Northern Lands; Or, Young America in Russia and Prussia

by Oliver Optic

At half past seven the next morning, breakfast had been disposed of, and the little steamer came alongside the ship to convey the students to St. Petersburg again. At nine o'clock she landed them on the English Quay, near the Nicholas Bridge. A procession was formed, which was but the work of a moment, for every student knew his place in the line. The column moved along the quay to the Winter Palace, under the guidance of an officer of the emperor's household, who had been detailed for the purpose, when Mr. Fluxion applied for permission to see the palace. Every courtesy had been extended to the tourists, and not a word was said about passports.

At the Hotel Klée, Kendall and Shuffles had sent their passports to the police office. They had been visé at the Russian consulate in Stockholm, and permission was indorsed upon them for the owners to abide in the city. The people at the hotel attend to all this business, and ask for the traveller's passport as soon as he arrives, charging the fees, which are quite small, in the bill. In every additional city or town in which the tourist remains over night, his passport must be sent to the police, who indorse upon it the permission to remain. Letters from abroad are delivered to travellers, but newspapers, unless they are on the permitted list, are detained. A few New York papers are on this list, and it is useless to send any others into Russia, for they will not be forwarded to their address. The custom-house officers were formerly very strict in regard to the admission of books, and are so still where there is any suspicion of revolutionary works, or of those directed against the Orthodox Greek church. Such books as ordinary travellers desire to carry, as the Bible, Prayer-books, and Guidebooks, are permitted to pass.

The students had seen the Winter Palace and Hermitage, which are connected by galleries, when they rode through the streets the day before. The grand entrance is on the Neva, but there is another opening into the square in front of the Etat Major. The exterior, except in size, is hardly as imposing as many other European palaces, though the building has the reputation of being one of the most elegant on the continent. It is four hundred and fifty-five feet long by three hundred and fifty wide, and eighty feet high. In winter it accommodates six thousand persons, forming the emperor's household. On the site of the palace was the estate of the high admiral of Peter the Great, who bequeathed it to Peter II. The Empress Anne commenced a palace on the spot, which was completed in the reign of Catharine II., but it was destroyed by fire in 1837. In two years more the present vast structure was completed. The entrance from the Neva side is by a magnificent staircase of marble. The students went in at the entrance on the square, and walked through all the apartments which visitors are permitted to enter, and all of them were magnificent. The White Hall, as its name indicates, is of clear white, adorned with gold, and is the room in which the court balls and other festivities are held. St. George's Hall, which is one hundred and forty feet long by sixty wide, is the apartment in which the ambassadors are received; and there is another throne room, in which the emperor meets the diplomats on New Year's Day. There were hundreds of other rooms, all of them hung with pictures, which are mostly portraits of persons noted in Russian history, and battle-pieces in which the armies of the czars have been victorious. In the Romanoff Gallery are the pictures of all the sovereigns of this line, from Michael down to the present time. In this hall is a tablet, covered with a curtain, on which are inscribed the ten rules that Catharine II. enforced at the meetings of her friends. The visitor was enjoined to leave his rank, and his right of precedence, outside the door; to be gay, and sit, stand, or walk, as he pleased, without regard to any one; to talk gently, and argue without excitement; to eat what was good, and drink moderately, so that each might find his legs when he wanted to use them; that all should join in any innocent game when one proposed it, and tell no tales out of school. The penalty of a violation of these rules was the drinking of a glass of cold water, and the reading of a page of a poet who appears to have been the Martin Farquhar Tupper of Russia. If any one broke three of the rules in the same evening, he was condemned to commit six lines of this poet to memory; and the one who told tales out of school was not again admitted.

The students were conducted to a room on the second floor, which is guarded day and night by officers of the household, where the crown jewels are kept. On the sceptre is the great Orlof diamond, the largest in Europe, presented to Catharine II. by her favorite, whose name it takes. It is said that it once formed the eye of an idol in India, and was stolen by a French soldier. After passing through various hands, it was purchased by Count Orlof, who paid four hundred and fifty thousand rubles for it, besides conferring a patent of nobility, and an annuity of two thousand rubles upon the seller. The crown of the emperor is shaped something like a bishop's mitre, and is covered with diamonds and pearls. On the top is an immense ruby, which supports a cross formed of five beautiful diamonds. The crown of the empress is a mass of diamonds of the most perfect hue and lustre. There are many other treasures, such as the plume of Suvaroff, presented by the Sultan of Turkey; the "Shah," a diamond from Persia; and necklaces, bracelets, brooches, and other articles, glittering with diamonds, and studded with immense pearls. Millions upon millions of rubles in value lie idle and useless in this apartment, which would plant a common school in nearly every town of the vast empire.

On the lower floor is the room in which the Emperor Nicholas died, in 1855, with everything just as it was on the day he breathed his last. It is one of the smallest and plainest apartments of the palace, and a grenadier of the guard is always on duty within it to protect the sacred relics of the czar. It is furnished with a narrow iron camp bedstead, on which he expired. On it lies his military cloak, and his sword and helmet are just as he left them. On the table is a quartermaster's report, given to him on the day he died. Everything in the room is of the simplest manufacture, with nothing of the luxuriousness of the other parts of the palace.

From the palace the students passed into the Hermitage, which is a museum and gallery of paintings, and is hardly equalled in all Europe. It is somewhat larger than the palace, enclosing two large courts. It is a perfect labyrinth of apartments, and all of them filled with paintings, works of art, and historical relics. All the old masters are represented in the picture galleries, and rooms or suits of rooms are devoted to each school of painting. Not many of the students were able to appreciate the treasures of art, and most of them preferred the military and naval pictures in the Winter Palace. In the vast numismatic collection are many very rare Greek coins. In the gem room is a mechanical clock, which a poor woman drew in a lottery, and sold for fifteen thousand dollars. It played overtures with all the effects of the modern orchestrion, and was wound up for the gratification of the visitors. In the gallery of Peter the Great, the party were disposed to linger for a long time. It contains works of art and industry in the time of the Czar whose name it bears, and the turning lathes and carving tools he used himself. His spy-glasses, mathematical instruments, books, canes, and other articles are exhibited. The gilded chariot in which he occasionally rode, his dogs, and his war horse, stuffed, and various casts and portraits of him, taken after death, were examined with interest. A broken clock, with wonderful mechanical movements, excited the attention of the boys. It consists of a peacock, which, at the striking of the hour, expands his tail, while a rooster flaps his wings, an owl rolls his eyes, and a grasshopper feeds on a mushroom. Near it is a collection of snuff-boxes, which belonged to various sovereigns of Europe. In this room, enclosed in cases, was a great variety of curiosities, including articles which had belonged to the members of the royal family.

On the lower floor are the galleries of ancient sculpture. In the Kertch collection are medals and other articles proving the existence of a Greek colony on the northern shores of the Black Sea six hundred years before Christ. In 1820 a tomb was found at Kertch, which is at the entrance to the Sea of Azof, containing a chamber of hewn stone, in which were the remains of a Scythian prince, with his wife, his horse, and his chief groom. His crown, weapons, ornaments, and golden robes, with vases of bronze and other material containing the remains of provisions, were found where they had lain for two thousand years, and were conveyed to this museum. The tomb of a priestess of Ceres, buried with her ornaments, and with four horses, was found in 1866. The Scythian collection is equally rich in the treasures of a former race.

The students wandered during the forenoon through these numerous apartments till most of them were very tired; for there is no harder work for the human frame than that of exploring museums and galleries. The party dined again at the Hotel Klée, and in the afternoon walked to the Arsenal Museum, which contains specimens of arms and accoutrements of many periods, and a vast quantity of historical curiosities. Among the former are some curious guns, pistols, revolvers, and warlike machines; and among the latter are many relics of Peter the Great, as the hat and sword he wore at Pultowa; the leather coat in which he worked at Saardam; the uniforms in which he passed through the several military grades of private, captain, and colonel; and a cabriolet in which he measured distances on the road by means of machinery like that of a clock connected with the wheels. At the head of the staircase is a Russian eagle, the body, neck, and legs made of gun-flints fixed on the wall, the wings of sword blades, and the eyes formed by the muzzles of a pair of pistols, in the same manner as the several objects in the Tower of London are composed.

The Museum of Imperial Carriages was next visited. After passing through several rooms in which some beautiful Gobelin tapestries are exhibited, the students entered the large hall which contains the vehicles. The first was the carriage presented by Frederick the Great, of Prussia, to the Empress Elizabeth, in 1746, and in which the Princess Dagmar rode into St. Petersburg with the empress. It is gilded, with paintings on the panels and doors. There are a dozen of these large, clumsy state carriages, glittering with gold, and rich with silk, satin, and embroidery. Some of them are over a hundred years old, and have been "restored" several times. Those used by the various sovereigns, from Peter I. to the present time, were pointed out. After the party had critically examined one of them, the only interest the others had was the fact that Catharine II. had spread herself in one, and Nicholas had sternly looked out from the windows of another. Besides these state coaches, there were many modern vehicles from different parts of Europe, and a number of sleighs, used by the court in carnival time, some of which are very ingeniously constructed. By all odds, the greatest curiosity in this collection is the sledge of Peter the Great, in which he travelled, in winter, on his long journeys to the distant parts of his vast empire. It is a kind of coach on runners, and was entirely constructed by the Czar's own hands. Behind it is a trunk in which he carried his clothes and provisions. Peter made a journey in this sledge to Archangel, on the White Sea, and there came a thaw which compelled him to return to his capital on wheels. Alexander I. caused the sleigh to be brought to St. Petersburg. It is placed in a large glass case, to protect it from injury. A sleigh in the form of St. George and the Dragon is unique. A mechanical drosky, invented by a Siberian peasant, has an apparatus which records the time and distance travelled, besides playing several tunes. Near Peter's sledge stand two or three diminutive carriages for the use of the royal children.

In another room are kept the harnesses and trappings used for the imperial state carriages, with liveries for eight hundred men. In one set, each horse has to carry about one hundred and twenty pounds. The carriages are all in the second story of the building, and there is a kind of platform elevator, by which they are hoisted up. The state coaches are used at the coronation of the emperors, and this ceremonial always takes place at Moscow, whither they have to be transported, though, since the railroad was completed, this is not so difficult a matter as formerly.