From Petrograd to Moscow is only a twelve hours' run, but in those twelve hours the traveller is transported into a different world. After the soulless regularity of Peter the Great's sham classical creation on the banks of the Neva, the beauty of the semi-Oriental ancient capital comes as a perfect revelation. Moscow, glowing with colour, is seated like Rome on gentle hills, and numbers over three hundred churches. These churches have each the orthodox five domes, and this forest of domes, many of them gilt, others silvered, some blue and gold, or striped with bands and spirals of vivid colour, when seen amongst the tender greenery of May, forms a wonderful picture, unlike anything else in the world. The winding, irregular streets lined with buildings in every imaginable style of architecture, and of every possible shade of colour; the remains of the ancient city walls with their lofty watch-towers crowned with curious conical roofs of grass-green tiles; the great irregular bulk of the Kremlin, towering over all; make a whole of incomparable beauty. There is in the world but one Moscow, as there is but one Venice, and one Oxford.
The great sea of gilded and silvered domes is best seen from the terrace of the Kremlin overlooking the river, though the wealth of detail nearer at hand is apt to distract the eye. The soaring snow-white shaft of Ivan Veliki's tower with its golden pinnacles dominates everything, though the three "Cathedrals," standing almost side by side, hallowed by centuries of tradition, are very sacred places to a Russian, who would consider them the heart of Moscow, and of the Muscovite world. "Mother Moscow," they call her affectionately, and I understand it.
The Russian word "Sobor" is wrongly translated as "Cathedral." A "sobor" is merely a church of peculiar sanctity or of special dignity. The three gleaming white, gold-domed churches of the Kremlin are of quite modest dimensions, yet their venerable walls are rich with the associations of centuries. In the Church of the Assumption the Tsars, and later the Emperors, were all crowned; in the Church of the Archangel the Tsars were buried, though the Emperors lie in Petrograd. The dim Byzantine interior of the Assumption Church, with its faded frescoes on a gold ground, and its walls shimmering with gold, silver, and jewels, is immensely impressive. Here is the real Russia, not the Petrograd stuccoed veneered Russia of yesterday, but ancient Muscovy, sending its roots deep down into the past.
Surely Peter prepared the way for the destruction of his country by uprooting this tree of ancient growth, and by trying to create in one short lifetime a new pseudo-European Empire, with a new capital.
The city should be seen from the Kremlin terrace as the light is fading from the sky and the thousands of church-bells clash out their melodious evening hymn. The Russians have always been master bell-founders, and their bells have a silvery tone unknown in Western Europe. In the gloaming, the Eastern character of the city is much more apparent. The blaze of colour has vanished, and the dusky silhouettes of the church domes take on the onion-shaped forms of the Orient. Delhi, as seen in later years from the fort at sunset was curiously reminiscent of Moscow.
I do not suppose that more precious things have ever been gathered together under one roof than the Imperial Treasury at Moscow contained in those days. The eye got surfeited with the sight of so many splendours, and I can only recall the great collection of crowns and thrones of the various Tsars. One throne of Persian workmanship was studded with two thousand diamonds and rubies; another, also from Persia, contained over two thousand large turquoises. There must have been at least a dozen of these glittering thrones, but the most interesting of all was the original ivory throne of the Emperors of Byzantium, brought to Moscow in 1472 by Sophia Palaeologus, wife of Ivan III. Constantine the Great may have sat on that identical throne. It seems curious that the finest collection in the world of English silver-ware of Elizabeth's, James I's, and Charles I's time should be found in the Kremlin at Moscow, till it is remembered that nearly all the plate of that date in England was melted down during the Civil War of 1642-1646. I wonder what has become of all these precious things now!
The sacristy contains an equally wonderful collection of Church plate. I was taken over this by an Archimandrite, and I had been previously warned that he would expect a substantial tip for his services. The Archimandrite's feelings were, however, to be spared by my representing this tip as my contribution to the poor of his parish. The Archimandrite was so immensely imposing, with his violet robes, diamond cross, and long flowing beard, that I felt quite shy of offering him the modest five roubles which I was told would be sufficient. So I doubled it. The Archimandrite pocketed it joyfully, and so moved was he by my unexpected largesse, that the excellent ecclesiastic at once motioned me to my knees, and gave me a most fervent blessing, which I am persuaded was well worth the extra five roubles.
The Great Palace of the Kremlin was rebuilt by Nicholas I about 1840. It consequently belongs to the "period of bad taste"; in spite of that it is extraordinarily sumptuous. The St. George's Hall is 200 feet long and 60 feet high; the other great halls, named after the Russian Orders of Chivalry, are nearly as large. Each of these is hung with silk of the same colour as the ribbon of the Order; St. George's Hall, orange and black; St. Andrew's Hall, sky-blue; St. Alexander Nevsky's, pink; St. Catherine's, red and white. I imagine that every silkworm in the world must have been kept busy for months in order to prepare sufficient material for these acres of silk-hung walls. The Kremlin Palace may not be in the best of taste, but these huge halls, with their jasper and malachite columns and profuse gilding, are wonderfully gorgeous, and exactly correspond with one's preconceived ideas of what an Emperor of Russia's palace ought to be like. There is a chapel in the Kremlin Palace with the quaint title of "The Church of the Redeemer behind the Golden Railing."
The really interesting portion of the Palace is the sixteenth century part, known as the "Terem." These small, dim, vaulted halls with their half-effaced frescoes on walls and ceilings are most fascinating. It is all mediæval, but not with the mediævalism of Western Europe; neither is it Oriental; it is pure Russian; simple, dignified, and delightfully archaic. One could not imagine the old Tsars in a more appropriate setting. Compared with the strident splendours of the modern palace, the vaulted rooms of the old Terem seem to typify the difference between Petrograd and Moscow.
It so happened that later in life I was destined to become very familiar with the deserted palace at Agra, in India, begun by Akbar, finished by Shah Jehan. How different the Oriental conception of a palace is from the Western! The Agra Palace is a place of shady courts and gardens, dotted with exquisitely graceful pavilions of transparent white marble roofed with gilded copper. No two of these pavilions are similar, and in their varied decorations an inexhaustible invention is shown. The white marble is so placed that it is seen everywhere in strong contrast to Akbar's massive buildings of red sandstone. During the Coronation ceremonies, King-Emperor George V seated himself, of right, on the Emperor Akbar's throne in the great Hall of Audience in Agra Palace.