Russia, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers

by Unknown

Kasan is a highly flourishing city. It has a population of 90,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, one-fourth of whom are Tartars.

These descendants of the old Nomad race are now here at home, and live in the city perfectly at peace with their Russian fellow-subjects, though being Mahometans, they have distinct, if not separate, quarters, and mosques and a burial-ground of their own. It would seem impossible for two races which have so little reason for mutual good-will, to show so little disposition to quarrel. But it should be remembered that Sclav and Tartar were not in former times so far asunder in manners, in language, in polish, nor so free from admixture in blood as the Russians fondly believe.

The town has its Kremlin, on the site of the old citadel, with its cathedral and other churches, and several "telescope towers," if they may be so called, built on several stories, dwindling in size from floor to floor as they rise one above the other, so that one can conceive how they might easily sink into one another and shut up like a spy-glass. The great brick tower of Pier Crescenzi in Rome is such a tower; and here are many in the same style at Moscow and in most other old Russian cities. Kasan has several public edifices of some pretension: the Admiralty; the University—one of the seven of the Empire, etc. But we had enough of it all after two or three hours, and were glad to shun the heat of the rest of the day in the cool sitting-room of Commonen's Hotel, which alone may be taken as a voucher for the high degree of civilization reached by Kasan.

We gave even less time to the other cities of the Volga, not thinking it always worth while to alight at all the stations, though the steamer stopped at some of these for many a long, weary hour.

With the exception of Kasan, Samara, and Astrakhan, the most important cities are, as I said, on the right or Russian bank of the River; and three of them, Syzran, Saratof, and Tsaritzin, are connected by various railways with Moscow and all the other important centres of life in the Empire.

The Volga, which between Nijni-Novgorod and Kasan flows in an almost straight easterly direction, takes a turn to the southward after leaving Kasan and the confluence of the Kama; but it makes a loop below Simbirsk, turning eastward to Samara, and again west to Syzran, after which it resumes its southerly course to Saratof, Tsaritzin, and Astrakhan.

The railway from Moscow to Syzran, upon reaching Syzran, crosses the Volga on an iron bridge, one verst and a half, or one English mile, in length, and high enough to allow the largest steamer pass without lowering its funnel—a masterpiece of engineering greatly admired by the people here, who describe it as the longest bridge in Russia and in the world.

We went under it at midnight by a dim moonlight which barely allowed us to see it looming in the distance not much bigger than a telegraph-wire drawn all across the valley, the gossamer line of the bridge and all the landscape round striking us as dreamlike and unreal.

After crossing the river the railway proceeds to Samara, and hence 419 versts further to Orenburg, a large and thriving place on the Ural river, the spot from which the straightest and probably the shortest way is, or will be, open to all parts of Siberia or Central Asia; preferable, I should think, to that of Perm and Ekaterinenburg above-mentioned, which is now the most frequented route.

Beyond Syzran and Samara the river scenery, which has hitherto been verdant, assumes a southerly aspect; the hill-sides sloping to the river have a parched and faded brown look; the hill-tops are bared and seamed with chalky ravines; every trace of the forests has disappeared; and it is only at rare intervals that the banks are clad with the verdure of the new growth.