful. At the end of that time there is a great holiday, and all the people proceed to a spot in the woods, where cows, sheep, and fowls are sacrificed. These must first be purchased, but no bargaining is allowed ; that would be a sin. ' This is the highest festival of the Tcheremiss, dedicated to Yum, Yuma, or the highest God, and therefore called Yumon Bairan, and also Shurem. After the animals have been slaughtered, and various 362 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ceremonies performed by the priests, the people all fall upon their knees, touch the ground several times with their foreheads, and repeat aloud a prayer containing eighteen requests, as follows : ' I. To him who has sacrificed to God, may God grant health and happiness. ' 2. To the children who have been born into the world may He give abundance of money, bread, bees, and cattle. ' 3. May He cause the bees to swarm at the new year, and provide honey in abundance ! ' 4. May He bless our pursuit of birds and game ! ' 5. May He give us abundance of gold and silver ! ' 6. Let us, O Lord, receive threefold the value for our goods ! ' 7. Grant us possession of all the treasures which are in the earth, and in the whole world ! ' 8. Enable us to pay the imperial taxes ! ' 9. When spring comes, let the three kinds of cattle out in the three ways, and protect them from deep mud, from bears, wolves, and thieves ! ' 10. Let our barren cows bear calves ! 'II. Let the lean cows grow fat by bearing calves ! ' 12. Let us sell the barren cows with one hand, and wirh the other take hold of the money ! ' 13. Send us, O God, a true-hearted friend ! ' 14. When we travel to a distance, protect us from wicked men, bad diseases, stupid people, unjust judges, and slanderous tongues ! '15. As the hop is elastic and full, so bless us with happiness and understanding ! ' 1 6. As the light becomes clear, so let us live, and grant us health! '17. As the wax settles down to a uniform level, so grant us the happiness to live constantly ! ' 1 8. Grant that he who asks may receive ! ' After this prayer the priest puts the head, heart, and liver of his beast into a bowl, and offers it as a sacrifice to his divinity with a prayer before the fire ; then they eat, and again begin to pray ; then they go on for three days and nights without sleep. Then they throw what they have not consumed, together with the bones and entrails of the beast, into the fire, which is kept continually burning.' Haxthausen^ ' The Russian Empire. ' Cheboksary is the Tcheremiss capital, a dirty, but rather a picturesque place. The most important rebellion ever KAZAN. 363 made by the usually patient serfs took place in the towns and villages of the Volga in the time of Nicholas I. In many cases the peasants seized their masters and mas- sacred them with their families. Some they roasted alive on spits, others they boiled in a cauldron, others they dis- embowelled ! * Le supplice de Thelenef commenca. Quel supplice, bon Dieu ! Pour rendre la mort plus affreuse a ce malheureux, on pla$a d'abord devant ses yeux sa fille, assise et liee a pen de distance de lui sur une grossiere estrade que 1'on venait de construire a la hate . . . puis . . . puis on lui coupa, a plusieurs reprises, les pieds et les mains, 1'un apres 1'autre, et quand ce tronc mutile fut presque epuise de sang, on le laissa mourir en souffletant la tete de ses propres mains, et en etouffant les hurlements de sa bouche avec un de ses pieds.' M. de Custine. Kazan (Commonen's Hotel), founded in the thirteenth century, was the capital of the Tartar kingdom of Kazan, \vhose inhabitants were the most formidable enemies of the Russian Grand Princes. It was Ivan the Terrible who annexed the three Khanates of the Lower Volga Kazan, Kiptchak, and Astrakhan. His capture of Kazan in 1552 is to Russian \vhat the conquest of Granada is to Spanish history. The town has a Kremlin of the fifteenth century, which contains the Cathedral of the Annunciation, of 1562. The Bogoroditsky Convent^ near this, contains a much vene- rated miraculous icon of 'Our Lady of Kazan.' Wallace * records as an instance of the strange blending of the modern with the ancient religion, that on one occasion, in consequence of serious illness, a Tcheremiss peasant sacrificed a young foal to our Lady of Kazan. The town 1 Russia, i. 237. 364 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. is three miles distant from the river, but its towers and minarets are visible from the water. The Tartar population of Kazan, forcibly converted, still retains many of its ancient customs, and even much of its old religion. ' Soon after the conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in the sixteenth century, the Tsars of Muscovy attempted to convert the new subjects from Mahommedanism to Christianity. The means employed .were partly spiritual and partly administrative ; but the police officers seem to have played a more important part than the clergy. In this way a certain number of Tartars were baptised ; but the authorities were obliged to admit that the new converts " shamelessly retain many horrid Tartar customs, and neither know nor hold the Christian faith." When spiritual exhortations failed, the Government ordered its officials to " terrify, imprison, put in irons, and thereby unteach and frighten from the Tartar faith those who, though baptised, do not obey the admonitions of the metropolitan." These energetic measures proved as ineffectual as the spiritual exhortations ; and Catherine II. adopted a new method, highly characteristic of her system of administration. The new converts who, be it remembered, were unable to read or write were ordered by Imperial ukase to sign a written promise to the effect that " they would completely forsake their infidel errors, and, avoiding all intercourse with unbelievers, would hold firmly and un- waveringly the Christian faith and its dogmas"- -of which latter, we may add, they had not the slightest knowledge. The childlike faith in the magical efficacy of stamped paper here displayed was not justified. The so-called "baptised Tartars" are at the present time as far from being Christian as they were in the sixteenth century. They cannot openly profess Mahommedanism, because men who have been once formally admitted into the National Church cannot leave it without exposing themselves to the severe pains and penalties of the criminal code, but they strongly object to be Christianised.' Wallace's 'RtissiaS From time to time Kazan and the whole district of the Volga have been overrun with swarms of beetles (tarakani) from China. In 1817, a more terrible enemy appeared in enormous swarms of rats yellow, with a black stripe SARAL 365 down the back which destroyed all the native rats and mice. 1 Some few travellers will continue the voyage of the Volga below Kazan to Simbirsk Samara, a great modern town, with a huge modern church ; and Saratof, a hand- some city in rather a pretty situation. (Hence a railway leads to Moscow through Tambof, one of the towns which has suffered most from Tartar incursions.) The melancholy songs of the Bourlaki vary, but do not enliven, the descent of the Volga. When the Bourlak sings * He sits, his head resting on his hands ; he has a pensive aspect ; his eyes express animation, his features suffering. When you listen to him you always wish to catch what he is saying ; but you cannot distinguish the words, it is only a plaintive wail which reaches you.' Reschetnikof. No trace exists now of the great Tartar city of Sarai', which once occupied the site of Saratof, being founded by the grandson of that Genghis Khan who set out from the north of China with the idea of conquering the whole world, and who did conquer the country which extends from the Carpathians to the eastern shores of Asia, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Himalayas, founding the great Mongol Empire, which only lasted fifty years. In the fifteenth century Sarai was flourishing and populous. Here lived the Khans who kept Russia in subjection for tw r o hundred years. Whilst they exacted tribute, however, they never attempted to Tartarise their Russian subjects, who were then divided into a number of independent principalities, all 1 See Haxthausen. 366 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. governed by descendants of Ruric. Indeed, they were so tolerant that, in 1261, a Khan founded a bishopric in his capital, and, several of his family embracing Christianity, one of them founded a monastery, and even became a saint of the Russian Church. Meantime the Russian princes, collecting as well as paying the tributes, became, as it were, the lieutenants of the Khans, and Princes of Moscow, by- forcing the smaller princes to pay their tribute through them, increased their own influence with the Tartar tyrants. But at length Russia, which had no part in the crusades of mediaeval Europe, carried on its own crusade against the Tartars, and in the end with glorious success ; and, as the Tartar Golden Horde fell to pieces, Moscow, which had long taken the first rank in Russia, put itself at the head of the movement which eventually ensured the freedom of the whole country). The railway from Nijni Novogorod to Moscow passes the famous town of Vladimir. This city was founded in the end of the twelfth century by Andrew Bobolioubski of Soudalia, who affirmed that he was obliged to make his capital here, rather than in the ancient cities of Sousdal or RostofT, in answer to his famous icon, brought from Constantinople (the same which now hangs in the Assumption Cathedral at Moscow), which refused to reside anywhere but in Vladimir. Andrew made of Vladimir a new Kieff, as Kieff itself had been a new Constantinople. Here, as at Kieff, was erected (1158) a Golden Gate, which still exists, and, as at Kieff, a church, called the Church of the Tithes, was dedicated to the Virgin, and numbers of monasteries were built. Andrew Bobolioubski, at Vladimir, was the first despotic ruler in Russia. He broke through the traditional bond which had VLADIMIR. 367 united the ancient princes to their droujina or band ot comrades, making his boyars subjects instead of com- panions. 1 He tried to deprive Kieff of its spiritual as well as its temporal supremacy, by persuading the metropolitan to move to Vladimir ; but this was refused at the time, and was left for the Grand Princes of Moscow to carry out. For a short time, between the supremacy of Kieff and that of Moscow, Vladimir w r as the capital of Russia ; and, long after the removal of the seat of government to Moscow (1328), its princes came hither for their coronations. The splendid coronation cathedral of Moscow is only, as far as could be, a copy of the ancient Cathedral of the Assumption (Uspenski Sobor) of Vladimir. The glorious church which still exists dates only from the thirteenth century, but con- tains many precious monuments and shrines saved from the destruction of an earlier cathedral. These include the shrine of the Grand Prince Andrew, murdered in 1174 a ' second Solomon ' who had given a tenth of his revenues to the church, and enriched it with golden gates, silver balustrade, and costly icons, especially with the famous icon of 'the Virgin of Sousdal,' bearing which, in 1164, he had gained a celebrated victory over the Bulgarians. Amongst the tombs are those of Vassa, the second wife, and Eudoxia, the daughter, of S. Alexander Nevskoi ; and the hero saint him- self reposed here till his remains were moved to S. Petersburg by Peter the Great. The earlier church on this site, founded by Prince Andrew Bobolioubski, was twice destroyed by fire, the second time during the terrible Tartar invasion of 1238, under Baty Khan, when the Prince of Vladimir, George II., 1 Rambaud. 368 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. had gone to seek succour in the north, leaving his two sons to defend the town. ' The princes and boyars saw that their ruin was inevitable. There was still time to beg for peace ; but being only too certain that they would have to become slaves and tributaries to Baty, and valuing honour more than life, they resolved to die the death of heroes. It was a most touching spectacle when Vsevolod, his wife, the nobles, and a great number of illustrious citizens met in the Church of Our Lady, where they implored the Bishop Metrophanes to give them the monastic tonsure. This solemnity was carried out in profound silence. The Russians took leave at once of the world and of life ; but, on the point of quitting it, they besought heaven to preserve the existence, the glory, and the cherished name of Russia. On the 7th of February, the Sunday of the Carnival, after matins, the assault begins : the Tartars seize the new town, whilst Vsevolod and Rostislaf, with their guard, retire into the old town. Meanwhile Agatha, wife of the Grand Prince George (and mother of Vsevolod), her daughter, her brothers, her daughters-in-law, her granddaughter, and a crowd of boyars and citizens, shut themselves up in the cathedral. The Mongols set fire to it, whilst the bishop cries aloud, " Lord, extend thy invisible arms, and receive thy servants in peace ! " then gives his blessing to all who are present, giving themselves up to death. Some are suffocated by the torrents of smoke, others are devoured by the flames or fall by the swords of the enemy. For the Tartars succeed in forcing the doors of the church, into which they rush, led on by their longing to seize the rich treasures which they know to be concealed there. The silver, gold, precious stones, all the ornaments of the icons, and the books, fall a prey to them, as well as the robes of the ancient princes of Vladimir preserved in this church. The cruel warriors of Baty, surfeited with carnage, made very few prisoners, and even this small number, brought naked into the camp of the enemy, perished there of cold. The princes Vsevolod and Rostislaf, having lost all hope of repulsing the enemy, attempted to force a way through their numerous battalions, and both perished.' Karamsin^ iii. Within the Kremlin of Vladimir is the Cathedral of S. Demetrius, which dates from 1194, and is very curious and interesting. 369 CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW JERUSALEM. ALONG and interesting excursion from Moscow should be made to the great Monastery of the New Jerusalem. The S. Petersburg railway must be retraced for about an hour as far as the station of Kriukova, whence it is about fourteen miles to the monastery. Quantities of the native carriage called tarantass l are waiting at the station, and must be bargained for. The better sort of tarantass is a kind of springless phaeton, with three horses abundantly hung with bells to frighten wolves, the largest suspended from the centre of the high-raised collar. The commoner kind of tarantass is little more than a hooded wooden box with hay spread over the bottom. You make your bargain, ten times the very small sum taken at last being asked at the beginning, your graceful yemstchik, or driver, springs upon the box, crosses himself, as he always does before every journey, and you are off, whilst he utters such cries to 1 There is a well-known romance called The Tarantass, by Count Sollohoub, consisting of conversations in a carriage of this kind between the old Vassili, a coun- tryman of the old Russian school, who had grown up ' as the cabbages and peas grow,' and Ivan, a smart young man with a Parisian education a dialogue greatly to the advantage of the former. B B 370 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. his horses as, ' Little father, have a care of your character, and you shall have some fresh grass when we get to the New Jerusalem ; ' ' Dear little mother, do not let me stick in the mud, and your supper shall be perfectly delicious ; ' ' He ! he ! now shake yourselves, you little popes ; ' ' Now all three together, you little barbarians ; ' and so throughout all the way he chatters to the animals, and they always under- stand him perfectly, and he often, as in our case, has no whip. If a horse is incorrigible, his driver calls him a Jew, the lowest term of opprobrium. The use of diminutives is universal. ' Little father, give me a little light for my little pipe,' your charioteer will say as he turns round to you. Gogol describes the driver of a Russian tarantass. ' Tchitchikoff, lost in his own thoughts, did not perceive that his driver was addressing very judicious observations to the extra horse harnessed on the right. This gelding was very crafty ; it made a pre- tence of drawing, but in reality it was the bay horse, and the sorrel called "the Assessor" (because it had been bought from an assessor), which worked so conscientiously that self-satisfaction might be seen in their eyes. " Be as cunning as you choose, I can be more crafty than you," said Seliphane, leaning forward to whip the idler. " Learn what you have to do, you German fool ! The bay is a respectable horse ; he fulfils his duty ; I shall be delighted to give him an extra measure of corn ; to the ' Assessor ' likewise ! . . . Well then, well then ! why are you shaking your ears, you idiot ? Attend when you are spoken to ! I am not teaching you anything bad, you ill-conditioned one ! Eh, barbarian ! where are you going ? " And here another cut of the whip.' Soon we pass through a large village, a typical wooden Russian village, where the edge of the gables is fringed with lace, like the napkins inside, and where there are richly- wrought open shutters like those in the streets of Cairo. Wonderful carpenters are these Russian peasants ! VILLAGE CHARACTERISTICS. 371 ' We saw a young man cut out with his axe, merely measuring it by his eye, a hexagonal hole six inches in width and depth. When he had finished, we examined it, and found all the sides exactly equal, and the angles correct ; it was a perfectly regular mathematical figure, which none of us could have drawn without rule and compass. ' Haxthansen. All the buildings become grey, almost black, from the weather, and this, with the absence of foliage in the Russian villages, produces a melancholy expression. The single fir- tree which is left here in the village startles us, and we feel inclined to stay and sketch it, so unusual is its aspect, for in scarcely any Russian village is there a tree of sufficient size to give shade. Russians have made firewood, when it was near their hand, even of their fruit-trees planted by the Turks, and of the mulberry trees planted by the Mongols on the Volga. 1 Close to many of the houses here are high poles, at the top of which a basket is slung for starlings (skavortzi) to build their nests in, owing to an old popular belief. In these villages, the better class of peasants will often let their best room to a clerk employed in the place, receiving no money as rent, but the tenant being obliged to provide some necessary, such as firewood, for the whole house throughout the year : all Russians are fond of paying and receiving in kind. A fourth of every principal living room is usually taken up by the stove, on the top of which many of the peasants sleep, wrapped up in their sheepskins, equally impervious to extremes of heat and cold. In winter all the men wear sheepskin coats, with the wool turned inwards. Before October is far advanced, all is buried in snow. The houses of the priests or deacons in the country 1 Haxthausen. B B 2 372 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. villages are little superior to those around them. Here is Madame Romanoff's description of one of them : * The deacon lived in a wooden house of his own, with a palisaded garden in front, if that may be called a garden which was but a narrow slip of ground, so thickly planted with lilacs and raspberry and black- currant bushes, that at the time the fruit was ripe there was scarcely any possibility of getting at it. The dwelling consisted of a large lofty kitchen, a bedroom, and a parlour all on the ground -floor. The walls were not lath and plastered, there were no carpets on the floors nor curtains at the windows. The furniture consisted of a birchwood sofa and a dozen chairs, covered with a large-patterned cotton print, a table before the sofa, and two smaller ones beneath the looking- glasses in the piers. Besides this ordinary furniture there was a psaltery, on which the deacon used to perform various sacred melodies on holiday evenings. The corner formed by the two-windowed walls was hung with pictures of the Saviour, His Mother, the patron-saints of the master and mistress of the house, and of the master's deceased parents ; some with silver or metallic settings, others in the rough and extra pre-Raphaelistic style called " Souzdalsky," from the town where they are painted by thousands. The other walls were covered with portraits of the imperial family, and a few sentimental engravings from English annuals, with English titles that nobody in the village could read, and no one knew where they were originally picked up. They were the parting gift of one of the many stanovoys that had ruled in the village. ' The bedroom contained only one bed properly so called ; the bedding of the children (who slept on large pieces of thick felt spread at night on the parlour floor, with pillows in cotton-print cases, and patchwork-quilted counterpanes) was stowed away under the bedstead during the day. The kitchen was like all Russian peasant houses. The whole house was scrupulously clean and neat ; a faint smell, reminding one of incense, wax, and church oil, pervaded the place, and proceeded from the clothing, long hair, and person in general of the deacon, a quiet, sober, thrifty man.' Rites and Customs of the Greco- Rtissian Church. The person of next importance in the village is the Peldsher, or doctor an . old soldier who dresses wounds THE STORY OF NIKON. 373 and gives physic ; many, however, prefer consulting a Znakharka an old woman who is half doctor and half witch. But we have left the village far behind, and are jolting over the open plain, and soon, across the rough track, in the aerial horizon, we shall see the light gleaming upon purple towers and golden domes, which at least far away will recall* another New Jerusalem, more universally looked for ; therefore, while we have still time, let us consider the strange story which has brought us here. ' In naming Nikon we feel at once the immense disadvantage of Eastern as compared with Western history. How few of us have even heard of him ; how impenetrable even to those who have heard of him is the darkness of the original language in which his biography is wrapped up ! Yet he is unquestionably the greatest character in the annals of the Russian hierarchy ; and even in the annals of the Eastern hierarchy generally, there are but few who can be named before him as ecclesiastical statesmen. Photius in the ninth century, and Chrysostom in the fourth, in some respects remind us of the career of Nikon. Indeed the similarity may be fairly taken as a proof of the identity of spirit which breathed, at the interval of six centuries, through the two main branches of the Eastern Church. He was a Russian Chrysostom. He was also, in coarse and homely proportions, a Russian Luther and a Russian Wolsey. ... In the series of por- traits professing to represent the hierarchy of ancient Russia, his is the first that imprints itself on our minds with the stamp of individual originality. In the various monasteries over which he presided, his grave countenance looks down upon us with bloodshot eyes, red com- plexion, and brows deeply knit. The vast length of his pontifical robes, preserved as relics of his magnificence, reveals to us the commanding stature, no less than seven feet, which he shares with so many of his more distinguished countrymen. And his story, if it could be told with the details many of which lie buried in the Russian archives, but some of which have been published and translated in well-known works is as full of dramatic complexity and pathetic interest as was ever conceived in "Timon of Athens" or "King Lear."' Stanley, * The Eastern Church,'' 374 ? STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Nikon (Nikita), who lived to be the Russian Luther, or rather the Russian John Knox, was born in 1613, of very humble parents, in a village in the district of Nijgorod. As a boy he ran away from home to become a monk in the Jeltovodsky convent of S. Macarius. His father's entreaties prevailed upon him to return, to marry, and to be ordained a priest, and as such he worked for ten years in a small village. Then, after ten years of married life, all his children having died, he persuaded his wife to enter a con- vent, and himself embraced the severest of lives as the monk Nikon, at the ice-girt convent of Solovetsky, in the North Sea. Even this seclusion was not enough for him, and he soon went to share the hermitage of the aged anchorite Eleazar, in the solitary island of Anzer. There he spent many years in prayer, fasting, and 'mortifying his flesh with continual discipline.' Twice, however, he was obliged to leave his retreat : once to persuade his wife to take the final vows, and again to collect alms for the convent. These alms, which the community delayed in expending on the glory of God, became a source of quarrel, from which Nikon made his escape in a small open boat, landing at the mouth of the Onega, whence he went to the monastery of Kojeozersk, making his dwelling in a hermitage on a neigh- bouring island. When the superior of the monastery died, he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the office of its hegumen. Three years later (1649), after his austerities had already gained him the reputation of sanctity, Nikon was compelled by the necessities of his church to visit Moscow, and there he was seen by the young Tsar. Alexis, who, captivated by his appearance and eloquence, and impressed with the report of his holy life, could not endure to part THE STORY OF NIKON. 375 with him, and, that he might secure his society, gave him the government of the Novospasky monastery, the burial- place of his ancestors. ' This was the beginning of the worldly greatness of Nikon ; but by no means the termination of his monastic austerities, for in them he continued steadfast even to his last hour. Here also was the beginning of those strong temptations of spirit, under the weight of which he at last gave way, and from being exalted was led to exalt himself. The extra- ordinary favour of the Tsar distinguished the new archimandrite before all others. In the charms of his conversation Alexis Michailovitch found consolation to his soul, and from that time he accustomed himself to be guided by his sage counsels ; he found in him a zeal for the Church not inferior to his own, and the loftiest view, not only of ecclesiastical but also of political matters, which in Nikon proceeded solely from the originality of his mind and from his bold openness of character. During the course of three years the archimandrite came every Friday to the chapel in the palace for the purpose of conversing with the Tsar after Divine service. On his way he received petitions from the people, and the Tsar, as he left the chapel, signified his pleasure upon them, usually in favour of the petitioners. In like manner Nikon already began to enter partially into the direction of civil affairs.' Mouravieff. By the desire of the Tsar, Nikon was consecrated arch- bishop of Novogorod the Great by Paisius, patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be at Moscow. But Alexis could no longer exist without him, and every winter persuaded him to come to Moscow ; he also gave him unusual powers, both ecclesiastical and civil, in his diocese. This confidence Nikon fully justified by the self-devotion, firmness, and courage he showed in a terrible insurrection at Novogorod, where (1649) ne defended the governor, Prince Feodor Kilkoff, against the insurgents. He was dragged through the streets, and stoned till he was insensible, but he refused to give in, and, proceeding to the town-hall, made so pathetic 376 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. an address to the rebels that they submitted. l Afterwards, being armed with full powers by the Tsar, he punished the insurgent ringleaders, but with the utmost humanity. Meanwhile, both at Novogorod and Moscow, Nikon showed munificence beyond words in the building of alms- houses and orphanages. He visited prisons, setting innocent ^prisoners free on his own responsibility ; he allowed women in the churches ; he was ' no lover of images,' and caused pictures to which idolatrous veneration was paid to be taken away. He put out the eyes of all the pictures painted after Frankish or Polish fashion, and sent them round the city by his janissaries, publishing an imperial proclamation, in the absence of the Tsar, that whosoever should be found painting after such models should be severely punished. In the churches, Nikon taught constantly himself, and the people thronged from great distances to hear him preach. ' He substituted living addresses of his own for the reading of the select instructions appointed for each day ; he also turned his attention to the church plate, furniture, and vestments, in which he loved cleanliness and magnificence, that they might become their high uses. He regulated also the order of Divine service itself, for, through an evil habit which had crept in, those who ministered, for the sake of expedition, read at once in both the choirs, two or three voices together. The Kathism and canons for vigil, and even at the Liturgy the Litanies and Exclama- tions, were run together with the singing of the choir. The metropo- litan strictly forbade such irregularity in his diocese.' Mouravieff. These, and the introduction of softer chants from Greece, were the small beginnings of the famous reform of Nikon. 1 He spoke to them almost in the words of our Saviour : 'Are ye come out against me with swords? I have been daily with you, and ye did not touch me, why are ye thus come? Do you not see how I stand up before you and do not bend to you? As I am a shepherd, it becomes me to lay down my life for the sheep.' THE STORY OF NIKON. 377 The patriarch Joseph was aghast at them, and when Nikon persuaded the Tsar to begin the correction of the church books, and to send Arsenius, the bursar of the Trinity monastery, to the Holy Places of the East, to see how the four Oecumenical thrones followed the rule of the Church, and he returned full of changes to be made, all the old- fashioned priests began to murmur openly against Nikon as an innovator. Yet, during his absence on a mission to his old monastery of Solovetsky, to bring back thence the relics of the murdered S. Philip, the patriarch Joseph died, and, after long refusing the office, Nikon was persuaded, much against his will, by the most urgent and tearful entreaties of the Tsar and people, to accept the patriarchate. 1 For six years he ruled both Church and State in this office, and (taking advantage of the panic which arose when, in the middle of the seventeenth century, it was believed that the number of the Beast applied to 1666), he devoted himself to the reformation of the Russian ecclesiastics, especially, whilst respecting the doctrines of the Church, turning his attention to repressing the intemperance of the clergy. At this time the Archdeacon Paul, who accompanied Ma- carius, patriarch of Constantinople, to Russia, describes the patriarch Nikon as a very butcher amongst the clergy. ' His janissaries are perpetually going round the city, and, when they find any priest or monk in a state of intoxication, they carry him to prison, strip him, and scourge him. The prisons are full of them, galled with heavy chains and logs of wood on their backs and legs, or they sift flour night and day in the bakehouse.' 2 During his rule as patriarch, Nikon filled Siberia with 1 See Plato, History of Russia. - Macarius, ii. 76. 378 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. dissolute clergy and their families. 1 He drove out the Euro- pean merchants who paid no deference to the holy places of Moscow. He banished the Armenians because one of their merchants refused either to be baptised or to part with his long white beard, though he offered to pay fifty thousand dinars for retaining it. He ordered three deacons, who had married again after the death of their first wives, to be shut up in a wooden cell at the Troitsa, till they died of hunger. Against the metropolitan of Mira, who had been caught in the unpardonable sin of smoking tobacco, he was so enraged that he tried to give him up to a cannibal tribe of Kalmucks that they might eat him, but the archbishop had contrived to hide himself. ' As soon as the chiefs of the tribe entered, the whole assembly was struck with horror. They bared their heads, and bowed to the patriarch with great veneration, crouching on the ground all in a lump like pigs. After various questions as to their mode of life, and travelling, and warfare, he said, "Is it really true that you eat the flesh of men? " They laughed and answered, " We eat our dead, and we eat dogs ; how then should we not eat men ? " He said, " How do you eat men ? " They replied, " When we have conquered a man, we cut away his nose, and then carve him in pieces and eat him." He said, " I have a man here who deserves death ; I will send for him, and present him to you that you may eat him." Hereupon they began earnestly to entreat him, saying, "Good Lord, whenever you have any men deserving of death, do not trouble yourself about their guilt or their punishment, but give them us to eat, and you will do us a great kindness." ' In his energy for reform, Nikon now wished to call in all the old icons and liturgical books, but this was vehemently resisted by the people. It was in vain for the patriarch to assure them that he only wished to return to ancient forms still observed in Greece and Constantinople; the conservative 1 Macarius, ii. 78. THE STORY OF NIKON. 379 populace declared that the forms accepted by their own saints and martyrs must be the right ones, and that therefore the patriarch and his followers must be wrong. ' In every nation/ says the Archdeacon Paul, ' men are to be found of a heavy nature and understanding, saying within themselves, " We will not alter our books, nor our rites and ceremonies, which we have received from of old.'" Passionate energy was also wasted by the patriarch in what we should consider matters of mere ecclesiastical detail. On the question of using three fingers instead of two in benediction, on the way of signing the cross, on the colour of altar cloths, on the right inflexions in pronoun- cing the creed. ' Xikon, seated on the patriarchal throne, continued to do for all Russia what he had before done for the one diocese of Novogorod. He relieved the poor ; righted the oppressed ; encouraged virtue and learning ; enforced discipline, especially among the clergy, examining personally candidates for ordination, and summarily punishing de- linquent clerks ; he corrected abuses in the manner of performing Divine service ; introduced a new and improved mode of church singing ; held a council for the correction and printing of the church books ; and generally promoted all necessary and useful reforms. At the same time he taught diligently himself the Word of God, the style both of his preaching and of his ordinary discourse being remarkable for the constant references he made in them to the Holy Scriptures ; references not superficial and conventional, but natural and practical, full of rich instruction and holy seriousness, and having a peculiar pointedness of application. By these means he attracted towards himself the deepest personal attachment of religious minds (and not least that of his sovereign), but also the jealousy and hatred of all the more ignorant, superstitious, and vicious among the hierarchy and the lower clergy, who found in his correction of church books a powerful handle for spreading disaffection towards him among such of the people also as were like themselves ignorant, unspiritual, and superstitious.' W. Palmer, ' Dissertations on S^^l>jects relating to the Orthodox or Eastern- Catholic Communion. ' 380 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. From the time when Nikon accepted the patriarchate, the Tsar Alexis had become inseparable from him. They appeared as one and the same person in all acts of govern- ment, passing all their days together, in the church, in the council chamber, and at the friendly board. To unite themselves still closer by the bonds of spiritual friendship, the patriarch became godfather to all the children of his sovereign, and they made a mutual vow never to desert each other on this side the grave. When Alexis, on returning from his Polish victories, heard of the courage which Nikon had shown during a plague which had ravaged Moscow, and of his care of the royal family left behind in the capital, he bestowed on the patriarch the title of 'Great Lord,' by which his own grandfather Philaret had been styled, and caused it to be written in all the acts of the kingdom. Master of the most intricate politics, Nikon now became the soul of the council chamber, until, unfortunately, his desire to recover the monasteries and churches in the pro- vinces of Ingria and Carelia from Sweden, induced him to urge the Tsar to a war with that country which turned out very unfortunately for Russia. The prestige of the patri- arch's sagacity having thus received its first blow, the boyars of the first class, who had long been jealous of him, and whom he had alienated by the roughness and arbitrariness of his manner, took courage to unite in plotting his down- fall. His appointment of Greek and Latin seminaries, the severity of his examinations for ordination, his harshness of manner, and above all his attacking so many established customs, and revising the services of the church, had also already alienated the clergy. The division was begun, which, when continued under Peter the Great, separated the Ras- THE STORY OF NIKON. 381 kolniks, or Old Believers, from the Orthodox Russian Church. It was said that Nikon was like Luther, who declared that he was only restoring primitive Christianity, whilst he was abolishing the mass, sacraments, &c. ' Having himself passed through all the ranks and conditions of clerical life, having been a novice in a monastery, parish priest for ten years in a country village, and in the capital ; then, again, for a long time a monk and recluse in a wild solitude, hegumen in a poor and lone convent, archimandrite of a rich monastery, metropolitan of the first diocese, and, last of all, patriarch ; he had experienced all that a spiritual person can experience ; and having shown in every station a strict pattern of good conduct, he exacted the same with equal strictness from all who were under his authority. He severely punished intemperance, according to the custom of those times, with stripes and imprisonment, not sparing even his own confessor.' Mouravieff. The impression which Nikon's independence both of action and conduct was making upon outsiders may be seen from the report of the ambassadors of Holstein : ' The patriarch's authority is so great, that he, in manner, divides the sovereignty with the Great Duke. He is supreme judge of all ecclesiastical causes, and absolutely disposes of whatever concerns reli- gion with such power, that, in things relating to the political govern- ment, he reforms what he conceives prejudicial to Christian simplicity and good manners, without giving the Great Duke any accompt of it, who, without contestation, commands the orders made by the patriarch to be executed.' ' Nikon keeps a good table, and is a person of so pleasant a disposi- tion, that he discovers it in those actions that require the greatest gravity. For, a handsome gentlewoman being presented to him for his benediction, after she had been re-baptised with several other of her friends, he told her that he was in some doubt whether he should begin with the kiss, which is given to proselytes after their baptism, or with the benediction.' From the Archdeacon Paul of Antioch we learn the im- 382 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. pression made by the sound of a living practical sermon, heard from the lips of Nikon for the first time, after many centuries : 'Remark, brother, what happened now an occurrence which sur- prised and confused our understandings. It was, that so far were they from being content with their lengthened services, that the deacon brought to the patriarch the book of Lessons, which they opened before him : and he began to read the lesson for this day, on the subject of the Second Advent : and not only did he read it, but he preached and expounded the meanings of the words to the standing and silent assem- bly ; until our spirits were broken within us during the tedious while. God preserve us and save us ! ' Macarius, i. 406. And on another occasion : ' The patriarch was not satisfied with the Ritual, but he must needs crown all with an admonition and copious sermon. God grant him moderation ! His heart did not ache for the Emperor nor for the tender infants, standing uncovered in the intense cold. What should we say to this in our country?' Macaritis, 49, 51, 52. Yet whilst all others were being alienated from Nikon, he had still one friend : ' There was only one man who sincerely loved Nikon, from the recollection of his services and his unchangeable affection, and that man was the mild Tsar Alexis, and to him alone was the patriarch devoted with his whole soul, and was zealous even to excess for his glory. . . . Their mutual affection possessed them both to such a degree, that they appeared as one and the same person in all acts of government. . . . And indeed this was the most affecting circumstance in all the fortunes of both of them, that even in the time of those long- continued troubles which were raised between them by the envy of men who wished them ill, they preserved in their hearts to the very last moment this tender friendship ; and there was nothing which the cour- tiers so much dreaded as the chance of a personal meeting between them. ' Mouravieff. THE STOR Y- OF NIKON. 383 Still, as the influence of the boyars increased, Alexis be- came rarely able to see the patriarch, and even ceased to attend at the cathedral when he officiated. The crisis, which the enemies of Nikon had long hoped for, came on the occa- sion of a public reception of the Tsar of Georgia, when a ser- vant of the patriarch was insulted and beaten by those of the Tsar. Then one of the princes began to reproach him in the cathedral for his pride, on account of his title of Great Lord. ' At this Nikon lost all patience, and gave himself up to his indig- nation. When he had finished the Liturgy, he declared to all the people that his unworthiness was the cause of all the wars and pestilences, and of all the disorders of the kingdom. He then placed the staff of Peter the Thaumaturge on the icon of the Blessed Virgin which had been brought from Vladimir, and declared with a loud voice that from hence- forth he was no longer patriarch of Moscow ; he took off his episcopal robes, notwithstanding the entreaties of the clergy and the people, put on a common monk's mantle, and having written in the vestry a letter to the Tsar advising him of his abdication of the patriarchal throne, he sate down on the steps of the ambon and awaited the answer. The monarch was troubled and sent the Prince Troubetskoi to exhort him to remain, but this prince also was in the number of his enemies. The people wept and kept the doors of the cathedral shut, but Nikon re- mained inflexible, and refusing to return any more into the patriarchal lodgings, went out of the Kremlin on foot to the town house of the Iversky monastery, and from thence without waiting for any permission from the Tsar, he proceeded to the monastery of the Resurrection, and refused to make use of the carriage that had been sent for him. Prince Troubetskoi went after him again to that monastery to inquire in the name of the Tsar the reason of his departure. Nikon answered, that he sought for quiet for the sake of his soul's health, again renounced the patriarchate, and asked only to be permitted to retain his three monaste- ries, the Voscresensky, Iversky, and Krestnoy, gave his benediction to Pitirium, the metropolitan of the Steeps, to direct the affairs of the Church, and, lastly, in a touching letter, humbly begged the Christian forgiveness of the Tsar for his sudden departure from the capital.' Mouravieff. 384 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. In his self-sought seclusion, Nikon, though he wasted his body with prayers and fasting, and worked like a common mason at the building of his church, was not humbled in spirit. He took to heart every affront, and so continually anathema- tised his enemies, that he laid himself open to the false accusation that he had cursed the Tsar himself. Against Alexis alone, however, he bore no enmity, and the Tsar on his side constantly defended the patriarch, and sent presents to his monastery. At length the advice of the only boyar who remained favourable to him, confirmed, as he be- lieved, by a vision, persuaded Nikon to go secretly by night to Moscow, and by a sudden appearance on the patriarchal throne, endeavour to recall the affections of sovereign and people. Unfortunately the Tsar was warned of his arrival, and consulted his nobles, to whom it was a matter of life and death to prevent an interview, and they were successful in doing so. Alexis ordered Nikon back to his country monastery, and he went bearing away with him the staff of Peter the Wonderworker, as a sign that he had never left his throne with any intention of renouncing it : he afterwards consented to give up the staff to the Tsar, but to no one but the Tsar. The fall of Nikon was now inevitable. Alexis summoned the four Eastern patriarchs, and a number of Eastern bishops, to meet in council in the palace of the patriarchs at Moscow, and by them, in the presence of the Tsar and his boyars, Nikon was tried. Many were the false accusations produced against him, especially that he had entered into treasonable correspondence with, and accepted bribes from the King of Poland. But the principal reason brought forward as a pre- text for his deposition, was that having voluntarily deserted THE STORY OF NIKON. 385 his flock by abdication, he was no longer fit to rule. He was accused of having cursed the Tsar Alexis ; this he denied, but allowed that he had cursed some of the boyars, ( robbers of the Church,' who having once given up lands for his monastery of the New Jerusalem, had redemanded and recovered them. When the council met for the third time, Nikon was formally degraded and sentenced to banishment. ' Between Nikon and his accusers all the fierceness of long-pent indignation was let loose. But between him and the Tsar there was hardly anything but an outpouring of tenderness and affection. Tears flowed from the Tsar's eyes as he read the accusation ; and the sight of his ancient friend standing, habited as if for a capital sentence, so moved his heart that, to the consternation of the nobles, he descended from the throne, walked up to the patriarch, took him by the hand, and burst forth into a plaintive entreaty : " Oh, most holy father, why hast thou put upon me such a reproach, preparing thyself for the council as if for death ? Thinkest thou that I have forgotten all thy services to me and my family during the plague, and our former friendship ? " Mutual remonstrances between the two friends led to recriminations be- tween their attendants. "That, O religious Tsar, is a lie !" was the somewhat abrupt expression of one of Nikon's clerks, on hearing a false accusation brought against his master. In the general silence, pro- duced either by the force of Nikon's replies or by the awful presence of the friendly Tsar, when Alexis turned round to see if some of his nobles had anything to urge : ' ' Why do you not bid them take up stones ? So would they soon make an end of me ; but not with words, though they should, spend nine years more in collecting them." They parted never to meet again. ' Alexis could not bear to be present at his condemnation. The third and last meeting therefore of the council was assembled in a small church over the gates of one of the Kremlin convents. Nikon was degraded from his office to the rank of a simple monk, and banished for the rest of his life to do penance in a distant monastery. ' He maintained his proud sarcastic bearing to the end. " Why do you degrade me, without the presence of the Tsar, in this small church, and not in the cathedral where you once implored me to ascend the patri- archal throne ? " " Take this," he said, offering the Eastern patriarchs a large pearl from the front of his white metropolitan cowl, which they took C C 386 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. off with their own hands from his head ; " it will help to support you under your oppressions in Turkey, but it will not last you long. Better stay at home there than go wandering about the world as mendicants." It was in the depth of a Russian winter, and the Tsar sent him by one of the kindlier courtiers a present of money and sable furs for the journey to the far north. The impenetrable prelate sternly replied : " Take these back to him who sent them ; these are not what Nikon wants." The courtier entreated him not to affront the Tsar by his refusal ; and also asked in the Tsar's name for his forgiveness and blessing. " He loved not blessing," said Nikon, in allusion to the logth Psalm, in which he had before cursed all his enemies except the Tsar, "and therefore it shall be far from him." To the nobles he shook off the dust of his feet ; and on one of them sweeping it up and saying (in allusion to the goods of the church, which they now hoped to get), that this was just what they wanted, he pointed to the comet then flaming in the sky "the besom star," as it is called in Russ and said, "God's besom shall sweep you all away." To the people, who, in spite of their prejudice against his reforms, flocked round him also for his blessing, he replied in a nobler and more Christian spirit, as Philip had done before, the one word, " Pray." The sledge was at hand to carry him off, and he entered it with the episcopal staff and mantle which the patriarchs, for fear of the people, had not ventured to remove. A winter cloak was thrown over him by the pity of one of the more gentle of the hierarchy. With a dry irony he repeated to himself: "Ah, Nikon, Nikon, do not lose your friends. Do not say all that may be true. If you would only have given a few good dinners, and have dined with them in return, none of these things would have befallen you." Through the south gate of the Kremlin, to avoid the crowds collected on the north side in expectation of seeing him pass, he was borne away with the furious speed of Russian drivers, across the ancient bridge of the Moskwa, and rapidly out of sight of those towers of the Kremlin which had witnessed the striking vicissitudes of his glory and his fall. ' At evening, it is said, they halted in a house from which the occu- pants had been ejected. In the middle of the night, when Nikon and his attendants had been left to themselves in the piercing cold of their destitute condition, a trap-door in the floor of the room opened, an old woman came up, and asked which was the patriarch Nikon. " I am he," said the fallen prelate. She fell at his feet, and solemnly assured him that she had seen in a dream the night before a very goodly man saying to her : " My servant Nikon is coming hither in great cold and THE STOR Y OF NIKON. 387 need of all things ; now, therefore, give him what thou hast by thee for his needs." In this way so runs the story, which is curious as showing the impression produced on the popular mind by Nikon's career he was protected against the severity of the rest of the journey, till his arrival at the monastery of Therapontoff, on the shores of the White Lake. ' Stinky. Nikon was degraded to the rank of a common monk, and during nine years he remained in imprisonment. At first this was very severe ; the windows of his cell were barred with iron, and he was not permitted to take exercise. He was offered a pardon, but refused to accept it for sins he had never committed. Then the Tsar perpetually sent to ask his forgiveness, but it was long before Nikon was even induced to forgive personally, as a man, and so far to send his blessing as to desire Alexis to seek a fuller and more complete absolution, which he could not give till he should see his face in Moscow. 1 In 1676 he received the news of the death of Alexis. Then he groaned, and said : * What though he never saw me to take leave of me here, we shall meet and be judged together at the terrible coming of Christ.' 2 ' Alexis, on his death-bed, by special messengers, as well as by his written testament, once more solemnly asked Nikon's " forgiveness and absolution," calling him his " Spiritual Father, Great Lord, Most Holy Hierarch, and Blessed Pastor," and regretting that " by the judgments of God" (that is to say, not by the Tsar's own will) he was not then in his proper place, filling the patriarchal throne of Moscow. And Nikon (though Alexis died before it could reach him) sent once more his personal and verbal forgiveness (refusing to give it in writing, lest the boyars should make any undue use of it), and alluded once more with a sigh to that public sin of which it was beyond him either to remit the guilt or to avert the consequences : " We shall meet before the dread tribunal of God ! " Palmer. 1 Palmer. " Mouravieff. C C 2 388 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Fresh trials fell upon Nikon after the death of Alexis. His enemies renewed their accusations, and the young Tsar Feodor caused him to be removed from Therapontoff to the fortified monastery of S. Cyril, on the White Lake, where he was kept in strict confinement for three years. At the end of this time the Tsarevna Tatiana, sister of the Tsar Alexis, persuaded her nephew to receive a petition from the brethren of the New Jerusalem for the return of their founder, after which the Tsar laid before the Synod a propo- sition to allow the aged Nikon to return to his own monas- tery to die, in which the then patriarch, touched by the report of his exiled rival's failing health, was induced to acquiesce. ' On the very same day on which the gracious permission of the Tsar to the patriarch arrived at the monastery of S. Cyril, Nikon, while it was yet very early, from a secret presentiment had prepared himself for the journey, and to the astonishment of everybody, ordered the religious who were in personal attendance upon himself to hold themselves in readiness. With difficulty they placed the old man, now worn out with sickness and infirmity, in the sledge which took him by land to a barge on the river Sheksna, by which he descended to the Volga. Here he was to be met by brethren from the Voscresensky monastery, that is the monastery of the Resurrection, or New Jerusalem, who had been sent for that purpose. Nikon gave orders to drop down the Volga as far as Yaroslaf, and having been put in to shore at the Tolskoy monastery, he received the communion of the sick, for he began to be exceedingly feeble. The hegumen, with all the brother- hood, went out to meet him, accompanied by a former enemy of Nikon, the archimandrite Sergius, the same that during his trial kept him under guard, and covered him with reproaches, but had since been sent in disgrace to this monastery to perform penance. This Sergius, having fallen asleep in the Trapeza or Refectory at the very hour of the arrival of Nikon, saw in a dream the patriarch appearing to him, and saying, " Brother Sergius, arise ; let us forgive and take leave of each other ! " when suddenly at that moment he was awakened and told that the patriarch was actually approaching by the Volga, and that the brother- hood had already gone out to the bank to meet him. Sergius followed THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 389 immediately, and when he saw Nikon dying, he fell at his feet, and shedding tears of repentance, asked and obtained forgiveness. ' Death had already begun to come upon the patriarch by the time that the barge was moving down the stream. The citizens of Yaro- slaf, hearing of his arrival, crowded to the river, and seeing the old man lying on his couch all but dead, threw themselves down before him with tears, kissing his hands and garments, and begging his bless- ing ; some towed the barge along the shore, others threw themselves into the water to assist them, and then they drew it in and moored it against the monastery of the All-merciful Saviour. ' The sufferer was already so exhausted that he could not speak, but only gave his hand to them all. The Tsar's secretary ordered them to tow the barge to the other side of the river to avoid the crowds of the people. Nikon was on the point of death ; suddenly he turned and looked about as if some one had come to call him, and then arranged his hair, beard, and dress for himself, as if in preparation for his last and longest journey. His confessor, together with all the brethren standing around, read the commendatory prayers for the dying ; and the patriarch, stretching himself out to his full length on the couch, and laying his arms crosswise upon his breast, gave one sigh, and departed from this world in peace.' Mouravieff. Whilst we have been following the history of Nikon, we must have arrived at the brow of the hill opposite the monastery of Voscresensky, or the New Jerusalem. A small chapel, called Eleon, and a cross mark the spot on 'the Mount of Olives ' where Nikon and Alexis met affectionately for the last time at the consecration of the wooden edifice which preceded the present monastery. Alexis said to Nikon, as he looked upon the view, that God seemed from the beginning to have prepared it as a site for a monastery, ' for it is as beautiful as Jerusalem itself.' Then the heart of Nikon was moved, and he pleased Alexis by giving the name of the New Jerusalem to the monastery, and charging the Bursar Arsenius Souchaiioff, who was then travelling in the East to collect manuscripts, to bring him back a wooden 390 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its exact measurements, that he might imitate them. Thenceforth Nikon changed the name of the little river Istra to the Jordan ; another brook he called Kedron ; the hill nearest the monastery became the Mount of Olives ; a more distant wooded height was Mount Tabor. The centre of the monastic enclosure is occupied by the vast church, to which THE NEW JERUSALEM. many external chapels have been added ; but internally, its form and dimensions are exactly the same as those of the famous church at Jerusalem, with the additional interest of its being more exactly like the building of the old crusaders than the church in Palestine itself. J Here we may imagine Nikon, in the years which suc- 1 ' i. There are no walls of partition between the sect?. 2. The dome is of larger proportions, higher, and covered. 3. The entrance into the Chapel of the Sepulchre from the antechapel has not been raised. 3. The Chapels of the Sepulchre and of the Golgotha are without altars. 5. The irregular form of the rock by the Golgotha has not been smoothed away.' Stanley s ''Eastern Church.' THE NEW JERUSALEM. 391 ceeded his abdication, daily, with a nude hermit by his side, repeating the curses in the io9th Psalm. Behind the altar are the ranges of seats which Nikon prepared as for a General Council, surmounted by the five patriarchal thrones of Con- stantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Moscow. In the sacristy is the wooden throne of Nikon and his por- trait, with that of Alexis. At the foot of the Golgotha, in the Chapel of Melchizedek, where the sepulchre of Godfrey de Bouillon stands in the church at Jerusalem, is the tomb of Nikon. At one end is his favourite icon, and above it hangs the broad iron plate with a cross of brass on an iron chain, which he wore for twenty years round his neck. ' The pious Tsar Feoclor, not knowing that Nikon was dead, had sent his own carriage to meet him, with a number of horses. When he was informed of the patriarch's death he shed tears, and asked what Nikon had desired respecting his last will. And when he learned that the departed prelate had chosen him, his godson, to be his executor, and had confided everything to him, the good-hearted Tsar replied with emotion, " If it be so, and the Most Holy Patriarch Nikon has reposed all his confidence in me, the will of the Lord be done. I will not forget him." He gave orders for conveying the body to the New Jerusalem. ' New difficulties were raised by the patriarch Joachim with regard to the funeral of Nikon, to whom he would not consent to render episcopal honours, objecting that he had been degraded by the sentence of the Oecumenical patriarchs. However, the Tsar persuaded Corne- lius, the metropolitan of Novogorod, to officiate at his interment without any permission from Joachim ; and he himself in person took a part in that affecting ceremony, and helped to bear the body on his shoulders from the cross on the Mount of Olives, the spot where formerly the deceased had stood with his royal father, when he gave the name of New Jerusalem to his monastery, to the tomb under Calvary which he had himself prepared for his everlasting rest. Not more than eight months were to intervene before the amiable prince who had thus assisted at the funeral of Nikon was to be himself peace- fully removed from a temporal to an eternal kingdom ; he, however, 392 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. made use of this short space to obtain letters of absolution for the deceased from the four Oecumenical patriarchs, who unanimously received him again into their pontifical assembly. ' During the course of his seventy years on earth Nikon was more' or less contemporary with all the Russian patriarchs. He was born while the patriarchate was still held by Job, . . . and he died when the last patriarch, Adrian, was already archimandrite of the Choudoff.' Motiravieff. THE TOMB OF NIKON. A picture in the convent gives the scene of the funeral, the Tsar walking before the gigantic corpse on its uncovered bier. In the monastery the hat, and shoes, and sheepskin cloak of Nikon are preserved, recalling his life after his abdication, spent chiefly in fishing, farming, and building. His robes at Moscow show that his stature was seven feet. Many other curious relics are exhibited at the New Jeru- salem, including the valuable wooden model made for Nikon, THE HERMITAGE OF NIKON. 393 and exactly representing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in his time, and the illuminated Gospel of his ever-faithful friend, the Tsarevna Tatiana. In the library, thirty pieces of silver are preserved as ' those paid for the betrayal.' But the great palladium in the church is the icon of ' the Virgin with three hands,' supposed to be typical of the Trinity. ' An artist, being employed on a picture of the Virgin and Child, found one day, that instead of two-hands which he had given to the Virgin, a third had been added during his absence from his work. Supposing some person had been playing a trick with him, he rubbed out the third hand, and, having finished the picture, carefully locked the door of his apartment. To his great surprise, he found the next day the extraordinary addition of a third hand in the picture, as before. He now began to be alarmed, but still concluding it possible that some person had gained access to his room, he once more rubbed out the superfluous hand, and not only locked the door, but also barricaded the windows. The next day, approaching his laboratory, he found the door and windows fast, as he had left them ; but, to his utter dismay and astonishment, as he went in, there appeared the same remarkable alteration in his picture, the Virgin appearing with three hands regu- larly disposed about the Child. In extreme trepidation he began to cross himself, and proceeded once more to alter the picture ; when the Virgin herself appeared in person, and bade him forbear, as it was her pleasure to be so represented.' Clarke's ' Travels.'* Not half a mile from the monastery, in the wood, is still standing, well preserved, the four-storied hermitage tower of Nikon, the ' skeet,' as it is called, whence he watched the building of his monastery, often assisting the workmen, like a common mason, with his own hands. A narrow stair leads to a tiny chapel, and the chamber where he devoted himself to composing his chronicle the ' Chronicle of the Church of Jerusalem ' taken from the Russian annalists from the time of Nestor to that of Alexis Michailovitch. In the beginning the author anathematises everyone who 394 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. should alter even the minutest expression in his work. A stone recess is shown as ' Nikon's bed,' too short for his great height, on which he is said to have taken his brief three hours' rest. Here it was that he had that strange vision which led to his sudden and unwelcome reappearance in the great cathedral of the Kremlin. ' He dreamed that he was once more in his own beloved cathedral, and one by one he saw rise from their graves the whole line of his pre- decessors in the metropolitan see : Peter, whose wonder-working staff he had laid on the sacred picture ; Alexis, from the chapel hard by, the champion of Russia against the Tartars ; Philip, murdered by Ivan the Terrible ; Job, the blind old man who had vainly struggled against the false Demetrius ; Hermogenes, starved to death by the Polish invaders ; Philaret, grandfather of the Tsar Alexis ; one by one, at the call of the wonder-worker Jonah, they rose from the four corners and from the array of tombs beside the painted walls, and took him by the hand, and raised him once more into the patriarchal throne. He woke up and left his cramped couch. He returned by night to Moscow, on the eve of Peter's festival.' Stanley, ' The Eastern Church.' 1 The wooded banks of the river below the monastery present one of the softest and prettiest fragments of scenery in the country. Such rivers as these are supposed to be the especial resort of the Rusalkas or water nymphs. Dressed in green leaves, they will sit on the banks combing out their flowing locks. Their strength is in their hair, and if it be- comes dry, they die. But a magic comb can preserve moisture even in the hair, and water flows forth at its touch. They beguile youths and maidens into their streams, and drown them or tickle them to death. The ripple of the waters is the sound of the dancing feet of the Rusalka, the splash of the water-wheel is caused by her play. In winter she disappears and dwells beneath the water in a crystal hall. With the spring she comes forth, and with the winds is THE WATER SPIRITS. 395 mingled her cry for clothing, for which the peasants hang rags upon the trees near the streams. The Rusalkas have great influence over the harvest, and in some parts of Russia, after Whitsuntide, a straw figure is dressed in woman's clothes to represent a Rusalka ; the peasants fight over it and tear it to pieces, and by this observance the Rusalkas are supposed to be put to flight. After S. Peter's day (June 29) darker circles of grass in the fields mark the spot where the Rusalkas have danced by the light of the moon, having sometimes induced a shepherd to play to them. 1 Another water-spirit is the Vodyany, who, like the Domovoy, is called grandfather by the peasants. His ap- pearance is supposed to be that of an old man, but he can change himself into a fish or into a merman with a fish's tail. He sleeps during winter, but the hunger w r ith which he wakes in spring must be propitiated by the peasants. Fishermen also, who depend much upon his favour, must pour oil upon the waters to appease him. Every watermill is sup- posed to have a special Vodyany attached to it. 2 Travellers might do worse than to stay for a time at the pleasant, clean little inn at the New Jerusalem, where they would be in the heart of Russian peasant life, and would have more opportunity of observing the habits and customs of the people than is often available. Though mingled with more superstition than is met with in Roman Catholic countries, no one can fail to be touched by the religious feeling and simple faith which prevails. ' Le moujich croit fermement que rien n'arrive sans le consentement ou la volonte des saints, " qui descendent du ciel, a 1'epoque fixe, pour 1 Ralston. 2 See Ralston's Songs of the Russian People. 39 6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. voir ce qui se passe sur la terre, recompenser les bons et punir les mechants." Tel saint guerit de la rage, tel autre vous fait decouvrir les voleurs ; il y a aussi un saint qui aide les poules a pondre et les paysannes a vendre les oeufs ; un saint special, comme notre Saint Antoine, est I'ami et le bienfaiteur des cochons. Les saintes ne sont pas moins occupees. II y en a qui plantent et soignent les choux, ou qui protegent les oies et les canards ; 1'une donne des garcons aux filles, 1'autre des filles aux garcons. Dans les villes, le clerge conduit aupres des malades, en caleche de gala, 1'image miraculeuse de la Vierge, et s'en fait de beaux revenus.' Victor Tissot. The peasants are content with the merest necessaries ; indeed, the necessaries of other European countries are luxuries in Russia. In the well-to-do classes a feast will consist of a little vodki, tea, and pies of minced cabbage. Far more is made of all domestic events christenings, marriages, &c., amongst the Russian than the English peasantry, and the interest of such an event in a small village strikes a sympathetic chord though every house. There is a regular observance for the first washing and dressing of an infant, and, if it belongs to a family not of the very lowest class, the priest is sent for w^hen it is twenty- four hours old, to offer prayers on behalf of it and its mother, and to give it a name. By this name or its diminutive the child is henceforth known, for there is nothing which answers to ' Baby ' in Russian, though no language is more rich in terms of affection (or of abuse). ' A new-born infant lies swaddled in its dark liulka, lhe convenient though by no means ornamental cradle of the babes of Russia. A four-sided bag of ticking is strongly sewn to a frame of wood, which has an iron ring at each corner through which are passed leather straps, and by them the liulka is suspended to the extremity of a long pole, the other end of which passes through a ring fastened in the ceiling, and which is so pliant that the slightest touch given to the wooden frame causes it to move gently and noiselessly up and down. A wide CHRISTENINGS. 397 curtain of dark print, or, in very well-to-do families, of silk, hangs round the little bed from the pole. ' A wrinkled old nurse sits by the liulka, rocking it and chanting in a cracked and sleepy voice a monotonous lullaby. She watches the child like a soldier on guard at a prison door, and woe to the in- cautious visitor who exclaims, ' ' Oh, what a lovely child ! Ah ! what a fine healthy boy ! " ' " God bless him ! The Lord be with him ! The Holy Virgin be about him ! " the nurse would exclaim indignantly. " Do you wish the little angel to be bewitched, sudarina? Is it the first babe you have seen the first pretty one ? Ah, thou Christ's babe of mine ! thou Lord's child of mine ! go to sleep, my general ! " Half pleased at your praise, half apprehensive of the effect your exclamations (the thing is, to avoid interjections) may have on the sleep and health of her charge, she draws the dark curtains closer around him, murmuring prayers for his welfare, while the abashed visitor excuses herself, assur- ing the nurse that she has by no means an evil eye, and never bewitched anybody in her life. ' " Well, don't boast ! " retorts nurse.' H. C. Romanoff. The short service after the birth (which concludes with an invocation to Simeon) is followed by the christening. At this the godfather provides a cross of gold or silver, accord- ing to his position, to hang round the child's neck, and the godmother gives a dress both to the child and its mother ; the former being a little shirt decorated with lace or ribbons. The ' Catechism of the Orthodox Church ' describes the cere- mony of baptism by saying that ' The believer is immersed three times in water, in the name of the' Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but the service is a very long one, and of great antiquity, that part of it which regards exorcism being mentioned by Tertullian in the second century, and that regarding confession both by him and by S. Cyprian in the third century. Before the actual sacrament of baptism, the parents, if previously present, must retire, leaving the child entirely in the hands of the godparents. r 9 S STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' The Russians think baptism so much the more necessary, in that they think it the only door through which a man must enter the church, and so into paradise. They acknowledge themselves con- ceived and born in sin, and that God hath instituted baptism for their regeneration, and to cleanse them, by water, from their original im- purity whence it is that they baptise their children as soon as they are born. If the child be weak, he is immediately baptised, yet not in the same room where the woman lies in ; but, if well, he is carried to church by the godfather and godmother. The priest receives him at the church door, signs him with the sign of the cross in the forehead, and gives him the benediction, saying, The Lord preserve thy coming in and thy going out. The godfathers deliver the priest nine wax candles, which he lights and fastens across the font, which stands in the midst of the church. He incenses the godfathers, and consecrates the water with many ceremonies. Then he makes a procession, together with the godfathers, who have wax candles in their hands, about the font. The clerk goes before, carrying the image of S. John, and they go about it three times, the priest in the interim reading out of a book. This done, the priest asks the godfathers the name of the child, who give it him in writing. He puts the paper upon an image, which he holds upon the child's breast, and having muttered over certain prayers, he asks the godfather whether the child believes in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then they all turn their backs to the font, to show their aversion and horror to the three questions the priest is to make to them afterwards to wit, whether the child forsakes the devil, whether he forsakes his angels, and whether he forsakes his works. The godfathers answer to every question " Yes," and spit so many times upon the ground. That done, they face about to the font, and then the priest, having asked them whether they promise to bring up the child in the true Greek religion, exorcises him, by putting his hands upon the child, saying, Get out of this child, thon unclean spirit, and make -way for the Holy Ghost, and by blowing three times upon the child to drive away the devil, by whom they believe children are really possessed before baptism. I have been told that now the exor- cism is performed at the church door, lest the devil, when he comes out of the child, should profane the church. Then the priest cuts off a little of the child's hair and puts it into a book, and having asked the godfathers whether they bring that child to be baptised, he takes him, being stark naked, into his arms and dips him three times into the water, pronouncing the ordinary words of the sacrament, / baptise thee in the nami of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. UNCTION OF CHILDREN. 39-; After the baptism he puts a corn of salt into the child's mouth, makes the sign of the cross in the forehead, upon the hands, the breast, and the back, with an oil purposely consecrated for that use, and putting a clean shirt upon him, says, Thou art as dean and as clear from original sin as this shirt. The ceremonies are concluded with a little cross of gold, silver, or lead, according to the ability of the parents, such as our bishops wear, which the priest hangs about the child's neck, with so strict an obligation to wear it all his lifetime that, if it be not found about him at his death, they would not bury the carcase, but drag it to the common dunghill. The priest does also assign the child a particular saint, whose image he delivers to the godfathers, and charges them to oblige the child, when he is come to years of discre- tion, to have a particular devotion for his patron. Then he embraces and kisses the child and the godfathers, and exhorts them to love one another, but above all things that they take heed of intermarrying.' Ambassadors' 1 Travels into Muscovy, 1636. Eight days afcer baptism, the ceremony of shaving the hair (gradually falling into disuse) is observed. It begins with prayers, after which the priest wipes the places anointed in the ceremony of Unction with a wet sponge, saying, ' Thou art baptised, thou art sanctified, thou art anointed with oil, thou art purified, thou art washed, in the name of the Father, &:c. ' The little Christian, having nothing of its own to offer to its Maker but the hair of its head, the first " sacrifice" is made by shear- ing it. In ancient times servants were shorn in token that they must fulfil the will of another ; thus the cutting of an infant's hair indicates the newly-made Christian should henceforth be servant to the will of Christ, from whom he has just received so many gifts of grace. The hair is snipped off in four different places at the top of the head with a small pair of scissors, thus forming a cross, the priest saying, " The servant of God, Alexis, is shorn in the name," &c. The godfather collects the morsels of down, and pinching them up with a bit of wax from his taper, throws it into the font ; this is done merely to insure that the hair may, with the water, be thrown into a place where no impurity can reach it, and no foot can tread on it. If the little pellet 4 OD STUDIES IN RUSSIA. sinks, it is considered a sign that the child will soon die.' H. C. Romanoff. Forty days after the birth of a child its mother is churched, and the infant is visibly received into Christ's Church by the reception of its first sacrament. When the royal gates are opened during mass, the deacon appears with the chalice, the infant is carried to the steps, and the priest, coming forwards, puts a drop of wine into its mouth with a spoon, saying, ' The servant of God, Alexis, communicates in the name,' &c. Children are almost universally objects of kindness in Russia, and it is funny to listen to the endless affectionate diminutives which are applied to them : lubesnoe, my dear ; milinkoi, my little dear ; dadushka, my little grandpapa ; matiushka, little mamma ; drushka, little friend ; golubshik, little dove ; doushinka, dear little soul. The commonest Russian Christian names are so altered by their diminutives as to be unrecognisable. Who would discover Agrafena (Agrippina) under the all-familiar Grouska, or Antonina under Antoshka, Sophia under Sonka or Sonitchka, Maria under Masha, Maruska, Marusinka, Mashinka ; or Kon- stantin (Constantine) under Kostia, Hilaribn under Laria, and Yakov (James) under Yashinka ? The vaccination of children is compulsory by law, but is often evaded by a bribe to the vaccinators from the peasants, who believe it to be 'the mark of the Beast' There is no such ceremony as Confirmation in the Greco-Russian Church, but the child continues to receive the sacrament in one kind only from its baptism, twice a year, at Easter and on its Saint's Day, till it is seven years old, when it is brought to the Easter confession on Good Friday, being asked questions by the priest, to w r hich it MARRIAGES. 401 answers, ' I have sinned,' or ' I have not sinned,' as it may be, after which absolution is given. For Government ser- vants yearly confession and communion are obligatory, and no marriage can be performed if either of the parties have not received the sacrament during the past year. True to the rule that every undertaking should begin with prayer and end with thanksgiving, the Greco-Russian Church even pro- vides an especial service for children about to begin or re- sume their studies, asking the blessing of God on their new and perhaps unknown duties. At the conclusion even of long holidays, or when a new governess or tutor enters a family, this service (Moleben) is held in the nearest church. Endless are the ceremonies which attend a Russian marriage. First the numerous ' assistants ' have to be in- vited. In the middle classes these are the Tysatsky, or wit- nesses to the register, being usually the most important re- lative of the pair ; the ladies of honour who accompany the bride and bridegroom to church : the Schafers, or bridesmen, who are to act as masters of the ceremonies, and the Boy- arin, who carries the sacred pictures, with which the pair have been blessed, to church. In noble families, where the wedding generally takes place in the evening, the bridal pair usually fast (eating nothing) through the long day which precedes it. Amongst the peasants the hand of the future bride has usually been sought by an embassy ' They always start at night, and they choose a byway, so as not to meet anyone, for a meeting would be an evil omen. Having arrived at the house of the bride's father, they knock at the window and ask for admission. Milosti prosim, " Do us the favour," is the ordinary reply. When they have come in they are asked to sit down, but they refuse ; " We have not come," they say, " to sit down, nor to feast, but to ask in marriage. We have a Dobry Molodets, a brave youth ; you have D D 4 02 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. a Krasnaya Dyevitsa, a fair maiden. Might not the two be brought together ? " The parents of the bride return thanks for the compli- ment, on which the visitors take off their caps and sit down to a meal. When it is over, the matchmakers ask for a final answer. The parents at first plead for delay, but, if they see no objection to the match, eventually give their consent. Upon this a candle is lighted and placed before the holy picture, and the contracting parties, having crossed themselves and uttered a prayer, strike hands on the bargain, and settle the matter. After the Rukobitie (rukd, a hand ; bit, to beat) the girl generally begins to lament, and to entreat her relatives to break off the match.' Ralston, 'Songs of the Russian Peopled From the time of the hand-striking to the betrothal, and from the betrothal to the marriage, the girl never ceases to ' lament her virginity,' and endless are the poetical forms in which such lamentations are expressed. They come to a climax in the wedding songs which her companions sing around the bride, when, on the day before the wedding, she unplaits her kosd, the long single plait which is the pride of un- married girls, and distributes amongst her young friends her kmsota^ or ' maiden beauty,' the ribbons or flowers with which she was wont to braid her hair. In ancient times a betrothed maiden always used to send her future husband a whip, curiously wrought by herself, in token of her submission to him, and on her wedding day he gave her a gentle stroke upon the shoulders, to show that he had assumed matrimonial power. The wedding clothes are blessed by the priest in a short moleben. The respective parents of the bride and bride- groom give them a solemn blessing before they leave their homes, waving the sacred pictures three times over their heads, and in the case of the bride this is often a very sad cere- mony, as after it she takes a weeping farewell of her parents and relations. Then the lady of honour (this is in the upper MARRIAGES. 403 classes) leads the bride to her carriage, and the Schafers go before to warn the bridegroom to be ready to receive her at the church door. The Boyarin, carrying the picture, pre- cedes the pair into the church, and two wax tapers are given them, in regard to which it is believed that the bearer of the taper which goes out first will be the first to die. The office of marriage is divided into three parts, which were once celebrated at different times, but now together, (i) The office of espousals (in which a ring of gold is given by the man to the woman, and by the woman to the man, and afterwards exchanged by the best man). (2) The office of matrimonial coronation, in which the bridal pair are crowned with crowns of filagree silver (vyentsui), or gar- lands, in token of the triumph of continence. (3) The dissolution of the crowns, which formerly took place upon the eighth day, when the bride was conducted to the bride- groom's house. ' These ceremonies are all so exact a transcript from those of the Roman nuptials, that they seem to have been adopted from that practice. The espousals, or contract before marriage, the ceremony of the ring, of the hymenaeal torch, the garlands of flowers, and even the distinction of times lawful or unlawful for marriage, are all mentioned as circumstances of the Roman nuptials by historians, or alluded to by the poets and other authors.' King. During the last ceremony wine mingled with water is given, in allusion to the marriage of Cana. Then the priest, followed by the bridal pair, walks three times round the ' maloy ' upon which the Cross and Gospels are placed, an exhortation is pronounced, the pair are desired to kiss each other three times, and the benediction concludes the service, after which the newly married pair go together to kiss all the holy pictures on the iconastos. 404 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ( The peasant bridegroom now leads his bride to his home. On the top of the steps leading into the house his father and mother meet the young couple, and bless them with bread and salt, while some of the other relatives pour over them barley and down, and give them fresh milk to drink the first that they may live in harmony and happiness, and the second " that their children may be not black, but white." The young people enter the house and sit down on a bench, the Princess (now no longer called Knyazhna, but Knyaginya, as being a married woman) hiding her face from sight with a handkerchief. Then comes her mother-in-law, or an aunt, takes away the handker- chief, divides her loosely hanging tresses into two parts, and sets on her head the Povoinik^ or married woman's headdress. After that begins the Knyazhenetsky Stol, or " Princely Table," the wedding- breakfast of Russian peasant life, which is celebrated with great mirth and spirit. Towards the end of it the young couple retire to their chamber, round which, in old times, one of the party, called a Klyetnik, used to watch.' Ralston^ 'Songs of the Russian People.' It is a law of the Church that boys must not marry till they are eighteen, or girls till they are sixteen ; men must not marry after eighty, or women after sixty ; if you marry twice you have two years' penance, i.e., exclusion from Holy Com- munion ; if you marry three times you have five years' penance ; a fourth marriage is impossible. Almost all peasant alliances are manages de convenance, though the brides generally have nothing but their trousseau. Often the bride looks forward with terror to the family into which she is about to marry, regarding its members as piercing thorns and stinging nettles, whilst they on their part regard her as a ' she bear,' ' a sloven,' &c. In one of their songs a girl complains : ' They are making me marry a lout With no small family. Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh, dear me ! With a father, and a mother, PEASANT BRIDES. 405 And four brothers, And sisters three. Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh, dear me ! Says my father-in-law, " Here comes a bear ! " Says my mother-in-law, " Here comes a slut ! " My sisters-in-law cry, " Here comes a do-nothing ! " My brothers-in-law exclaim, " Here comes a mischief-maker ! " Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh, dear me ! ' i Many of the songs sung in dialogue form at the Khoro- vods relate to the sorrows of a young wife, and her slavery to her parents-in-law. Such is : 'THE WIFE. 4 Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage goes my husband's father, Angrily about it he keeps pacing. CHORUS. ' Thumping, scolding, thumping, scolding, Never lets his daughter sleep. ' FATHER-IN-LAW. ' Up, vip, up ! thou sloven there ! Up, up, up ! thou sluggard there ! Slovenly, slatternly, sluggardish slut ! ' THE WIFE. ' Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage goes my husband's mother, Angrily about it she keeps pacing. 1 Ralston. 406 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. CHORUS. Thumping, scolding, thumping, scolding, Never lets her daughter sleep. MOTHER-IN-LAW. ' Up, up, up ! thou sloven there ! Up, up, up ! thou sluggard there ! Slovenly, slatternly, sluggardish slut ! ' THE WIFE. ' Fain would I be sleeping, dreaming : Heavy lies my head upon the pillow. Up and down the passage steals my well-beloved one, All so lightly, softly, keeps he whispering : ' THE LOVER. ' Sleep, sleep, sleep, my darling one ! Sleep, sleep, sleep, my precious one ! Driven out, thrown away, married too soon !' Ralston^ ' Songs of the Russian Except in the provisions for ' painting,' which the hus- bands were expected to make, few of the customs attending a Russian peasant marriage are much changed since the following description was written more than three hundred years ago : ' Their matrimonie is nothing solemnized, but rather in most points abhominable, and as neare as I can learne, in this wise following : ' First, when there is loue between the parties, the man sendeth unto the woman a small chest or boxe, wherein is a whip, needles, thread, silke, linnen cloth, sheares, and such necessaries as she shall occupie when she is a wife, and perhaps sendeth therewithall raisins, figs, or some such things, giving her to understand that if she doe offend, she must be beaten with the whip ; and by the needles, thread, cloth, &c., that she should apply herselfe diligently to sowe, and doe such things as shee could best doe ; and by the raisins or fruites he meaneth if she MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 407 doe well, noe good thing shal be withdrawn from her, nor be too deare for her : and she sendeth unto him a shirt, handkerchief, and some such things of her owne making. And now to the effect. ' When they are agreed, and the day of marriage appointed, when they shall goe towards the church, the bride will in noe wise consent to go out of the house, but resisteth and striveth with them that would have her out, and faineth herself to weepe, yet in the end two women get her out, and lead her towards the church, her face being covered close, because of her dissimulati5, that it should not be openly perceived ; fcr she maketh a great noise, as though she were sobbing and weeping, until she come at the church, and then her face is uncovered. The man cometh after among other of his friends, and they cary with them to the church a great pot with wine or mead ; then the priest coupleth them together much after our order, one promising to love and serve the other during their lives together, &c., which being done, they begin to drinke ; and first the woman drinketh to the man, and when he hath drunk he letteth the cuppe fall to the ground, hasting imme diately to tread upon it, and so doth she, and whether of them tread first upon it must have the victorie and be master at all times after, which commonly happeneth to the man, for he is readiest to set his foot on it, because he letteth it fall himselfe ; then they goe home againe, the woman's face being uncovered. The boyes in the streetes crie out and make a noyse in the meane time, with very dishonest worcles. ' When they come home, the wife is set at the upper end of the table, and the husband next unto her ; they fall to drinking till the} bee all drunke ; they perchance have a minstrell or two, and two naked men, which led her from the church, dannce naked a long time before all the companie. When they are wearie of drinking, the bridt and the bridegroom get them to bed, for it is in the evening alwayes when any of them are married ; and when they are going to bedde, the bridegroom putteth certain money both golde and silver, if he have it, into one of his boots, and then sitteth down in the chamber crossing his legges, and then the bride must plucke off one of his boots, which she will ; and if she happen on the boote wherein the money is, she hath not onely the money for her labor, but is also at such choyse, as she need not ever from that day to put off his boots, but if she misse the boot where the money is, she doth not onely lose the money, but is also bound from that day forwards to pull off his boots continually. ' Then they continue in drinking and making good cheere three daies following, being accompanied with certaine of their friends, and during 4 o8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the same three dales he is called a duke, and shee a dutches, although they be very poore persons, and this is as much as I have learned of their matrimony : but one common rule is amongst them, if the woman be not beaten with the whip once a weeke, she will not be good, and therefore they looke for it orderly, and the women say, that if their husbands did not beate them, they should not love them. ' They use to marry very young ; their sonnes at sixteen and eighteen yeares olde, and the daughters at twelve or thirteen yeares or yonger ; they use to keepe their wives very closely, I meane those that be of any reputation, so that a man shall not see one of them but at a chance, when she goeth to church at Christmas or at Easter, or els going to visite some of her friends. ' The husband is bound to finde the wife colours to paynt her withall, for they use ordinarily to paynt themselves : it is such a com- mon practise among them, that it is counted for no shame : they grease their faces with such colours, that a man may discern them hanging on their faces almost a flight shoote off : I cannot so well liken them as to a miller's wife, for they looke as if they were beaten about the face with a bagge of meale, but their eyebrowes they colour as blacke as ieat. ' Anthonie Jenkinson, 1557. ' Scratch the Russian and you will find the Turk under- neath,' was a saying of the Prince de Ligne, and those who have written of Russian peasant life never fail to take as their theme the seclusion of the wives, and the monotony of the women's existence, ' constantly dreaming of what others do.' The inferiority with which Russian women of the lower orders are regarded is shown in nothing more than in some of the Russian proverbs most in use, such as ' The wits of a woman are like the. wildness of beasts,' ' The hair is long, but the mind is short,' ' As the horse by a bit, so must a woman be governed by threats/ ' Towns built by women do not last,' 'Walls built by women do not rise high.' ' Toute sa vie la femme russe est en tutelle : d'abord sous la tutelle de son pere ou d'un autre membre de la famille, et plus tarcl sous celle du mari. On lui apprend a obeir a 1'homme comme THE DOMOSTROL 409 1'esclave obeit au maitre ; a se regarder comme la propriete, la " chose " de 1'homme ; a ne pas permettre qu'on 1'appelle maitresse (gospoja), a ne voir dans son mari qu'un maitre. Une paysanne russe qui n'est pas de temps en temps rossee, se plaint d'etre negligee de son epoux. Le proverbe dit : " Je t'aime comme mon ame et je te bats comme ma pelisse." ' Victor Tissot. The Domostroi, or ' Organisation of Domestic Life,' the curious manual of household economy, written by the monk Silvester, the early minister of Ivan the Terrible, says, ' The wife should be obedient in all things, and for her faults should be severely whipped, though not in anger. Her duty is to keep the house; to look after the food and clothing ; to see to the comfort of her husband; and to bear children, though not to educate them.' l Severity towards children is inculcated, and to play with their children is in parents ' a sin, a temptation of the devil.' The wife is bound to stay at home and to be acquainted with nothing but household work. To all questions on outside matters she is to answer that she * does not know.' In Russia, in all public and private legal transactions, the custom is to count by souls. In other parts of Europe they count by heads, but, like Mahommedans, the Russians assume that only men, and not women, have or are souls. Apropos of this there are two well-known popular proverbs : ' There is only one soul to every ten women ; ' and ' A woman has no soul, she is nothing but vapour and smoke.' Whatever the other trials of their married life may be, there is no country in which the women are expected to do less work than in Russia. As showing that there are occasions on which the wife also has the upper hand, a 1 See the Domostrdi, edited by M. Takovlef. S. Petersburg, 1867. 410 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. humorous little Russian story represents in a dialogue the contradictoriness of a Russian peasant wife, and the patience of her husband : Peasant. Dear wife, we will sow this barley. Wife. Husband, it is not barley, it is buckwheat. Peasant. So be it, I will not dispute it. Peasant. See, wife, how well the barley has come up ! Wife. It is not barley, it is buckwheat. Peasant. So be it, I will not dispute it. Peasant. The barley is ripe, we will cut it ! Wife. It is not barley, it is buckwheat. Peasant. Buckwheat let it be, I will not dispute it. Peasant. The barley is threshed now how fine it is \ Wife. It is not barley, it is buckwheat. Peasant. Buckwheat let it be, I will not dispute it. Peasant. What beautiful barley-malt! We will brew beer with it. Wife. It is not malt of barley, but of buckwheat. Peasant. Buckwheat-malt let it be, I will not dispute it. Peasant. What delicious beer from our barley-malt ! Wife. It was not barley-malt, but buckwheat-malt. Peasant. So be it, I will not dispute it ; but I never heard of buckwheat-malt, or that beer was brewed from it. Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire. ' Very early marriages are almost universal : 'Fathers of families have generally the greatest interest in the marriage of their sons. It is. not the custom for married sons to estab- lish a separate household so long as the head of the family is living ; every marriage, therefore, brings gain to the latter, who acquires a new- share in the land, besides the services of a new daughter-in-law. ' Early marriages presenting so many advantages, celibacy is almost unknown amongst the common people. Until recent times, boys were married so young, that, according to Wichelhausen, in his description of Moscow, vigorous women of four-and-twenty might THE POOR MAN'S LOT. 411 frequently be seen carrying in their arms their betrothed husbands of six years of age ! The Government, however, has now prohibited the marriage of boys before their eighteenth year.' Haxthausen. In the Domostroi, Silvester describes the tricks which were often practised in his time when it came to choosing a wife : the stool concealed under the maiden's dress to make her look taller, the substitution of her prettier sister or maid upon the few occasions on which the bridegroom was allowed to see her before marriage. When the peasant household is established, monotonous melancholy characterises it. Existence is a dull routine of the different duties brought by the change of the seasons : the only variety is brought by the fasts and festivals of the Church, even these are monotonous ; and over the brief summer always hangs the shadow of the coming winter, with its confinement and darkness. ' The bird of God does not know either anxiety or labour ; it does not laboriously weave a nest to last ; through the long nights it sleeps upon a bough : when the beautiful sun arises, the bird, recog- nising the voice of God, starts up and sings. 'After the gay spring-tidecomes the glowing summer, the slow- coming autumn brings- mist and rain : to men trouble, to men weari- ness ; the bird flies away till the spring into distant countries, into the warm lands, beyond the blue sea.' Pouchkine. 1 The Poor Man's Lot,' one of the best-known poems of Koltsof (1809-1842), the poet of the people, dwells on the dreariness of Russian peasant-life, especially in the days of serfs, when they could be moved at will from one landlord to another. ' White bread, amongst strangers, is bitter ; it is as an undiluted drink which intoxicates. Free speech is fettered :- ardent send- 4 i2 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ments die without an echo. If joy sometimes escapes from the soul, it is poisoned at once by malignant sarcasms. The bright and clear day clouds over ; the world veils itself under a cloud of sad- ness. You listen, you look with a smile; and in your heart you curse your sad fate.' Russian peasants are far less apt to acknowledge them- selves ill, especially to lie in bed, than those of other countries. They will seldom send for a doctor, but, on the rare occasions on which they take physic, they always cross themselves and ask God's blessing upon it The medical adviser of the peasantry is generally a baboushka (literally, grandmother), or wise woman, who generally treats all ailments as the result of witchcraft, and endeavours to cure them by charms, which are often of the most extraordinary nature. But when it is perceived, usually by the instinct of the patient, that an illness must be fatal, Extreme Unction is resorted to. If the patient is still able to go out, this is performed after mass, in the body of the church, the invalid being placed in a chair, with his face toward the royal gates, and is a strangely solemn service. But naturally Extreme Unction generally takes place in a house. In all cases the service concludes by the patient asking for the blessing and personal forgiveness of the priest and of all present, infinitely touching to the friends of the dying person. The Service for Confession and Communion of the Sick is nearly the same as our own. As the last moment ap- proaches, the friends lay a saint's picture at the back of the pillow, and stick a lighted taper at the head of the bed. 1 The poor lay the dying on the bench "under the Saints," or picture in the corner. When a child is expiring, the father or mother takes it gently on a pillow, and holds it, DEATHS. 413 crossing and blessing it repeatedly all the time, under the picture, while it sighs its innocent breath away.' l When a death has occurred, the corpse is fully dressed in its best clothes (in the case of persons in the Imperial service, in full uniform), and laid out in the centre of the largest room in the house, on a table or catafalque, hung with white, and surrounded with burning candles. It is never left alone. Day and night, for the three days which precede the funeral, a * Reader ' reads the Psalms aloud, over and over again, being generally a peasant whose age unfits him for any other employment. A priest also comes to sing a requiem, in which the most remarkable feature is the ' Everlasting Remembrance.' After prayers for the soul of the deceased and for the forgiveness of all his sins, voluntary and involuntary, he says : ' With the Saints let the soul of thy deceased servant, O Lord, rest in peace, and keep him in Everlasting Remembrance ; ' and the choir take up the last words, and sing them several times. In accordance with James i. 27, all the acquaintance of the house visit it in mourning, and even passers-by, who are un- known to the family, come in to pay their respects to the dead and pray for his soul. Alms are also given to beggars, with injunctions to pray for the soul. A letter is sent to all friends at a distance : ' Alexis Alexandrovitch ' (the deceased) ' desires his compliments, and wishes you may live long ' which is, in fact, announcing that he has ceased to live. The sorrowing answers always contain the expression ' May the kingdom of heaven be his!' Amongst the peasants in some parts of Russia there are 1 Romanoff. 4 I4 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. professional mourners, who are sent for to pronounce long poetical lamentations over the corpse. Great care is also taken to provide the dead person with what he requires on his long journey a handkerchief, with which to wipe his face, and a coin, which in ancient times was intended to pay the ferryman to the other world. Parings of nails are also often supplied to the corpse, as by their means his soul will be able to clamber up the steep sides of the hill leading to heaven. 1 It is necessary also that the funeral should take place before sunset, as afterwards, with no sun to guide it, the wandering spirit would be certain to lose its way. ' Parmi les paysans russes, 1'usage s'est encore conserve de parler an mort avant de se separer pour toujours de ses restes. D'ou vient, lui dit-on, que tu nous as abandonnes ? etais-tu done malheureux stir cette terre ? ta femme n'etait-elle pas belle et bonne ? pourquoi done 1'as tu quittee ? Le mort ne repond rien, mais le prix de 1'existence est ainsi proclame en presence de ceux qui le conservent encore.' Afadame de' Stacl. On the day of the funeral all the friends, neighbours, and acquaintance of the deceased collect in the house of mourning, where a short service takes place, after which the family take leave of the dead. Then, with cross and candles, and a procession, bareheaded even in the severest winter, the corpse is carried to church. Everyone who passes un- covers and recites a prayer for the dead. As the corpse is borne along, the trisagion is always sung. On reaching the church, the coffin is placed before the royal gates, and tapers are given to all the bystanders, which are extinguished after the reading of the Gospel. Then a prayer -'the Confession of the Faithful Soul ' (sometimes falsely described as a 1 See Ralston, from Afanasief. FUNERALS. 415 passport for the dead) is placed in the hands of the corpse. It is the prayer of S. Theodosius of Kieff, for absolution from sin, which was made compulsory by S. Vladimir (988), who was himself buried with it in his hands. Then a ' coronet,' printed usually with a text in gold, is placed on the brow of the dead, and the bystanders are exhorted to draw near and give the last kiss to the departed, in such words as these : ' Come, my brethren, let us give our last kiss, our last farewell to our deceased brother, giving thanks to God. He hath now forsaken hb kindred, and approacheth the grave, no longer mindful of vanity or the cares of the world. Where are now his kindred and his friends ? Behold, we are now separated. Let us pray to the Lord to give him rest. ' Oh, my brethren, what a separation ; what lamentation and wail- ing accompany this sad hour ! Approach, embrace him who lately was one of yourselves. He is delivered up to the grave ; he is covered with a stone ; he sojourneth in darkness, and is buried among the dead. Now he is separated from his kindred and friends, therefore let us pray to the Lord to give him rest. ' Every sinful connection with life and vanity is broken. The spirit hath forsaken her mansion : the clay is disfigured, the vessel is broken : we carry a speechless, motionless, senseless corpse to the grave ! Let us entreat the Lord to grant him eternal rest. ' What is our life ? A flower, a vapour, the dew of the morning. Approach then, let us contemplate the grave with attention ! Where is the form of grace, where is youth, where is the brightness of the eye, where the beauty of colouring ? All all are withered like grass ; all are vanished. Come then, and with tears let us fall down before Christ,' &c. King. The coffin is now closed and carried to the grave, and, as it is lowered, the priest throws a handful of earth upon it, with the words : ' The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and the wide world, and they that dwell therein.' The lamp or wine-glass used for Extreme Unction is then 4 i6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. thrown into the grave, with anything that remains in it, and some ashes from the incense used, in remembrance of the spices and ointments employed for the buried Saviour. After the blessing, every member of the family throws a handful of earth into the grave. There are many places in Russia where a little ladder is set up by the side of the grave when the coffin is lowered into it, to assist the soul in its ascent to heaven. Meanwhile preparations have been made for the funeral feast at the house, for the guests in the principal chamber, for the beggars (those beggars who have regularly received alms from the family) in the outhouse. The latter are treated as kindly- welcomed guests, and are waited on by the family. The feast is interspersed with prayers, especially of * Everlasting Remembrance,' which is repeated in the com- pany dinner afterwards amid much weeping of the mourners. The funeral feast was originally called trizna : it was to such a feast that Olga summoned the Drevlians upon the murder of her husband Igor, to call upon them to avenge his murder. But even now the melancholy services are by no means over. ' People whose circumstances permit it have evening-matins and mass performed every day for forty days after the death has taken place, and distribute trifling alms to the beggars each time. Besides this, special requiems are sung on the ninth, twentieth, and fortieth days over the grave, and the priests are generally entertained as on the day of the funeral. At any rate, they are invited to the fortieth day. On the two first occasions a " lunch " (which consists of as good a dinner as you could wish to eat, only without soup) is prepared for them. On the fortieth day the funeral is almost acted over again. Immediately on return from church on all these occasions, and on the name's day and anniversary of the death of the deceased, the RECOLLECTION DA VS. 417 family eat a spoonful of what is called koutih ; it is boiled rice and raisins, sweetened with honey. They take it to church in a sugar- basin or butter-dish,, and place it, with a taper stuck to it, on the little black maloy, before which requiems are sung. This is repeated at every requiem, and is done " in remembrance " of the deceased. The custom is thus explained by Bishop Benjamin : " The rice (or as in ancient times ordained, wheat-grain), typifies the deceased Christian, who will hereafter rise again like the buried seed (John xii. 24). The honey implies that on resurrection a sweet and delightful existence awaits us in the kingdom of heaven. The raisins, dried up as they now are, will, on coming up, be beautiful and lovely, as the glorified Christian will be (i Cor. xv. 43, 44)." ' H. C. Romanoff. The Monday week after Easter Day (called Pomina- telnui ponyedelnik, or ' Recollection Monday') and Saturday after Ascension Day are devoted by the Russians to the memory of the dead and of their parents in particular, and nearly answer to All Souls' Day in France. On this occasion alms are given profusely to the beggars, with injunctions to pray for the dead by name. On such days the beggars ask alms ' for your parents' sakes,' and receive eggs or cakes from the poor who have no money to give. The scene in the cemeteries at such times is a most strange one, as the people fling themselves on the graves, with sobs, shrieks, howls, and outcries of endearment to those lying below, shedding torrents of tears, which, however, are dried as soon as the performance is over. A requiem is said at the < different graves by a priest, after which the poorer classes remain to ' commemorate their departed by a little banquet, laying a tablecloth on the grave and covering it with gaily- painted eggs, cakes, curd-tarts, and vodki, which they drink to the memory of their lost one, with " May the kingdom of heaven be his ! " In the midst of the loaf which forms the centre of the feast, a lighted taper is always stuck. E E 4 i8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' A Flemish pencil might produce the strangest picture in the world by a faithful representation of this oddly-furnished banquet, particularly as the taste of the purveyors varies considerably. Everyone has his loaf of a different form from the rest ; one has added a dish of rice and plums, another a pot of honey, and a third some other dish, according to his means. On every loaf a little book is laid. In one I found written on one page, " This book belongs to Anne Timofeyevna " (Anne, Timotheus' daughter), and on the next page, " This book is in- scribed to the memory of my dear father, Fedor Paulovitch, and my good mother, Elizabeth Petrovna." On a third stood the names of Gregor, Sergei, and Maria. They call these books " Pominatelnui knigi,' or Books of Remembrance. ' After the usual mass, the priests approach the strangely-loaded tables and sing prayers for the dead, swinging censers all the while. They turn 6ver the leaves of the before-mentioned books, and intro- duce the names found there in the prayer.' Kohl. On the Saturday nearest to October 26, another requiem has been observed in Russia for centuries in memory of those who fell at the Battle of the Kulikovo in 1380, when the courage of Prince Dmitri and the prayers of S. Sergius gained a signal victory over the Tartars. This festival is called Dmitriefskaya Subbota, Dmitri's Saturday. ' If at that time a thaw follows the first frosts of winter, the people say, Roditeli otdokhnut, ' the Fathers enjoy repose,' for they hold that the dead suffer from cold, as well as from hunger, in the grave. 4 On the day of the commemoration the peasants attend a church service, and afterwards they go out to the graves of their friends and there institute a feast, lauding, amidst many tears, the virtues and good qualities of the dead, and then drinking to their eternal rest. So important a feature in the ceremony is this drinking, that it has given rise to a proverb, " One begins for the repose of the dead, and one goes on for one's own pleasure." It is customary on such occasions to hand over a portion of the articles provided for the feast to the officiating ecclesiastics and their assistants, a fact to which allusion is made in the popular saying, "It is not always Dmitri's Saturday with priestly children."' Ralston, 'Songs of the Russian People.' 1 FASTS. 419 In many country villages the custonxof ' feeding the dead ' still prevails. This is to prevent ghosts from returning. People place an abundant meal on the graves of their dead, and leave it there, begging them to be satisfied with that : dogs eat it up at night. Through a great part of the year the Russian peasant is prevented by the fasts of the Church from accepting the advantages which the seasons, the soil, and his labour permit him. He must fast entirely during the seven weeks of Lent, for two or three weeks in June, from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. ' They be great offerers of candles, and sometimes of money, which wee call in England, souls pense, with more ceremonies than I am able to declare. They have foure Lents in the yeare, whereof our Lent is the greatest. Looke, as we do begin on the Wednesday, so they doe on the Monday before : and the weeke before that they call the Butter weeke : and in that weeke they eate nothing but butter and milke. Howbeit, I beleeue there bee in no other count -ey the like people for drunkennesse. The next Lent is called S. Peter's Lent, and beginneth alwayes the Munday next after Trinitie Sunday, and endeth on S. Peter's euen. If they should breake that fast, their beliefe is that they should not come in at heauen gates. The third Lent beginneth fifteene dayes before the later Ladey day, and endeth on our Lady Eeuen. The fourth Lent beginneth on S. Martin's day, and endeth on Christmas Eeuen : which Lent is fasted for S. Philip, S. Peter, S. Nicholas, and S. Clement. For they foure be the principall and greatest saints in that countrey.' Richard Chancektcr, 1553- ' If the church would direct her maternal solicitude to the peasant's drinking, and leave him to eat what hs pleases, she might exercise a beneficial influence on his material and moral welfare.' D. Mac- kenzie Wallace, ' Russia.' 1 If travellers give poor men a part of their dinner in E E 2 420 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Lent, they will refuse it shuddering, and snatching the for- bidden food out of their children's hands, will fling it to their dogs ; though the moment ' Christ has risen ' has passed from the lips of the archbishop, they are ready to make up in drunkenness and gluttony, in proportion as they have fasted before. Even in the wickedest Russian peasant, the superstition regarding fasting is kept alive. Two men once murdered a traveller for the sake of his provision, but when the deed was done, they found it was only meat, and they threw it away, because it was Lent. Fortunately the great fast occurs just when the frozen provisions of the lower orders are exhausted, and, whilst it lasts, they have time to procure, kill, and store their fresh supplies. The night before Easter every market and shop is crowded, and every peasant's arms are full. In the middle of Lent many of the peasants celebrate a little festival in honour of spring. About the same time occurs the curious custom called the 'Christening of the Cuckoos,' which, coupled with the frequent representation of the soul as a bird, probably has reference to children who die unbaptised, and are therefore supposed to be perpetually flying wailing through the air. Little figures of a bird, made of grass or flowers, are hung with crosses and suspended to a bough, and girls meet and kiss beneath them, becoming by this ceremony ' gossips ' for life, as if at a christening of a child they had become united by the tie of co-godmothership. 1 When Palm Sunday arrives, those who sleep so late as to be prevented attending early mass, are flogged with palm-branches, a discipline in which boys and girls are so eager, that they lie awake half the 1 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People. EASTER. 421 night thinking of it, and as soon as day breaks, begin to run about in bands in search of the sleepers, whom they punish, whilst singing : ' Yerba biot ! Biot da floss ; Ye ne bin ; Verba biot ! ' l This custom prevails throughout Russia, and the imperial children exercise the privilege as eagerly as those of lower rank. 2 On the Saturday before Easter all the pomp of divine service the lights, bells, singing, &c. is laid aside. The people, who are half-starved by fasting, having often had literally nothing to eat for three days, sink down in utter exhaustion from the endless kneeling, or wearisomeness of the long readings. The churches are darkened, and no priest shows himself upon Saturday evening before mid- night. It is characteristic of the simple and touching faith of the Russian people that, throughout this time of utter exhaustion, the reading of the Gospel never ceases. One peasant after another, if he can only just read, will light his taper, and, taking his place at the desk with the open Bible, will continue to spell out the words till some one else comes to release him. 3 Certainly the Easter ceremony to which exhausted nature must most look forward in Russia, is the benediction of the food, which, especially in Moscow, is one of the most curious sights a stranger can witness. The Easter Resurrection has just been announced to the people, when 1 The rod strikes and strikes to weeping. I strike thee not : the rod strikes. Kohl. 3 Ibid. 422 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1 Amid all the tumult, a procession headed by the priests, all bear- ing tapers and torches, passes round the church, and then the last ceremony, the blessing of the food, takes place about three o'clock in the morning. The spectacle in the church is most extraordinary. The people range all the dishes in long rows through the whole church, leaving space enough between the rows for the priests to pass, till the increasing numbers compel them to form the lines without the church, and even a good way round. The huge oddly-shaped loaves, called Kulitshe, the towers of white cheese, into which I know not how many coloured leaves of spice are interwoven, the former decorated with flowers, the latter bearing a burning wax-taper on its summit ; the heaps of red coloured eggs, lumps of sugar, pots of honey, plates of preserved fruit, all these painted, illuminated, many-coloured, strange -looking eatables, and collected in such quantities, have so curious an effect that one can- not help supposing the important ceremonies are to end at last in child's play ; one cannot help looking into the face of the reverend goodies and white-bearded fathers, to see whether they are not masked children who will at last throw off their disguise, and in the midst of all their flowers and fruits, end with a dance in honour of Flora and Pomona. It is not necessary to observe them long, however, to be- come convinced that these good child -like people are quite serious in their proceedings. As the priest advances, sprinkling to the right and left, and pronouncing his blessing, while his attendant keeps up a constant chant, the people press closer and closer, crossing them- selves and keeping a constant watch that their flowers and food get their due share of the purifying water. " Batiushka," is heard here and there, " sdes moi pashka" (Father, dear, my Easter dish has got- none). Breathless with haste, others come running up, and as they untie the cloth containing their dishes, supplicate a moment's delay from the priest, who is generally good-natured enough to comply. ' To be thoroughly national, two dishes are indispensable at an Easter breakfast, pashka and kulitsh. Pashka is made of curds beaten hard, and served in a pyramidal form ; the kulitsh is a thick round cylindrically shaped white loaf, sometimes made with a multitude of little kulitshi sticking upon it, like young oysters on the back of an old one, with plums, consecrated palm-twigs, &c. , which latter always pro- ject a little from the crust. Both must be decorated with flowers and wax-lights ; and if, in addition to these, a hard egg and a dram be swallowed, the common Easter breakfast of a Russian of the lower class has been taken, and you may go to sleep for some hours -with a THE RUSSIAN FRIDAY. 423 good conscience wherewith to begin the enjoyment of the Easter fes- tivities.' Kohl. On Easter Monday, paschal eggs are distributed and all business is laid aside. Between Easter and Ascension Day there are few Russian peasants who will refuse hospitality to any way- farer, for at that time Christ and his apostles are supposed to be wandering, and angels might be repulsed unawares. Our Lord himself is believed to wander sometimes disguised as a beggar. ' In the story of " Christ's Brother," a young man whose father, on his deathbed, had charged him not to forget the poor goes to church on Easter Day, having provided himself with red eggs to give to the beggars with whom he should exchange the paschal greeting. After exhausting his stock of presents, he finds that there remains one beggar of miserable appearance to whom he has nothing to offer, so he takes him home to dinner. After the meal, the beggar exchanges crosses with his host, who thus becomes his "brother of the cross," giving him a cross which blazes like fire, and invites him to pay him a visit on the following Tuesday. To an inquiry about the way, he replies, "You have only to go along yonder path, and say, 'Grant Thy blessing, O Lord !' and you will come to where I am." . . . The young man did as he was told, and at the end of his journey finds the aged mendicant who had adopted him as his brother, and recognises him as the Lord Jesus Christ himself.' Ralston (from Afanasief], * Russian Folk- Tales. ' Friday is a wasted day in most Russian villages. * The Russian name for that day, Pyatnitsa, has no such mytho- logical significance as have our own Friday or the French Vendredi : but the day was undoubtedly consecrated by the old Slavonians to some goddess akin to Venus or Freyja, and her worship in ancient times accounts for the superstitions now connected with the name of Friday. According to Afanasief, the Carinthian name for the day, Sibne dan y is a clear proof that it was once holy to Siva, the Lithuanian 424 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Seewa, the Slavonic goddess answering to Ceres. In Christian times the personality of the goddess (by whatever name she may have been known) to whom Friday was consecrated, became merged in that of S. Prascovia, and she is now frequently addressed by the compound name of " Mother Pyatnitsa- Prascovia." As she is supposed to wander about the houses of the peasants on her holy days, and to be offended at certain kinds of work going on, they are (or at least they used to be) frequently suspended on Fridays. It is a sin, says a time-honoured tradition, for a woman to sew, or spin, or weave, or buck linen on a Friday, and similarly for a man to plait bast shoes, twine cord, and the like. Spinning and weaving are especially obnoxious to " Mother Friday," for the dust and refuse thus produced injure her eyes. When this takes place, she revenges herself by plagues of sore eyes, whitlows, and agnails. In some places the villagers go to bed early on Friday evening, believing that S. Pyatinka will punish all whom she finds awake when she roams through the cottage. In others they sweep their floors every Thursday evening, that she may not be annoyed by dust or the like when she comes next day. Sometimes, however, she has been seen, says the popular voice, " all pricked with the needles and pierced by the spindles " of the careless women who sewed and spun on the day they ought to have kept holy in her honour. As for any work begun on a Friday, it is sure to go wrong. ' There was once a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it. She span away till dinner time, then suddenly sleep fell on her such a deep sleep ! And when she had gone to sleep, sud- denly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such a rage ! And she went straight to the woman who had been spinning, scooped up from the floor a handful of the dust that had fallen out of the flax, and began stuffing and stuffing that woman's eyes full of it ! And when she had stuffed them full, she went off in a rage disappeared without saying a word. ' When the woman awoke, she began squalling at the top of her voice about her eyes, but couldn't tell what was the matter with them. The other women, who had been terribly frightened, began to cry out : ' " Oh, you wretch, you ! you've brought a terrible punishment on yourself from Mother Friday." ' And they told her all that had taken place. She listened to it all, and then began imploring : BIELO-OZERO. 425 ' " Mother Friday, forgive me ! pardon me, the guilty one ! I'll offer thee a taper, and I'll never let friend or foe dishonour thee, Mother ! " ' Well, what do you think ? ' During the night, back came Mother Friday and took the dust out of that woman's eyes, so that she was able to get about again. It's a great sin to dishonour Mother Friday combing and spinning flax, forsooth ! ' Ralston (from Afanasief\ ' Riissian Folk- Tales. ' The student of Russian history will not be content with visiting the group of monasteries near Moscow, but the immense tracts of country to be traversed make further historic pilgrimages of great rarity. * Les distances, voila le fleau de la Russie,' was a saying of the Emperor Nicholas. The monastery of greatest interest besides those already noticed is that of S. Cyril, at Bielo-ozero, ' the White Lake,' to which the nearest point of railway is Vologda. It is still a monastery of the first class, or rather two monasteries in one, the Greater, and the (Ivanofsky or) Lesser. Two strong walls, with lofty towers, surround the monasteries, the inner being the Lesser, while the Greater, which of itself has nine stone churches, occupies the space between the first and second wall. No religious institution in the empire surpasses this in the richness of its vestments. It has also an armoury, and on its outer towers fifty cannon are mounted. This is the desolate spot to which so many illustrious per- sons have been exiled, including Nikon, and Martha Roma- noff, mother of the Tsar Michael. Bielo-ozero appears in every period of Russian history, from the time of its founda- tion by S. Cyril of Simonof, the companion and friend of 426 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. S. Sergius, and it became the parent house of the island monastery of Solovetsky (most easily reached from Arch- angel), where Nikon lived as a monk. ' Thirsting after a retreat of absolute quiet, Cyril secluded himself on the silent shores of the White Lake ; but such a light as his could not remain hid under a bushel ; his monastery grew and flourished, even like that of S. Sergius, and became an object of deepest reverence to the Tsars, especially to Ivan the Terrible. In its turn it became the seed-bed of other houses, which sprang up around it, both near and far off. From the white waters of its lake, S. Sabbatius carried the germ of monasticism to the grey waves of the Northern Ocean ; there, in the uninhabited islands of the White Sea, his fellow-labourer Ger- manus, and his successor S. Zosimus, laid the foundations of the Solovetsky Lavra, which has stood as a glorious boundary of our country to the North, and illuminated all the coasts of the sea with the light of Christianity.' Mouravieff. Besides Valdai, Valamo, and Yurieff, near Novogorod, which have been already mentioned, the other monasteries of greatest importance are the Pecherskoe (catacomb) monastery, near Pskoff, in the north, and the all-famous Pecherskoe monastery of Kieff, in the south. In the time of Peter the Great there were five hundred and fifty-seven monasteries and convents in Russia, three of which the Abramief at Rostoff, the Vydubitsky at Kieff, and the Peryn at Novogorod were founded at the end of the tenth century. 427 CHAPTER IX. KIEFF. RAILWAY travelling on most of the great Russian lines is by no means as luxurious as is usually imagined. Nothing can look more comfortable than the little com- partments of the sleeping-cars, but the motion of the long unwieldy carriages is terrific : a gentle wavy movement like that of a caterpillar, which in a few hours often pro- duces the same results as a boat in a heavy swell at sea. Besides, everything depends upon your companion, who is of much more consequence than in the mixed society of a large carriage in other countries. ' I guess, stranger, that you will not want to have the window open this journey, because I will not allow it ; I am in my right, and I will not allow it,' said an American, on becoming the writer's companion for a journey of fifty-two hours, through which time of suffocating misery no entreaties did induce him to allow it. Then there are no non-smoking (met cheruske] compartments, and all the carriages stink no other word expresses it so horribly of stale smoke that lying down upon the reeking cushions is an indescribable penance, while even Russian ladies, if such are your companions, seldom fail to smoke cigarette after cigarette of the strongest 428 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. tobacco ; and all night, as well as all day, this smoking con- tinues. The pillows with which the Russians always travel are almost indispensable on these long journeys, and are very useful at the smaller hotels, where it is by no means certain that pillow-cases, sheets, or towels will be supplied with the rooms. Quite a new phase of country is entered upon by those who travel south from Moscow. Hitherto all has been forest, henceforth there is scarcely a tree. We enter now upon the vast dreary plains which are only a prolongation of the Asiatic plateaux. Before, the desolation has seemed intense, now it is entire. As Sterne remarks, ' Nothing puts a writer of travels in such difficulty as sending him over an extensive plain.' To journey many leagues and say nothing might seem like inattention, but to write observations of no moment is less pardonable than any omission. Vast, flat, and monotonous, such is now the character of every- thing. ' Quoiqu'on me conduisit avec une grande rapidite, il me semblait que je n'avancais pas, tant la contree etait monotone. Des plaines de sable, quelques forets de bouleaux et des villages a grande distance les uns des autres, composes de maisons de bois, toutes tailless sur le meme modele, voila les seuls objets qui s'offrissaient a mes regards. J'eprouvais cette sorte de cauchemar qui saisit quelquefois la nuit, quand on croit marcher toujours et n'avancer jamais. II me semblait que ce pays etait 1'image de 1'espace infini et qu'il fallait 1'eternite pour le traverser.'- -Madame de StacL Russian authors, however, can almost always make one discover a kind of charm in their native scenery : ' He was on his way, and his tarantass rolled rapidly along the by- road. A great drought had prevailed for fifteen days ; a slight mist spread a creamy tint through the atmosphere and enveloped the distant TULA AND KURSK. 429 forests, they seemed to send forth a smell of burning ; little dark clouds marked their undecided forms upon a clear blue sky ; a strong wind blew in dry gusts which did not refresh the air. With his head resting against the cushions of the carriage, and his arms crossed upon his breast, Lavretsky let his glance wander over the ploughed fields which unfolded themselves before him like a fan, upon the cytisus which seemed to fly, upon the crows and magpies which followed the equipage as it passed with an eye stupidly suspicious, and upon the long ditches overgrown with southernwood, absinthe, and the wild service-tree. He regarded the horizon, this solitude of the steppes, so unbroken, so fresh, so fertile ; this verdure, these long uplands, these hollows over- grown with bushes of dwarf oak, these grey villages, these scraggy birch trees ; till all this picture of Russian nature, which he had not seen for so long, awakened feelings at once sweet and sad in his heart.' Tourgueneff, ' A Retreat of Gentlefolks. ' There are said to be usually fifteen inhabitants to every square kilometre in European Russia ; to the same pro- portion of land in England there would be a hundred and fourteen. At long intervals we see a town, but there are only four towns in Russia, except S. Petersburg and Moscow, which have as many as a hundred thousand inhabitants. The first important place of those we pass through is Tula, which is a zavbd, or manufacturing town, where small objects in iron and steel are sold at the station. The great river Don, which is 1,300 miles in length, rises near this in Lake Ivanozero, whence the name of Don Ivanovitch, which occurs so often in Russian folk lore. At Kursk, the cathedral in the monastery contains a famous icon, said to have been found in a wood in 1295, which has become a great object of pilgrimage. Near the towns the foregrounds of the scenery are often pretty, even idyllic, the backgrounds flat, wild, and boundless. Turning westwards from Kursk (the direct line goes through South Russia to the Crimea), the railway to Kieff 43 o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. soon passes out of Great into Little Russia, and enters upon the steppes of the Ukraine, the home of the semi- nomadic Cossacks. ' The steppe countries of European Russia form a connected extent of land of 453,600 square miles. On this enormous space there are only thin strips of wood upon the banks of some of the streams, such as the Bug, Dnieper, Volga, Akhtuba, &c. , constituting certainly not more than the two-hundredth part of the whole territory. To the traveller coming from the north the steppe becomes gradually percep- tible by the forests appearing more and more in isolated patches, and the grass plains growing larger in extent. All at once the wood ceases entirely, not a bush is to be seen, and the steppe stretches out in its immensity before us. On the margins of the steppe the roots and stumps of trees are occasionally found in the ground, showing that in former times the forest extended further, but in a short time these cease, and there is no longer any trace of forest having ever existed. On the skirts of the forest also it is evident that it does not of itself advance towards the steppe ; the seed never forms new bushes. This does not arise from the soil not receiving the seed from the wood, or from the latter not striking root, but because the trees are displaced by the grass vegetation. ' The whole plant-world presents a struggle for the dominion of the soil : thus the cryptogams are displaced by the grasses, the latter by the heath ; bushes give place to flowers, one kind of tree to another, and in turn the trees, the giants of their empire, to the grasses, the dwarfs. In the steppes near the Caucasus, on the Kuban and Terek, the vegetation of annual plants, which here cover the ground twice a year, is of almost incredible luxuriance. The weeds grow ten, twenty, thirty feet in height, imitating and obstructing the growth of trees, being used as fuel by the people. The thick grass vegetation, five to seven feet high, on the margins of all the forests north of the chalk steppes, has the same effect. Every spring this entire mass of plants springs up with such vigour, and spreads with such rapidity, that any seed of a tree falling amongst it takes years to attain even the height of the lowest grasses, and is choked in its first growth.' Haxthansen, ' The Russian Empire. ' In winter these steppes are traversed by vast flocks of wolves, the terror of sledge travellers. THE UKRAINE. 431 ' The wolf-chase on the steppes is quite peculiar in its way. A thicket in which wolves are supposed to lie concealed is surrounded by nets. In front of these nets the hunters station themselves with their fowling-pieces, and behind them stand the peasants with spears and pitchforks. The drivers and dogs then enter the thicket to scare the wolves into the plain. Those wolves that escape the tubes of the hunters entangle themselves in the nets, when they are speared and pitchforked by the peasants, and sometimes taken alive. The genuine Cossack of the steppe, however, uses neither musket nor pitchfork, but mounted on his trusty steed depends only on his well-plaited nagaika or whip, with which he rarely fails to cut down a wolf, as with a sabre.' Kohl. Little Russia is still always called the Ukraine by its natives, who do not like to acknowledge it to be smaller than Great Russia. Here is the grain-growing district of the empire. From a religious sentiment the reaping is usually begun by a priest. Much of the wheat is shipped to England. The country is principally in the hands of the great landowners : Count Orloff Davidoff alone possesses half a million of acres. With the character of the country that of the people completely changes. ' On oublie trop qu'il y a deux Russies : a Saint-Petersbourg, tine Russie officielle, feodale, aristocratique et bureaucratique, semi-alle- mande et semi-europeenne ; et dans les immenses plaines du reste de Pempire, une Russie vetue de peau de mouton, immobile et pensive comme PAsie, son a'ieule, muette et immuable dans son fatalisme apathique et sa raide orthodoxie, ficlele a ses traditions, franchement russe, et subissant avec une resignation de bete le joug que font peser sur elle ceux a qui appartiennent toutes les richesses, tous les privileges, tons les pouvoirs et tous les droits.' Victor Tissot, ' Russes et AllemandsS Originally, the Cossacks were divided into the two great branches of Cossacks of the Don and of the Dnieper ; the former of these became incorporated with Russia as early as the time of Ivan the Terrible, but the latter were nominally 432 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. subject to Poland. Both divisions, from their habit of kidnapping Tartar women, had a strong admixture of Tartar blood. 1 In the middle of the seventeenth century, an attempt of the King of Poland to enforce popery upon the Cossacks, and to make their prince a hetman, delegate of his power, roused the indignation of the people, and they began a war with Poland which continued to the middle of the seventeenth century, with terrible reprisals on both sides. Being 'left orphans, and seeing their country left like a widow after the loss of a mighty husband, they held out their hands to one another as brothers.' 2 They first sought refuge amid the wooded islands of the Dnieper, whence the name of the rebel community Zaporoghian Ssieche ; Zaporoghian meaning ' beyond the rapids,' 3 Ssieche mean- ing a spot in a forest where trees have been cut down, and a slaughter in the thick of a fight, a name inseparable from deeds of valour and cruelty. 4 The Zaporoghian Cossacks lived by the sword and had no fear of death. No woman was permitted to dwell in their island colonies, and in memory of their fallen no tears were shed, but their exploits were sung in triumph. Their bravest member was elected as their chief, and bore the title of ataman (quite 'different to the hetman, or elective prince of Little Russia). 5 They were subdivided into koorens (from kooren, to smoke), communities whose fires smoked and cooked in common, and each of these had a koorenno'i ataman, subordinate to the ataman of the Ssieche, and who could be deposed at will, except during absence in war, when the koschevdi ataman (chief ataman) had dictatorial power. 6 1 See Wallace. - Gogol. 3 Porog signifies a rapid fall, in Russian. * To'stoy. 5 Count Platoff was not a hetman, but an ataman. 6 Tolstoy. THE COSSACKS. 433 After they had established their freedom, the Zaporoghians united themselves with the rest of the Cossacks, as the whole of the inhabitants of the Ukraine were henceforth called, and in 1654, all Little Russia submitted to the Tsar Alexis. But, to the Russian, the very name of Cossack has continued to be emblematic of freedom, and the Cossacks have always been ready to fight on the first notice of their country or their faith being in danger. In later times the Ssieche became merely encampments of Cossacks, ready to answer to the call of the hetman of Little Russia. Peter the Great treated the Cossacks with great severity, especially after their hetman Mazeppa joined Charles XII. The helmanship itself was abolished by Catherine II., and in her reign the last Zaporoghians, under their ataman NekrassorT, emigrated to Turkey, and then, as the Ssieche finally ceased to exist, the romance of the Cossacks vanished. At the present day the Cossacks are a standing militia, living on their own lands in the south-east of Russia. They are bound to maintain a fixed number of regiments at their own cost, and are governed by their respective atamans of the Don, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Astrakhan, Oren- burg, the Ural, Siberia, and the trans-Baikalian Cossacks, who guard the Russian frontier towards China. The dress of a Cossack, called cossakin, is a closely- fitting coat, fastened by hooks down the middle of the breast. Strong, handsome, and active, the Cossacks are capable of great endurance of fatigue and privation. They have a peculiar power of self-adaptation, and are perhaps the most valuable troops the Tsar possesses. They are even more fond of spirituous liquors than other Russians. Gogol, the especial author of the Ukraine, a writer who could cause his F F 434 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. readers to laugh when he laughed and weep when he wept, makes a Cossack say ' Go, go, and have everything in the house put upon the table. We do not want pastry, honey-cakes, poppy-seed cakes, and all those sweet nonsenses. Bring us a whole roasted sheep, give us a buck, let us have some mead that is twenty years old, and above all things, plenty of brandy ; and let it not be the brandy with raisins and various spices, but plain, clean, corn brandy, that hisses and simmers.' Tarass Boolba. In former days, when a young Cossack was about to leave the paternal dwelling, all the family would sit down in silence for a few minutes before the departure; then they rose at once, made tha sign of the cross, and the eldest person present invoked the blessing of heaven upon the traveller. ' " Now, sons, all is ready, don't waste time," said Boolba. " Now, we must all, like Christians, sit down before the journey." ' Everyone sat down, including even the servants, who had stood respectfully by the door. ' " Now, mother, bless thy children ! " said Boolba. " Pray God that they may be brave in war, that they preserve their honour and hold fast the faith of Christ ; otherwise it were better that nothing remained of them in the world. Go to your mother, children ; the prayer of a mother preserves one by sea and land." ' The tender mother embraced them, took two small holy images, and sobbing, hung them round their necks. ' " May the Holy Virgin preserve you ; do not forget your mother, my sons : send me word of your welfare." She could say no more. '"Let us begone now, my children ! ' v said Boolba.' Gogol, ' Tarass Boolba.' The boundaries of communal lands amongst the Cossacks used to be remembered by the whole population walking along the boundary decided on, and taking the boys of the districts on each side and whipping them soundly upon it, that they might be sure to remember the scene of THE KOURGANS. 435 their punishment as long as they lived. But if the boys, growing up to manhood, forgot, one of the oldest inhabi- tants was made to swear on the Scriptures that he would act honestly, and then taking an icon in his hand, to walk along what he believed to be the right boundary. These customs existed till 1850, when the Government decided the boundaries. In later years an endless variety of nationalities have settled on the steppe, which is partly owing to the efforts of Catherine II. to encourage emigration from other countries, which have been continued under succeeding sovereigns. The traveller, in crossing the steppe, will be struck by a number of little mounds occurring at intervals. ' On the steppe small and regularly formed mounds constantly strike the eye. The latter are occasionally surmounted by roughly cut stone figures, which look down like ghosts upon the silent desert. Sometimes these mounds are seen clustered together in large numbers, looking as if they formed a great cemetery ; at other times isolated mounds extend in lines along the heights, till they disappear altogether, or rise up only at distant intervals in the steppe. The country over which the mounds are scattered comprises more than 600,000 square miles. The statues are made of a stone which is not found nearer than four hundred miles from the spots where they have been erected ; and this is not the case with regard to one statue only, but to thousands. ' In the Government of Tver, in the north of Russia, these tumuli are called Sopki, Zapadni, Koptzi : throughout the south of Russia they have the name of Kurgani, but among the Little Russians that also of Mogili. The word JCuTgan is said to be derived from the Tartar giir, kyr, kiir, signifying a grave or hill, and khani, a house literally, a grave-house. Mogila, Mohila, is said to be derived from the Arabic, and to signify a hill, or resting-place. The statues on the Kurgans have no peculiar name ; the people call them Babas, old women or mothers. ' The mounds are innumerable, and there are many thousand statues still existing, while thousands have probably been destroyed, as any F F 2 43 6 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. trace of religious veneration for them has disappeared. The statues evidently belong to various peoples, exhibiting the most dissimilar physiognomies, dress, and ornaments : they are moreover not of one and the same age. It is most likely that all the various peoples who have successively traversed and inhabited the steppe, adopted the custom of erecting these tumuli, which probably originated in some religious worship ; and thus thousands of years may have elapsed between the erection of the most ancient and the most recent monuments. The first writer hitherto known to mention them is Ammianus Marcellinus, who, in his description of the Huns, says : " They have singular forms, and might be mistaken for beasts walking upon two legs, or for those roughly hewn columns in human form which are seen on the shores of the Pontus Euxinus."' Haxthausen, ' The Russian Empire? ' It is silent where these graves display their sad and lonely hillocks ! It is gloomy and deserted in the tempest-stricken Ukraine.' Malczewski. In some of the Kourgans coffinless skeletons have been found with vases of black pottery containing food at their feet. Sometimes the skeletons have remains of dress, chiefly leather. In some of the sepulchres are bronze orna- ments. In the graves of women, silver diadems and orna- ments of crystal and pearls have been found. ' Les observations anthropologiques s'accordent ici avec les donnees de 1'histoire, qui nous montrent les Slaves etablis en ce pays longtemps avant 1'arrivee de Rurik. Ces tombeaux sont bien ceux des Slaves de 1'Ilmen, fondateurs de Novgorod la Grande, maitres des grands lacs, triomphateurs de la Baltique; createurs de tant de colonies dans les deserts du nord. . . . On voit que si 1'on immolait encore sur le corps d'un guerrier illustre quelque gracieuse compagne, on ne brdlait pas les corps : on ne reduisait en cendres que les animaux offerts en sacrifice.' A. Ratnbaud, ' Revue des Deiix MondesJ 1874. In the earlier part of the summer, a Russian steppe possesses a luxuriant beauty not unlike that of the Roman Campagna. APPROACH TO KIEFF. 437 ' The farther the steppe went, the grander it became. At that time the whole tract of land which now forms New Russia, even as far as the coast of the Black Sea, was but one green uninhabited waste. No plough ever furrowed its immense undulating plains of wild plants ; the wild horses which herded there alone trampled them down. Nothing in nature was more beautiful to look upon. The whole vast steppe was a green golden ocean, of which a million flowers of various colours sprinkled the surface. Here, through the thin tall blades of grass, the purple, blue, and violet corn-flowers were to be seen ; there the pyramidal head of a yellow genista shot suddenly up ; the umbrella- like heads of the clover shone as spots of white ; some ears of wheat, brought from heaven knows whence, ripened slowly amongst the grass. Beneath their thin stems partridges were fluttering with outstretched necks. The air was filled with the cries of a thousand different birds. Goshawks remained motionless in the sky, poised on their open wings, and with eyes fixed upon the earth. The screams of a flock of wild geese, which were visible like a moving cloud on one side of the horizon, were re-echoed by the murmurs from some distant lake. A gull might be seen, with measured flapping of its wings, rising in the clouds, and bathing luxuriously in the blue waves of the air ; behold, now it vanishes in the skies, only ever and again showing like a dark spot ; now again it turns round, and its wings are gleaming in the sunshine. ' O ye steppes, how beautiful ye are ! ' Gogol, ' Tarass Boolba." 1 It is on the second afternoon after leaving Moscow that we reach the glorious Dnieper, the third river of Europe in the mass of its water, with banks which from early times have been so fertile that Herodotus celebrates it as the stream which, after the Nile, has been most useful to man- kind. Beyond the Dnieper rises a low range of brown hills covered with wood at least they would be low in any other country, but they are high for Russia, and so are called Kiev, ' the mountain.' It is said that S. Andrew, the Apostle of Greece, sailing up the Borysthenes, as the Dnieper was called before the existence of Russia, beheld these hills and exclaimed, ' Look upon these heights, for they shall be illuminated by the 43 8 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. grace of God ; there a great city shall be built, and shall raise its many altars to the Saviour.' l And now, above the fringe of brushwood on the hill-tops rise the many golden domes and bulbous spires of cathedral and convents. The three towns which form Kieff are seen at once, Pecherskoe and its famous lavra ; then old Kieff with its churches and monasteries ; then, on the level, the later Podol, also sparkling with metal spires and domes. After the desolation of the rest of Russia, the scene is indescribably attractive and beautiful. When it has crossed the Dnieper by a long bridge, the railway makes a great circuit to the station, which is quite at the back of the hills. It is certain that the town of Kieff existed long before it is mentioned by the chronicles. Askold 2 and Dir, two of its early princes, are believed to have been the first Russians who embraced Christianity. ' In the year 866 they made their appearance in armed vessels before the walls of Constantinople, during the absence of the Emperor, and caused great alarm and confusion in the Greek capital. Tradition tells that the Patriarch Photius took the virginal robe of the Mother of God from the Blachern church, and plunged it beneath the waters of the straits, when the sea immediately arose in storm, and the vessels of the heathen were wrecked. Awe-stricken, they recognised the God who had smitten them, and became the firstfruits of their people to the Lord. The hymn of victory of the Greek Church " to the protecting Conductress " in honour of the most holy Virgin has remained a memorial of this triumph, and even now amongst ourselves concludes the office for the First Hour in the daily mattins, for that indeed was the first hour of salvation for the land of Russia.' Mouravieff. In -882 the Varagian princes were murdered, and Kieff was seized by Oleg, who was guardian of Igor, son of Rurik, 1 Nesto, ii. 93. 3 See the account of Askold's tomb at Kieff. THE STORY OF KIEFF. 439 and he was so delighted with the beauties and advantages of the situation that he declared Kieff to be ' the mother of all the Russian towns.' l From this time, however, Chris- tianity had nothing more than a flickering existence till the regency of the famous Olga (945-955), widow of Igor, her- self a peasant-girl from Pskoff. Olga, who governed Russia during the minority of her son Sviatoslaf, was probably first instructed in the Christian faith from Moravia, whither, c. 900, Methodius and Cyril travelled from Greece to plant the Gospel, and where, having learnt the Slavonian language, then common to Moravia and Russia, they translated the service of the Church, or some part of it, into the Slavonic tongue from the Greek. After she had cruelly avenged the death of her husband upon the Volga, Olga made a pilgrimage to ' Tsarigrad ' (Constantinople), to seek further knowledge of the true God, and was baptised there by the name of Helena, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus being her god- father. She brought back with her the priest Gregory, by whom she was buried (967) with Christian rites, being honoured as a saint by the people after her death. The warlike Sviatoslaf (son of Olga), who was killed in battle (972), refused to renounce paganism, as he believed that his soldiers would abandon him if he did so. But his son Vladimir, though a cunning, debauched, and bloody bar- barian, who had obtained the throne of Kieff by the cruel murder of his elder brother Yaropolk, after being at first a zealous idolater, became the real founder of Christianity in Russia. The curious story of his conversion is re- corded by Nestor, who lived only in the next generation (1050-1116). The conversations which then took place 1 Karamsin 44 o STUDIES IN RUSSIA. with 'the numerous proselytisers, who hoped to lead him to embrace their faith, exhibit a curious mixture of craft y sim- plicity, and barbaric sense, and are very characteristic of the Russian history of the age. First (986) came envoys from the barbarian Mussulmans of the Volga, saying, * Wise and prudent prince as thou art, thou hast neither law nor religion : accept ours and honour Mahomet.' ' But in what does your religion consist ? ' asked Vladimir. ' We believe in God,' they answered, ' and we believe also in the teaching of the Prophet. Be circumcised, give up eating pork, and after death from seventy wives choose the most beautiful.' Now the last reason had weight with Vladimir, but he did not like circumcision, he liked pork, and loved wine. ' Drinking,' he said, * is the greatest pleasure of the Russians ; we cannot give it up.' Then came representatives of Western Christianity, in the person of members of the sect called Paulicians, and urged Vladimir to embrace their doctrines, saying that the Pope had sent them. * And what does your law command ? ' he asked. ' Well, we fast, and when anyone eats or drinks, he always does it to the glory of God, as w r e have been told by our master, S. Paul.' 'Go hence !' cried Vladimir; 'our fathers did not believe in your religion, and did not receive their religion from the Pope.' Next came Jews from Khozar, and explained how their law demanded circumcision and the observance of Satur- day, and forbade the eating of pork and ham. But the Grand Prince asked them of their country, and when, they confessed that for their sins it had fallen into the hands of the Christians, and that they were dispersed over the earth, he drove them from his presence, saying, ' How do you, CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 441 whom God has rejected, dare to teach others ? If God had approved of you, He would never have dispersed you abroad. You seem to wish to make us also deserving of your punish- ment.' Then came a philosopher from Greece and explained all dealings of God with the world from its creation, expounding the true faith, with the reward of the righteous and the punish- ment of the ungodly; and, to give force to his words, he showed Vladimir a picture of the Last Judgment, which represented the just entering Paradise and the wicked driven into Hell. By this Vladimir was greatly moved, but he demanded time for further reflection, though he sent the philosopher away laden with honourable gifts. In the next year Vladimir summoned his nobles, and told them all he had heard, and they, after saying that it was no more than natural that everyone should praise his own religion, urged him to send forth wise men to examine and report upon the worship of each in its own country. This advice was followed, and after having visited the centres of all the other religions, the envoys came to Tsargorod (Con- stantinople), where Basil Porphyrogenitus was then reigning, who ordered that the messengers of Vladimir should ' see the glory of God ' in the Church of S. Sophia. ' From the very earliest times of the Church, extraordinary signs of God's power have constantly gone hand in hand with that apparent weakness of man by which the Gospel was preached ; and so the Byzantine chronicle narrates of the Russian ambassadors, " That during the Divine Liturgy, at the time of carrying the holy gifts in procession to the throne or altar, and of singing the cherubic hymn, the eyes of their spirits were opened, and they saw, as in an ecstasy, glittering youths who joined in singing the hymn of the Thrice Holy. Being thus fully persuaded of the truth of the orthodox faith, they returned to their own country already Christians in heart ; and without saying a 442 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. word before the prince in favour of the other religions, they declared thus concerning the Greek : "When we stood in the temple, we did not know where we were, for there is nothing else like it upon earth ; there, in truth, God has his dwelling with man ; and we can never forget the glory which we saw there. No one who has once tasted what is sweet, will afterwards take that which is bitter, therefore we cannot any longer remain pagans." Then the Boyars said to Vladimir, " If the religion of the Greeks had not been good, your grandmother Olga, the wisest of women, would not have embraced it." The re- membrances of Olga decided her grandson, and he answered no more than the words, " When shall we be baptised ? " 'Mouravieff ' Vladimir avait envoye des deputes dans divers pays, pour savoir laquelle de toutes les religions il lui convenait le mieux d'adopter; il se decida pour le culte grec, a cause de la pompe des ceremonies. II le prefera peut-etre encore par des motifs plus importants : en effet, le culte grec, en excluant 1'empire du pape, donne au souverain de la Russia les pouvoirs spirituels et temporels tout ensemble.' Mine, de StaeL But, following the custom of his ancestors, Vladimir thought it necessary to conquer his new religion with the sword, and, embarking his warriors, laid siege to Cherson, which belonged to the Greek emperors. This siege was unsuccessful, till a certain priest named Athanasius, by means of an arrow shot from the walls, informed the Russian prince that the fate of the besieged depended upon the supply of water from the aqueducts. The besiegers then cut the water-courses, and the town was forced to submit. Yet still, before he finally accepted Christianity, Vladimir de- manded a visible proof of the truth of the promises of the Saviour, that whatever was asked of the Father in His name, He would give it. He had been assured that there w^as nothing which could not be obtained from God by prayer. Therefore he declared that as God had preserved the com- panions of Daniel in the fiery furnace, He might well preserve the Bible, which contained all these marvellous CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 443 histories, from being consumed by fire. Thereupon a Bible was cast into a great furnace, where it lay unconsumed, till all the fire was spent. Upon this Vladimir was at last convinced, and he embraced Christianity, though at the same time he characteristically demanded from the Greek emperors (Basil Porphyrogenitus and Constantine) the hand of their sister Anne, promising to become outwardly Christian if it was accorded, and vowing that, if it was refused, Con- stantinople should share the fate of Cherson. Anne under- took for the sake of religion to sacrifice herself to the savage of the North, and upon her arrival at Cherson, Vladi- mir was baptised, being cured, it is said, of a disease in his eyes, at the moment when the archbishop's hands were laid upon him. 1 When Vladimir returned to Kieff, it was as an apostle (Isapostolos). In the midst of the tears of the people he destroyed the famous idol Peroun, and dismissed his other idols, and his eight hundred concubines. Then, having caused the twelve sons which his six wives had borne him to be baptised, he ordered a general baptism of his people, declaring that any who refused the rite should be accounted his enemy. ' At the call of their honoured lord all the multitude of the citizens in troops, with their wives and children, flocked to the river, 4 and without any kind of opposition received holy baptism as a nation from the Greek bishops and priests. Nestor draws a touching picture of this baptism of a whole people at once. " Some stood in the water up to their necks, others up to their breasts, holding their young children in their arms ; the priests read the prayers from the shore, naming at once whole companies by the same name." He who was the means of bringing them to salvation, filled with a transport of joy 1 Knramsin. - The PotchaTna, not the Dnieper, which did then flow at the foot of the hills. 444 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. at the affecting sight, cried out to the Lord, offering and commending into His hands himself and his people : " O great God ! Who hast made heaven and earth, look down upon these Thy new people. Grant them, O Lord, to know Thee, the true God, as Thou hast been made known to Christian lands, and confirm them in a true and unwavering faith ; and assist me, O Lord, against my enemy that opposes me, that, trusting in Thee and in Thy power, I may be victorious over his wiles." Vladimir erected the first church, that of S. Basil, after whom he was named, on the very mount which had formerly been sacred to Peroun, adjoining his own palace. Thus was Russia enlightened. ' Mottravieff. THE DNIEPER, KIEKF. ' In this great day,' says Nestor, ' the heavens and the earth trembled with joy.' Kieff continued to be the residence of the Russian metropolitans the Canterbury of Russia from the time of Vladimir till 1299, when they were translated to the town of Vladimir. From 997 (when Christianity was introduced) till 1240, Russia continued to be under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Constantinople, but, after the Tartar invasion THE FALL OF KIEFF. 445 had rendered communication with the Greek capital more difficult, the Princes gradually assumed the right of choosing the metropolitan of Kieff, and merely sent him to Constanti- nople for consecration. This sign of submission was finally abandoned in 1448, and the metropolitan was thenceforth consecrated by a council of Russian bishops. The Grand Prince Vladimir was succeeded by his son Yaroslaf, who built the Cathedral of S. Sophia, and introduced into Russia, in the Rousska'ia Pravda, the Byzantine system of Canon Law and the rudiments of Christian education. He was succeeded (1054) by his son Isaiaslaf, followed after a short interval (1093) by his son Sviatopolk, under whom the Pecherskoe monastery was founded. Vladimir Monomachus, grandson of Yaroslaf, who succeeded in 1113, married Gytha, daughter of the Saxon Harold. 1 At his death this prince left singularly wise and Christian injunctions to his sons, enjoin- ing as their mainspring the maxim that ' It is not fasting, nor solitude, nor monastic life that will procure eternal life, but only doing good.' 2 In the beginning of the eleventh century, Kieff, after Constantinople, was the largest and richest town in Eastern Europe; but the chronicler Ditmar records that in 1124, the year before the death of Monomachus, in a great fire which occurred, as many as six hundred churches and chapels were burnt in Kieff. This fact shows the flourishing state of religion in the capital at that time. The political ascendency of Kieff was brief. In 1158 the capital was transferred to Vladimir, and the grand dukes of Kieff, Vladimir, and Novogorod soon became merged into the Tsar of Muscovy. Meanwhile the riches of the 1 Mouravicff. ' 2 Karamsin, ii. 446 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ancient capital were a constant attraction to its enemies, and it was four times destroyed : in 1 1 7 1 by the army of Andrew, Prince of Sousdalia ; in 1240 by the Mongol Bati Khan ; in 1416 by the Tartars ; and in 1584 by the Crimean Tartars, incited by Ivan III. of Moscow. After the last destruction it was deserted for ten years, then rebuilt. It is still, in spite of all its misfortunes, the fourth city in importance of the Russian Empire, but, though it occupies forty square kilo- metres, it has only eighty thousand inhabitants : without in- creasing its limits externally, it could receive three times that number if all its waste places were built upon. Kieff is the sacred city, the ' Holy Place ' of Southern Russia, the Kiouba or Sambatas of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Kouyaba of the Arabs, the Man-Kerman of the Tartars. As the Great Russian speaks of 'Holy Mother Moscow,' so the Little Russian speaks of ' Holy Mother Kieff.' Kieff is formed by a collection of towns, difficult of access from one another. The ascents and descents are well managed, but interminable. 1 Open vans instead of omni- buses meet the traveller at the station, and take him across the hills to the fashionable quarter of the town, which occupies the hollow between the T O wn on the Cliff, which contains the cathedral and the principal churches, and that called Pecherskoi, which contains the famous monastery. The Podol, or mercantile part of the town, lies in the plain of the Dnieper, behind the Town on the Cliff. The Grand Hotel is, for Russia, very comfortable, and stands in a broad street, with handsome shops. Immediately behind the hotel rises the hill 'The Cliff' 1 No to\vn has steeper hills than Kieff, which is going to employ the cog-wheel principle, used on the Righi, to its street railways. S. SOPHIA OF KIEFF. 447 ascending which we first reach upon the left the vast enclosure of the Monastery of S. Michael of the Golden Head, surmounted by many gilt domes. Originally dating from the first years of the twelfth century, when it was founded by Sviatopolk, grandson of Yaroslaf, who was buried within its walls, it was rebuilt in 1523. The church contains the silver shrine of S. Barbara, the patroness of armourers and soldiers and protectress against lightning, who suffered martyrdom in 303, having been converted to Christianity at Alexandria by Origen. The relics of the saint were brought to Russia by Barbara, first wife of Sviatopolk, who was daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople. 1 Against the iconastos is the diamond-set icon of S. Michael, which Alexander I. took with him through the whole campaign of 1812. Curious reliefs represent S. George and S. Demetrius fighting dragons. Facing us, across the open space on the left, stands the gigantic belfry which forms the approach to an enclosure containing the magnificent Cathedral of S. Sophia, 'the marvel of the Ukraine,' which disputes with the cathedral of Tchernigow the palm of being the oldest church in Russia, having been built by the Grand Duke Yaroslaf (son of Vladimir) in 1037, in memory of his victory over the Pet- chenegians on that spot. ' The high-sounding name of S. Sophia pleased the prince, who wished to reproduce in his own capital the monuments of Byzantium, and was delighted that even in his time it enjoyed the reputation of being a second Constantinople. He had called one of its gates "the golden," as if in memory of those gates of Constantinople on which his ancestor Oleg had hung his victorious shield ; but Yaroslaf still more ardently desired that the temple of the Divine Wisdom, S. Sophia, 1 Mouravieff, iii. 448 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. in which his father's ambassadors had first believed on the true God, should be copied at least in name, if not altogether in structure, in his two capitals of Kieff and Novogorod, as Vladimir had erected the Cathedral of the most holy Virgin in memory of that at Cherson in which he was baptised. The metropolitan Theopemptus, who had been sent by the patriarch Alexis Studites, consecrated the cathedral of S. Sophia, and it has stood, even to our own times, together with the marble tomb of its founder, through all the storms of the Mongolian invasion and the frequent sackings of Kieff. Mouravieff. S. SOPHIA, KIEFF. The church of Kieff is a great deal smaller than that of Constantinople, this measuring thirty -six metres by fifty-three, that ninety-six by seventy-seven. This church is only forty, and its great namesake sixty-six metres high. Still S. Sophia of Kieff is the largest of the ancient Russian cathedrals. The interior is very lofty in effect, arid will strike even those who are fresh from Moscow as unspeakably rich, solemn, and beauti- S. SOPHIA OF KIEFF. 449 ful, and glorious in its harmonious colouring. Nothing can be more effective than the ancient gold which here covers the walls, and the brilliantly lighted tombs of the saints seen through the dark arches. Endless and labyrinthine seem the pillars, the tiny chapels, and the eight secondary choirs which encircle the principal choir. A gorgeous iconastos cuts the church in half, and innumerable icons sparkle every- where under their ' metallic cloths,' as the Russians call them. In one oi the chapels on the right, that of the Three Popes, are some ancient Byzantine frescoes, absolutely un- touched. Their preservation in recent times is due to the Emperor Nicholas. ' Time will thus show/ he said, ' to posterity, that in all the rest of the church we have been satis- fied to restore without making any innovations.' On the stairs which lead to the upper galleries are representations of fan- tastic animals, probably the most interesting frescoes in Russia huntsmen pursuing wild beasts, which are sometimes perched in the trees. Other frescoes represent a man in prison, and a sort of tribunal, dancers moving to the sound of many instruments, a juggler, and charioteers in a hippodrome waiting the signal for the race. ' Partout il y a des accessoires, des divisions, des compartiments a 1'infini ; au milieu de ces chapelles et de ces galeries, on cherche 1'eglise ; mais ce qui rejouit 1'archeologue, c'est 1'immense quantite de fresques et de mosa'iques qui couvrent ces voutes et ces piliers. On voit partout des prophetes, des saints, des docteurs avec leurs grands yeux fixes, noirs, nullement russes, et ce type special qui denote un pinceau byzantin. Le livre sacre dans une main, 1'autre levee pour benir ou pour instruire, ils semblent continuer 1'ceuvre d'evangelisation com- mencee par les Grecs du x me siecle parmi les populations slaves. Leurs noms memes sont inscrits non en caracteres slaves, mais en grec. Aux voutes des chapelles et des galeries planent les anges de Dieu, ces " faces volantes" qui n'ont d'autre corps que six ailes flamboyarites et G G 450 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. multicolores. Tous ces sujets sont traites d'une fagon absolument iden- tique a ceux qui decorent 1'eglise de Justinien. ' Alfred Rambaud. In the mosaics behind the altar is a colossal figure of the Virgin, with the inscription, ' God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.' * Below is the Last Supper, in which the figure of Christ appears twice. On the right of the tabernacle, which is guarded by angels, He gives his Body to six of the Apostles, on the left He gives his Blood to the other six. In the chapel of his father, S. Vladimir, is the tomb of the founder, Yaroslaf, with whom the power and prosperity of ancient Russia came to an end. 2 The sculpture of the tomb Latin crosses, fish, and palms recalls that of the Roman catacombs. ' Sous ce Yaroslaf, Kief atteignit au xi siecle son plus magnifique developpement : c'est alors qu'elle fut la ville aux 700 eglises. Apres la mort de ce Charlemagne russe, qui fut le beau-pere d'un roi de France, Kief cut le sort d'Aix-la-Chapelle. Pillee pendant les guerres civiles des princes russes, saccagee par les Tatars en 1280, conquise par les Polonais, sa decadence fut rapide. Vers le milieu du xvi e siecle de grands arbres croissaient sur les toits de Sainte-Sophie.' Rambaud. In accordance with his wish, Vsevolod, the favourite son of the great Yaroslaf, was laid by his father's side in 1093. ' All the people assisted at his funeral, for they deplored the loss of their princes as that of veritable fathers, the recollec- tion of their failings being swallowed up in that of their benefits. 3 It was in this church that Vladimir Monomachus, pro- claimed first Tsar of Russia, was crowned (1123) by the 1 Psalm xlvi. 5. 2 Karamsin. 3 Karamsin. S. SOPHIA OF KIEFF. 451 metropolitan of Ephesus. But the crown, still preserved at Moscow, which is called by his name, and used in the Im- perial coronations, is now decided never to have belonged to Vladimir. Here, also, after his death in 1126, which took place at the spot where Boris was murdered on the shore of the Alta, this illustrious prince was buried. Amongst the great relics of the church are the uncorrupt remains of the metropolitan S. Macarius, martyred on the road by the Tartars ! in 1497. It is probably at S. Sophia that we shall obtain our first sight of the crowds of pilgrims who are always visiting Kieff Cossackmen in a single garment of sheepskin or sack- cloth, women in turbans, short brilliant-coloured petticoats, and jack-boots. Most strange at first is the mass of bowing, curvetting, and prostrating figures, never making their obei- sance at the same time, but just when the impulse of the moment prompts them ; and yet no one can help being touched by the reality of reverence which is seen here the absorption unconscious of all surroundings ; often the rapt beatitude. At night, near all the churches, rows of sheep- skins may be seen lying on the ground. These are men asleep under the stars, sheepskins being at once the dress, beds, carpets, and tents of the peasants. A wide grassy enclosure surrounds the cathedral, with trees and the palace of the metropolitan on one side. It is to this enclosure that the mighty detached belfry serves as a portal. In the handsome street near the cathedral a little chapel covers the spring which is said to have gushed forth at the call of S. Vladimir, and in which his twelve sons were 1 Mcuraviefif, xxx. G G 2 452 STUDIES IN RUSSIA, baptised. A painting here commemorates the wholesale baptism of the population, the shoulders and breasts of the Christian converts only veiled by their long tresses. The docile nature of the Russian was never evinced more than in the facility of their conversion. ' If baptism had not been good, our princes and nobles would not have received it,' was a reason quite sufficient for them. Several other buildings must be visited in the Town on the Cliff. Most of them stand near together towards the brow of the hill overhanging the Dnieper, and separated by wide grassy spaces and rough lanes rather than streets, which will recall the deserted paths of the Aventine to those who are familiar with Rome. We must notice the beautiful Byzantine frescoes in the Church of S. Cyril, and the shape- less mass of masonry which once contained the Golden Gate (Zolotye Vorotd), built by Yaroslaf in imitation of that at Constantinople. Boleslas of Poland, when he entered Kieff, split the Golden Gate with the sword which tradition declares to have been given to him by an angel, and which was afterwards called ' the nicked,' on account of a bit which was hacked out when he was cutting through the gate of Kieff. 1 This sword, still preserved in the cathedral of Cracow, was long used at the Polish coronations. The rude fragments which enclosed the Golden Gate are inter- esting as the only existing remains of the ancient walls and towers of Kieff. The Church of S. Basil, or the Three Popes (Trekhsvia- titelei), has been too much restored to be of much present interest ; but it was founded in 989 by Vladimir, who took the name of Basil at his baptism. He chose the site because 1 See notes to Karamsin. THE DES1ATINNAJA CHURCH. 453 there, before his conversion, he had erected his famous statue of Peroun, the god of thunder, made of wood, with a silver head and a golden beard. 1 Peroun was the greatest of the ancient gods ; his bow was the rainbow, his arrows the thunderbolts, his golden key the lightning with which he was supposed to unlock the frozen springs of the earth. 2 With the tempests, he could hold the spirits of evil in sub- jection. 3 Here his statue was surrounded by those of the other gods as satellites Khorse, Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargla, and Mokoche. ' Here,' says Nestor, ' one saw the deluded people crowd to redden the earth with the blood of their victims.' Close by is the ravine of Boritchef, long time called 'the Devil's Falling Place,' 4 for here, after Vladimir had caused Peroun to be dragged over the hills at a horse's tail, scourged by twelve mounted pursuers, he threw him down into the river. But, being of wood, Peroun floated upon the sacred waters, and was carried to the spot called Vydoubitski, where the people dragged it to shore and wor- shipped it. Vladimir, however, destroyed it there, and built a commemorative monastery on the site. The spot where the idol was brought to land was long known as the Bay of Peroun. The Desiatinnaja Church (Church of the Tithes), of re- markable and striking, though heavy character, is a modern reproduction, on the same site, of the ancient church founded in 989 by S. Vladimir, who made a vow to endow it with the tenth part of all his revenues. Hence it was generally 1 Rambaud. ~ In Christian mythology the attributes of PeVoun seem to have passed to S. Elias the Prophet. When it thunders, the people say, ' The Prophet Elias is driving in his chariot through the heaven.' See Tourgneneff, ' Parents and Children' 3 Ralston. * Rambaud. 454 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. known as ' the Cathedral of the Tithes,' l though it was dedicated to ' the Holy Mother of God,' being built in the ' two-faithed ' days when, immediately after the destruction of Peroun, the Virgin Mary was beginning to take the place of Lada, the Russian goddess of Spring, and sister of Peroun. This is the church alluded to at the end of the famous ballad called 'the Song of Igor.' ' Igor arrives at Boritchef, at the church of the Holy Mother of God of Pirogoch. The country rejoices, the towns are glad ; songs are sung in honour of the elder princes, then of the younger. They sing the glory of Igor Sviatoslavitch, of the savage auroch Vsevolod,* of Vladimir the falconnet, the son of Igor. Health to the princes, and to their droujina which fights for the Christian people against the pagans ! Glory to the princes, Amen to their droujina !' Vladimir endowed his church with the images, cross, and vases, which he had brought from Kherson, and gave it up to the administration of priests from that town, under the government of Anastasius, by whose treachery he had taken that city. 3 This was the earliest stone cathedral erected in Russia, 4 and the site was chosen as being that where the Varagian martyrs, honoured by the Greek Church under the names of John and Theodore, suffered. After Vladimir, in A.D. 983, had returned from the conquest of the Yatvagers (a Finnish tribe), and was celebrating a festival in honour of his gods, his elders and boyars, in the flush of victory, had said to him : ' Let us cast lots upon our sons and daughters, and on whomsoever the lot shall fall, him will we sacrifice with the sword unto our gods.' 1 Mouravieff. 2 Brother of Igor. 3 Karamsin. This Anastasius who had betrayed Kherson to Vladimir, afterwards betrayed his second country to Boleslas, King of Poland. 4 Mouravieff. THE DESIATINNAJA CPIURCH. 455 ' And there was a Varagian, whose residence stood on the spot now occupied by the church of the Holy Mother of God, which Vladimir built. This Varagian had come from Greece, from the imperial city, together with his son, whose name was John. He dwelt in Kieff, and was firmly attached to the Christian faith. His son was still young, and endowed with personal and mental charms. It was upon this man, through the envy of the devil, that the lot fell. And the men who were sent to him declared " Behold, the lot is fallen upon thy son, and he must be offered as a sacrifice to the gods." And the Varagian answered them and said : " Yours are no gods, but lifeless idols ; they endure for a day, and then they become rotten ; they are the work of men's hands, which the axe and the knife have formed. But God is one only, who dwelleth in the heavens : Him the Greeks serve and worship as the Creator of the heaven and the earth, of the stars, the sun, and the moon, the Creator of man and of all creatures, whose lives are in His hands. But as for your gods, what have they created they who are themselves the work of men's hands, who will soon perish and be forgotten ? I will not give up my son to such a superstitious people." Then those who were sent returned and related these words to the assembly, upon which the people came armed and destroyed everything around the house. The Varagian stood on a covered balcony with his son, and the people cried, " Give us your son, that we may offer him up to the gods." But he replied to them, " If they be gods, let them send one of their number to seize my son ; but why should you wish to make a sacrifice to them ? " Then the people cried out, and hewed down the beams which supported the balcony, and in that manner destroyed both the Varagians.' Rosenkampf. In this church is the tomb of Vladimir (1015), the Apostle of Russia, who bears the same title as Constantine ' Isapostolos,' equal to an apostle. The royal saint is repre- sented on the lid of the tomb, which is adorned with the signs of the zodiac. He was laid by the side of the Eastern Grand Princess Anne, who had died four years before. When the ancient Church of the Tithes was destroyed by the Tartars in 1240, the relics of Vladimir were lost ; but they were discovered under one of the ruined arches by 456 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Archbishop Peter Mogila in I636, 1 still remaining intact in their marble coffins, while a similar coffin close by contains the remains of Anne. Mogila, who had been archimandrite of the Pecherskoe, gave the head of Vladimir to his old monastery, but left the other bones and those of the Grand Princess undisturbed. 2 ' Vladimir est devenu le centre dans les chansons populaires : dans ces bylines il est a remarquer qu'il n'est ni Vladimir le Baptiseur, ni le vSdnt Vladimir de 1'eglise orthodoxe, mais presque tin heros solaire, le successeur de ces divinites qu'il a detruites. Pour le peuple, au fond reste paien, Vladimir est toujours le Beau Soleil de Kief.' A.Ranibaud^ l Hist. de la RussieS The superstitious Yaroslaf ordered the bodies of Oleg and Yaropolk, the brothers of Vladimir, who had died in paganism, to be exhumed, baptised, and buried again in this church. Close to Yaroslaf was buried, ' amid the sobs of the people, which drowned the chanting of the priests,' 3 his grandson, the brave and virtuous Ysiaslaf (1078), who was killed in battle at Tchernigov. Here also his son, Yaropolk, murdered in his chariot, was buried in 1086. It was the immediate neighbourhood of this church which was the scene of the last courageous struggle with the terrible invading force of the Tartars under Bati Khan in 1240. ' Mangou, son of Genghis Khan, was sent to reconnoitre Kiefif; he found it upon the eastern bank of the Dnieper, and, according to the annalist, was never weary of admiring its delightful aspect. Indeed, the picturesque position of the town on the steep shores of a noble river, the magnificence of its churches, whose brilliant cupolas stood out against the horizon, seen through the rich foliage of gardens, the white 1 See MouraviefiT. " Dictionary of Russian Saints. S. Petersburg, 183^". 3 Nestor. THE DESTRUCTION OF OLD KIEFF. 457 walls which surrounded it, its gates and threatening towers master- works of Byzantine architects in the happy days of Yaroslaf the Great all were calculated to astonish the barbarians of the desert. . . . Soon, like a fearful storm, the terrible army of Bati surrounded Kieff on every side. The noise of innumerable waggons, the bellowing of camels and oxen, the neighing of horses, the fierce cries of the enemy, scarcely, according to the annalist, allowed a voice to be audible inside the town. . . . The attack begins by an assault upon the Polish Gate, which leads to the ravines ; there, clay and night, battering-rams and other engines of war beat upon the walls, which, yielding to their furious blows, fall with a crash, and leave the brave Kievians, the best protection of their unhappy town, without defence. A fearful struggle instantly commences : the arrows darken the air, the dead and dying are rolled underfoot ; the despair of the besieged long resists the superior numbers of the enemy, but by the evening the Tartars are in possession of the walls. The success of the Mongols does not weaken the courage of the Russian soldiers : they beat a retreat as far as the Church of the Tithes ; they surround it by night with a palisade, and, entrenched behind this kind of fortification, boldly await the enemy, whilst all the inhabitants who are unfit to bear arms, shut themselves up in the church with all their most precious possessions. It was impossible that such a feeble means of defence could save the town ; nevertheless not a word of negotiation was heard ; no one thought of asking grace, of imploring the clemency of the cruel Bati ; all faced the death that awaited them as a generous sacrifice imposed by their religion and country. . . . The Mongols, worn out with fatigue, passed the night on the ruins of the walls ; with the morning they recommenced the attack, and soon broke through the feeble barrier which the courage of the Russians had opposed to them. These, sustained by the feeling that the tomb of S. Vladimir was behind them, and that they were defending this last asylum of their liberty, executed prodigies of valour. All, however, was in vain, and the barbarian's reached the church of Our Lady, after having strewn the space which separated them from it with corpses. ' To celebrate their victory, the Mongols gave themselves up for several days to all the horrors of destruction. Weary of carnage, they buried under the blood-stained ruins the whole population, the master- pieces of art, the fruits of a long civilisation ; and the ancient Kieff, that famous capital, the mother of Russian towns, disappeared for ever, for, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, only scattered ruins attested its existence, and the new town offers nothing but the shadow of 458 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. its ancient splendour. It is in vain that, urged by curiosity, the traveller will seek for the objects so sacred in Russian eyes. Where will he find the tomb of S. Olga ? What has become of the bones of S. Vladimir ? The pitiless Bati did not even spare the sacred refuge of the tomb, and the barbarians trampled the skulls of the ancient princes under their feet. The tomb of Yaroslaf alone escaped the devastation, as if to recall to the world that the glory of the lawgivers of men is the most solid and the most durable. The Church of the Tithes, that earliest, that magnificent building, erected by Greek architects, was ruined to its foundations, and its remains have since been used in the construction of another church, in the walls of which one may see, at the present time, fragments of an inscription belonging to the ancient building.' Karanisin. In a most picturesque position a point overhanging the plain, just beyond the other churches, stands S. Andrea ( Andre ya Pervoyvannago), supposed to mark the site where S. Andrew first prophetically planted the cross. It is a pretty building, erected in the middle of the last century by Rastrelli. In the gracefully decorated interior is a cross, brought from Mount Athos by Mouravieff the historian. The church is approached by an iron staircase, and stands on a terrace which has a glorious view over the plain of the Dnieper. From hence the pilgrims delight to trace out their past wanderings as in a map, and the terrace is always peopled by groups of them, one generally explaining the different features in the view. Hence one may often witness such soul-subduing sunsets as recall the description of Gogol. * As evening came on, the whole scenery of the steppe underwent a change. The last bright reflection of the sun once more encircled its variegated expanse, which grew gradually darker as the shades of evening slowly advanced over it, making its green hues blacker and more black ; the scents became more aromatic ; every flower, every herb sent forth its sweet perfumes, and a cloud of fragrance seemed THE PODOL. 459 to hover over the whole of the steppe. Across the blue dark- ness a giant brush seemed to have drawn broad stripes of red gold ; at times light transparent clouds flitted across it like so many white flocks ; the most delicious breeze, fresh as the salt waves, gently stirred the surface of the grass, and softly caressed the cheek. The harmony which had filled the steppe by day was silenced, and other sounds took its place. Animals which had burrowed underground throughout the day came forth, and made the steppe resound with their cries and hisses. Louder and louder grew the chirrup of the crickets. Sometimes from a distant pool the cry of a swan was heard ringing silvery through the air.' Tarass Boolba. A very steep winding road leads down the rugged hill- side from S. Andrea to the Podol, the city in the plain, where the Potchina falls into the Dnieper. This is the town of commerce and industry, which contains, amongst many other ecclesiastical edifices, the Bratski Monastery, princi- pally built by Mazeppa. 1 Some of its buildings are occu- pied by an ecclesiastical college. The church of S. Vlasius (Blaise), who has succeeded him as a pastoral protector, commemorates the sanctuary of Voloss, the shepherd's god, the Pan of the Slaves. One of the principal streets, with a population of fishermen, Jews, and small tradesmen, re- called its marshy situation by the name of * Black Mud Street.' We may still see the quarter of Lebed, where the beautiful Rogneda dwelt, who was betrothed to Yaropolk, the elder brother of Vladimir, and whom the latter married by force, having murdered her father Rogvolod, and his two sons. And the Slobode of Berestof still exists where 1 The name of Mazeppa, which constantly comes across travellers at Kieff, is best known in England from the story of the wild horse. This had its origin in the fact that, whilst living on his mother's estate of Volhynia, he had an intrigue with the wife of a neighbouring noble named Falbowski. By him he was caught on his return from a surreptitious visit, and bound naked to a horse, which, frightened by a pistol- shot close to its ear, rushed furiously through the woods, bringing its master home torn and bleeding. 460 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Vladimir kept two hundred out of the eight hundred con- cubines whom Nestor attributes to the Solomon of the Slaves. 1 Beyond the Podol is a most picturesque market, whence a steep ladder-like staircase leads to a Roman Catholic cemetery and its chapel. Hence there is a striking view of the town and its churches crowning the opposite hill, in which the great brown rifts recall the gorges of Siena to the Italian traveller. The Ascension Convent has a pretty green court, with old walnut-trees and walks, and the most complete seclusion. The University, which ranks third in the country, removed hither from Wilna in 1833, is one of ten Russian univer- sities. 2 The Dnieper now threatens again to desert the Podo), and is only prevented by artificial embankments. One of the most beautiful views in Kieff is to be obtained from the delightful walks on the promontory of the hill, where the brutal Vladimir, whose hand was oftenest raised to murder, is represented in benediction in a bronze statue. Most glorious is the Dnieper as seen from hence ! ' How beautiful is the Dnieper, when, in a time of calm, its waters flow freely through the forests and hills ! There is no ripple on the water, it makes no sound ; you look, and you do not know if this majestic surface is in movement or motionless ; one might say it was of glass ; yet one is conscious that this pathway, blue as a mirror, immense in its width, infinite in its length, is springing forwards and eddying onwards. ' Then the burning sun delights to look down from its ethereal heights, and bury its rays in the cold crystal of the waters ; the trees on the bank love to throw their shadow over the waves ! Laden with feathery branches they meet the flowers of the field upon the shore, and, bending over, they gaze at themselves in the water unweariedly, con- 1 Karamsin. 2 S. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, Kharkof, Kazan, Odessa, Warsaw, Dorpat, Helsingfors, and Tomsk in Siberia. PECHERSKOE. 461 template their clear image, smile to it, and salute it by waving their leaves. But they do not dare to look into the middle of Dnieper ; it is only the sun and the blue heaven that can do that ; even the birds can seldom manage it. No river in the world is equal to this in its magnificence ! ' How beautiful is the Dnieper, in a hot summer night, when every- thing is asleep : man, beast, and bird ; God alone contemplates majes- tically the heaven and the earth, and waves His robes with dignity. The stars shine forth, they burn and light the world, and all reflect themselves in the Dnieper. It holds them all in its dark bed ; not one of them can escape it, unless its light is put out in the heavens ; the dark forest peopled with sleeping ravens, the mountains wooded for centuries, hasten to cover it at least with their gigantic shadows. It is in vain ! nothing in the world can hide the Dnieper. Its blue waves flow slowly, and the night is as the day, one can see it as far as the human eye can reach. After the cold of the night it hurries and embraces the shore, where it forms silver ripplets, which shine like the edge of a Damascus sword ; after which, all blue, it falls back into sleep. Then the Dnieper is beautiful, and there is no river which is equal to it ! But when, upon the mountains, the blue mists gather, the dark forest is shaken to its foundations, the oaks snap asunder, and the lightning, furrowing the clouds in zigzags, suddenly lightens the world. Then the Dnieper is terrible ! Its waves arise, roar and dash themselves against the hills, and then recede covered with foam, and send forth their sad lamentation to the far distance.' Gogol, ' The Horrible Vengeance. ' Crossing the valley beyond the old town, with the street which contains the hotels, we should now ascend the pleasant brick pathway on the wooded hillside of Pecherskoe. 1 After passing the gardens on the hill-top, we reach the gate and bridge of the fortifications which Peter the Great, at the suggestion of Mentchikdff, employed himself in building whilst he was detained at Kieffin 1706. The street within is quite devoted to the pilgrims, and is lined with stalls of crosses, medals, and icons, many exceedingly pretty and very cheap, others only curious. The hermit-saints, Anthony, 1 From its catacombs, Petche"ra meaning a cavern or crypt. 462 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. Pachomius, and Hilarion, are represented over and over again. Such anchorites as these passed their lives ir\ caves, or in little tents or cells. When many of them were collected together, they were called by the common name of Lavra or Laura. Frequently represented also is S. Paphuntius, the hermit-confessor, w r hose speech at the Council of Nicaea led to the permission, almost injunction, of marriage to the clergy of the Eastern Church. l Commonest of all here, however, as everywhere else in the country, is the picture of S. Nicholas, the favourite saint of Russian peasants. Wallace narrates that a peasant, being asked by a priest if he could name the three Persons of the Trinity, replied without a moment's hesitation, ' How can one not know that, Batiushka? Of course it is the Saviour, the Mother of God, and S. Nicholas the miracle- worker.' The Pecherskoe Lavra is the Holy Place of Russia par excellence, the first in rank of all Russian monasteries, and the most ancient in its origin, having been founded in 1055. It is of all Russian monasteries the one which has had the greatest part in the propagation of Christianity throughout the country, and was the nursery whence have issued the missionaries, preachers, and the first writers of Christian Russia. 2 ' To a simple and poor hermit belongs the glory of having been the father of religious celibacy in Russia, and of having made his own poor retreat a nursery for the monastic life ; and this during a period both of many external alarms, and of civil feuds caused by the three sons of Yaroslaf, who purpled with gore the soil of Russia, which was 1 The ancient Lives of many of these Russian saints (Pate>iki) so little known out of their own country, but so much venerated there, are very curious. 2 Courriere, Litterature Contemporaine en Russie, PECHERSKOE. 463 only preserved by the prayers of S. Anthony and S. Theodosius. " Many monasteries," says Nestor, as he is describing the origin of the Pecherskoe Lavra, " have been founded by princes and nobles, and by wealth, but they are not such as have been founded by tears, and fasting, and prayer, and vigil ; Anthony had neither gold nor silver, but he procured all by prayer and fasting." ' It is very remarkable that at the beginning of monasticism in Russia there should have been a recurrence of the names of those great hermits Hilarion, Anthony, and Theodosius, who once flourished in the deserts of Palestine and Egypt, and were now reflected, as in a mirror, in the pure lives of their Russian imitators and namesakes. The metropolitan Hilarion, when he was as yet only priest of the church of the Holy Apostles in Berestof, the favourite residence of the Princes Vladimir and Yaroslaf, was accustomed to retire for seclusion and prayer into the silent forest on the beautiful banks of the Dnieper ; and there, having taken an affection to a certain picturesque site on a hill, he dug himself out a dark cave or pesch, the germ of the future Lavra, and of all the religious houses of Russia. Not long afterwards another hermit came and settled himself in it, for the place was already conse- crated by the holy life of Hilarion. ' A man named Anthony, a native of Lubetch (a district south of Kieff) visited Mount Athos, and wished to remain there as a monk : but the hegumen who gave him the tonsure, as if foreseeing his lofty future, insisted on his returning to his own country. The humble Anthony obeyed, and brought with him the benediction of the Holy Mountain. He visited all the monasteries of Kieff, but his soul, thirsting for contemplation, could find for itself no resting-place except in the deserted cave of Hilarion. There Anthony established himself, though, during the forty years of his spiritual life, he was twice driven away by the disturbances caused him by the princes and boyars, who soon discovered that he was living in the woods near Kieff. The Great Prince himself, Isiaslaf, the son of Yaroslaf, on one occasion paid him a visit with his suite ; and the hermit foretold to him, and to his two brothers, their disastrous defeat by the Poloftsi, on the banks of the Alta. Twelve disciples having collected around him, he set Barlaam over them as hegumen, and gave his blessing to the commencement of a wooden church, to be called after the Rest or Assumption of the Mother of God, on the site of the earlier one, which was subterranean : but he himself, to avoid the interruptions and disquietude of governing, shut himself up in another cell, which he had excavated at a little distance, and there spent the rest of his days in prayer. But in the 464 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. mean time, before this took place, when the Great Prince had takerf the hegumen Barlaam to preside over his newly-founded monastery of Demetrius, Anthony proposed to the brethren for their superior the humble Theodosius, who was to have the honour of finally establishing the monastery, and of completing the blessed beginning of Anthony. ' Theodosius, seeing the brethren continually multiplying around him, and already amounting to a hundred, wrote out for them the Rule of the Studium monastery, the strictest of all in Constantinople, which a monk, who came with George, the new metropolitan, had brought with him from that city. The manner in which the monks were to chant, the bowings and prostrations, the reading and the whole order of church service, and even their diet, was fixed by this Rule : Theo- dosius added to it a supplement which consisted of spiritual instructions l of his own, on praying without ceasing, on the means of preserving oneself from evil thoughts, on mutual charity, obedience, and diligence in labour ; and it passed afterwards as a model into all the religious houses of our country, many of which were founded by monks from the Pecherskoe, while the rest looked up to it, and sought to imitate so illustrious an example. ' Mouravieff. On reaching the gate of the Lavra, we see Anthony and Theodosius, with all their hermit followers, in fresco, led by the Saviour, who blesses the monastery. 2 Crowds of pil- grims are perpetually passing through the narrow portal, and linger to kiss and offer their kopecks to the picture of the Rest of the Virgin (here really a sleep), just within the gate. We now find ourselves in the immense court of the monastery. The low whitewashed houses of the monks line the sides. Behind are vast buildings for the pilgrims. In the centre is the huge church, whitewashed also, but with a frescoed front. The interior has an aspect of indescribable 1 The Instructions of Theodosius are one of the earliest specimens of Russian literature in existence. The Life of S. Theodosius was written by the chronicler Nestor. a A curious tiny ' icon,' sold below the monastery, represents this picture, and serves as an interesting memento. PECHERSKOE. 465 antiquity, colour, and beauty. The foundation of all the colour is subdued ancient gold, which gleams through the dark shadows of the heavy pillars and arches with effects of light and shade unspeakably glorious. The open gates of the iconastos show life-size figures of the Apostles within. ' With the assistance of Sviatoslaf (grandson of Yaroslaf), Theo- dosius procured skilful workmen from Greece, and founded the spacious stone church of the Rest of the Virgin, in the place of the original poor one of wood. But like nearly all great founders, who have seldom been permitted to see the outward magnificence of their foundations, Theodosius was obliged to content himself with the inward beauty of the Lavra, and departed to his rest in the cells which he had dug out with Anthony. His successors, Stephen, and Nikon, the great assistant of Anthony, continued the building, which was finished by the hegumen John, and consecrated before the end of the reign of the Great Prince Vsevolod by the metropolitan John III. By order of the same hegumen the annalist Nestor opened the cell or cave in which were the un- corrupted relics of Theodosius, and an assembly of bishops and princes solemnly translated them into the new temple. The names of Anthony and Theodosius began to be invoked in prayer from the time of the reign of Sviatopolk as the guardians of Kieff, and the fathers of all who lived a life of religious retirement in our country ; for the Lavra shot its roots deep into the soil of Russia, and its beneficent influence showed itself not only in monastic seclusion, but also in the halls of princes and on the thrones of prelates. It gave its monks to the Church ; Stephen to be bishop of Belgorod, S. Isaiah to be the first illuminator of Rostoff, S. Nicetas to be Lord of Novogorod, and, according to some accounts, Ephraim to be metropolitan of all Russia. Some of them preached the name of Christ to the heathen, and died the death of martyrs ; as Gerasimus, the first illuminator of the savage Vess in the northern districts, as Kouksha and Pimen, who suffered for the Word of God on the banks of the Oka, while engaged in the con- version of the Viatichi. Others, whose names are too many to be remembered, and whose uncorrupted bodies still tenant the same caves, supplied examples in their seclusion of the practice of all the virtues. Among these latter was a son of Nicholas, Prince of Chernigoff, who was surnamed the Devout from his sanctity and humility. He, how- ever, was not the first of the Russian princes who adopted the monastic H H 466 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. life ; Soudeslaf, the unfortunate son of the great Vladimir, who was thrown into prison at Pskoff by his brother Yaroslaf, and after twenty- eight years' confinement was set at liberty by his nephews, received the tonsure in the monastery at Kieff before any other of his rank, and so became the first of the line of princely recluses of our country.' Mouravieff. All day long the church is thronged with pilgrims, some- times passing in a crowd through the portals, of all ages, colours, and costumes. Soft litanies swell from distant chapels. We seem to be witnessing a perpetual diorama of scenes of Old Testament history ; such patriarchal figures Abraham, Isaac, Eli, Jeremiah, pass before one ; such rapt reverence is seen in widowed mothers offering their children before the shrines, or in peasant women leading up their little ones to make their oblations, as recall Hannah and Samuel ; such groups of shepherds pass us, as might stand for the twelve sons of Jacob, or the brethren of David. In and out, amongst the changing multitude, flit the priests with their flowing hair, or hair plaited into long pig-tails, and the strange figures of begging nuns in black robes and peaked hoods. In this Mecca of the Greek Orthodox, there are 300,000 pilgrims annually. At the fes- tivals of Trinity and the Assumption, thousands sleep in the woods. On the night of August 15, 1872, there were 72,000 sleeping upon the bare ground. The cholera, when it comes here, makes terrible ravages. In years of famine, the number of pilgrims is doubled, because a visit to the Lavra authorises them to beg for the bread which is wanting at home. In the time of serfdom, runaway serfs always became pilgrims ; they had then a ready excuse for their wanderings, and could always obtain alms for subsistence. The chief concourse of people is around those ancient PECHERSKOE. 467 tombs, often hung with gold or silver cloth and sur- rounded with burning candles, of which the priest holds up the silver lid for an instant, that the worshippers may behold the uncorrupt body of the saint within. This sign of sanctity has been the ground of all, or nearly all, the canonisations of the Greek Church. * His uncorrupt remains were found,' almost answers in the Greek Church, to 'he was canonised' in the Latin, and in justification of this are quoted these words of the Psalm, which strictly apply only to our Saviour : ' Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.' In the sacristy a number of curious relics, chiefly ecclesiastical vestments and plate, are shown. The church has several crypts. In one of them Rumiantsof is buried. In another the incorruptible remains of Paul of Tobolsk repose in mitre and robes. His coffin is opened for visitors, one rich covering after another removed, and the aged face and hands exposed under a veil. Till the end of the seventeenth century there were only two printing-presses in Russia ; one was in this convent, and one at Moscow. 1 Outside the lower gate of the monastery, a gate near the icon-shops leads to open downs, looking upon the faint pink and blue distances of the vast plain beyond the Dnieper. We saw here processions of departing pilgrims, whose litanies long sounded through the woods ; and a Greek priest, with flowing hair, stood on the edge of the cliff watching them, relieved like a statue against the aerial distance. The scene is one which recalls the verses of Ivan Kozlov : 1 By 1720 there were our at S. Petersburg and two at Moscow, and there were also printing-presses at Novogorod and Tchernigov, H H 2 4 68 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' O holy Kieff ! where religion seems To light a beacon for the Russian race, Where the bright cross on Pecherskoe gleams Like a fair star which still in heaven hath place, And shines where, melting into distant air, Thy boundless pastures in the sunshine glow, And restless Dnieper, hastening to the sea, Beneath thine ancient rampart murmurs low. 3 THE HOLY PLACES OF KIF.FF. The star-spangled towers and domes which rise from the woods eastward are those of a separate group of monastic buildings, approached from the principal monastery by a gourd-fringed lane. Here are another church, a little cemetery, and the entrance of a long wooden gallery, by which the pilgrims, protected from weather, can go from one monastic building to another. We constantly attempted to draw here and were interrupted by infuriated priests ; indeed, while taking each of the sketches from which the little wood- cuts given in these pages are taken, the author was arrested, THE CATACOMBS OF KIEFF. 469 and carried off to a short incarceration. No amount of interest with either civil or ecclesiastical officials can obtain the permission to draw in Pecherskoe, and anywhere in Kieff it is most difficult. BENEATH THE PECHERSKOE MONASTERY, Through the Church of the Exaltation we descend to the Catacombs. 1 A monk guides us with candles. Like the Roman Catacombs (in extremest miniature), these subter- raneous passages are perfectly dry, warm, airy, and not the least unpleasant. There are two series of caverns, the nearer dedicated to S. Anthony, the further to S. Theodosius. They were probably natural caverns at the first, and have been increased into a series of chapels and passages in the course of ages. They are regular in formation, but have 1 There is a very similar cave-monastery at Pskofif. 470 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. such frequent intersections that it is scarcely possible to spend five minutes in them without losing one's way. On either side, at intervals, hollowed in the soft rock, are the tombs of the saints, of whom there are about eighty in the nearer, and forty-five in the more distant catacombs. The lids are left open in some instances, and the outlines of the aged forms are visible beneath their brocaded coverings. Formerly the bodies were uncovered. Travellers speak of the colour of their faces and hands, now only one offers his withered black hand to the kisses of the faithful. After six centuries these bodies are said to be perfectly preserved, the 'incorruptibility' of saints being the reward of their virtues. ' Ce meme reduit, qui avait ete leur cellule, est devenu leur torn- beau ; c'est la qu'ils sont couches dans leur robe de moine, avec leurs cilices et leurs chaines de fer, attendant la trompette du jugement. Le plus etonnant de tons ces ascetes, c'est Jean, le " grand -martyr." Pour dompter sa chair, bien qu'il restat des semaines sans manger, il avait imagine de s'enterrer jusqu'a mi-corps ; c'est dans cette situation que la mort 1'a surpris et que nous le retrouvons. Rien d'effrayant comme de voir dans 1'ombre de cette caverne cette tete et ce buste sortir de terre. Les penitents de la Theba'ide et les fakirs de FHindou- stan n'ont rien invente de plus formidable. Le caractere oriental de ces tortures volontaires eclate aux yeux ; il semble voir, comme dans le Ramaydnct) le ciel et la terre contempler stupefaits ces terribles penitences, et les dieux memes tremblant qu'a force d'accumuler des merites 1'anachorete ne finisse par leur disputer le ciel. Les mougiks de Kief se sont fait une legende a son propos : ils assurent que Jean s'enfonce chaque jour en terre, et que, lorsqu'il y disparaitra, ce sera la fin du monde.' A. Rambaud, 'Revue des Deux MondesJ 1874. Near each tomb is inscribed the name of the dead, with a brief description of what he was when living. Thus we find S. Anthony, the abbot of the Lavra ; S. Niphontius, THE CATACOMBS OF KIEFF. 471 archbishop of Novogorod, who died on his way to meet the metropolitan of Constantinople ; S. Luke, the thrifty ; S. Gregory, the icon-painter ; S. Agapitus, the gratuitous physician ; S. Mark, the catacomb-digger ; S. Onesiphorus, the confessor ; S. Jerome, the far-sighted prophet ; S. Onofrius, the silent ; S. Pimenus, the faster ; S. Abraham, the laborious ; S. Isaac, the miracle-worker. One of the most interesting graves is that of Nestor, the chronicler, who lived from 1056 to 1116, and became a monk here in his seventeenth year. He occupies much the same place in the history of Russia which the Venerable Bede holds in our own. He ought not to be regarded as the first Russian annalist, but rather as the first compiler of the collections of chronicles which already existed in the great centres of primitive Russia. The work of Nestor has not come down to us in its original form, the most ancient of its copies only dating from the fourteenth century. 1 His great merit is that he hands down to posterity the early history of the house of Rurik and of the first Great Princes of Kieff. His chronicle is a strange mixture of important and trivial events, like the writings of the Anglo-Saxon. 2 It is a surprise to come, in the catacombs of Kieff, upon the tomb of Ilia Mourometz, a hero of the time of Vladimir, celebrated in innumerable legends and songs, which describe him as the Hercules, the Samson of Russia, who is here become a saint. It is also with an aureole on his forehead, hands lifted to heaven, and a body half- naked like a hermit, that he is represented in an engraving of the seventeenth century. He is supposed to have been born in the village 1 Courriere. 2 See the Chronicle of Nestor, edited by Miklosich. Vienna, 1860. 472 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. of Karatchovo, and to have had a real existence in the twelfth century. ' Ses reliques sont aujourd'hui cousues dans une sorte de gaine en brocard ; mais anciennement, comme celles des autres saints des cata- combes, on les exposait aux regards du public. Un pelerin de 1701 les a vues et touchees : " J'ai vu, dit-il, sous une voile d'or, le corps incorruptible du vaillant guerrier Ilia de Mourom. Sa taille est celle des gens robustes d'aujourd'hui, sa main gauche est disposee comme pour faire le signe de la croix." Le voila reduit a de bien humaines proportions, le heros qui, d'un poignet si fort, arrachait tous les chenes d'une foret et maniait aisement une massue de 1600 livres. . . . Son droit a la saintete est acquis par le fait qu'il a souvent pris les armes uniquement "pour le peuple chretien et pour les eglises de Dieu." ' Ranibaiid, 'La Russie Epique." 1 About many of the tombs singular legends are preserved. There is one of two brothers. They had promised one another to share the same grave. One died long after the other, but when his body was carried to the sepulchre, the brother who was buried first lifted himself up in his coffin, and made room for him. There is the tomb of a bishop which is said to have floated on the Dnieper to the walls of the monastery from Smolensk, where he died. In one sarcophagus rest twelve masons, who came to build the monastery, and, after their work was finished, received the tonsure there. Here also are miraculous skulls which sweat a supernatural oil which is a cure for all maladies, and a column which has the power of restoring reason to any mad people who are bound to it. A reality more strange than all legends, are the cells without any opening. They were made by anchorites, who walled themselves up with their own hands, keeping up no communication with the outer world, or even with their religious brethren, except by the wicket THE CATACOMBS OF KIEFF. 473 through which their daily provisions were given them. When they died, which was naturally very soon, the com- munity came to this wicket, said the prayers for the dead, and walled it up. From time to time the catacomb enlarges, and one finds oneself in a little church with a low vault and miniature iconastos, or in a vault which has, for its situation, the singular THE HOLY CHAPEL OF KIEFF. destination of a refectory. Here is preserved an antique cross of which the edges are raised so that it forms a drinking-cup, and which is called the cup of S. Mark the gravedigger. In the further catacomb is the body of a princess in satin shoes, as if emerging from a ball, but w r hich partakes with those of the monks the privilege of incorruptibility. 1 1 This account of the Catacombs is chiefly indebted to the writings of Alfred Rambaud. This is especially the case as regards the names, so difficult to make out to pne very slightly acquainted with Russian. 474 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. In the wooded hollow beneath the catacombs is the holy well of the hermit S. Anthony, believed to have miraculous powers, reached by wooden steps from the porch of the church. Below the lavra is the mound called Askold's tomb, where a Christian Varagian prince is buried. ' Two of the compatriots of Rurik, Ask old and Dir, who perhaps had cause of complaint against that prince, left Novogorod, with many of their companions, to seek their fortunes at Constantinople. But, on their way, they perceived a little town built on the highest part of the bank of the Dnieper, and inquired to whom it belonged. They were informed that it had been founded by three brothers, long since dead, and that it was inhabited by a peaceful people, who paid tribute to the Khozars : this town was Kieff. Askold and Dir took possession of it, and began, under the name of Russians, to reign as sovereigns in Kiefi; ... In 882, the ambitious views of Oleg, regent at Novogorod during the minority of his nephew Igor, son of Rurik, was excited by the report of the independent power which Askold and Dir had founded, as well as by the delicious climate and other advantages of the soil which Little Russia offered. Meanwhile, as it was possible that Askold and Dir, at the head of a strong army, would not freely submit, and as the idea was obnoxious of a battle with fellow-country- men equally skilled in the art of war, Oleg determined to employ treachery. Having left his army behind him, accompanied only by the young Igor and several followers, he landed under the steep bank of the Dnieper, where the ancient Kieff was situated. Having taken the precaution of concealing his soldiers in the boats, he sent word to the princes of Kieff that some Varagian merchants, sent to Greece by the prince of Novogorod, wished to see them as friends and fellow- countrymen. Askold and Dir, not suspecting any ambush, hastened to the shore. In an instant they were surrounded by the men of Oleg, who cried, " You are no princes, nor even of noble birth ; but I am a prince, and," showing them Igor, "this is the son of Rurik." At these words, which were their sentence of death, Askold and Dir, pierced by blows, fell lifeless at the feet of Oleg. The simplicity of manners in the ninth century permits one to believe that these false merchants could thus persuade the princes of Kieff to come to meet them ; but even the barbarism which was common at this period could PERENOVO TSVETJE. 475 not excuse such perfidious treachery. The bodies of the unfortunate princes were buried on the hill, where, in the time of Nestor, the castle of a certain Olma existed. The bones of Dir reposed behind the Church of S. Irene, and upon the tomb of Askold rose the Church of S. Nicholas, the site of which is still shown by the inhabitants of Kieff on the bank of the Dnieper, below the monastery of S. Nicholas, at the spot where a little church is seen buried in the earth.' Karanisin, vol. i. Beyond the Pecherskoe monastery are many of 'the lovely lanes of Kieff overshadowed by cherry gardens ' de- scribed by Gogol. Near the river bank grows the fern called Perenovo Tsvetje, or Peroun's Flower, and which is sup- posed to have magic blossoms, which appear on Easter Day and S. John's Day at midsummer. ' Its golden or fiery blossoms disappear almost instantaneously, for evil spirits swarm thickly around them and carry them off. Whoever can gather these flowers will be able to read the secrets of the earth, and no treasures can be concealed from him. But to obtain them is a difficult task. The best way is to take a cloth on which an Easter cake has been blessed, and the knife with which the cake has been cut, and then go into the forest on Easter Eve, trace a circle with the knife around the fern, spread out the cloth, and sit down within the circle with eyes steadily fixed upon the plant. Just at the moment when the words " Christ is arisen ! " are sung in the churches, the fern will blossom. The watcher should then seize it and run home, having covered himself with the cloth, and taking care not to look behind him. When he has reached home he should cut his hand with the knife, and insert the plant into the wound. Then all secret things will become visible to him.' Ralston , 'Songs of the Russian People, ,' Amongst the many traces of the old religion which still remain at Kieff is one which recalls the worship of Lada, the goddess of Joy, Love, and Spring, to whom betrothed couples used to offer sacrifice. 476 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. ' In Lithuania and in Samogitia the people celebrated in her honour festivals, which lasted from May 25 to June 25 ; the fathers and hus- bands spent them in the public-houses, the wives and the daughters in the streets or in the midst of the fields : they held each other by the hand and danced, singing, " Lada! Lada! didiz Lada!" * that is to say, "great Lada ! " This custom still exists in our villages, where the young women assemble in spring-time to amuse themselves, and sing in a circle, Lada, didi Lada I ' Karamsin. The twenty-fourth of December was the day on which the pagan Russians celebrated the feast of Koliada, the goddess of Peace, and still on Christmas Eve, when labourers' children assemble under the windows of rich peasants, they ask for money with songs in which the name of Koliada is still heard. 2 Ten kilometres from Kieff are the curious kourganes of Gatnoe. One of these, called the ' Wolfs Grave,' was opened during the Archeological Congress of 1874. Skeletons, vases, and implements were found. Hundreds, even thousands, of these tumuli are seen in descending the Dnieper, of which the flat, sandy banks and colourless waters might otherwise seem uninteresting, though Gogol teaches us how to see their beauties : ' How delightful it is, from the midst of the Dnieper, to gaze upon the lofty hills, the vast prairies, and the verdant forests ! These hills are not hills : they have no base : below, as above, they have a pointed summit ; below, as above, is seen the limitless sky. The forests which are marshalled on these hills are not forests : they are the hair which has grown from the huge head of a wood demon. Below, his beard floats upon the water, and under his beard, as over his hair, the limit- less sky is seen. These prairies are not prairies : it is a green girdle which encircles the round heaven ; and below, as above, shimmers the moon. ' 1 S. Parascevia is regarded as the Christian successor of Lada. - See KaraniMn. VY.CHEGOROD. 477 The village of Vitatchevo, in an angle of the river, has earthen ramparts : the bank has a height of 400 feet. Further on, beneath the site of the convent of Traktomirof^ living persons have seen catacombs filled with the tombs of hermits, but their entrance is lost. Vychegorod, which is said to have owed its existence to a brother of the fabulous Kii, the founder of Kieff, was a favourite residence of S. Olga, the Christian grandmother of Vladimir, and was the place where, before his conversion, he kept a harem of 500 women. Here Boris and Gleb, the two sons of Vladimir by one of his many wives, murdered by their brother Sviato- polk, were buried. Their deaths took place at different times and places that of Boris in his camp on the Alta whilst he was in the act of prayer, that of Gleb in a boat on the Dnieper near Smolensk l but the Church has made of them an orthodox Dioscuri, as inseparable as Castor and Pollux. It was at Vychegorod that the great Yaroslaf died in 1054, employing his last moments in imploring his children to evade the dissensions which have been so often fatal to his family and country. Here also the Grand Prince Vsevolod Olgovitch died in 1146, having in vain invoked the succour of Boris and Gleb ; and the Grand Prince Sviatoslaf in 1195, having caused himself to be brought hither from Kieff with the same object. The gorodichtche have bricks of the seventh century, which may have belonged to the palace of Olga. The adjoining church was dedicated to the two brothers by Ysiaslaf, the ancient church of Yaroslaf having been destroyed by the pagans, and their relics were brought hither on the shoulders of 1 Karamsin. 478 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. the princes of the royal house. The picture of Christ on the iconastos bears the mark of a Tartar lance ; the Madonna which was its pendant, cut through with a sabre, is now in one of the churches of Kieff. ' Le village moderne est bien aussi curieux que le gorodichtchl. Qu'on imagine un terrain decoupe, dechiquete par les ravins, des masures a toits de chaume plus herisses encore que dans la Grande- Russie, les enclos formes de claies d'osier, de derriere lesquels vous epient des jeunes filles aux yeux noirs avec une botte de fleurs arti- ficielles sur la tete, des vieilles qui parcourent a fond de train des families de pourceaux a 1'air farouche, et qui ont une criniere comme ies sangliers voila le type de tous les villages que nous avons visites sur le Dnieper.' A. Rambaud^ 'Revue des Deux MondesJ 1874. 1 Near Kieff the land is sterile, but further away the vege- tation is so luxuriant in the early summer that one may be lost in the verdure. Popular poetry describes the joy of the Cossack as he gallops over the grassy sea, with only the sun to guide him. ' The steppe had long ago received them in its green embrace ; and its high grass, encircling them, had hidden them so that only their black Cossacks' caps were now and then to be seen above it.' Gogol ', 'Tarass Boolba' * The charm and yet the oppressive monotony of the steppe are expressed by the poet Koltsov (1809-1842): ' The steppe had a fresh fascination for me, and the devil knows how madly I loved her. How beautiful she was, and with what enthusiasm I sang " The Time of Love." This song was appropriate to her. But later on the steppe wearied me. She delights for a time ; suddenly, but not for long. I came to see her ; then I went back to 1 See also The An lent Towns and Gorodichtche of Russia, by M. Somokvassof. Moscow, 1874. Cossack Tales of Nicholas Gogdl. Translated by George Tolstoy. CUSTOMS OF THE UKRAINE. 479 the town, to the whirl of life, to the strife of passions ! For the steppe by herself is too uniform, too silent.' Here, in Southern Russia, the nights of summer are far more beautiful than the days: ' Do you know the nights of the Ukraine ? No, you do not know them ! See ! the moon looks down from the midst of heaven, the infinite celestial vault extends, increases, and becomes yet more infinite ; it burns and breathes ; all the earth gleams with silvery lustre ; the air is wonderful, at once fresh and overpowering, full of sweetness ; it is an ocean of perfumes. Divine night ! magical night ! The forests, full of shade, are motionless, and cast their vast shadows. The pools are calm ; the cold and darkness of their waters lie mournfully enclosed in the dark green walls of the gardens. The virgin thickets of young cherry trees timidly stretch their roots into the chill earth, and from time to time shake their leaves, as if they were angry and indignant that beautiful Zephyr, the wind of night, glides suddenly towards them and covers them with kisses. All the landscape sleeps. On high all breathes, all is beautiful, solemn. The vastness and wondrousness possess the soul ; and crowds of silvery visions emerge softly from their hiding-places. Divine night ! Magical night ! Suddenly, all comes to life : the forests, the pools, the steppes. The majestic voice of the nightingale of the Ukraine sounds forth, and it seems as if the moon, to listen to it, stood still in the midst of the heaven. The village, as if entranced, reposes upon the height ; the group of cottages becomes more luminous under the rays of the moon ; their low walls become more brilliantly relieved against the darkness. Now the song has ceased. All is silent. Some narrow windows are still lighted up. Behind others, a family, up late, is at supper.' Gogol. Many of the popular customs still observed in the Ukraine are very interesting. ' The marriage ceremonies are very peculiar : the bride chooses a number of pretty young girls, who are obliged to be present and offi- ciate : they carry wax-lights fastened upon small boards, one end of which is cut into the shape of a horse's head and ornamented with flowers ; the lights continue burning till they bring the bride to the house of her husband, when all are extinguished. 480 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 'At funerals the church bells are rung, and the dead are carried to the grave with flags flying. There are often no cemeteries, and the bodies are buried in the gardens. In the churchyards in towns the graves are often walled by crosses four or five feet high. ' All kinds of charms are used, and witchcraft is practised ; man- ners and customs, perhaps as old as the people themselves, have been retained, some of them probably from heathen times. Thus, for in- stance, on Kassali, or Midsummer Eve (the evening before St. John's Day), the young girls, decked with wreaths of flowers and grasses, assemble beside a piece of water, kindle a fire, and pace round it sing- ing certain songs, and then jump wildly backwards and forwards through the flames. In winter, as soon as it begins to freeze, the young people and children walk before the windows begging cakes and nuts. On Christmas Eve (called here, as in the old Roman Catholic parts of Germany, Holy Evening), the old men of the village, sur- rounded by the rest of the people, sing hymns before the windows of the houses. In the spring, boys and girls assemble on the first spots where the snow has disappeared, and sing the so-called Songs of Spring. Generally speaking, there are peculiar songs for every season of the year, which are sung in the week-day evenings, when young and old are collected together. During holidays, the singing is nearly incessant, with the men, however, much less than with the women and children.' ffaxthausen, ' The Russian Empire.'' In everything connected with religion the most extra- ordinary simplicity prevails, but it is not irreverent. ' The blacksmith Vakoola had painted the devil in hell upon the wall which is to your left when you step into the church. The devil had such an odious face that no one could refrain from spitting as they passed by. The women, as soon as their children began to cry, brought them to this picture and said, " Look ! is he not an odious creature ?" and the children stopped their tears, looked sideways at this picture, and clung more closely to their mother's bosom.' Gogol, 'Night of Christmas Eve? The fire flies, so beautiful at night, are looked upon as the souls of unbaptised children. Through the steppes are supposed to roam the terrible werewolves human creatures, SOA r GS OF THE UKRAINE. 481 often witches, transformed into animals ; to them storms, famines, and droughts are often attributed. There is a tradition that if a werewolf can be touched with a pitchfork or a flail, he immediately assumes his human form. 1 Throughout Little Russia the peasants express to each other the kindly wish, ' God grant that the earth may lie light on you, and that your eyes may see Christ.' 2 The songs of the Little Russians are full of human feeling. ' Les habitants cle 1'Ukraine, vetus de rouge, yinrent nous chanter cles airs de leur pays, singulierement agreables, tantot gais, tantot melancoliques, tantot 1'un et 1'autre tout ensemble. Ces airs cessent quelquefois brusquement au milieu de la melodic, comme si 1'imagina- tion de ces peuples se fatiguait a terminer ce qui lui plaisait d^abord ou trouvait plus piquant de suspendre le charme dans le noment meme oil il s'agit avec le plus de puissance. C'est ainsi que la sultane des Mille et une Nuits interrompt toujours son recit, lorsque 1'interet est le plus vif. ' Madame de Stall. Amongst the oldest ballads many relate to the marvellous feats of Volga Vseslavitch, who is the Prince Cleg of the Chronicle of Nestor. ' La ville de Kief est menacee par le roi des Indes, ou par le sultan des Turcs, suivant les variantes. Volga arme contre lui sa droujina. Avant tout il faudrait savoir ce que medite le sultan. Volga delibere avec ses compagnons pour decider qui 1'on enverra en eclaireur. Si 1'on envoie quelqu'un des vieux, il faudra 1'attendre trop longtemps ; quelqu'un de 1'age mur, il se laissera enivrer par le vin ; quelqu'un de jeuae, il s'amu- sera avec les jeunes filles et bavardera avec les vieilles. Decidement Volga partira lui-meme. II se transforme en petit oiseau, ole sous les nues et arrive a Tsarigrad. II se pose sur la fenetre du sultan et en- tend toute sa conversation avec la sultane. ' Le Tsar projette d'envahir la Russie, d'y conquerir neuf villes pour doter ses neufs fils. II promet a sa favorite une pelisse neuve. Alors Volga Vseslavitch se transforme en hermine pour se glisser dans 1 Ralston, Songs oftJie Russian People, p. 432. 2 Idem. I I 482 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1'arsenal du sultan : la, comme ces rats dont parle Herodote, qui a la voix d'un pretre Egyptian desarmerent une armee d'envahisseurs, il ronge les cordes des arcs, arrache aux fleches leurs pointes d'acier ; meme dans certaines variantes, il brise les chiens des fusils et mouille les tonneaux de poudre. Puis, transforme en loup, il court aux ecuries et coupe la gorge a tons les coursiers. Le royaume des Indes et la terre de Turquie sont maintenant a 'la merci de sa droujina. Elle massacre le sultan et la sultane, extermine toute la population, a 1'ex- ception des belles jeunes filles ; elle egorge enfants et vieillards, " n'en laissant meme pas pour la semence," et revient en Russie chargee de butin.' Rambaiid, ' La Russie Epiqtie.' Another hero of Slavonic legends is Nikita Selianino- vitch, a young Hercules, the type of physical strength. When Volga and none of his droujina (company) are able to lift a plough, he raises it by a touch and flings it sky- wards. At Kanev, near Kieff, a tumulus marks the grave of the truly national poet Tarns Shevchenko, whose verses repro- duce all the most interesting traditions of the Ukraine. Antiquarians will proceed from the Kieff to visit the Cathedral of Tchernigov, which, founded by Prince Mistislaf, in the reign of Yaroslaf the Great, is ' the most ancient of all the sacred edifices of Russia.' ! More than any church of its age, this retains its original character externally. It is square, with a central dome, surrounded by four satellite cupolas : to the east are three apses, and the narthex is flanked by two round towers. 1 See Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia, ch. ii. 433 CHAPTER X. A GLIMPSE OF POLAND. WEARY indeed is the journey from Kieff to Warsaw ; at the best two days and a night in a heaving, swaying train, in carriages fall of people spitting and smoking rancid tobacco. At Kaziatin there is a junction with the Odessa train. The country is almost all forest. Our only variety was when the train stopped at midnight near some forest huts to set down some sportsmen, who were going to hunt wolves. They ' should kill many before morning,' they said. A number of sportsmen surround a district, hiding meat, which the wolves scent, and then come towards the guns. They are seldom dangerous, unless, as is often the case, they go mad ; then they rush along, biting everything they meet, and everything bitten dies. Thirty peasants had lately been bitten by a wolf in a village on this line, and every case had been fatal. Russian trains are never obliged to keep any time, and passengers are quite at the mercy of conductors, and their whims for staying at the different stations. We were three hours behind time at Brest, and the Warsaw train was gone. Five hours to wait ! Most wretched was the almost fastid station, yet the broad so-called ' streets ' of the miserable 484 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. town outside were more than a foot deep in sand, or mud- like a ploughed field after months of rain. Nevertheless, there was nothing for it, but, in the impossibility of enduring the station, to labour on as far as a deserted public-garden a field planted with groups of lilacs, which cows were nib- bling two miles distant. Here, merely for want of something to do, the writer began to sketch a shed- and a willow-tree. Instantly two soldiers pounced out from the bushes, behind which they had been following him, seized him, and he was marched off to the guard-room, where a ridiculous little officer put him through all the absurd official catechism of his age, birthplace, names and ages of parents, objects in coming to Russia, object in being at Brest, and, above all, object in sketching that particular shed and willow- tree. 'Had he a passport?' 'Why was it not in his pocket?' 1 If it really existed and was at the station, he must be sent to fetch it ; ' and in the burning sun he was inarched back through the mud, between the soldiers, to bring it. Mean- time the sketch-book containing the obnoxious drawing was confiscated, though, when the prisoner was led back to the guard-room, he instantly espied it abandoned on a stool, sat down upon it, and whilst his second cross-examination was going on, under shadow of the passport, contrived to slip it up his back under his coat, and, when he was at length released, carried it off in safety. By this time the five hours had been spent or wasted ! A little north of Brest begins the vast forest of Bela- I'eja, peopled by wild bisons, sometimes wrongly called aurochs, an animal which once existed here, but which became extinct three centuries ago. 1 It is forbidden under 1 Blaise de Vigener, Description du royaume de Pologne et pays adjacents. POLISH HISTORY. 485 severe penalties to shoot or capture the bisons, but the Emperor sometimes presents them to sovereigns, to Zoologi- cal Gardens, or to his friends. As late as 1851 there were 1,400 of these animals, but since then wolves and want of food have reduced them by half ; indeed, if they were not fed in winter they would soon all become extinct. Before dark we had entered Poland, whose very name is a symbol of national misfortune. That name is all that remains of its ancient independence, and alone distinguishes it from the rest of the Emperor's vast dominions. Warsaw is now merely a Russian citadel, and Cracow the chief town of an Austrian province, but the imperial treasury of Russia finds Poland the most, populous and industrious, as well as the most hardly-taxed province of the empire. The proudest days of Polish history are connected with the great House of Jagellon, which entered the country upon the marriage, in 1386, of Ladislaus II. Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania, with Hedwige, daughter and heiress of Louis, King of Hungary, and great-granddaughter of Ladislaus I. Hedwige died childless, but Ladislaus Jagellon, who had been made King of Poland upon his marriage with her, became the founder of a line of kings by his second marriage with Anne, daughter of William, Count of Cilli, and grand- daughter of Casimir the Great. Four generations later, in the seventeenth century, Sigismund III. could aspire to the sovereignty of all the east and west of Europe. In hearing so often of the oppression of the Poles by Russia, it is diffi- cult to remember the time (1605) when Russia was oppressed by the Poles, when there was even a Polish partition of Russia. The ruin of Poland was accelerated by its want of natural boundaries, but was chiefly caused by the great 4 86 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. power of the nobles, and their refusal to take their share in the national expenses. What was celled a republic was really a confederation of thousands of despotic sovereignties and there was no connecting link between the upper and the lower classes ; the Jews, who still monopolise all the com- merce and profits of the country, representing the middle. It was still very hot weather when we reached Warsaw, but the trains were prevented coming in from Moscow by the deep snow. In the terrible Russia, winter had already set in, for it was the end of September, the month of gloom and dismal forebodings. 'As surly as September,' 'He has the thoughts of September,' are Russian sayings. What a luxury it was to reach the excellent Hotel de r Europe at Warsaw ! What a change from all Russian hotels ! In spite of political depression also, the people of Warsaw appeared to us wonderfully lively and cheerful compared with the Russians. Michelet, 1 who calls the Lithuanians 'fils de 1'ombre,' speaks of the Poles as 'fils de soleil,' and they seemed to us to deserve it. The writings of the great national poet Mickiewicz - are full of vigour and animation, and free from the constant melancholy of Russian authors. The streets are bright and handsome, and the noble Vistula, which traverses Poland from the south to the north, flows magnificently through the town. Close to the bridge stands the handsome Palace of the former kings. It was chiefly built by Sigismund III., who is represented in a bronze statue on a pillar, in the square opposite the entrance. The portraits of his predecessors by Bacciarelli, with which Sigismund adorned its apartments, 1 Lcgcndes du Nord. 2 Never translated into English THE PLAIN OF VOLA. 487 have been carried off to Moscow, and are now in the Krem- lin. The thirteenth century Cathedral close by, hung with archiepiscopal portraits, strikes those who arrive from Russia by its Gothic architecture. One had quite forgotten what Gothic was like in that country ! Beyond the cathedral is the old town, with narrow streets of tall houses, like the Faubourg S. Antoine at Paris. One side of the Hotel de 1'Europe looks down upon the gloomy Saxony Square^ beyond which is a pleasant little public garden, and further still a bazaar. The street of the Cracow Faubourg and the Novi Sviat (New World) Street lead to a pretty little church dedicated to S. Alexander, and built by Alexander I. in 1815. Beyond this it may be well to take a carriage down the avenues to the pretty little suburban palace and park of Lazienki, built in the middle of the last century by the last miserable king, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, and looking, with its canals, and bridges, and flowers in tubs, as Reclus describes it, like a ' Scene de theatre en plein air.' From the outside of the Lazienki Park the road descends into the dusty plain of Vola, where as many as 200,000 Polish nobles used to encamp during the hotly dis- puted royal elections. In the midst of the plain were two enclosures one for the senate, the other for the nuncios. The first was oblong, surrounded by a rampart, in the midst of which, at the time of the election, a temporary building of wood is erected, called szopa, covered at the top and open at the sides. Near it was another enclosure for the nuncios of a circular form, from which it derives the name of kola or circle. Within this was no building, the nuncios assembling in the open air. When the chambers were 488 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. united they met within the kola ; the chairs for the senators and the benches for the nuncios being ranged in the same order as in the senate-house at Warsaw, the seat of the primate occupying the central place. On the day on which the diet opened, the primate, senate, and nobility first heard mass and a sermon in the cathedral of Warsaw, and thence proceeded to the plain of Vola. The senators entered the szopa, the nuncios the kola, whilst the other nobles remained in the open plain ; but after the separate meetings, senate and nuncios united in the kola, where the primate set the subjects for consideration before them. The day of election was one of the most striking sights it was possible to witness. The senate and nuncios met in the kola, the nobles in the open field under the different standards of their palatinates. Then the primate, declaring the names of the candidates, knelt in the open air and chaunted a hymn, followed by the whole assembly. After- wards the senators and nuncios joined the nobles of their palatinates, and the primate went round in a carriage or on horseback to the different bodies to collect the votes, declaring afterwards who was the successful candidate. On the following day all returned to the plain, and the successful candidate being again proclaimed, a deputy was despatched to him to announce his election, as no candidate was allowed to be present till the elections were concluded. 1 A Polish noble is by law a person who possesses a free- hold estate, who can prove his descent from ancestors formerly possessing a freehold, who follows no trade or commerce, and who is at liberty to choose his own habita- 1 See the interesting account of the Polish elections in Coxe's Travels. VILLANOV. 489 tion ; this description naturally includes all who are above the rank of burghers or peasants. The peasants were ' assigned to the soil,' and compelled to cultivate the land of the nobles, in return for that allotted to themselves. It is necessary to have two horses to drag a drosky along the road like a ploughed field which crosses the plain to Villanov, a charming, interesting, well-kept ' great house ' of the Potocki the Holland House of Warsaw. It was built by PALACE OF VILI.ANOV. the famous John Sobieski (John III.), and was sold after his death. Here he spent the latter years of his life an un- happy life, as he had no peace in the diet from the jealousy of the nobles, and no peace at home from the brawls of his parsimonious French wife, Marie de la Grange, with her children. This imperious woman also contrived to alienate the affection of his subjects and to render the close of his 490 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. reign unpopular. On his deathbed, Zaluski, bishop of Plotsko, endeavoured in vain to persuade him to make his will. ' My orders are not attended to while I am alive,' he said, 'how can I expect them to be obeyed when I am dead ? ' On the day of his birth, which was also that of his election, he died. The hatred of the queen for her eldest son, John Sobieski, then led her to oppose his election, to make public speeches against him, and even in order to prevent his being king to persuade the Poles to choose any candidate rather than one of her own children. Their choice fell on Augustus, Elector of Saxony, but when he was defeated at the battle of Clissow, veneration for the name of Sobieski induced Charles XII. to offer the crown to James Sobieski. This young prince, however, being at Breslau at the time, was seized (1704) by Saxon horsemen with his brother Constantine, and imprisoned at Pleissen- burg near Leipsic, and afterwards at Konigstein. Mean- while Augustus had abdicated, but Stanislaus Letzinski had been elected in his place, so that James Sobieski died without a kingdom in 1737, at Zolkiev in Russia, the name of Sobieski becoming extinct in his person. From his elder daughter, married to the Prince de Turenne, several noble French families are descended ; his younger daughter, Clementina, was married at Montefiascone in 1719 to James Edward Stuart, the Chevalier de S. George, and died in 1735, the mother of Charles Edward, and Henry, Cardinal York. The palace of Villanov was sold after the death of the great Sobieski, and the reliefs on the outside, representing his victories, were not put up by that modest king, but by Augustus II., by whom the house was afterwards occupied. It contains stately old rooms, decorated with portraits and CRACOW. 491 cabinets. Sobieski himself and Marie de la Grange are repeatedly represented ; there is also a picture gallery filled with indifferent copies, and a very few originals. Several small rooms are prettily decorated in Chinese taste, with Chinese curiosities, The gardens, skirted by water, are pleasant and old-fashioned. On the green-sward near the handsome church stands a great Gothic tomb of the Potocki. A journey of one night takes the traveller from Warsaw to Cracow (Krakau), which has a beautiful effect from a distance, its high rock-built castle and noble churches relieved against a most delicate distant chain of jagged Car- pathian mountains. Nor is there any illusion to be dispelled as we drive from the station under the grand old gateway, and enter the narrow street of stately houses which leads to the principal square. Most of the hotels in Cracow are horrible, but the Hotel de Saxe is good and comfortable, and the ' Dresdenski ' en- durable. Most appalling of aspect is the population, almost entirely Jewish, all the men in corkscrew curls, tall hats and long gowns, and the women, even the youngest and best- looking, with their heads shaved, and in wigs. The other costumes, once worn by all classes of society, have disap- peared, though up to the time of King Stanislaus Augustus, even the kings wore the national costume, and shaved their heads, leaving only a circle of hair upon the crown, and all the nobles did the same. The grand Gothic Marienkirche stands in the principal square. Internally, it is one of the most striking churches in southern Germany, and glorious in its rich, yet subdued colouring. It contains good carving by the native artist Veit Stoss, 1447, and the tomb of Casimir (Jagellon) III., 492 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. 1444-94, who married Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Albert II. A little behind is the intensely picturesque church and porch of S. Barbara. A street leads from the square to the bridge over the Vistula, near which the artist will find a very striking view, with beautiful mountain distance. On the right rises the castle rock, at the base of which Krak, the traditional founder of the town, is said to have killed a dragon in a CITADEL OF CRACOW. cave. The castle the palace of the ancient Polish kings is most picturesque, but is now partly a barrack and partly a hospital. Just w r ithin the gate, through a porch hung with bones of a mammoth, we enter the cruciform Cathedral, in the centre of which a tabernacle, like that of S. Criso- gcno at Rome, covers a silver shrine containing the relics of S. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, and patron of Poland. Boleslas II., whom he had rebuked for his cruelties and CRACOW. 493 debaucheries, beheaded him with his own hand at the altar. All the Polish kings, from the time of Ladislaus Loketec C r 333) lie here, except Louis and Ladislaus III., who are buried in Hungary, Alexander, buried at Vilra, Henry of Valois, and Augustus III. The laws of Poland ordained that the body of a deceased king should first be carried to Warsaw, where it should remain till the election of a new sovereign. Then it was moved in state to Cracow, and two days before the coronation, preceded by all the great officers of State, with their rods of office pointing to the ground, was carried to the church of S. Stanislaus, where the burial service was performed, after which it was taken to the cathedral. It was peculiar to the laws of Poland that the funeral of the deceased king should immediately precede a coronation, and that the king-elect should attend the obse- quies of his predecessor, to impress him with the uncertainty of human grandeur. The tombs are mostly of red marble, and very magnificent. One of the most striking is that of Casimir III., the Great (born 1309, crowned 1333), whose reign was the golden age of Poland. .He enlarged and secured his dominions, built some towns and beautified others. The historian Dlugosz, who flourished in the next century, says of him as has been said of Augustus, ' He found Poland of wood, and left her of marble.' He introduced a regular code of laws, 1 was always easy of access, and the privileges he granted to the peasants induced the nobles to call him derisively ' Rex rusticorum.' He, was killed whilst hunting, by a fall from his horse, in his sixtieth year. Next to Casimir lies Ladislaus II., the first of the House of Jagellon, once Duke of Lithuania, and a pagan, who 1 The first book printed in Poland was the Constitutions of Casimir the Great. 494 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. obtained the crown of Poland (after embracing Christianity) on nis marriage with Hedwige, younger daughter of King Louis of Hungary and Poland. 1 Amongst the tombs of his descendants are those of Sigismund, the great protector of arts and sciences, and his son Sigismund (II.) Augustus, who nearly lost his crown for his gallant devotion to his wife, Barbara Radzivill. In this prince terminated the hereditary influence which gave tranquillity to the diets of election, and the cabals and dissensions began which were fatal to the political importance of Poland. The first of the new succession buried here is Stephen Bathori, Prince of Transylvania, elected in 1576, on the abdication of Henry of Valois. He owed his crown to his marriage with Anne, daughter of Sigismund I. Next lies his successor, Sigismund III., son of John III. of Sweden, (by Catherine Jagellon, daughter of Sigismund I.), who was elected in 1587 to revive the Jagellon line on the female side. Upon the death of his father in 1592, he obtained the crown of Sweden also, but lost authority there, and was eventually deposed, owing to his partiality for Poland. Near Sigismund lie his two sons, Ladislaus IV., an admi- rable king, and John Casimir, who became a Jesuit priest at Rome, and even a cardinal, but was absolved from his vows by the Pope on his brother's death, and received a dispensation to marry his brother's widow, Louisa Maria of Nevers, who practically ruled Poland in his name. He was brave, but, as he preferred peace to war, he was accused by the Polish nobles of pusillanimity, and, abdicating in the twentieth year of his reign, retired to France, where 1 Her elder sister, Maria, was passed over because she was married to the too- powerful Emperor Sigismund. CRACOW. 495 he again became an ecclesiastic, and died at Nevers in 1672. The Potocki Chapel contains a fine figure of Christ, and a statue by Thonvaldsen of Count Vladimir Potocki, killed in 1812 before Moscow. Through a trapdoor on the right of the entrance visitors descend to the vaults, which are filled with sarcophagi. The place of honour is occupied by John Sobieski ('Malleus Ottomanorum '), who was equally great in military courage and in peaceful sagacity. His tomb is half hidden by flags and garlands. When Charles XII. of Sweden gazed upon it he exclaimed, ' What a pity that so great a man should ever die ! ' ! The sarcophagus of Joseph Poniatowski, the great general, who died nobly fighting in the battle of Leipsic, bears his crown, sceptre, and sword. The cele- brated Polish dictator, Thaddeus Kosciusko, who died at Soleure in 1817, has been brought hither to rest amongst the heroes of his country. In the University is a statue of Copernicus, who was one of its professors, and is buried in the church of S. Anne. Its flourishing time was in the sixteenth century, under Sigismund Augustus, when several of the German reformers who fled from the persecutions under Charles V. found a refuge there. Beautiful public walks surround the town, with many striking points of view of the picturesque walls built by W T enceslaus, King of Bohemia, during the short time he reigned over Poland. There are some remains of the Palace ofCasimir the Great (1300- 1370), and in the garden a barrow, which was the tomb of his mistress, the Jewish Esther, to 1 He is celebrated in the ode of Filicaia : 'Non perche re sei tu, si grande sei.' 496 STUDIES IN RUSSIA. whom the Jews are supposed to owe the numerous privi- leges which they enjoy in Poland, 1 * the paradise of the Jews.' Here in Cracow it may truly be said that ' if you ask for an interpreter, they bring you a Jew ; if you come to an inn, the landlord is a Jew ; if you want post horses, a Jew procures them, and a Jew drives them ; ?nd if you wish to purchase, a Jew is your agent.' An excursion of three miles should be made to the hill of Bronislawdy on the top of which Kosciusko's heart is buried in a great mound, with the earth of which soil from all the Polish battle-fields is said to be mingled. There is a beautiful view of Cracow from hence. Travellers will probably return to England from Cracow by way of Breslau (Hotel Goldene Cans), a beautiful old city, with an interesting cathedral and churches, and the most picturesque Rathhaus in Germany. 1 For the sake of this mistress Casimir was excommunicated by the Bishop of Cracow, a severity for which the bishop was imprisoned in a dungeon, and eventually drowned by night in the Vistula. INDEX. A. Abo, 165 Adrian, the patriarch, 231 Agourtzi, popularity of, 27 Aleviso, Antonio, 218 Alexander I., 70, 76, 96, 117, 127, 141, 161, 305, 487 Alexander II., 43, 98, 99, 109, 120 Alexander III., 34, 223 Alexander Nevskoi, S., 74, 185 Alexander, Prince of Tver, 199 Alexandra, the Empress, 98 Alexandrine, Grand Duchess, 141 Alexandrovsky, 314 Alexis Michailovitch, Tsar, 248, 374, 380, 382, 385, 387 Alexis Petrovitch, 94-96, 216 Alexis, S., the tomb of, 276 Ambrose, Metropolitan, 340 Andrew III., Grand Prince, 235 Andrew, S., 437 Anna Petrovna, 98 Anne, Empress, 92, 222, 249 Anne, Grand Princess, 443, 455 Anne, S., 184 Anthony, S., of Kieff, 463, 464, 469 Anthony, S., the Roman, 189 Askold, the Varagian prince, 438, 474 Atamans, the, 432 B. Baboushka, the, 412 Bati Khan, 457 Bear-hunting, 146 Beatified Redeemer, sect of the, 296 Beglovestnie, the, 296 Bela Veja, forest of, 484 Beleff, 310 Benediction of the Waters at Moscow, 279 at S. Petersburg, 49 Besyedy, the, 151 Bethany, hermitages of, 354 Bielo-Ozero, monastery of, 180, 425 Boat of Peter the Great at the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, loo on Lake Ladoga, 149 on Lake Plestcheief, 357 Boris, the sainted prince, 477 Boris Godunof, the Tsar, 222, 236, 245, 272, 305, 347, 348 Borsch, 26 Boundaries, marking the, 434 Boyarin, the, 401 Breslau, 496 Brest, 483 Bribery, 19, 31 Burning of Moscow, 308 Bylini, the, 179 C. Catherine I., 89, 90, 123, 138 Catherine II., 53, 54, 70, 72, 73, 83, 84, 93, 103, 117, 118, 133, 137, 139, 140, 270, 343, 345, _!33 Cheboksari, 362 Christening of the Cuckoos, 420 Christenings, 397 K K 498 INDEX. Christianin, the name of, 207 Chudof monastery, 276 Church, the Russian, 317 Clergy, Black, 324-325 White, 319-324 Commune, the, 152 Constantine, the Grand Duke, 98, 127, 144 Convents, Russian, 325 Cossacks, 430-435 Cotton factory at Schlusselburg, 148 Cracow, 491-496 Crescent, the, on churches, 220 Crimean War, 65 Cronstadt, 132 Custom house, 30 Cyprian, the Metropolitan, 228 Cyril, S., 32 D. Daniel Alexandrovitch, 205 Dantzic, 28 Derjavine, the poet, 139 Dir, the Varagian prince, 438, 474 Dishes, favourite Russian, 26, 27, 203 Dissenters, Russian, 296-305 Dmitri Donskoi, 219, 237 Dmitri, the false, 254, 256 Dmitri Ivanovitch, Prince, 200, 246- 247 Dmitri of the Terrible Eyes, 199 Dnieper, the, 437, 476 Dolgorouki, the family of, 100 Prince Ivan, 312 Domostroi, the book called the, 409, 411 Domovoy, the, 155 Don, the river, 429 Donskoi, the monastery of, 339 Dosythea, grave of, 329 Drosky, the, 35 Droujina, the, 179, 367 Duderhof Hills, the, 137 Dunaborg, 34 E. Easter, 252, 253, 421 Elijah, S., 133 Elizabeth, the Empress, 72, 91, 130, 139, 272, 329 Elizabeth Alexievna, the Empress, 96 Epiphania, 49 Eudoxia, the Grand Princess, 273 Eudoxia, the Tsaritsa, 159, 216, 275 Exiles to Siberia, 309 F. Falls of Imatra, 164 Fasts, the Russian, 25, 419, 420 Fathers, the Greek, 316 Feodor Borisvitch, 254, 348 Feodor Ivanovitch, the Tsar, 245, 388, 391 Finland, 159-165 Fioraventi, Aristoteli, 223 Fireflies, 480 Fir trees, contempt for, 343 Fletcher, Dr. Giles, 211 Forests, 145, 166 Friday, the Russian, 423 Funerals, 413-417 G. Gatschina, 14 Gelinotte, the, 146 George Vladimirovitz, 205 Gethsemane, 255 Gleb, the sainted prince, 477 Gogol, 66, 433, 434, 475, 476, 479, 480 Gostinnoi Dvor at Moscow, 207 at S. Petersburg, 70 H. Harakka, 165 Helsingfors, 165 Helena, the Grand Princess, 203 Henry, S., 160, 165 Herbestein, Baron d', 206 Hermogenes, the patriarch, 229, 276 Holy Thursday, 251 INDEX. 499 Iborsk, 180 Icons, 14-15, 103, 154-155, 236 Igera, 176 Ilia M Mourometz, 193, 471 Ilmen, lake, 170 Ilyink, 310 Imatra, 164 Intemperance, 23-25, 290 Ipatief, 359 Irene, the Tsaritsa, 268, 274, 335 Isaiaslaf, the Grand Prince, 445, 456, 477 Ivan Alexievitch, 249, 260 Ivan the Great, 179, 218, 238, 239, 262, 270, 350, 351 Ivan Kalita, 205, 238, 239, 277 Ivan the Terrible, 34, 173, 174, 178, 210, 212-214, 230, 242-245, 262, 267, 268, 270, 274, 346, 352 Ivan Vassilievitch II., 349 Ivan II., 239 Ivan VI. , the death of, 157-159 J. Jagellon, the house of, 485 the tombs of, 493 Jerusalem, monastery of the New, 369. 389 Jews in Poland, 491, 496 oasaph, the Metropolitan, 351 onah, S., 227 Kieff Chapel of S. Vladimir, 451 Church of S. Andrew, 458 of S. Basil, 452 of S. Cyril, 452 of Desiatinnaya, 453 Convent of the Ascension, 460 Golden Gate, 452 Lebed, 459 Monastery, Bratski, 459 of S. Michael, 447 Pecherskoe, 461-475 Podol, 459 Statue of S. Vladimir, 460 University, 460 Klin, 200 Kolieda, feast of, 476 Koltsov, the poet, 411, 478 Konigsberg, 29 Korsakof, 140 Korsin, queen of Sweden, 165 Kosciusko, Thaddeus, 495, 496 Kostia, 27 Kostroma, 359 Kourganes, 435 Krasnoe Selo, 144 Kremlin, the name of, 221 Krilof, the fabulist, 71, no Kriukova, 369 Kulikovo, battle of, 237, 239 Kursk, 429 Kutusof, 70, 103 Kvass, 191 K. Kalevala, the, 162, 165 Kalieki, the singers called, 192 Kanev, 482 Karliki, the, 18 Kazan, 363 Kazan, Our Lady of, 70 Kaziatin, 483 Khaloff, 356 Khlistovatchina, the, 297 Kibitka, the, 196 Kieff Berestof, 459 Boritchef, ravine of, 453 Catacombs, 469 Cathedral of S. Sophia, 447-451 Lake Ilmen, 170 Ivanozero, 429 Ladoga, 147 Plestche"ief, 357 Language, the Russian, 13, 31 Lanskoi, the death of, 140 Lazienki, 487 Lent, 420 Lomonossof, the poet, 43, 131, 139 Lyeshie, the, 13, 167 M. Macarius, S., 451 Mamai, the Tartar, 219, 239 K K 2 500 INDEX. Maria, the Tsaritsa, wife of Boris Godunof, 254, 342, 348 Maria, queen of Livonia, 349 Marie Alexandrovna, the Empress, 98 Marie Feodorovna, the Empress, 96, 119, 144 Marie de la Grange, queen of Po- land, 489 Marie, Grand Duchess, 128 Marienburg, 29 Marina, wife of the false Dmitri, 272, 276 Marly, house of Peter the Great at, 128 Marpha, the Tsaritsa, 200, 247, Marriages, 401-409 Martha Beretska, 172 Martyrs, the Greek, 317 Mazeppa, 459 Mentchikoff, 47, 91, 123 ; graves of parents of, 305 Methodius, S. , 32 Michael II., the Grand Prince, 198 Michael Feodorovitch, the Tsar, 229, 248, 263, 359 Minin, the patriot, 208 Mir.t he, 153 Miskevickz, the poet, 37 Mistislaf, the Grand Prince, 183 Moleben, 189 Monastery, Abramief, 426 Bielo-Ozero, 425 Bratski, 459 Chudof, 276 Donskoi, 339 Ipatief, 359 New Jerusalem, 369, 389 Novo Devichi, 332 Novospaski, 326 Pecherskoe of Kieff, 462 Pecherskoe of Pskoff, 34 Peryn, 426 of S. Cyril, 388, 425' of S. Michael, 447 of S. Alexander Nevskoi, 74 Simonof, 329 JSmolnoi, 119 Strasni, 314 Solovetsky, 426 Therapontoff, 387, 388 Troitsa, 342 Valamo, 148 Monastery Vydubitsky, 426 Yurieff, 190 Montplaisir, palace of, 131 Moscow Arsenal, the, 277 Bazaar, 207 Bielogorod, 201 Cathedral of the Annunciation, of the Archangel, 238 of the Assumption, 222 of the Saviour, 282 Church of S. Basil the Beati- fied, 208 of the Saviour in the Wood, 261 Dom Pashkova, 283 Gate of S. Nicholas, 278 Borovitski, 278 of the Redeemer, 216 Troitski, 278 Granitovaya Palata, 262 Hospital, Foundling, 281 of Michael Shere"metief, 314 Hotels, 204 Iberian Mother, the, 286 Ivan Veliki, 222 Khitaigorod, the, 201, 202 Krasnoi Ploshtshad, 208 Library of the Patriarchs, 259 Lobnoe Miesto, 212 Market, Antiquity, 294 Hair, 293 Thief, 291 Monastery, Ascension, 273 Chudof, 276 Strasni, 314 Palace of the Kremlin, 2^3 of Petrofski, 306 " Park of Saloniki, 306 Preobrajensk, 302 Red Square, the, 208 Redeemer of Smolensk, the, 216 Romanoff House, 285 Sacristy of the Patriarchs, 258 Semlainogorod, the, 206 Slavonski bazaar, 203 Sloboda, 201 Spaskoi Verota, 216 Statue of Minin, 208 of Pouchkine, 314 Suharef Tower, 293 INDEX. 501 Moscow Terem, the, 254-268 Tower of Ivan Veliki, 250 Transfiguration Cemetery, 302 Treasury, 269-273 Tsar Kolokol, 222 Moskva, the river, 219 Mountains, in Russia, 197 Mouravieff, the historian, 458 N. Napoleon I. at Moscow, 228, 307 Natalia Naryskin, the Tsaritsa, 249, 257, 266 National hymn, the, 145 Nekrasov, Nicholas, poems of, 341 Neskstchnaya, 310 Nestor, the chronicler, 471 Neva, the river, 46-52 Nicholas I., the Emperor, 43, 64, 65, 97, 117, 132, 449 Nihilist, the expression, 7 Nijni Novogorod, 360 Nikita Selianinovitch, 482 Nikolskoi Maros, 47 Nikon, the patriarch, 374-394 ; memorials in the cathedral of the Assumption of, 234 ; robes of, 258 Novo Devichi, monastery of, 332 Novogorod the Great, 169 Novospaski, monastery of, 326 O. Official peculation, 20 Olaf, S., 176 Oldenbergs, tombs of the, 136 Old Ladoga, 159 Oleg, Moscow founded by, 205 Kieff seized by, 439 Olga, the Grand Princess, 439, 477 Oranienbaum, 123 Orlof, Alexis, 93, 125, 126, 127 Gregory, 118 Orthodox Sunday, 327 Ostankino, 311 Otrepief, Gregory, 256 P. Palm Sunday, 251, 420 Paul, the Emperor, 54, 76, 96, 112- Paul of Tobolsk, 467 Pawlovski, palace of, 144 Peewits, 164 Peresvet and Osliab, 330, 343 Pereyaslavl, 357 Peroun, the idol, 179, 453 Peter the Great, 37, 38, 53, 81, 84, 87, 89, TOO, 102, 103, 120, 127, 128, 161, 207, 215, 216, 257, 272, 345. 347- 353. 357. 462 Peter II., 94, 123, 159, 238, 250 Peter III., 76, 92, 124-127, 130 Peter, S., the metropolitan, 226 Pet'erhof, 127-132 Petersburg, S. Academy of Arts, 47 of Sciences, 47 Admiralty, 52 Alexander Column, 40 Theatre, 72 Bazaar, 70 Canal, Fontanka, 73 Moika, 69 Cathedrals Kazan, 69 S. Isaac, 54-63 SS. Peter and Paul, 86- 100 Churches oldest in S. Petersburg, 102 S. Alex. Nevskoi, 75 Preobrajenski, 118 Convents S. A. Nevskoi, 74 Smolnoi, 119 Cottage of Peter the Great, 102 Droskies at, 35, 77 Exchange, 82 Fortress, the, 101 Garden, Summer, 109-111 Gostinnoi-dvor, 70 Grandsire, the little, 100 Hermitage, the, 103-108 Islands, the, 79, 81-85 Kammenoi Ostrof, 83 Krestovsky, 83 Library, the Imperial, 72 Monument of Krilof, no 502 INDEX. Petersburg, S.~ Monument of Pouchkine, 109 Museum Imperial of carriages, 1 20 of relics of Peter the Great, 106 Nevskoi Prospekt, 66-74 Palaces Annitshkoff, 73 of Mentchikoff, 47 Michael, 112-177 Summer, 109 Taurida, 118 Winter, 42-46 Petropaulovski Sobor, 86 School of Naval Cadets, 47 Statues Barclay de Tolly, 69 Catherine II., 72 Kutusof, 69 Nicholas Paulovitch, 64 Peter the Great, 52, 168 Tsarinskoi Lug, 108 Vassili Ostrof, 81 Yegalinskoi Ostrof, 83 Philaret, the metropolitan, 351, 355 the patriarch, 229, 231, 248 Philip, S., the martyrdom of, 198, 230 Photius, 228 Plato, the metropolitan, dwelling of, 354 ; grave of, 355 Plestche"ief, Lake, 357 Plotniki, the, 294 Pojarskoi, the patriot, 208, 218 Poniatowski, Joseph, the tomb of, 498 Potemkin, Prince, 73, 106, 118, 138 Pouchkine, the poet, 109 Pravezh, the, 18 Pskoff, 34 R- Radzivill, Barbara, 494 Railway trains, 33, 427 Raskolniks, the, 298 Rattiarve*, 163 Recollection Monday, 417 Rotari, pictures by Count, 130 Riga, 34 Rivers of Russia, 190 Romanoff, the family of, 88; 285 Ropscha, 127 Rostoff, 357 Kubloff, the icon painter, 135 Rumiantsof, 467 Rusalka, the, 394 Russia, the foundation of, 180 Samara, 365 Sarai, 365 Saratof, 365 Saturday of S. Demetrius, 418 Sphlusselburg, 147-159 Sects in Moscow, 296 Selski Skhod, 152 Selski Starosta, 152 Serapion, S., 351 Serfs, cruelty to, 12, 286 ; the eman- cipation of, 10-13 ; rebellion of, 363 Sergi, monastery of, 133-137 Sergius, S., 239, 329, 343, 345, 346, 356 Serieffsky, palace of, 128 Services of the Russian Church, 15, 16, 59-62, 187, 250, 397-403 Shemiaka, the usurper, 240 Shere"me"tief, palace of the family, 3 J 3 Shtshee, 191, 197 Shuiski, Vassili, 248, 276 Siberia, exile to, 18, 309 Silence of the Russian character, 27 Simbirsk, 365 Simeon the Proud, the Grand Prince, 239 Simonof, monastery of, 329 Skaziteli, the singers called, 192 Skoptzi, the sect of the, 297 Sobieski, John, palace of, 489; tomb of. 495 Solario of Milan, 179 Solovetsky, monastery of, 426 Solovief, ' History of Russia ' by, 3i3 Sophia Paleologus, the Grand Prin- cess, 239, 270, 342 Sophia, the Tsarevna, 215, 261, 267, 271, 336-339 Sparrow Hills, the, 307 INDEX. 503 Spissatelli, Giovanni, 225 Spring, the sudden burst of, 133 Stakoutchai, 32 Stanislaus, king of Poland, 119 Stanislaus, S., 492 Starosta, the, 152 Stephen of Perm, S., 261 Strelna, 127 Streltsi, the, 257, 260 Superstitions, 13, i55- J 5 6 . 394-395- Suvarof, 76, 103 Sviatoslaf, the Grand Prince, 465, Synod, the most holy, 232 T. Tamerlane, the invasion of, 228 Tambof, 365 Tatiana, the Tsarevna, 388 Tarantass, the, 369 Taras Shevchenko, the grave of, 482 Tchernigov, 447, 456, 482 Tchudova, 167, 197 Theodosia, the Grand Princess, the grave of, 177 Theodosius, S., 463, 464, 469 Theognostos, S., 206, 224, 227 Therapontoff, monastery of, 388 Thieves in Russia, 21-23, 148, 204, 291-293 Thursday, Holy, 251 Tver, 198 Tourgue"neff, the novelist, 8, 20, 149, 162, 168, 194, 195. 197. 3 X 3' 332 Torkel, castle founded by, 163 Traktomirof, 477 Troitsa, 342-356 Tsar, the, his position and power, 7-9 ; title of, 242 Tsarskoe Selo, 137-144 Tula, 429 Turberville, George, poems of, 14, 19 U. Uncleanliness of Russians, 25-26 Unction of children, 399 Extreme, 412 V. Valdai, 167 Valamo, 148, 3 2 3 Vassili the Blind, the Grand Prince 239, 240 Vassili Dmitrivitch, the Grand Prince, 239 Vassili Ivanovitch.the Grand Prince 225, 240, 262, 277, 346 Varenooka, 26 Veche", the, 34, 71 Vefania, 353 Village life, 149-156, 34 I -34 2 . 395" 418 Villanov, palace of, 489 Virgin of three hands, the, 393 Visits in Russia, 284 Vistula, the river, 29, 486 Vitatchevo, 477 Vladimir, the city of, 366-368 Vladimir Monomachus, the Grand Prince, 445, 450 Vladimir, S., 439-445, 453, 455, 456, 460 Vladimir Yaroslavitch, 181 Vladimir, the Virgin of, 223 Vodyannie, the, 13, 394 Vola, plain of, 487 Volkoff, the river, 148, 170, 176, 178 Volga, the river, 200, 358-365 Voloss, the god, 459 Vozdushnuie, the spirits called, 13 Vychegorod, 477 W. Wallace, D. Mackenzie, the ' Rus- sia 'of, 12 Warsaw, 486 Wiborg, 162 Wierzbolow, 30 Wilna, 34 Uglitch, 200 Ukraine, the, 431 Xenia, the Tzarevna, 254, 255, 343 504 INDEX. Y. Yaroslaf, the city of, 357 Zakuska, the, 203 Yaroslaf, the Grand Prince, 170,445, Zaporoghians, the, 432 450, 456 Znamenska, the palace of, 132 Yemstchik, the, 163 Zoritz, 140 Yurieff monastery, 190 LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET 7/. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. subject to immediate recall. A 1992 ' :\ ! LD 21A-50m-12,'60 (B6221slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley YB 59801 M313221 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES