The length of these public places, open and in full view, right and left, from the Admiralty tower, is a full mile.
Stretching southward from the tower lies the “Great Side” of St. Petersburg, cut into three concentric semicircular divisions, of which the Admiralty is the centre, by three canals, and intersected by the three main avenues or Prospekts (Perspectives). These three Perspectives diverge like the spokes of a wheel from the Admiralty and run straight through the city, through the sumptuous quarters of the aristocracy, the domains of commerce, and the suburbs of the poor; while the view is closed by the mists rising from the swamps of Ingermanland.
Turning from the “Great Side,” and looking northward, the arms of the Neva diverge from near the foot of the Admiralty tower, as the Perspectives do from the southern side. The width of the Neva, its yielding bottom and shores, and the masses of ice which it sweeps down, make the erection of bridges so difficult that they are placed at very rare intervals, so that a person might be obliged to go miles before reaching one. But the stream is enlivened by boats and gondolas ready to convey passengers from one bank to the other. We were never weary of watching with a glass from the Admiralty tower, alternately, the river gay with boats and shipping, and the Perspectives thronged with their brilliant and motley crowd. With a somewhat different, but certainly no less absorbing interest, we gazed down from the same elevation into the works of the citadel, upon Petersburg Island, whose minutest details were clearly visible. This citadel is useless as a defense of the city against a hostile attack; but it furnishes a ready means of commanding the capital, and furnishes a refuge for the government in case of an insurrection. Like the fortifications of Paris, it is designed not so much to defend as to control the city.
St. Petersburg is certainly the most imposing city, and Russia is the most imposing nation in the world—at first sight. But the imposing aspect of both is to a great extent an imposition. The city tries to pass itself off for granite, when a great proportion is of wood or brick, covered with paint and stucco, which peels off in masses before the frosts of every winter, and needs a whole army of plasterers and painters every spring to put it in presentable order. You pass what appears a Grecian temple, and lo, it is only a screen of painted boards. A one-storied house assumes the airs of a loftier building, in virtue of a front of another story bolted and braced to its roof. And much even that is real is sadly out of place. Long lines of balconies and pillars and porticoes, which would be appropriate to Greece or Italy, are for the greater part of the year piled with snow-drifts. St. Petersburg and Russian civilization are both of a growth too hasty, and too much controlled from without, instead of proceeding from a law of inward development, to be enduring.
The capital to be seen to advantage must be viewed during the few weeks of early summer; or in the opening winter, when the snow forms a pavement better than art can produce, and when the cold has built a continuous bridge over the Neva, without having as yet become severe enough to drive every body from the streets.
The Neva is the main artery through which pours the life-blood of St. Petersburg. But the life-current is checked from the time when the ice is too far weakened by the returning sun to be passable, and not yet sufficiently broken up to float down to the Gulf. At that time all intercourse between portions of the city on its opposite batiks is suspended. Every body is anxious for the breaking-up of the ice. Luxuries from more genial climes are waiting in the Baltic for the river to be navigable. No sooner is the ice so far cleared as to afford a practicable passage for a boat, than the glad news is announced by the artillery of the citadel, and, no matter what the hour, the commandant and his suite hurry into a gondola and push over to the Imperial palace, directly opposite. The commandant fills a large goblet with the icy fluid, and presents it to the Emperor, informing him that his gondola, the first which has that year crossed the river, is the precursor of navigation. The Czar drains the cup to the health of the capital, and returns it, filled with ducats, to the commandant. Formerly it was observed, by some mysterious law of natural science, that this goblet grew larger and larger, year by year, so that the Czar who had swallowed Poland without flinching, and stood ready to perform the same operation upon Turkey, stood in danger of suffocation from his growing bumpers. Some wise man at last suggested that this tendency to the enlargement of the goblet might be counteracted, by limiting the number of ducats returned by way of acknowledgment. The suggestion was acted upon, and, greatly to the comfort of the Imperial purse and stomach, was found to be perfectly successful. The sum now given is two hundred ducats. This goblet of Neva water is surely the most costly draught ever quaffed since the time when brown-fronted Cleopatra dissolved the pearl in honor of mad Mark Antony.
The most striking winter spectacle of St. Petersburg, to a foreigner, is that of the ice mountains. They are in full glory during “Butter Week”—of which more anon—when Russia seems to forget her desire to be any thing but Russian. The great Place of the Admiralty is given up to the popular celebrations, and filled with refreshment-booths, swings, and slides. To form these ice mountains a narrow scaffold is raised to the height of some thirty or forty feet. This scaffold has on one side steps for the purpose of ascending it; on the other it slopes off, steeply at first, and then more gradually, until it finally terminates on a level. Upon this long slope blocks of ice are laid, over which water is poured, which by freezing unites the blocks, and furnishes a uniform surface, down which the merry crowd slide upon sledges, or more frequently upon blocks of smooth ice cut into an appropriate form.
Two of these mountains usually stand opposite and fronting each other, their tracks lying close together, side by side.
Ice Mountain.