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

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

The Tartar hordes have in ages past been fond of making raids upon Moscow, and leaving her palaces heaps of smoking ruins. In old times the Russians built them of wood for the most part, though one of stone erected in 1484 is still standing. Then the Czars removed the capital to St. Petersburg, and for a long time the Kremlin was without a palace or an emperor. The celebrated Empress Anne gave Moscow a palace, and her presence now and then, and Catharine II. designed a royal residence so vast and gorgeous as to rival the palaces of the world, but it was never finished; its model is preserved as a curiosity in the treasury. What she did build, the French wantonly burned when they were compelled to desert the city which its own inhabitants had consigned to destruction. This house, at the doors of which we have been standing while I have given you these historical facts, is the work of the late Nicholas, and is only about twenty years old. It has no likeness in the various orders of architecture; there is no correspondence or harmony between the within and without of it: yet the whole interior is a blaze of gold and upholstery that leaves all rules of taste and art out of the question. We pass through the Empress’s drawing-room, hung with white silk, her cabinet in crimson, her dressing and bath rooms with malachite mantels and priceless ornaments; the Emperor’s cabinet, with magnificent paintings of the proud French coming into Moscow, and the poor French skulking out,—grim satires these on the horrors and fortunes of war; the state apartments, with huge crystal vases at the entrance; the Hall of St. George, with the names of regiments and soldiers inscribed in gold upon the walls, who have been decorated with this order for bravery on the field; the Hall of St. Andrew, hung with blue silk, and inscribed with the names of heroes; the Emperor’s throne, more ostentatious and imposing than any other in Europe; the audience-chamber and banqueting-room, on which is lavished the last resource of gilt and paint to make a show,—and yet when we are ushered into the Gold Court, all former magnificence is for the moment forgotten in the dazzling splendor that fills the place, as if the walls were blazing with living golden light. A flight of steps at one end of the room, called “the red stair case,” is never trodden upon but when the Emperor, on the greatest of all occasions, goes to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This is part of the old palace begun by Catharine, and has a history running back to the time when John the Terrible stood here and saw the comet that he construed into an omen of his doom. And up this flight of stairs came Napoleon, the greatest of actors, when he took possession of the palace of the Kremlin. And when he went down these stairs he began that descent which never stopped till he touched the bottom of his tomb.

The right wing of the palace is the treasury building, with the most remarkable collection of objects to be seen in Russia. The Tower of London illustrates England as this museum tells the history of the Russian empire. Her past and present intercourse with the Asiatic nations, and her more modern commercial relations with the West, have made Moscow the emporium of all that distinguishes her ancient and modern commerce, and exchange of presents when treaties have been made. What riches of plate, jewels, silks, manufactures, which China, India, Persia, Armenia, and other powers, peoples, and tribes have poured into the lap of this colossal power in the progress of centuries! When the French were coming, the prudent Russians, foreseeing the evil, removed these pearls and diamonds and rubies, these vessels of gold and silver, these costly fabrics of art and toil which could never be replaced, and concealed them far in the interior, where the feet of the enemy would not be apt to follow them.

Among the historical curiosities here preserved with religious care, the traveller from the land of liberty views with sorrow and indignation the throne of Poland! Other thrones, as trophies of conquered kingdoms, stand near. One of ivory was brought from Constantinople in 1472. Another is from Persia, taken as long ago as 1660. It is covered with 876 diamonds, 1,223 rubies, and many other precious stones. Blazing in front of these thrones is an orb, which the Greek emperors, Basilius and Constantine, sent to Wladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kief, with a piece of the true cross! This orb is adorned with fifty-eight diamonds, eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, fifty emeralds, and thirty-seven other stones, and with enamels colored in the highest style of Grecian art, to tell the story of King David, of the land of Israel.

One of the most wonderful institutions of Moscow is the hospital for foundlings, into which about twelve thousand children are taken yearly. As many, if not more, are received into a similar institution in St. Petersburg. It is said that no cities in the world surpass those of Russia in the comforts provided for the care of these outcasts from the birth, the most forlorn and helpless of all the objects that appeal to human sympathy. The government makes a yearly grant of about a million of dollars to this hospital in Moscow, and it has large resources besides, so that there is no lack of funds to meet the wants of these unfortunate little people, whose fathers and mothers forsaking them are taken up by the Lord.

In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside the walls of the asylum, and in, so that a child could be placed upon it outside, and on the door-bell being rung the table would be set in motion, and the infant is gently rolled into the house. The mother or friend who brought the child and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet utterly unseen and unknown. This system has its advantages, and many attendant evils. But here in Moscow they affect no such mystery about the matter. The hospital receives the infant children of poor and honest parents who are willing to give their babes to the state, and it also takes the offspring of sin and shame who are brought by their mothers or left on the highway and picked up by the police or the wayfarer. A reception-room is always open. A man or woman enters with a babe. No question is asked but these:—

“Has the child been baptized?”

If yes, “By what name?” If it has not been baptized, that sacrament is at once administered, and the name given is registered opposite a number, which is hereafter worn as a sign around its neck, and this number is handed to the person who brings the child. This number entitles the bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim the child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own children in the country, and come here to get the wages and living in the hospital, which are far better than they enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are the mothers whose children are here, and as they have the number that marks their own, they can easily change about till they get the care of the babe they seek to watch, without its ever being known to be theirs.

Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good nursing can supply to preserve the lives of these orphans. We go from ward to ward, admiring the cleanliness, order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick flannel. They are not laid on the hard knees or sharp hoops of unfeeling nurses to be dressed, but they are suffered to lie on pillows of down while this operation is performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and when the child may be supposed to have gained some strength, they are sent with their nurses into the country. They are, however, exposed to such a climate, and the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a tough child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half of them die before they are twelve months old. Half of the remainder who survive the year fall by the way before they grow up; and so it comes to pass that only one quarter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these children of the state live to be men and women. This is a small proportion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them would have lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital to care for them.

Another institute we find here in Moscow that has nothing to match it, and cannot have in our democratic country. The female orphan children of servants of the Emperor are taken into it, and eight hundred are constantly receiving an education to fit them for being teachers! They are bound to devote six years after they leave the institute to the business of teaching in the interior of the empire. They have a small salary, and thus provide for themselves while they are doing a good work for the state. No foundlings are admitted into this house. The orphans are all supposed to be children of honest parents, and this supposition keeps up a higher tone of self-respect than would be possible among a thousand children who did not know who their parents are.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing we have read of in the figure language of the Bible, but men in sheep’s clothing I had never seen till I met them to-day, in midsummer, in the market-places of Moscow. They could have but one suit of clothing, and to cover their nakedness must wear it summer and winter. It was made, “coat and pants,” of sheepskin with the wool on, and was worn by some with the wool outside, and by others with the wool in. On a day like this of sweltering heat, when it was not safe for us to walk in the sun without parasols, these natives of the north, with their winter clothes on, were not apparently oppressed; and it was a comfort to believe that they had become accustomed to it, and had no idea of any thing more enjoyable than an indefinite degree of heat.