As regards the Petrofski Park, the truth is it is a famous resort for reckless pleasure-seekers, and largely made up of the demi-monde, where scenes anything but decorous are presented to the eyes of strangers during the afternoons and the long summer twilight. But those who wish to see and study "life," fast life, have only to visit the Châteaux des Fleurs, or Marina-Rostcha, which are also in the environs of the town. As in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, the police, who cannot suppress these resorts, strive to control them so far that they shall not outrage openly the conventionalities of society. Human nature is much the same all over the world, though its coarsest features are more obtruded upon observation in some lands than in others. In extensive travel and experience, the author has learned that it is not always in semi-barbarous countries that grossness and indecency will be found most to prevail. It must be admitted that there are temples of vice in Moscow which for ingenuity of temptation, and lavish and gilded display, are not equalled elsewhere in Europe.
Under the shadow of the spacious and lofty tower which forms a reservoir for the distribution of water for the domestic use of the citizens, there is held in the open square each Sabbath day what is called "The Market," but which might better be designated a weekly fair, a sort of Nijni-Novgorod upon a small scale. Here Jew and Gentile, Asiatic and European, exchange their goods or sell to the citizens. There are confectioners, jewellers, clothiers, hard-ware merchants, dried-fruit venders, fancy-dry-good dealers, tea-booths, tin and earthenware tables,—in short, every domestic article that can be named is here offered for sale. The crowd is great, the Babel of voices deafening, the hustling incessant, occasional quarrels being inevitable. Now one meets a group of courteous, well-dressed people, now an itinerant in rags, now a bevy of boisterous girls and boys, now a long-haired and bearded priest; some are sober, many are drunk. Alas! Sunday is here a day of drunkenness. Speaking plainly upon this subject, there are more intoxicated persons to be seen in the streets of Moscow on the Sabbath than the author has ever encountered upon any day of the week in any other capital. At this Sunday-fair articles are offered at popular prices, presumed to be much lower than is charged by regular merchants who have rent to pay and large establishments to keep up. Upon this conviction the poorer classes especially throng hither to purchase such articles as they require, making the scene one of great activity and general interest. The tall tower of the water-supply was not originally intended for the use to which it has at last been appropriated. It was first erected by the Tzar Peter to mark the northeastern gate of the town, which was held by one faithful regiment when the rest revolted. This same regiment escorted him and his mother for safety to the Troitzkoi Monastery, situated thirty miles from the city, and which is considered to-day as the holy of holies so far as monasteries are concerned in Russia. Hither the Empress Catherine II. made the pilgrimage on foot to fulfil some conditional vow, accompanied by all her court, only advancing, however, five miles each day, and not forgetting to have every possible luxury conveyed in her train wherewith to refresh herself. It will be remembered that Napoleon in his usual rashness had planned to destroy this monastery, and had issued orders to that effect, just as he had done in the instance of St. Basil already referred to; but he was defeated in his purpose by the haste with which the demoralized army retreated from the country.
The Troitzkoi is not merely a monastery, it is also a semi-fortress, a palace, and a town containing eight churches, a bazaar, a hospital, and many stately residences, altogether forming a confused though picturesque group of towers, spires, belfries, and domes. It is dominated by a famous bell-tower two hundred and fifty feet high, containing one of the finest chimes of bells in all Russia, thirty-five in number. In the Church of the Trinity is the shrine of Saint Sergius, an elaborate piece of work of solid silver, weighing nearly a thousand pounds; it is so constructed that the relics of the saint are exposed. The whole of the monastery grounds are enclosed in a high wall twenty feet in thickness, with heavy octagon towers guarding the four principal corners. A deep moat surrounds the wall, and against the attack of a hostile force in former times it was thought to be remarkably protected, and is undoubtedly the strongest fortified monastery in the East. The large prison within the walls has been the scene of as great cruelty during the last two centuries as any similar establishment in Europe or Asia. The name Troitzkoi signifies the Trinity. The treasury of this monastery is famous among all who are specially interested in such matters for its priceless robes and jewels, to say nothing in detail of the aggregated value of its gold and silver plate. It is asserted that there are more and richer pearls collected here than are contained in all the other treasuries in Europe combined. Among other precious gems there are several mitres which contain rubies worth fifty thousand roubles each, being set with other jewels of appropriate richness. The Troitzkoi was pillaged by the Tartars about 1403, and was besieged by the Poles in 1608, at which time the walls were seriously injured; but all is now restored to its original strength and completeness. This ancient monastery stands at the opening of the valley of the Kliasma, a region fruitful with the smouldering ruins of by-gone cities so much older than Moscow that their names even are forgotten. The country between the stream just named and the Volga was the grand centre of early Tartar history. As in the environs of Delhi, India, where city after city has risen and crumbled into dust, so here large capitals have mouldered away leaving no recorded story, and only enforcing the sad moral of mutability.
The idea of comfortable road-beds for the passage of vehicles and good foot-ways does not seem to have entered the minds of the people of Moscow. The cobble-stone pavements are universal, both in the middle of the streets and on that portion designed for pedestrians. These stones, without any uniformity of size, are miserably laid in the first place, added to which they are thrown out of level by the severity of the annual frosts, so that it is a punishment to walk or to drive upon them. The natives are perhaps accustomed to this needless discomfort, and do not heed it; but it is a severe tax upon the endurance of strangers who remember the smooth roadways of Paris, Boston, and New York. A few short reaches of the square granite-stone pavements were observed, probably laid down as an experiment; but great was the relief experienced when the drosky rolled upon them after a struggle with the cobble-stone style of pavement. Many otherwise fine streets both here and in St. Petersburg are rendered nearly impassable by wretched paving.
One is struck by the multitude of pigeons in and about the city. They are held in great reverence by the common people, and no Russian will harm them. Indeed, they are as sacred here as monkeys in Benares or doves in Venice, being considered emblems of the Holy Ghost, and under protection of the Church. They wheel about in large blue flocks through the air so dense as to cast shadows, like swift-moving clouds between the sun and the earth, alighting fearlessly where they choose, to share the beggar's crumbs or the bounty of the affluent. It is a notable fact that this domestic bird was also considered sacred by the old Scandinavians, who believed that for a certain period after death the soul of the deceased under such form was accustomed to come to eat and drink with as well as to watch the behavior of the mourners. Beggary is sadly prevalent in the streets of the Muscovite capital,—the number of maimed and wretched-looking human beings forcibly recalling the same class in Spanish and Italian cities. This condition of poverty was the more remarkable when contrasted with its absence in St. Petersburg, where a person seen soliciting alms upon the streets or in tattered garments is very rare.
CHAPTER XVII.
Nijni-Novgorod.—Hot Weather.—The River Volga.—Hundreds of Steamers.—Great Annual Fair.—Peculiar Character of the Trade.—Motley Collection of Humanity.—An Army of Beggars.—Rare and Precious Stones.—The Famous Brick Tea.—A Costly Beverage.—Sanitary Measures.—Disgraceful Dance Halls.—Fatal Beauty.—A Sad History.—Light-Fingered Gentry.—Convicts.—Facts About Siberia.—Local Customs.—Russian Punishment.
A journey of about three hundred miles (or as the Russians state it, four hundred and ten versts) in a northeasterly direction from Moscow, by way of the historic town of Vladimir, famous for its battles with the Tartars, brings us to Nijni-Novgorod,—that is, Lower Novgorod, being so called to distinguish it from the famous place of the same name located on the Volkhov, and known as Novgorod the Great. It is older than Moscow, antedating it a century or more, and is the capital of a province bearing the same name. The residence of the governor of the district, the courts of law, and the citadel are within the Kremlin, where there is also a fine monument in the form of an obelisk eighty feet high, erected to the memory of Mininn and Pojarski, the two patriots who liberated their country from the Poles in 1612. This Kremlin, like that at Moscow, is situated on an elevation overlooking the town and the broad valley of the Volga. The site of the upper town, as the older portion of the place situated about the Kremlin is called, is quite remarkable, being a sort of overhanging bluff, commanding a level view as far as the eye can reach over an undulating country, through which winds the noblest river of Russia. The climate here is subject to great extremes of heat and cold,—the mercury freezing, it is said, in winter, and sometimes bursting in the heat of the summer sun. As we stood upon this bluff enjoying the comprehensive view, the heat of the mid-day hour and the power of the sun were quite tropical. Indeed, without the partial shelter of an umbrella it would have been as insufferable as mid-day exposure in Ceylon or Singapore. All animal life, so far as possible, sought the shade; and the fine black horses attached to the vehicle which had transported us from the plain below, though driven at a quiet pace, were flecked with foam and panted with distended nostrils. The thermometer on the shady side of the governor's palace close at hand indicated 89° Fahrenheit. To the great extremes of overpowering cold and enervating heat some of the apparent incongruities of the native character may doubtless be attributed. For more than half the year the people are as it were hermetically sealed up by the frost, and in the brief but intense heat of the summer they are rendered inert and slothful by the effect of tropical heat.