Russia
IN the preface to the American edition of his admirable book, The Empire of the Tsars, M. Leroy Beaulieu says with perfect truth, “The Anglo-Saxon who wishes to judge of Russian matters must begin by divesting himself of American or British ideas.”
The distinguished author might well have added that the Anglo-Saxon should also divest himself of many impressions that he has received from sensational travelers’ tales, melodramas, and romances, based upon fanciful conditions, and from the lucubrations of certain visionaries and political malcontents who have endeavored to enlist American and English sympathy in behalf of those revolutionary theories with which they hope to reform the Russian governmental system. The entire social fabric of Russia, the point of view of the Russian mind and its manner of thought, differ widely from our own, and are not susceptible of estimation upon the same basis of comparison ; so that in attempting to give any just impression of existing conditions in Russia within the limits of a magazine article, one is at the outset confronted by the difficulty of presenting the facts in such a way that their bearing upon the general conditions of Russian civilization may be comprehensible to the Anglo-Saxon mind.
Russia, as M. Leroy Beaulieu very truly points out, is neither European nor Asiatic, but if regarded from the European point of view it should be from a standpoint and with a perspective of three or four centuries ago. During the long period of Tartar rule Russia was completely cut off from all foreign intercourse, and it was not till the reign of Ivan III., who not only threw off the Tartar yoke, hut took the first great steps toward the abolition of the feudal system, that its intercourse with the Western world commenced, — an intercourse which the severe climatic conditions and vast intervening wastes of plains and warring states greatly obstructed. Indeed, except for the trade carried on by the Hanseatic League through old Novgorod, no commercial intercourse can be said to have existed between Russia and the Western world until the accidental arrival of Richard Chancellor at what is now known as Archangel. England’s trade with Russia dates from this expedition, and from it sprung those remarkable commercial relations that, existing so long under peculiar and exceptional conditions, have left their traces to this day in the large English colonies at St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in a host of more or less Russianized English and Scotch names in various provinces.
While this trade brought Russia into commercial contact with England, the contact was never a very close one, for the way was long and difficult, being overland from Moscow to Archangel, and thence by sea to England.
It was not until Peter the Great gave the impetus by the force of his tremendous energy and will that Russia commenced any development upon European lines. Starting, therefore, some centuries behind the rest of the civilized world, it is not surprising that such development among so vast and so widely dispersed a people should be behind that of the Western world, and that the Oriental flavor it received both from the Tartar subjection and from its propinquity to the Orient should be still apparent.
Much that has been written with regard to Russian institutions conveys conceptions so unjust that the writer deems no apology necessary for the correction of such false impressions. Thus, as regards the penal system of Russia, individual instances of the abuse of power have been cited as the rule, while they are in fact rare exceptions.
There is nothing cruel either in the national character or in that of the average Russian official. The latter, it is true, lias frequently received military training, and pursues the course of his duty toward the individual entrusted to his charge with that rigid exactitude which pertains to the army the world over. As to the reputation of the Russian for ferocity and cruelty, nothing could be further from the truth. In no country in the world is there less exhibition of cruelty to child or beast on the part of prince or peasant, and under no aristocratic system is there a more generous consideration for the inferior on the part of the great.
A spirit of paternalism is a natural outcome of the autocratic system, and, as might be expected under a government in which every administrative act receives the individual sanction of the ruler, this paternalism, pervading as it does the entire governmental system, takes an extremely individual form. It is in this paternal spirit that the penal system is conceived and administered. The purpose is not alone to punish the individual for his crime, but by removing him from evil influences to offer to him an opportunity, upon his release, to commence a new life. This was the principle adopted in the penal colonization of Siberia, where, as was the case under the similar system in Australia, in not a few instances it resulted in the criminal becoming a man of substance and prosperity. Under this system, families were not separated if the wife and children desired to follow the father into exile. Whatever may be said against a system of penal colonization, it must be admitted that the principle here was humane.
Accounts have greatly exaggerated the proportion of exiles deported into Siberia for political offenses. It is, however, true that in Russia political conspiracy is regarded as a crime, and immediately following the despicable assassination of Alexander II., many political arrests were made upon administrative process for the purpose of breaking up the powerful nihilistic organization which that hideous crime brought to light, with all its intricate ramifications. These arrests by administrative process were made under military law, such as other states beside Russia have found expedient under certain conditions.
It is unreasonable to suppose that the Russian government was actuated by a wanton spirit of cruelty in making these arrests. It is possible that mistakes were made in the process of stamping out the nihilist organization, but it is probable that the imperial government had better evidence of individual complicity than has the foreigner who takes the bare assertion of innocence of the accused in forming his judgment of the Russian government, whose side of the case never has been and probably never will be heard.
As to Russian prisons, the writer, who has carefully and critically inspected every prison in St. Petersburg, can bear testimony to the general excellence of the system, both in principle and in practice. The prisoners are well housed and well fed, especial care being taken as to the quality and preparation of their food. Black bread is regarded as an essential article of diet among all classes, and is to be found on the tables of the rich as of the poor. While it may be bought of any baker, careful housekeepers prefer to obtain it from the bakeries of the barracks or of the prisons.
Every prisoner is given some employment suited to his ability or training, and from the proceeds of the sale of the products of his labor he receives from ten to sixty per cent, depending upon the nature and gravity of his crime. From these earnings he may, if he desires it, receive a part with which to purchase extra comforts or even luxuries; but a certain part must, and all may, at the prisoner’s option, he set aside to provide a fund delivered to him upon his release wherewith to start life anew.
The recent demonstrations on the part of the students of the universities of Kieff, Moscow, and St. Petersburg should not be regarded as having any political significance. The foreign newspapers have given greatly exaggerated accounts of these disturbances. On one occasion an account of a riot in St. Petersburg was published in several of the English papers, with great particularity as to loss of life and the general unsafety of the public streets, when in fact no such disturbance took place at all. How much fear was felt as to any danger to life by being upon the streets during these riots may be inferred from the fact that upon the day when the students had threatened a demonstration the Nevsky Prospect was thronged to a degree rarely witnessed by an expectant crowd of holiday makers who had come out to see the fun.
That there is considerable dissatisfaction among the students of the universities is not to be denied, but their wishes and purpose appear to be vague and inconsequent. They appear to be bitterly incensed against the police authorities on account of the steps taken by them to repress their disorders.
As regards the University of St. Petersburg, the trouble seems to have sprung out of certain unpopular internal regulations, in the enforcement of which the authorities of the university appealed to the police for assistance, and in enforcing authority against riotous acts mounted Cossacks were permitted to use their riding whips to compel order. The interference of the police in university matters and the use of whips produced among the students a deep feeling of injury, which has ever since been fermenting in their brains, and under an unwonted system of repression has culminated in revolt against the constituted authorities. Similar conditions have existed in the other universities, and no doubt the recent demonstrations occurring simultaneously in St. Petersburg and Moscow were prearranged. There appears to have been no connection between these disturbances and the assassination of the late Minister of Public Instruction, Mr. Bogolepoff, although it is true that the assassin was a former student who had been sent out of the empire on account of his connection with previous disorders, but so far as can be learned the act was the outcome of a personal sense of grievance.
During the recent riots the students had enlisted the sympathies of the unemployed factory workmen among whom they had been agitating for some time, and the presence of this new element among them as a dissatisfied and riotous class caused considerable uneasiness at first, chiefly because it was not known how far the feeling of dissatisfaction might extend, especially in view of the hard times and lack of work.
St. Petersburg is quite accustomed to student riots, and is apt to view them with amused apathy, but revolts of the laboring classes are rare, and the mujik, from which class the factory operatives come, is extremely unmanageable when his temper is aroused. But it soon became apparent that these laborers had no real sympathy with the students and contemplated no general uprising.
The autocratic power of the Emperor is not exercised in a spirit of despotic oppression, but with a just regard to the laws and the rights of his subjects, interfering as supreme over the statutes when they appear to fail in meeting the exigencies of the moment or the equities of the case in point. The judicial system administers the law in a spirit of equity, tending rather to study the rights in each case than to apply a hard and fast interpretation of legal phraseology. And the Russian subject is ever accustomed to look to the sense of equity in his sovereign and his sovereign’s servants rather than to the letter of the law, confident in the paternal regard for the rights and welfare of the subject.
A spirit of paternalism pervades all the relations of the Russian government with its subjects. State aid is applied wherever it is believed that it can ameliorate social conditions, promote progress, or stimulate or foster industry. Protection of home industries by customs duties to the point of prohibition of import is an avowed principle of the present Minister of Finance. Where a high tariff has been found to he inadequate to enforce consumption of home manufactures, as in the case of railway supplies and equipment, prohibition of import, except by special imperial authority, has been resorted to with the result of enormously increasing the cost of railway construction.
This system of fostering industrial enterprises and enforcing internal development, not only by protection against foreign competition within the empire, but by granting to new manufacturing corporations state aid in the way of government contracts and concessions, has resulted in an excess of capacity to produce over that of the country to consume under the existing conditions.
In our own country, where development has been a matter of growth unaided in any special direction although protected from foreign competition, railway construction has preceded industrial expansion. It is a maxim with us that pig iron is the index of commercial prosperity. The reason of this is that the growth and prosperity of our railways, the great consumers of iron and steel, bring demand for every sort of manufactured article, as well as the means for their distribution and of transportation of raw material to the factories. In Russia industrial enterprise has been pushed far in advance of railway development, which is, as compared with the area and population of the country, below that of any European state. Hence the Russian manufacturer lacks the important if not essential factor of adequate railway communication for his well-being.
The extent of Russia’s transportation facilities is inadequate to meet the requirements even of her agricultural needs. To this is due the frequent local famines that occur in the country. None of the recent famines in Russia have been universal, nor indeed has there been for many years at least a shortage of food supply in the empire to meet the needs of all of its inhabitants. The difficulty has been to convey to the sufferers in the famine districts the food required to relieve them. Thus while our contribution of grain during the famine of 1892 was gratefully welcomed as a tangible and hearty expression of American friendship, as a matter of fact it was not required as relief for the sufferers, nor indeed did it materially help the situation, — the difficulty being not lack of food in Russia, but lack of means to convey food to the famine districts.
The inducements offered to capital by the government to invest in industrial enterprises have developed excessive investment in this direction, and the lack of experience in manufacturing on the part of investors has led to extravagance in original outlay and in current expenditure, with the inevitable result of stringency of money upon the first appearance of bad times.
With the general financial stringency now affecting all Europe, Russia finds herself in the midst of a severe industrial and financial crisis which is aggravated by the withdrawal of the support of the government from industrial undertakings, enforced by the cost of military operations in China and Manchuria and the protection of her enormous Asiatic frontier, to which must be added a succession of bad harvests in the agricultural districts.
The withdrawal of government support from industrial production left a very large class of newly established works without a market for their output, with the inevitable reflex effect upon all branches of manufacture and trade. Such a condition of trade and industry must of necessity have an especially severe effect upon a community where not only is transportation inadequate to cheap distribution of small manufactures and such articles as the common people consume, but where the great bulk of the population, large though it may be, are small consumers.
The principal garment of the peasant for nine months of the year is his sheepskin caftan. Under this he sometimes, but not always, wears a colored cotton shirt, and a pair of woolen trousers tucked into felt boots completes his winter costume. In summer he discards his sheepskin, wearing his red or blue cotton shirt outside of his trousers, his legs below the knee being covered with cotton rags bound about with the cords which hold on his birch-bark shoes.
In the construction of his house he does not use manufactured lumber. Such trees as he requires for his log izba are plenty and near at hand, and his own axe suffices to hew and fashion them. For the more finished parts of his structure, the village whipsaw and a neighbor’s aid supply him with the few planks he requires.
His agricultural implements, except in those districts, happily growing in number, where the enterprise of the great landed proprietors and of the zemtsvos has introduced modern methods, are rude and primitive.
As regards his food and drink, the consumption of manufactured articles is limited to flour and meal of local milling, sugar, which is heavily taxed, and vodka, the manufacture of which is a government monopoly.
As might be supposed, the cotton and sugar industries are those that have suffered least during the existing depression.
There has resulted from these conditions a general prostration of business and shrinkage in values, augmented by enforced realizations to meet loans, and by that general distrust common to financial crises.
It is an unfortunate factor in the case that investors in Russia, especially foreign, have become habituated to depend upon government aid in their investments, be it either in the direction of railways or in industrial enterprises. Such aid is unnatural, and must, in the long run, hinder development rather than help it. A guarantee by the government of the bonds of a railway inevitably gives to the government the right to control its policy in its expenditures and consequent development which will naturally tend to ultra conservatism. Moreover, this spirit hinders the exploitation of commercial lines for which the government sees no immediate need from its point of view, but which it is not unlikely might prove remunerative.
Whether the Russian has in him the qualities necessary for successful manufacture remains to be seen. So far the master has not yet learned the essential of economy, nor has the operative acquired the needful skill and industry to produce manufactured articles in competition with the Western world. A high if not prohibitive tariff protects the manufacturer from outside competition, and the government is ever ready to lend its aid to new industries, by imposing increased duties in their support. In the matter of railway supplies and equipment, importation is forbidden except by imperial permission. But it is at least extremely doubtful whether Russia can for a long time to come compete in foreign markets with the rest of the industrial world.
A variety of factors, now at least existing, must for the present materially interfere with, if not prevent, any great export of manufactured articles from Russia. Such is the absence of any industrial operative class. As yet the factory workmen are peasants, who come into the towns during the winter season of agricultural inactivity to seek employment, expecting to return to their communes for tilling and harvesting. It is evident that such labor can never compete with the highly specialized skilled workmen engaged in manufacturing in the West. Of the great number of holidays, averaging nearly one a week beside Sundays, and sometimes occurring several in succession, it is unnecessary more than to make mention as an obvious hindrance to successful manufacture. The Russian workman is lacking in native dexterity with fine tools for obtaining a fine result. The peasant is skillful in the use of his axe and knife in a certain rough fashioning of wood, but the workman has not that respect for fine tools and delicacy of manipulation which is essential in most branches of modern manufacture. But especially the indolence and lack of emulation in the laborer and the want of the commercial instinct in both master and mechanic stand in the way of Russian industrial development.
On the other hand, labor in Russia is cheap and strikes rare. It is improbable that extensive labor organizations could exist in Russia, the entire policy and system of the government being opposed to anything of the sort.
Although the peasant has not yet developed into a highly skilled mechanic, doubtless largely owing to the fact that a distinct operative class has still to be evolved, he nevertheless shows considerable adaptability to labor in the arts. Throughout the long dark winters the peasants occupy themselves with the manufacture of a variety of articles of commerce and especially toys. Many of these are well made, comparing favorably with similar articles of German manufacture. Nor is this home industry confined to articles of wood, though that is the predominant material employed, but the fashioning of horn and even of metal, as well as the cutting of semi-precious stones, is performed with considerable skill.
Peasant life in Russia is interesting and not unpicturesque. The communal system of land tenure, which pervades the whole of Great Russia, and which was instituted upon the liberation of the serfs, gives to the communes the holdings of land, each member of the commune being allotted a share for his cultivation, the redistribution of the allotments being periodical, but varying in frequency. Each individual is responsible to the Mir or governing body of the commune for his share of the taxes, the commune being accountable to the government for the total tax. This tax, so called, includes also the annual payment for redemption of the land given to the peasants on their liberation. This land is the agricultural land of the commune, in which there is no individual ownership. It adjoins the village where live the peasants, and where only the ownership is individual.
The periodical redistribution of the land prevents that sense of ownership or even of permanent occupancy essential to first-rate cultivation and care of it, rather begetting that apathy and shiftlessness everywhere apparent in the agricultural districts.
In Siberia, where the tenure of land is for the most part individual and permanent, the peasant colonist presents totally different characteristics from those pertaining to him while in European Russia. He is there vastly more energetic, self-reliant, and thrifty, pursuing better methods of cultivation, and with greater industry.
It has frequently been remarked by writers on Russia, and with truth, that the temperament of the peasant or mujik is sad. This trait is partly climatic and partly due to environment. Nothing more triste can be imagined than the bitter and enduring cold of the Russian winter, with its illimitable and unbroken expanse of snow covering the face of the country for six months of the year, and over which night sets in early in the afternoon. But on the other hand, the peasant, if sad, is seldom despairing. Suicide is extremely rare, and hardship and misfortune are accepted philosophically as the visitation of God.
It is a curious circumstance that the Russian people seem to have been given, in the Western world, a reputation for cruelty. Nothing could be further from the fact. No gentler, kindlier, more courteous people exists. The mujik chats to his horse as he drives along, calling him by endearing names, and rarely if ever strikes him with the little toy whip he carries, while the love and devotion of parents for their children are extremely touching. Toward each other men and women of all classes are generally courteous and often demonstratively affectionate, men kissing each other on meeting or parting. The noble permits and encourages a degree of familiarity from his servants unknown in the Western world.
The family relations of the rural classes are patriarchal, parents exercising authority over their children even though the latter are parents themselves.
The village usually consists of one long street between the two rows of log houses, which though rarely painted are not without considerable external adornment. In this street the villagers assemble after their labors, during the long summer twilight or the many fête days, to sing or dance to the accompaniment of the balalika, a sort of triangular guitar, or to that of the ever present accordion.
The great fetes when all Russia abandons itself to feasting and rejoicing are “butter week,” the week before Lent, and Easter week. During the seven days of the former the orthodox prepare themselves for the long fast by feasting and revelry. Then it is that on every table huge piles of blini or griddle cakes are served with melted butter and fresh caviar, which by the way is unknown by that name in Russia, cavior, the nearest sound, being a carpet, while what we call caviar is ikra in Russian.
During Lent all gayety ceases, the theatres are closed, and all are occupied with their religious devotions, which end only on Easter morning. The night before, every orthodox church in Russia is filled to its utmost capacity, rich and poor rubbing elbows, while crowds stand outside, many bearing loaves to be blessed by the priests when the rising of Christ is proclaimed by them. Nothing more sublime in the way of church music can be imagined than is that of the service in the great cathedrals during this ceremony. The wonderful bass voices vibrating like the pipes of a great organ, for the music is entirely vocal, unaided by instrumental accompaniment. The climax of the beautiful choral service is reached in the joyful proclamation of the resurrection, which ends it as the great bells ring out the birth of Easter morning. Now in every house tables are spread, and the feasting and merry-making continue throughout the week. The universal salutation is “Christ is risen,” accompanied by the kiss of peace. Everywhere the theatres reopen, from those of the imperial court to the balagan of the peasants, where are enacted pseudo-historical dramas of the most naive description.
The Russian opera is extremely interesting, as well from a dramatic as from a musical point of view. The operas of Glinka and Tschaikowsky are preëminent, but those of Rimsky-Korsakoff and other composers are full of both musical and dramatic interest. The Italian school is the basis of musical construction of most of these operas, but the music itself is wholly Russian, as is the plot. Glinka’s beautiful A Life for the Tsar is facile princeps the favorite with all classes, and is mounted at the Imperial Marie Theatre with all the sumptuousness characteristic of the productions of that wonderful playhouse.
It is in this opera that occurs the most inspiriting of all mazurkas, that dance of which so much has been written, but of the grace of which no writer has succeeded in conveying an adequate impression. It permits of the wildest abandon, it is true, but this is by no means its chief charm. It is a dance which permits of every shade of poetic expression, from the wild energy of the Cossack camp to the refinement of the imperial palace. The mazurka, like the stately polonaise, with which the imperial balls are invariably opened, is an importation from Poland, but unlike the polonaise it is elastic to poetic fancy, and has thrived in the soil of the essentially poetic Russian temperament, and become, if not indigenous, thoroughly assimilated.
The scenes of these operas are laid in Russia, and all include ballets, introducing some of the national dances, of which there are many, ranging from the fantastic contortional dances of the peasants to those of a more dignified and graceful character belonging to the old boyar class.
To the musical digestion trained to endure nothing less than Wagner, perhaps these Russian operas would not recommend themselves; but to persons of lighter mind and fancy who find occasional need of a less substantial pabulum they are delightfully refreshing, and their sweetness is not cloyed with the hackneyed inanities of the librettist of the Italian school. In the place of such dish-water plots, a libretto of real literary merit presents some story of Russian history, or of folk-lore, or of a tale of Pushkin’s. Among such are Tschaikowsky’s Pikovoi Duma (The Queen of Spades) and Effgene Onegine. Many minor operas also by less known composers, the plots of which are founded upon national tales and folk-stories, are full of both dramatic and musical interest.
Within the past year has been completed the new People’s Theatre, the gift of the Emperor to the people, where are given at prices within the reach of the poor excellent dramatic and operatic works admirably mounted and performed. Here for five cents an evening of elevating amusement may be enjoyed, preceded, if desired, by a wholesome, well-cooked meal at an equally moderate price. No intoxicants are sold upon the premises. The seats in this theatre are always tilled, and every inch of standing room occupied. The building is a large and handsome fireproof structure, designed in excellent taste, and furnished with every comfort and convenience. The good moral effect upon the people is already apparent in a marked decrease in drunkenness and disorder.
In point of stage setting and of costume, the imperial theatres have set so high a standard that the public would tolerate nothing less than excellence.
Twice a week throughout the winter season the Marie Theatre is given over to the production of ballet, usually national, and always of a very high order. Here, while costume and scenic effect have their due place, they do not constitute, as at the great Paris and London ballet theatres, the chief entertainment. The music is of the very best, being that of the great Russian composers, who have thought the theme well worthy of their muse. The dancing itself is such as can be seen nowhere outside of Russia. Here it is still regarded as a fine art, and the ballet, which in other capitals has degenated into a mere spectacular representation, in St. Petersburg preserves the æsthetic traditions of the old Italian school. From the première danseuse to the hindermost coryphée, all are carefully trained in the imperial school of the ballet from earliest youth, receiving there a most thorough professional education and careful supervision. The result is not alone great individual excellence of performance, but a grace and precision of execution in all concerted dancing which accentuates and explains the music.
The Russians are essentially a dancing people, and it is doubtless due to this national trait that the ballet so tenaciously holds its place. The dances of the peasants, often grotesque in their abandon, requiring an extraordinary agility in execution, are yet often full of grace and dignity. The beautiful mazurka, still the favorite at balls with all young people, intricate and difficult for foreigners to acquire, is danced by every young officer with an ease and grace rarely seen with us even upon the stage.
The recent production of the trilogy of historical plays written by Alexis Tolstoy, illustrating the rise to power of Boris Godonoff, was unquestionably one of the most remarkable dramatic events in the history of the modern stage. The trilogy comprises The Death of Ivan the Terrible, Feodor Ivanovitch, and Tsar Boris (Godonoff). Their public presentation was interdicted for twenty-five years, and it was only in the winter of 1898 that they were produced upon the public stage. They form a nearly continuous historical sequence, throughout which many of the same characters appear, chief of whom is Boris Godonoff, who, commencing his career in the first act of the first piece as the modest junior in the Council of Boyars, with gradually increasing influence and ambition becomes the favorite of Ivan, who marries his son Feodor, the weak, to Godonoff’s sister. On the death of Ivan, Boris, as brother-in-law and chief counselor to the Tsar, is seen to be the moving power in the state, until in the last play he is exhibited at the zenith of his glory as Tsar of Russia.
The admirable literary quality of these plays, which are written in very beautiful blank verse, their essential historical truthfulness, the fine and noble delineation of character and the powerful development of a brilliant series of dramatic situations entitle them to high distinction. It is not therefore surprising that with an excellent stage setting, carefully studied and richly executed costumes and accessories, and above all presented by a company of actors of very great ability, the production of these three plays should have aroused extraordinary enthusiasm among the theatre-going people throughout Russia.
A dramatic representation, witnessed only by a favored few, was that of the translation of Hamlet into Russian by His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch, in which His Imperial Highness himself assumed the title rôle. This was given at the theatre of the Palace of the Hermitage during the winter of 1900-01. The translation itself possesses very high literary merit, and shows a profound acquaintance with Shakespeare. The Grand Duke has devoted many years to the study of Hamlet, as his interpretation of the part gave evidence, and his rendering of the rôle was an extremely finished performance of real artistic merit and force, and remarkably free from hackneyed stage conventionalities, while preserving the best traditions of our stage. The consciousness on the part of the spectator that the rôle of Hamlet was being played by a de facto prince of the blood royal, consequently familiar with the interior life of royalty, added a special interest to the representation. This was further increased by the fact of the close relations of the imperial family of Russia with the royal family of Denmark, which gave warrant for the historical accuracy of the costuming and accessories.
Romance and fiction have attributed to St. Petersburg life an exaggerated picturesqueness and brilliancy which hardly exists, at least at the present day. The radiant skating carnivals upon the Neva we read of are, alas, figments of the imagination. The troika rides are less swift than imagination paints them. The gypsies who sing in the cafés upon the islands, although captivating to the Russian fancy, do not greatly appeal to the Western taste, which finds their voices nasal and their features unpleasing. It must be admitted, however, that the singing of the gypsies deeply interests a certain Russian element, who linger late into the morning to listen to them.
Winter life in Russia’s capital, it is true, is gay, and the court is probably the most brilliant in the world. The sledge, drawn by a pair of long-tailed black or gray Orloff trotters, glides rapidly over the smooth streets ever white with freshly fallen snow, — for it snows a little every day in St. Petersburg, but rarely hard, and blizzards are unknown. But the sledging for pleasure is upon the streets or on the Quay, which, of a sunny afternoon in February, is brilliant, not upon the frozen Neva. Until Lent the pace is fast with dinners, theatre parties, balls and routs, but it is much after the manner of the rest of the world.
It is common to speak of St. Petersburg as a cosmopolitan city, presenting nothing Russian in its appearance, like in fact to any other European capital. This is hardly correct. Cosmopolitan it is, truly, but it resembles in no particular the typical of European cities. Were it not for the dress of the ubiquitous isvorstohik and other peasant types there would remain the great dvors or markets, the domed and minareted churches of Byzantine architecture, the wide wooden paved streets frequently crossing the many canals, which all give to the Russian capital an individuality quite its own. True, it is not constructed upon the typical Russian plan, the basis of which is the Kremlin, best illustrated in Moscow. This, the ancient capital, for Kieff belongs to a time antedating the history of united Russia, is indeed more typically Russian than St. Petersburg, and here life too partakes of a different and more distinctly national character. It is the centre of the business life, but St. Petersburg must ever represent the thought and the progress of the empire.
Herbert H. D. Pierce.