Capitals of the Northlands: Tales of Ten Cities

by Ian C. Hannah

The existing Cathedral of St. Isaac was forty years in building and was finished in 1858, the architect being a Frenchman, the Chevalier de Montferrand. In magnificence of material it surpasses almost all, and in excellence of position it excels very many of the great churches of Christendom. Its chief merit is that it is the one building in the capital that really suggests durability and permanence. There is just a faint suggestion—very slight indeed, but still impossible entirely to shake off—of temporary exhibition buildings about the acres and acres of plaster in which the other great monuments of the capital are sheathed. But this cathedral is of solid marble or stone, and in its proportions the most massive large church in Christendom, a very considerable part indeed of its area being occupied by walls and piers.

On the four sides of the church stand the four noblest porticoes that have been erected since Roman days. With the proneness of the Eastern Church to symbolism these glorious portals might have been made to suggest the City of God, but the opportunity was hopelessly lost; on the east there is no entrance at all, and the design cannot for one moment be compared with that of St. Sophia, St. Peter's or St. Paul's. Indeed, what was intended for stately simplicity has degenerated into the most hopeless commonplace.[148]

Between St. Isaac's and the river are really beautiful gardens in which stands the famous equestrian statue of Peter (by the French sculptor, Falconet), that Catherine II. erected in 1782, on a huge block of granite.[149] The composition is extremely spirited and it certainly ranks very high among monuments of a similar kind over the whole world. The general effect of this wide open space with fine Renaissance structures all round, including those on the far side of the river, is exceedingly stately, especially when seen for the first time.

National character is always mirrored in national architecture, but seldom quite as here. The plan of the city is European and the conception is of the stateliest; the flat and rather featureless site on both sides of a noble river is just such as to give the very utmost opportunity for splendid architectural display. The style chosen for the buildings, the Classic Renaissance as it was developed in France and Italy, is perhaps more suited than any other for the objects which successive emperors had in view. The magnificence of the great broad streets and boulevards, the ample squares and frequent monuments all give the impression in very truth of one of the grandest of European capitals.

The effect that should be produced by the lavish expenditure of money and the splendour of much of the material are somewhat neutralised, however, by the fact that the great palaces and churches (with the exception of St. Isaac's) profess to be what they are not, and expose to the air no other material than stucco. The very elements rebel against so much imposture and bring down great patches of plaster, while western rulers have been utterly powerless to prevent the appearance of extremely eastern features in every corner of the town.

But in spite of all defects of detail these uniform Classic buildings, well grouped and set off by wide spaces and trees, produce a really magnificent effect, and as often as the black peaty earth is exposed by taking up the streets for drains one realises more fully the miracle of all these sumptuous structures founded in security upon a quaking bog.[150] Here is a city, one feels, that was raised by a people of iron will, a nation that was only invigorated by the centuries of Mongol domination; a people who seek to be western Europeans, but as a nation are not, though many individuals among them are leaders in European thought and science too. In some respects St. Petersburg gives one the impression of being the capital of a vast dominion more than any other city on the globe. Even in the British Empire there is nothing that appeals to the imagination quite in the same way as the fact that from the Russian capital one may travel entirely on Russian territory to the frontier of Austria, to the frontier of Japan or to a point within thirty-six miles of American soil.

Nevertheless, whether for evil or good, the spirit of the West is not here. The leaders of Asia think, but the leaders of Europe act. Tolstoy and Kropotkin, household words in countless English homes, have done as much as almost any others to sustain the present conditions in Russia by the very elaborateness of their programmes. When England yearned as Russia yearns she found a Cromwell, not a Tolstoy. He grasped a sword and the scabbard was thrown away. He had little to say to the world, but plenty to say to the king. The gentler Russian masses idolise a man who held an open book for all the world to read, yet did little to change the constitution of his own times—so far as on the surface shows. And for all practical purposes the great Russian Empire still retains the constitution that Ruric gave his conquering hordes. Law is the word of the prince.

With the House of Commons (ten years after it had put a new sovereign on the throne) Peter seems to have been less favourably impressed than with any other English institution. On seeing the lawyers in Westminster Hall he is recorded to have remarked that there were only two such people in all Russia and he was going to hang them on his return. Peter did not see that, however much they may be sneered at, Parliaments and Law Courts are of the very essence of western civilisation. Japanese guns at Port Arthur greatly helped to set up indeed a duma in the city of Peter, but the very place where it meets indicates the extent of its power. The Taurida Palace stands far east of the imposing mass of really important Government buildings and is in a somewhat squalid quarter of the town.

European indeed is this city at first glance, wholly western in style, in fact one of the most striking groups of European buildings anywhere on earth to be seen. But step into a side street. Behold the life of the East! Behold Asiatic bazaars! Goods displayed on quaint little open stalls whose owners sit among their wares and make their calculations on the abacus just as one may see in China. And the smells of Asia are there, and the leisurely pigeons of the East. The unhastening manner in which everything goes on likewise does much to intensify the underlying oriental atmosphere of the city. Look up to where the church towers are crowned by the onion domes of Tatary against a European sky. Europe in the square, Asia in the lane! Vast Government buildings reflect the spirit of the West, but toward the painted screens of the churches moves the changeless mind of the East. The concealed spear of the Tatar pierces the garment of the European. There is no need to scratch.