The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

We had heard of this house and landlord; for the Swiss go into all the countries of Europe, and some others, to keep the hotels. We found a connected line of them all through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend travellers to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot’s man, he put us into a carriage, and away we were whirled over the roughest roads that we had ever endured in a city. Moscow seemed to be too small for its people, as the people appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The streets were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and their market-places presented the liveliest scenes imaginable.

THE KREMLIN.

Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for every Christian crosses himself before each of them; even the coachman in front of us drops his whip from his right hand, and makes the sacred sign on his breast, as he drives by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly bow themselves at a great distance from the altar.

Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim apparently, for after the city committed suicide in 1813, on the coming of Napoleon, it was rebuilt in haste, without plan or purpose, but to get shelter for living and trade. But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and gradually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens about them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid palace in the midst of the white cottages of humble neighbors, and the three hundred and seventy churches are interspersed, with their green or gilded cupolas and shining stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses that belong to some public institution, and then we break in upon a wide square where the people seem to be gathered for some special purpose, and out of this square the streets extend on every side. Then we come to the high banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst of the city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices crowning the hills that rise from its side. The map of the city makes it appear circular. The circumvallation is twenty miles in extent, and within this are two concentric lines of fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for defence, as this remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the borders of barbarism.

THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.

I never had a very definite idea of the Kremlin of Moscow. It has been mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, the site for the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign, would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in 1340, walls of oak enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to resist the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but treason gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the citadel, and the walls were destroyed. They were built again and again, but in 1485, when it was needful to protect the Kremlin against the attack of artillery, the walls were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid and lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile and a half in circumference. Five massive gates admit the flow of life to the temples of religion and of justice within this enclosure. The chief entrance is called the “Redeemer” Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is like going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over it is a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and no one may pass under it without taking off his hat. Formerly, whoever was so hasty or forgetful as to neglect this mark of respect, was punished by being compelled to prostrate himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Emperor of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as he enters this gate. Hundreds were going in as I approached: on foot, in droskies, in carriages, but all were mindful of the place, and entered as if they were going into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates are the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster guns, quite antiquated by modern progress, but formidable in their proper place; and the long rows that are marked as left behind by the French in their retreat, tell a grim tale of the madness and folly of that disastrous campaign. Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the Emperor was in the city, it was long enough for him to attempt to blow up the tower over this gate; but a miracle, as the superstitious Russians believe, was wrought to preserve it; for over the gate is a picture of St. Nicholas, “the comfort of suffering humanity,” and when the explosion took place which was to blow this massive structure into ruins, it made a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame of the picture, and there it suddenly stopped, not cracking the glass over the picture, nor the glass lamp hanging before it! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to be put up in memory of the miracle.

We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, or esplanade, with a scene immediately around, before, and below us, of interest, grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A cloudless sky and a blazing sun are over us. All the buildings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of thirty-two churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and around, are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. Each one of three hundred and seventy churches has several domes, and besides them there are theatres and palaces, and convents and other public buildings, roofs painted green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, as in more Oriental cities, and the river circling its way into and out of the town, give us some idea of what Babylon or Nineveh might have been in their vast enclosure and picturesque rural attractions within their massive walls.

In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other structure in Moscow, rises toward the sky the white, solid, simple Tower of Ivan; majestic in its simplicity and height, as if it were the axis about which this fairy world of Moscow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of 444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swinging in its crown.