Beggary is sadly prevalent in the streets of Moscow, the number of maimed and wretched-looking human beings recalling the same scenes in Spain and Italy, especially in the former country, where beggary seems to be the occupation of one-third of the people.
CHAPTER XX.
We must travel by railway three hundred miles further towards the centre of the empire and in a northerly direction, to reach 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. This journey is made in the night, and the cars, which are supposed to afford sleeping accommodations, are furnished with reclining chairs only. However, we get along very well, and fatigue is pretty sure to make one sleep soundly, notwithstanding the want of inviting conveniences. Having arrived at Nijni-Novgorod early in the morning, we find it to be a peculiar city. 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 to the memory of Mininn and Pojarski, the two patriots who liberated the country from the Poles in 1612.
The Kremlin, like that at Moscow, is situated on an elevation overlooking the town and the broad valley of the Volga. As we view the scene, a vast alluvial plain is spread out before the eye, covered with fertile fields and thrifty woods, through which from northwest to southeast flows the river, like a silver thread upon a verdant ground, extending from horizon to horizon. On this river, the main artery of Central Russia, are seen scores of swift-moving steamers, while a forest of shipping is gathered about the wharves of the lower town, and also upon the Oka River, which here joins the Volga. From this outlook we count over two hundred steamers in sight at the same time, all side-wheelers and clipper-built, drawn hither by the exigencies of the local trade growing out of the great annual fair. The first of these steamboats was built in the United States and transported to Russian waters, since which it has served as a model to builders, who have furnished many hundreds for river service.
The flat-boats or barges, which have been towed hither by the steamers from various distances, having been unloaded, are anchored in a shallow bend of the river, where they cover an area of a mile square. On most of these barges entire families live, it being their only home; and wherever freight is to be transported, thither they go; whether it is towards the Ural Mountains or the Caspian Sea, it is all the same to them: the Arabs of the desert are not more roving than they.
The Volga has a course of twenty-four hundred, and the Oka of eight hundred and fifty miles. As the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers have together made St. Louis in this country, so these two rivers have made Nijni-Novgorod. This great mart lies at the very centre of the water communication which joins the Caspian and the Black seas to the Baltic and the White seas; besides which, it has direct railroad connection with Moscow, and thence with all Eastern Europe. The Volga and its tributaries pour into its lap the wealth of the Ural Mountains and that of the vast region of Siberia and Central Asia. It thus becomes very apparent why and how this ancient city is the point of business contact between European industry and Asiatic wealth.
The attraction which draws most travellers so far into the centre of Russia, lies in the novelty of the great annual fair held here for a period of about eight weeks, and which gathers together for the time being some two hundred thousand people, traders and spectators, merchants and rogues, who come from the most distant provinces and countries of Asia, as well as from immediate regions round about. The variety of merchandise brought hither is something to astonish one. Jewelry of such beauty and fashion as would grace the best stores of Paris is here offered for sale, beside the cheapest ornaments manufactured by the bushel-basketful at Birmingham, England. Choice old silverware is exposed along with iron sauce-pans, tin dippers, and cheap crockery—variety and incongruity, gold and tinsel, everywhere side by side. There is an abundance of iron and copper from the Urals, dried fish in tall piles from the Caspian, tea from China, cotton from India, silk and rugs from Persia, heavy furs and sables from Siberia, wool in the raw state from Cashmere, together with the varied products of the trans-Caucasian provinces, even including droves of wild horses. Fancy goods are here displayed from England as well as from Paris and Vienna, toys from Nuremberg, ornaments of jade and lapis-lazuli from Kashgar, precious stones from Ceylon, and gems from pearl-producing Penang. Variety, indeed! Then what a conglomerate of odors permeates everything,—boiled cabbage, coffee, tea, and tanned leather,—dominated by the all-pervading musk; but all this is quite in consonance with the queer surroundings which meet the eye, where everything presents itself through an Oriental haze.