[8] The man who cries the hour for prayer from one of the mosque towers.
[9] The banks on either side of the Volga.
[10] A Persian garment worn by Russian men.
[11] A Polish garment.
[12] Seven days after the accession to the throne of Ekaterina II. her husband, Peter III., died, it is supposed, a violent death. Some time after a simple Cossack, named Pougachoff, an escaped convict from the mines of Siberia (whose torn nostrils showed that his crime had been murder), succeeded in raising the whole of the Urals (such was the credulity of Russians at that time) by giving himself out as Peter III.
[13] Lit. “mistress-woman,” i.e., a clever manager, one quite capable of conducting her affairs.
[14] The Pânins were, and are, a celebrated noble family holding various court appointments.
[15] Dimitri Tzarevitch was the son of Ivan the Terrible, the last of the house of Ruric, and was said to have been killed at the age of nine at Ouglitch. He of whom the Princess speaks was a pretender, a runaway novice, so it is said. But historians differ as to this. Some say that when Boris Godounoff (the Russian Oliver Cromwell) planned to kill Dimitri, some faithful friends hid the Tzarevitch, and sent him to the Polish Court, where he was brought up, and that afterwards he came into Russia with many adherents and an army of several thousands, the majority of whom were Poles. He reigned less than a year, being killed during an insurrection, 1595-96.
[16] Steps before a house.
[17] “Tarakanova” and “Tarakanovka” have the same meaning, and apply equally to persons and property, but the latter, being the more playful term, is used for a child. “Tmoutarakanova,” or “Tmoutarakanovka,” was a pet name. It is the name of a town opposite Kertch, and of a Prince whose capital it was. Tarakan means “cockroach.”