Perhaps the most thoroughly Russian of all the tschornoi narod are the isvoshtshiks, or public drivers; at least they are the class with whom the traveler comes most immediately and necessarily into contact, and from whom he derives his idea of them. Such is the extent of St. Petersburg, that when the foreigner has sated his curiosity with the general aspect of the streets, he finds that he can not afford time to walk from one object of interest to another. Moreover, in winter—and here winter means fully six months in the year—the streets are spread with a thick covering of snow, which soon becomes beaten up into powdered crystals, through which locomotion is as difficult as through the deepest sands of Sahara; and the wind whirls these keen crystals about like the sand-clouds of the desert. Every body not to the manner born, whose pleasures or avocations call him abroad, is glad to draw his mantle over his face, and creeping into a sledge, wrap himself up as closely as he may in furs. In spring and summer, when the streets are usually either a marsh or choked with intolerable dust, pedestrianism is equally disagreeable. All this has called into requisition a host of Jehus, so that the stranger who has mastered enough Russian to call out Davai ishvoshtshik! “Here, driver!” or even lifts his hand by way of signal, has seldom need to repeat the summons.
Like his cart-borne kindred, the Tartars and Scythians, the ishvoshtshik makes his vehicle his home. In it he eats, drinks, and often sleeps, rolling himself up into a ball in the bottom, to [pg 455] present as little surface as possible to the action of the cold.—Russian-like, he always names a price for his services that will leave ample room for abatement. But once engaged, and he is for the time being your servant, and accepts any amount of abuse or beating as the natural condition of the bargain.
Ishvoshtshiks.
The mujik of every class seems indeed to be born ready bitted, for the use of anyone who has a hand steady enough to hold the reins. They are the best servants in the world for one who has the gift of command. It is this adaptation between the strong-willed autocrats who since Peter have swayed the destinies of Russia, and the serviceable nature of the people, that has raised the empire to its present position. A single weak ruler would change the whole destiny of Russia.
Notwithstanding the hardships of their lives, the isvoshtshiks are good-natured, merry, harmless, fellows, whether waiting for a fare or bantering a customer. But they have one thorn; and that is the pedestrian. Woe to the driver who runs against a foot-man; fine and flogging are his portion. If the pedestrian be thrown down, visions of Siberia float before the driver's eye; to say nothing of the pleasant foretaste of the policeman's cane and the confiscation of his vehicle.
Notwithstanding the general characteristic of laxity of principle, instances are by no means wanting of the most scrupulous and even romantic fidelity on the part of the Russians of the lower orders. It would be an interesting subject of investigation, how far this patent trait of national character is to be attributed to inherent constitutional defects in the race; and how far to the state of serfdom in which they have existed from generation to generation. But the investigation does not fall within the scope of our “Recollections.”
Our friends in the greasy sheepskins or woolen caftans have strong religious tendencies, though they may smack a little too much of those of the tight-fingered Smyrniote whom we detected purchasing candles to light before his patron saint, with the first-fruits of the purse of which he had not ten minutes before relieved our pocket. In all places where men congregate there are pictures of saints before which the mujik crosses himself on every occasion. In an inn or restaurant each visitor turns to the picture and crosses himself before he sits down to eat. If a mujik enters your room he crosses himself before saluting you. Every church is saluted with a sign of the cross. At frequent intervals in the streets little shrines are found, before which every body stops and makes the sacred sign, with bared head. The merchant in the gostunoi dvor or bazaar, every now and then walks up to his bog or saint, and with a devout inclination prays for success in trade.
No one has seen St. Petersburg who has not been there at Easter. The Greek Church finds great virtues in fasting; and a prolonged fast-time implies a subsequent carnival. The rigor of the Russian fasts strictly excludes every article of food containing the least particle of animal matter. Flesh and fowl are, of course, rigorously tabooed; so are milk, eggs, butter; and even sugar, on account of the animal matter used in refining it, of which a small portion might possibly remain. The fast preceding Easter, called, by way of eminence, “The Great Fast,” lasts seven full weeks, and is observed with a strictness unknown even in Catholic countries. The lower classes refrain even from fish during the first and last of these seven weeks, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays in the remaining five. When we reflect how large a part some or all of these animal substances form of the cuisine of all northern nations, and in Russia most of all, we shall be ready to believe that this Great Fast is an important epoch in the Russian calendar, and is not to be encountered without a preparatory period of feasting, the recollection of which may serve to mitigate the enforced abstinence.
Among the upper classes in St. Petersburg balls, routs, and all carnival revelries begin to crowd thick and fast upon each other as early as the commencement of February. But the mass of the people compress these preparatory exercises into the week before the beginning of the fast. This is the famous Masslänitza or “Butter Week,” which contains the sum and substance [pg 456] of all Russian festivity. All the butter that should naturally have gone into the consumption of the succeeding seven weeks is concentrated into this. Whatever can be eaten with butter is buttered; what can not, is eschewed. The standard dish of the week is blinni, a kind of pancake, made with butter; fried in butter, and eaten with butter-sauce. For this one week the great national dish of shtshee or cabbage-soup is banished from the land.