“When did you begin to lose faith in the Czar?”
There was a momentary silence in which I almost regretted the question. Then some one answered: “We never speak of the Emperor now. But we cannot forget that when our representatives drew up a response to the throne speech, setting forth our needs, he refused to receive it.”
The Kostroma peasants now were sympathetic toward revolution because they had slowly reached the conclusion that the existing régime must go because it was evil and they saw no other way of getting rid of it. Their faith in the Czar, which once was so strong, was hopelessly shaken, and they no longer were soothed by the empty phrases which are periodically lavished upon them in hollow, religious solemnity, in the imperial ukases and rescripts.
The significance of the Kostroma situation lay in this, that here was the ancient home of the House of Romanoff, a province that had ever been loyal to autocracy; now not only had this loyalty disappeared, but open unrest prevailed and threats of rebellion were freely expressed. The feeling of the peasants toward the government—that remained as it was before, full of hatred. Toward the Czar they had changed. Previously they believed in him, but now they saw that Czar and the government were one. So they cordially hated both, and dared to tell us so. Here surely was evidence of a peasant awakening.
Midway between this officially “tranquil” province of Kostroma and the frankly revolutionary government of Kazan, the old Tartar capital, lay Nijni Novgorod; assertive, daring, ever since the good days of old, when independence was maintained for several centuries against all invaders. The ex-Duma deputies, Zemstvo officers, and other citizens to whom I brought introductions, assured me that this whole province was not unlike a powder magazine which a spark might touch off at any moment. Several estates near the city of Nijni Novgorod had just been burned. The landlords of others had fled in anticipation of a coming wave of destruction. To such an extent was this true that not one of the gentlemen with whom I talked could suggest one estate within a reasonable distance of the city where I might hope to find normal conditions. At the same time they all stated that the southern part of the government was thoroughly imbued with the idea of revolt, and that the completion of the harvest-taking might be followed by outbreaks regardless of the “peasant movement” in other parts of Russia.
Here in Nijni Novgorod, however, I found a charming relief from the serious business of observing the “peasant awakening” and the progress of the people toward revolution, in the world-famous fair. This proved like a childhood dream come true. The fires of insurrection were alight here and there through the province, landlords of estates near by were making off in anticipation of the rising tide of the peasant movement. But the great fair had all the charm of a world, wondrous strange, all the novelty of boyhood’s most bizarre phantasies. When life grants so delightful an experience as the realization of an olden dream without one tinge of disappointment, one is filled with gratitude. And so I blessed the dear old geographers who spared a corner of one of the broad, flat pages to a picture of Nijni Novgorod.
For the nonce I tried to forget the tumult and the struggle. Here was the fair. Landlords’ estates might burn to ashes. For a few days I determined to forget them, confident that ere long I should see other places in flames as I had already seen whole towns reduced to ashes.
A world exposition, whether at Paris, or St. Louis, is a wearisome thing after the first one has been seen. The sameness, the fatiguing miles we walk in vain search for something new—none of this in Nijni. Unless one has been to Calcutta, and knows his Turkestan, his Caucasia, his Siberia, and Lapland, Nijni is fascinatingly new.
It is a people’s fair above all else. A practical thing. The annual exchange of thousands of small things from the mysterious East and the frozen North, the one ample market of near a million peasants from the interior governments of Russia. The tourist will not find preparations to please his extravagant tastes. Utility is the underlying aim of the Nijni fair, but utility from the standpoint of the needs of the people who contribute to its upkeep and depend upon its resources. And the needs of the vast Tartar horde, of stolid muzhiks, and hardy peoples from polar regions, are wondrously unlike the needs of Europe and the western world. The bazars of Persia, of Daghestan, and Tashkent range side by side with booths of pelts from Archangel and Nova Zembla and, frequently enough to be noticed, a stall of old Cathay attended by narrow-eyed Orientals in rich, blue silks, their plaited pigtails glistening black against the bright cloth. A few enterprising European merchants are represented, but only a few. I met one surprise at a picture post-card counter. The proprietor, a native Nijni Novgorodian, asked me if I spoke English. When I answered that I did, he asked me if I had ever been in England. When I again answered yes, he asked if I had been also in America. Once more I told him yes. Then he came to the point. “Have you ever been in Boston?”
“Yes, I know Boston quite well,” I replied.