Due North: or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia

It seemed especially odd that a people who drink so profusely of fermented liquors, should also drink so much tea. It may be doubted if even the Japanese exceed them in the consumption of this beverage, and it is certain that the latter people use more tea in proportion to the number of inhabitants than do the Chinese. At Moscow tea-drinking is carried to the extreme. The traktirs, or tea-houses, can be found on every street, and are crowded day and evening by people who in summer sit and perspire over the steaming decoction, while they talk and chatter like monkeys. The stranger drops in to see native life, manners, and customs, while he sips scalding tea like the rest, and listens to the music of the large organ which generally forms a part of the furniture, and which when wound up will discourse a score or more of popular waltzes, airs, and mazurkas. These remarkable musical instruments are manufactured especially for this region, and frequently cost, as we were told, a thousand pounds sterling each. The habitués are from all classes of the populace, soldiers, civilians, priests, and peasants, – these last, slow, slouching, and shabby, with no coverings to their heads, except such an abundant growth of coarse sun-bleached hair as to suggest a weather-beaten hay-stack, "redundant locks, robustious to no purpose." These peasants, mechanics, and common laborers, though they drink tumbler after tumbler of nearly boiling hot tea, are only too apt to wind up their idle occupation by getting disgracefully tipsy on that fiery liquor corn-brandy, as colorless as water, but as pungent as aqua-fortis. To the tea-gardens in the immediate environs both sexes resort, and here one sees a very pleasant phase of Russian life, – tea-drinking en famille among the middle classes. The article itself is of a superior quality, much more delicate in flavor than that which is used in England or America; but it is never made so strong as we are accustomed to take it. Happy family groups may be seen gathered about the burnished urns in retired nooks, and even love-episodes are now and then to be witnessed, occurring over the steaming beverage. These gardens are decorated in the summer evenings with the gayest of colored paper lanterns, – the flickering, airy lamps festooned among the tall trees and the low shrubbery, as they sway hither and thither, resembling clouds of huge fire-flies, floating at evening over a tropical plantation. There are also exhibitions nightly of fancy fire-works, minor theatricals, and comic song-singing. Tramways lead from the centre of the town to these popular resorts, or a drosky will take one thither at a mere trifling charge. The drosky drivers of Moscow appear to be one degree more stupid than those of St. Petersburg, impossible as that may seem. Like the cocher of Paris they all expect and ask for a pourboire. In the capital on the Neva the driver suggests "Na tchai" (tea), as you hand him his fare, – that is, he desires a few pennies to procure a drink of tea; but in Moscow the driver says more honestly, "Na vodka" (brandy). And yet there are many who are satisfied with the milder decoction, and will sit and sip it as long as any one will pay for it, – recalling the jinrikisha men of Yokohama, who seemed to have no desire for any stimulant but boiling hot tea, and plenty of it. The drosky drivers of Moscow dress all alike, and precisely like their brethren in the capital, in long blue padded pelisses, summer and winter, with a low bell-crowned hat, from beneath which protrudes an abundance of carrot-colored hair, of the consistency of dried meadow-grass.

It will interest the traveller to visit briefly the great National Riding-School of Moscow, a building embracing an area of five hundred and sixty feet long by one hundred and fifty-eight feet wide. It is covered with what appears to be a flat roof, but is without supporting pillars of any sort on the inside. A full regiment of cavalry can be exercised here with perfect convenience. This was the largest building in the world unsupported by prop of any kind, until the St. Pancras railway station was built in London. The interior is ornamented with bas-reliefs of men in armor and with ancient trophies. By ascending a winding staircase one can see the net-work of massive beams which sustain the roof, a perfect forest of stays and rafters. In a climate such as prevails here at least two thirds of the year, it is impossible to manøuvre troops in the open air with any degree of comfort, not to say safety; hence this structure was raised and supplied with huge stoves to afford the means of exercising the troops even in mid-winter.

Moscow has four theatres, two only of which are worthy of the traveller's notice. These are the Botshoi and the Italian Opera, where only entertainments of a high order of merit are permitted to be given. In many of the gay cafés young girls of free manners and lax morals dance in national costumes, among whom one easily recognizes those coming from Circassia, Poland, Lithuania, and the country of the Cossacks. In their dances and grouping they present scenes that do not lack for picturesqueness of effect. Most of the melodies one hears at these places are quaint and of local origin, quite new to the ear; though now and again a familiar strain will occur, indicating from whence Chopin and others have borrowed. Some of the performers were so strikingly handsome as to show that their personal charms had been the fatal cause which had brought them into so exposed a connection as these public resorts of evil repute. The Bohemian or gypsy girls were the most attractive, – poor creatures coming from no one knows where, wanderers from their birth, and with lives ever enveloped in mystery. One could not but recall the Latin Quarter of Paris and the gay, dissipated night-resorts of London and Vienna. None of the European capitals are without these dark spots upon the escutcheon of civilization.

The author's observation in Cuba and continental Spain had led him to believe the dishonesty of Spanish officials to be quite unequalled; but the Russians far exceed the Spaniards in the matter of venality. The last war between Russia and Turkey brought to light official fraud and briberies, connected especially with the commissary department of the army, which disgraced the whole nation in the eyes of the world. Experiences of so outrageous and startling a character were related to us, illustrative of these facts, as to almost challenge belief, had they not been sustained by reliable authority. So extensive and universal is the system of bribery in Russia, that the question of right in ordinary matters, even when brought before the courts for decision, scarcely enters into the consideration. It is first and last purely a question of roubles. Counterfeit justice is as plentifully disbursed as counterfeit money, and that does much abound. To prove that this system of official bribery is no new thing here, and that it is perfectly well known at headquarters, we have only to relate a well-authenticated anecdote. A chief officer of police, who was one day dashing along the Nevsky Prospect in a handsome drosky drawn by a fine pair of horses, was met by the Emperor Nicholas. His Majesty by a sign stopped the officer, and inquired of him what salary he received from the government treasury. "Two thousand roubles, your Majesty," was the reply. Whereupon the Tzar asked how he contrived to own and keep such a smart equipage upon that sum. "By presents, your Majesty, that I receive from the people of my district," was the frank rejoinder. The Emperor laughed at so straightforward an answer, adding: "I believe that I live in your quarter, and have neglected sending you my present," at the same time handing him his purse. The existence of a system of bribery among the officials of the various departments was only too well known to the Tzar; but such plain speaking was a novelty.

A love, not to say pride, of country seems to be universal among the people at large, in spite of all that may be said or inferred to the contrary. No matter how poor the land may seem to the stranger, to the native-born it is beautiful, or at all events it is well beloved; no disparagement will be permitted for a moment. It was amusing to observe the local rivalry existing between the citizens of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The latter are regarded by the former as parvenus, lacking the odor of sanctity that adheres to the citizens of "holy Moscow." The more ancient metropolis has ever had a quasi official recognition as the capital, though it is not so politically. It will be remembered that in 1724, but a few months before his death, even Peter the Great celebrated the coronation of his wife Catherine at Moscow, not at St. Petersburg; and to this day it has been the crowning place of all his successors. So far as the hearts of the people are concerned, Moscow is their capital.

We often hear surprise expressed that Russians who visit other countries are generally such accomplished linguists; but this is very easily accounted for when we remember that in every noble or wealthy family of St. Petersburg or Moscow there is a German nurse for the young children, an English governess for the young ladies, and a French tutor for them all. Emulating those of more pretension and wealth, the same custom extends to the class of successful merchants' families; so that the average Russian grows up speaking two or three languages besides his native tongue. Life is much less cosmopolitan here than in St. Petersburg. Few emigrants from the far East stop in Moscow; they press on to the more European, and commercial city, where Tartars from Kazan, Adighes from the Caucasus, Swedes and Norwegians from Scandinavia, Finlanders from the North, and Germans from the South mingle together. In polite society French is the language of St. Petersburg, while German is much in use among the mercantile community; but in Moscow it is the native tongue which prevails, as well as Oriental manners and customs.

A drive of about three miles from the city over a wretchedly kept road, where the ruts are positively terrible, brings one to Sparrow Hill, the point from whence Napoleon first looked upon the devoted city. "There is the famous city at last, and it is high time," said Napoleon. He had left the battlefield of Borodino covered with corpses forty miles behind. But what cared the ravaging warrior for the eighty thousand lives there sacrificed? It was this terrible encounter which caused him to say emphatically, "One more such victory would be utter ruin!" From this elevation the invading host pressed forward and entered the Muscovite capital, to find the streets deserted, the public buildings stripped of all valuables, and the national archives removed. There were no officials with whom to treat; it was like a city of the dead. This unnatural solitude gave birth to gloomy forebodings in the hearts of the invaders, – forebodings which were more than justified by the final result of that wholly unwarranted campaign. Soon at various points the conflagration of the city began. If subdued here and there by the French it broke out elsewhere, and at last became uncontrollable. Napoleon entered Moscow on the fifteenth of September and left it in ashes on the nineteenth of October, when there began a retreat which was undoubtedly one of the greatest tragedies of modern times. Half a million men in the flower of their youth had in a brief six months been sacrificed to the mad ambition of one individual.

At Sparrow Hill are many cafés where the native population come to drink tea, and where foreigners partake of cheap, flat Moscow beer and other simple refreshments. From here a notable view is to be enjoyed, embracing the ancient capital in the distance; and it is this charming picture which most attracts strangers to the spot. The broad river forms the foreground, flowing through fertile meadows and highly cultivated fields. When we saw it vegetation was at its prime, a soft bright green carpeting the banks of the Moskva, while the plain was wooded with thriving groves up to the convent walls and outlying buildings of the town. Just back of the tea-houses, crowning the hill, is an ancient birch forest which was planted by Peter the Great, the practical old man having occupied many days in consummating this purpose, during which he worked laboriously among his people, setting out and arranging the birches. The local guides never fail to take all travellers who visit the Muscovite city to Sparrow Hill, where it is quite the thing to drink a tumbler of steaming hot Russian tea, with the universal slice of lemon floating thereon. This tasteless decoction has not even the virtue of strength, but is merely hot water barely colored with an infusion of leaves. However, as it is quite the thing to do, one swallows the mixture heroically. A more pleasant drive of about four or five miles from the centre of the city, over a far better road than that which leads to Sparrow Hill, will take the stranger to a most delightful place of resort known as the Petrofski Park, ornamented with noble old elms in great variety, flower-beds, blooming shrubbery, fountains, and delightfully smooth roads. The lime, the elm, the sycamore, and the oak all flourish here, mingled with which were some tall specimens of the pine and birch. The place is the very embodiment of sylvan beauty, and has been devoted to its present purpose for a century and more, having first been laid out in 1775. Within these grounds is the interesting old Palace of Petrofski, a Gothic structure which, though seldom inhabited, is kept always prepared for noble guests by a corps of retainers belonging to the Government. It is frequently the resort of the Emperor when he comes to Moscow, and always the place from whence a new emperor proceeds to the Kremlin to be officially crowned. It was to this palace that Napoleon fled from his quarters in the city when Moscow was being destroyed by the flames. The cafés chantants are many, within the precincts of the Park, – gay resorts of dissipation, whither the people come ostensibly to drink tea, but really to consume beer, wine, and corn-brandy, as well as to assist at the oftentimes very coarse entertainments which are here presented, characterized by the most reckless sort of can-can dancing and bacchanalian songs. Bands of music perform in different parts of the extensive grounds, and gaudily-dressed gypsy girls sing and dance after their peculiar and fantastic style. One detects fine vocal ability now and then exhibited by these wayward creatures, which by patient culture might be developed into great excellence. The singing of these girls is quite unlike such performances generally, – not particularly harmonious, but bearing the impress of wild feeling and passionate emotion. Many of the performers are of a marked and weird style of beauty, and such are pretty sure to wear jewelry of an intrinsic value far beyond the reach of honest industry, – which forms a glaring tell-tale of their immodesty.

The gypsy race of Russia, to whom these itinerants belong, are of the same Asiatic origin as those met with in southern Europe; no country has power to change their nature, no association can refine them. They will not try to live by honest labor; everywhere they are acknowledged outcasts, and it is their nature to grovel like animals. The cunning instinct of theft is born in them; adroitness in stealing they consider to be a commendable accomplishment, – parents teach it to their children. They are wanderers wherever found, begging at one country-house and stealing at the next; in summer sleeping on the grass, in winter digging holes and burrowing in the ground. They are called in central Russia "Tsiganie," and they group together in largest numbers in and about the Eastern Steppe, just as those of Spain do at Grenada and near to the Alhambra. All kindly efforts of the Russian government to civilize these land-rovers has utterly failed; not infrequently it becomes necessary to invade their quarters, and to visit condign punishment upon the tribe by sabre and bullet, to keep them within reasonable bounds. Quite a colony of gypsies inhabit a certain portion of Moscow, having adopted the local dress, and also conformed ostensibly to the conventionalities about them; but they never in reality amalgamate with other races, – they are far more clannish than the Jews. Both the men and women ply trades which will not bear investigation or the light of day. The former make an open business of horse-trading, and the latter of public-dancing, singing, and fortune-telling. Belonging to this community is a small body of singers who practise together, and who are employed at all public festivals in the city, – which would, indeed, be considered quite incomplete without them. This choir consists of six or eight female voices and four male, capable of affording a very original if not quite harmonious performance.

As regards the Petrofski Park, the truth is it is a famous resort for reckless pleasure-seekers, and largely made up of the demi-monde, where scenes anything but decorous are presented to the eyes of strangers during the afternoons and the long summer twilight. But those who wish to see and study "life," fast life, have only to visit the Châteaux des Fleurs, or Marina-Rostcha, which are also in the environs of the town. As in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, the police, who cannot suppress these resorts, strive to control them so far that they shall not outrage openly the conventionalities of society. Human nature is much the same all over the world, though its coarsest features are more obtruded upon observation in some lands than in others. In extensive travel and experience, the author has learned that it is not always in semi-barbarous countries that grossness and indecency will be found most to prevail. It must be admitted that there are temples of vice in Moscow which for ingenuity of temptation, and lavish and gilded display, are not equalled elsewhere in Europe.

Under the shadow of the spacious and lofty tower which forms a reservoir for the distribution of water for the domestic use of the citizens, there is held in the open square each Sabbath day what is called "The Market," but which might better be designated a weekly fair, a sort of Nijni-Novgorod upon a small scale. Here Jew and Gentile, Asiatic and European, exchange their goods or sell to the citizens. There are confectioners, jewellers, clothiers, hard-ware merchants, dried-fruit venders, fancy-dry-good dealers, tea-booths, tin and earthenware tables, – in short, every domestic article that can be named is here offered for sale. The crowd is great, the Babel of voices deafening, the hustling incessant, occasional quarrels being inevitable. Now one meets a group of courteous, well-dressed people, now an itinerant in rags, now a bevy of boisterous girls and boys, now a long-haired and bearded priest; some are sober, many are drunk. Alas! Sunday is here a day of drunkenness. Speaking plainly upon this subject, there are more intoxicated persons to be seen in the streets of Moscow on the Sabbath than the author has ever encountered upon any day of the week in any other capital. At this Sunday-fair articles are offered at popular prices, presumed to be much lower than is charged by regular merchants who have rent to pay and large establishments to keep up. Upon this conviction the poorer classes especially throng hither to purchase such articles as they require, making the scene one of great activity and general interest. The tall tower of the water-supply was not originally intended for the use to which it has at last been appropriated. It was first erected by the Tzar Peter to mark the northeastern gate of the town, which was held by one faithful regiment when the rest revolted. This same regiment escorted him and his mother for safety to the Troitzkoi Monastery, situated thirty miles from the city, and which is considered to-day as the holy of holies so far as monasteries are concerned in Russia. Hither the Empress Catherine II. made the pilgrimage on foot to fulfil some conditional vow, accompanied by all her court, only advancing, however, five miles each day, and not forgetting to have every possible luxury conveyed in her train wherewith to refresh herself. It will be remembered that Napoleon in his usual rashness had planned to destroy this monastery, and had issued orders to that effect, just as he had done in the instance of St. Basil already referred to; but he was defeated in his purpose by the haste with which the demoralized army retreated from the country.

The Troitzkoi is not merely a monastery, it is also a semi-fortress, a palace, and a town containing eight churches, a bazaar, a hospital, and many stately residences, altogether forming a confused though picturesque group of towers, spires, belfries, and domes. It is dominated by a famous bell-tower two hundred and fifty feet high, containing one of the finest chimes of bells in all Russia, thirty-five in number. In the Church of the Trinity is the shrine of Saint Sergius, an elaborate piece of work of solid silver, weighing nearly a thousand pounds; it is so constructed that the relics of the saint are exposed. The whole of the monastery grounds are enclosed in a high wall twenty feet in thickness, with heavy octagon towers guarding the four principal corners. A deep moat surrounds the wall, and against the attack of a hostile force in former times it was thought to be remarkably protected, and is undoubtedly the strongest fortified monastery in the East. The large prison within the walls has been the scene of as great cruelty during the last two centuries as any similar establishment in Europe or Asia. The name Troitzkoi signifies the Trinity. The treasury of this monastery is famous among all who are specially interested in such matters for its priceless robes and jewels, to say nothing in detail of the aggregated value of its gold and silver plate. It is asserted that there are more and richer pearls collected here than are contained in all the other treasuries in Europe combined. Among other precious gems there are several mitres which contain rubies worth fifty thousand roubles each, being set with other jewels of appropriate richness. The Troitzkoi was pillaged by the Tartars about 1403, and was besieged by the Poles in 1608, at which time the walls were seriously injured; but all is now restored to its original strength and completeness. This ancient monastery stands at the opening of the valley of the Kliasma, a region fruitful with the smouldering ruins of by-gone cities so much older than Moscow that their names even are forgotten. The country between the stream just named and the Volga was the grand centre of early Tartar history. As in the environs of Delhi, India, where city after city has risen and crumbled into dust, so here large capitals have mouldered away leaving no recorded story, and only enforcing the sad moral of mutability.

The idea of comfortable road-beds for the passage of vehicles and good foot-ways does not seem to have entered the minds of the people of Moscow. The cobble-stone pavements are universal, both in the middle of the streets and on that portion designed for pedestrians. These stones, without any uniformity of size, are miserably laid in the first place, added to which they are thrown out of level by the severity of the annual frosts, so that it is a punishment to walk or to drive upon them. The natives are perhaps accustomed to this needless discomfort, and do not heed it; but it is a severe tax upon the endurance of strangers who remember the smooth roadways of Paris, Boston, and New York. A few short reaches of the square granite-stone pavements were observed, probably laid down as an experiment; but great was the relief experienced when the drosky rolled upon them after a struggle with the cobble-stone style of pavement. Many otherwise fine streets both here and in St. Petersburg are rendered nearly impassable by wretched paving.

One is struck by the multitude of pigeons in and about the city. They are held in great reverence by the common people, and no Russian will harm them. Indeed, they are as sacred here as monkeys in Benares or doves in Venice, being considered emblems of the Holy Ghost, and under protection of the Church. They wheel about in large blue flocks through the air so dense as to cast shadows, like swift-moving clouds between the sun and the earth, alighting fearlessly where they choose, to share the beggar's crumbs or the bounty of the affluent. It is a notable fact that this domestic bird was also considered sacred by the old Scandinavians, who believed that for a certain period after death the soul of the deceased under such form was accustomed to come to eat and drink with as well as to watch the behavior of the mourners. Beggary is sadly prevalent in the streets of the Muscovite capital, – the number of maimed and wretched-looking human beings forcibly recalling the same class in Spanish and Italian cities. This condition of poverty was the more remarkable when contrasted with its absence in St. Petersburg, where a person seen soliciting alms upon the streets or in tattered garments is very rare.