The Kremlin—Equipage and visits of the Virgin of Inverski—Origin of Christianity in Russia—A few words about TroÏtsa—A travelling companion—Purchase of furs—Passage of the Oka in a sledge—Feeling of terror on first travelling in a sledge over a frozen river.

I cannot better compare the disposition of the streets of Moscow than with that of the series of concentric threads in a cobweb. Straight streets parting from the Kremlin, as a common centre, intersect all the circular arteries, in such a way, that it is impossible to lose one’s self in the city, notwithstanding its immensity.

Each Russian city has its kremlin. It is an enclosure that contains generally a fortress, a residence for the Emperor, and one or many churches. The Kremlin of Moscow is much celebrated on account of its vastness, its historical souvenirs, and the wealth of its sanctuaries. It is relatively modern, having been rebuilt since the conflagration of 1812. One may still visit a little relic of the old building. It would be difficult to say to what style it belongs; there may be found there a mixture of many of the Asiatic varieties, between the Byzantine and those of the extreme East. Walls of extraordinary thickness; a series of little chambers, vaulted or rising in a point; narrow windows, permitting only the penetration of a mysterious light, sifted through stained glass; low doors surmounted with a Moorish arch; walls, gilt from the ceiling to the floor, on which are drawn figures of saints, having only the head and hands painted or enamelled; here and there Chinese monsters; doors opening occasionally to the height of the first story, and consequently suspended stairs to pass from one floor to another—this is the ancient Kremlin. One wonders, on roving through this intricate labyrinth, whether he is in an oratory or a salon, in a place of amusement or in a torture chamber of the Inquisition. The new dwelling of the emperors is quite different. Although of very doubtful taste, it is at least in harmony, on account of its vastness, with the empire of which it is the seat. Space has not been spared. The hall of the throne is quite a steppe to traverse. Its dimensions are monstrous. What was my astonishment on finding there several statues and portraits of the Great Napoleon! The Russians, far from bearing any enmity towards our military hero, like to render homage to his glory. To admire thus genius, wherever it may be found, even when the admirer has been the victim, is at least the mark of a liberal mind and high sentiments.

I had finished my first visit to the Kremlin, and, muffled and wrapped in furs, I was being comfortably driven to my hotel, musing carelessly on the way, when my coachman suddenly turned round, and with a silly smile, lifted my fur cap, and at the same time raised his own. Obtaining no intelligible explanation, through my ignorance of the language, I fancied myself the object of some practical joke in which coachmen indulge, and, consequently, being unable to rate him well as he deserved, I subdued my rage and smiled also. I demanded my cap, however, by gestures, to which he responded with three bows, as many signs of the cross, and sanctimoniously smiled again. I was just going to recover my property by force, when I perceived we were under the SpasskoÏ gateway, and that every one was bareheaded.

The proceeding was now intelligible: this gate is surmounted with the picture of the Virgin of Inverski, the favourite virgin of the Muscovites, the miraculous virgin whose supernatural power had been equal to arresting the conflagration of the Kremlin—the conflagration lighted by Rostopchine, a personage much less popular in Russia than Bonaparte.

Nobody, therefore, should pass the SpasskoÏ gate without lifting his hat. Old men relate that a violent wind forced even the great French conqueror to submit to this law when he intended to pass it unobserved.

The Virgin of Inverski is invoked by everybody; still she does not make herself so cheap to everybody, for a widely spread custom consists in vicarious visits by representations.

In order to obtain miraculous cures, they send for the Virgin of the Assumption, and more special favours, for the Virgin of Vladimir; and when one goes on a long journey, he generally prefers a facsimile of the Virgin of Kazan. But extraordinary circumstances must exist to demand a visit from the Virgin of Inverski.

When the metropolitan considers that a family is worthy of such an honour, four monks and two dignitaries of the Church proceed to the SpasskoÏ gate in a carriage with six horses. Every spectator bows low and makes the sign of the cross as the picture is lowered from its accustomed place, and prostrates himself completely, in spite of the snow and frost, at the moment it is installed in the bottom of the carriage; the two priests then place themselves on the box in front, the monks act as drivers and footmen, and thus they proceed to the privileged house, whose members do not receive the honour of such a visit without very liberal offerings.

The individual ritual practices in the streets, on the promenade, and everywhere, and at all hours, constitute certainly some of the special characteristics of Moscow. One meets at every step people kneeling and reciting prayers, though nothing apparently calls for the devotion. The worship of pictorial representations is exaggerated almost to idolatry even by the more enlightened portion of the community. But then the higher class, though almost wholly Nihilistic, condescends to observe these popular forms on the one hand, merely through a servile deference to the authority of the Emperor, and on the other, an unwillingness to reproach by neglect the superstition of the lower class.

The orthodox religion is well known to be a faithful reproduction of the old Greek worship of Constantinople. About the year 1000, the chief of the horde that was then to become the embryo of the Russian nation—a thorough barbarian in daring and cruelty, in brute force and ungovernable impetuosity—constituted himself the promulgator of the Greek religion in the country subject to his rule.

This Vladimir—such was his name—hurled defiance at all the neighbouring peoples, and subjected to his will nearly the whole of the actual limits of European Russia. He is alleged to have had—if certain fabulous chronicles may be trusted—five legitimate wives, eight hundred concubines, and a multitude of children, whom he sacrificed to the gods. But just at the moment he was about to sacrifice his first wife, the partner even of his throne, he was seized with remorse.

Intent on forming into an entire nation all the hordes he had conquered, he nevertheless understood that this could only be accomplished by means of a national religion. With this object in view, he sent ambassadors into different countries, in order to study their respective religions, and these from their reports enabled him to choose which seemed to him the best. Mahomedanism is said to have displeased him, because the Koran forbade the use of wine, a precept that would not have favoured his indulgence in this habit. Romanism was rejected on account of the celibacy of the priesthood, and especially on account of the obedience it would exact towards an authority other than his own. Judaism, a religion without national coherence, was not favourable to his project of becoming the founder of a homogenous and solid empire. The Greek worship, however, imposed on his barbarian mind by the magnificence of its ritual; he therefore adopted it, and Russia became a Christian nation of the Eastern Church. Though its dogmas differ but little from those of the Romish Church, the Russians have inherited the old hatred of the Greeks towards the Romans. They would willingly put into practice the ancient injunction of the Byzantine bishops at the time of the expedition of Frederick against Jerusalem:—“To obtain the remission of sins, the pilgrims must be massacred and exterminated from the face of the earth.”2

They derive also from the devotees of the ancient Church their idolatry, for the indulgence in which these sacrificed their lives. They are the true disciples of those Byzantines who, at the time of the Latin conquest, overthrew with rage a statue of Minerva, upbraiding her with having called hither the barbarians, because she looked towards the west with outstretched arms.

During my stay at Moscow, I visited the monastery of TroÏtsa, near this city. This monastery was founded by St. Sergius in 1338. It would be more correct to say that at this time the pious hermit of the forest of Godorok became a cenobite in imparting to a few zealous souls like his own a taste for poverty and the renunciation of all worldly things. But inasmuch as the united resources of these devotees were barely sufficient at first to provide for them a shelter, the convent was not constructed till later.

His fortune was indeed changed when St. Sergius, at the moment of the great Mongolian invasion, prevailed on Prince Dmitri to march against the barbarians in the plains of the Don. This prince having become victorious over the fierce MamaÏ, overloaded the new community with presents. In 1393, TroÏtsa was partially pillaged and burnt by the Tartars, and St. Sergius perished; but his body, recovered as if by a miracle from the heap of ruins, continued to be an object of veneration. The czars, the princes, the boyards, successively bestowed important largesses on the convent, whose wealth then became legendary in Russia. In the middle of the last century, TroÏtsa possessed, in addition to an almost incredible heap of jewels, immense domains and a hundred thousand peasants. Then even the wealth of the monastery was estimated to be over forty millions of pounds sterling. Its fortifications, which still exist, defended it in 1609 against the Polish invasion, and sheltered from danger the young czars John and Peter Alexievitch during one of the revolts of the Strelitz Imperial Guards. Besides the buildings serving the community as habitations, it surrounds with its walls nine churches, whose riches excite the wonder rather than the admiration of the stranger. All the painted and enamelled portions of the representations of saints are set around with rubies, emeralds, topazes, and diamonds, of enormous size. The tomb of St. Sergius is in gilded silver; the canopy is of massive silver, and supported by four columns also of silver. The chasubles, worn by the priesthood in the exercise of their worship, are covered with fifteen, eighteen, and even twenty-one pounds of pearls. The spectator is at first dazzled at the sight of so much magnificence; but since all these things are wonders only on account of their immense value, one at last becomes indifferent to the spectacle of a mere heap of precious things. As other writers, more able, have already fully described TroÏtsa, I will not fatigue the reader with further details. My guide led me to see everything: the chapels, the treasury, where may be seen twenty gallons of fine pearls, which are consigned to a glass case, the authorities not knowing what other use to make of them. When I had seen all these treasures, my guide led me to one of the outer doors and held out his hand. This movement, I must admit, embarrassed me, for after having visited the monastery of TroÏtsa, a donation of a thousand roubles even seems a mere trifle. Before taking leave of this devotee, I asked permission to visit the library. “We have none,” he replied. This poor fellow then seemed to me really poor, and I was sorry I could not offer him a gratuity of a kind I would have bestowed with more pleasure. M. de Custine says the monastery has a library, but that the regulations do not permit the public to see it. I only hope what M. de Custine says is true.

On returning from this visit, a young man called Constantine Kokcharof came to see me. His complexion was a yellowish brown, and he had prominent cheekbones like the Mongols, crisp hair and full lips like an African, a short stature, and yet great muscular strength. He seemed to hold a place between the native of the North and that of the tropical forests. If he would only have made researches into his genealogy, I am sure he would have traced his origin to the Mongols after the race had passed through some change in India. He said to me on entering: “May God, monsieur, bless your journey!” Then he gave me his name and held out his hand according to the Siberian custom. In Russia it is thought to be impolite not to offer the hand immediately on making an acquaintance.

“Monsieur,” added Constantine, “I am the friend of M. Sabachnikof, whom you have met at the house of M. Pfaffius, the commissary of Kiachta. I am returning to Irkutsk, where my parents live. I had written to M. Pfaffius to ask him if I might accompany him into Siberia, and he replied by giving me your address. Will you take me for your travelling companion? I will serve you as interpreter, and with me you will have the advantage of travelling as fast or as easily as it suits you, and, moreover, of taking the route that would be most convenient to yourself.”

I showed him my letters of recommendation; and among them he found one for his father and another for his uncle, both being imperial functionaries in Siberia. We settled the business at once, and I then occupied myself solely with preparations for departure.

My young companion was most valuable to me, because he was thoroughly acquainted with the route we were to take.

He was going to traverse, for the sixth time, the immense space that intervenes between Moscow and the Amoor river. He had made the journey in summer and in winter; he was therefore fully competent to advise me as to what arrangements had to be made, and what precautions it would be indispensable to take against cold and fatigue. He informed me that, in the sledge, besides my jenotte fur, I should roll myself up in a dacha, a kind of mantle, furred inside and out, in which the wearer, being muffled from head to foot, disappeared altogether. The one I bought the following day was lined with white hare skin, and covered again with elk skin, the hair of which was short, but thick. These two fur dresses not being considered sufficiently À la mode, I was obliged to set off with collars of beaver. Swaddled in this manner, I innocently imagined I could face with impunity the most rigorous cold of Siberia.

I have met, in the course of my travels, many a sharper and with many an impudent attempt at extortion, but never with a demand supported with such unscrupulous reasoning as that of the interpreter at the hotel at Moscow. “Monsieur,” he began unblushingly, “you owe me at least a recompense of three hundred francs. I will show you in what way. You had urgent need of a Russian companion to go through Siberia. When M. Kokcharof came to ask for you, I could easily have told him that I did not know you, and in keeping on talking with him, have found out his address. Then I might have come and said to you: ‘I have just found the man you want, but I cannot promise to let you know his name and where he may be found unless you give me a thousand francs.’ Now, monsieur, you know, I have not done such a thing as that, and you ought, indeed, to take it into consideration.”

My rage made me forget for the moment the article in the decree of the Emperor—the interdiction to strike a subject. I was about to raise my hand, but I raised my foot instead, and, in this way, speedily dismissed the barefaced impostor. I found out afterwards that this man was a Pole, a circumstance that enabled me to calm my conscience, for could the decree be meant for these convicts? Having finally secured my trunks, I went, in company with M. Constantine Kokcharof, chatting with him all the way, to take the train for Nijni-Novgorod.

Nijni-Novgorod is the last station of the railway before entering by road into Siberia.

To get from the railway station to the city, it is necessary to cross the Oka river, at about a few hundred yards before it falls into the Volga. When I arrived at Novgorod, on the 15th of December, the winter passage over the ice had begun. The surface of the Oka was furrowed with the passage of sledges coming from Irkutsk, from Nicolaefsk, from the world’s end, in fact, and bringing to the railway all kinds of Asiatic provisions. Every river in Russia and Siberia freezes in a different way. Some even have an aspect so special as to enable one, at a mere glance at the ice, to say which river it is. This peculiarity is caused by atmospheric conditions, by the nature and form of the shores, and especially by the rate of movement of the stream at the time of congelation.

The Oka, when frozen, presents on its surface a series of great protuberances, in form something like a succession of mounds and consequent dales. The untravelled foreigner sees in his imagination the rivers of the North, during winter, presenting a surface like plate glass, whereon skaters make long excursions at a rapid pace, and thus accomplish long journeys. Except, perhaps, the Volga, over which the ice, on account of the sluggishness of the current, is almost everywhere level, but where the presence of snow, however, does not admit of skating, I have seen in Russia no river whatever covered to any extent with a smooth surface of ice; indeed, many of them have a surface so uneven, that it would be impossible for any vehicle to pass over them.

The course of the Oka, however, is not of this character; its frozen surface is one of the least rugged. As for me, hitherto inexperienced in Northern locomotion, I should certainly not have supposed, on looking over the roughness of the route, that I was journeying over a frozen river, if my attention had not been attracted by a strange noise beneath, a noise too strange to be forgotten, and sufficient to dismiss from my mind any illusion that I was travelling over an ordinary road.

It was a hollow rumbling sound in a deep gulf below. To the excited fancy of the wayfarer, it seemed, at times, the echoed roar of some angry demon imprisoned in the depths of an icy cave; and the traveller, listening as he is whisked along, is affected by a terrifying sensation of sinking, produced by the alternate rising and falling of the sledge over the undulating surface—a movement from which he involuntarily recoils. Just as in a carriage, when the horses are rushing on with uncontrolled impetuosity, he instinctively throws himself backwards, as if to struggle against the force that would hurl him to destruction, or, standing on the ridge of a precipice, he impulsively recoils towards surer ground from the abyss yawning to devour him, so, the first time he travels over the frozen river, he shrinks from a movement, but from one against which it is in vain to struggle; for, in glancing over the fragile partition, he finds he is contending, not to attain solid ground, for there is no shore of safety near for retreat, but hopelessly against his own weight. He is irritated at the presence of others there, at their not becoming as light as air; he is angry with everybody and everything that is heavy, because what aggravates the danger by its weight, men or baggage, is exasperating, and, indeed, not without reason, for every ponderous atom, in his imagination, exaggerates the imminence of that desperate moment when, without the resource of a jutting branch or anything stable presented providentially to his grasp, this frail, frozen floor should break under the weight like a pane of glass, and plunge him into all the horrors of a glacial sepulture.

Scared with this appalling phantom that clung to me in my first sledging experience, it was a great relief to regain the solid ground with no roaring gulf beneath, and a still greater pleasure to arrive safe at Novgorod.

The city of Nijni-Novgorod is picturesquely constructed, and, at the same time, very interesting, on account of the liveliness of its bazaars.

The Volga where it receives the waters of the Oka is, at least, four miles wide. A great hill, or rather a mountain, swells up along the right bank of this immense sheet of water, and Novgorod rises proudly on the summit of this mountain, watching on one side Asia and on the other Europe, ready to awaken the Russian empire to any danger that might menace it from one quarter or the other. Communicating freely with remote districts by aid of its railway and two fine waterways, protected against catastrophes of inundations by its elevated position, against the misfortune of poverty by its extensive commerce, and against the calamity of decadence by its important annual fair, Novgorod is one of the most agreeable cities in Russia to visit, because, contrary to what one generally meets with in this vast empire, everything here has an air of gaiety, of busy prosperity, and lively movement.

The streets of the bazaars especially present extraordinary animation. Even when it is not the season of the great fair, they are picturesque with the costumes, the most singular and dissimilar, of every Asiatic race, specimens of which the stranger encounters at every step. In this business quarter, the only one, perhaps, so constructed in Russia, the houses have several stories, and the shops rise one above the other, although they do not always belong to the same proprietor. Wooden balconies, ascended by means of exterior staircases, where one may circulate from one end of the street to the other, serve the public in going to make their purchases at the shops of the upper stories.

In the other parts of the city, the houses are elegant, and they are almost wholly built of stone, houses, in fact, which, in any city beyond Moscow, and still more beyond Kazan, would be considered even magnificent. Numerous comfortable hotels offer an asylum to the traveller, who sees around him here, as well as in the city, bustling though not extensive, conspicuous results of the activity of its inhabitants and the incessant movement of commerce.

From the foot of the column dedicated to Sviataslof Vsevolovitch, on the spot where he vanquished the Swedes and Poles, that rises on one of the highest summits of the great hill on which Novgorod is built, the stranger may contemplate a prospect that might serve as a type of a Russian landscape in winter. In the plain below sleeps the Volga, silent and still to the senses in its winter dress; for the frost, one of nature’s forces, the most imposing from its effects, has already congealed the surface of its running stream into the solidity and quiescence of the plain. One sees on the left bank of this river, and to an enormous distance through the crepuscular gloom common to these latitudes in winter, a series of long, vast undulations, covered with boundless forests, leafless, dark and dreary. Here and there, however, the melancholy monotonous uniformity is broken by a few patches of pines, but elsewhere the white trunks of the birch start up like apparitions in this desolate expanse of savage nature.

This scene, characteristic of Russia in winter, is one of the most mournful and uninviting to behold, and the stranger who has once seen it wonders why any people, however wretched, do not shudder at the idea of establishing themselves in a land where nature is so cheerless and inhospitable.