Russia, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers

by Unknown

Kharkof, to the east of Kief, is the principal seat of trade in South Russia, being a centre from which the products and manufactures of Northern and Central Russia are spread throughout the provinces to the east and south, down even to the Caucasus.

Sugar, largely produced in this part of Russia from beet-root and "bounty-fed," and corn, brandy, wool and hides from the central provinces, are largely sold at the five fairs held each year at Kharkof, which has also reason to be proud of its university with upwards of six hundred students, and of its connection by rail with the shores of the Baltic and those of the Black and Azof Seas. In 1765, Kharkof became the capital of the Ukraine, after having been a Cossack outpost town since 1647, when Poland finally ceded the province to Muscovy. Anciently, this was the camping-ground of nomadic tribes, particularly of the Khazars, and later the high road of the Tartar invaders of Russia, whether from the Crimea or the shores of the Caspian. In the province of Kharkof are found those remarkable idols of stone which we have seen in the Historical Museum at Moscow, and a vast number of tumuli, which have yielded coins establishing the fact of an early intercourse both with Rome and Arabia.

Poltava, also a place of extensive trade, principally in wool, horses, and cattle, is familiar to us in connection with the defeat of Charles XII. by Peter the Great in 1709. The centre of the field so disastrous to the Swedes is marked by a mound which covers the remains of their slain. Two monuments commemorate the victory.

At Ekaterinoslaf we are again on the great Dnieper. It was only a village when Catherine II., descending the river from Kief in a stately barge accompanied by Joseph II. of Austria, King Stanislaus Augustus of Poland and a brilliant suite, raised it to the dignity of a town bearing her own name. On that occasion she laid the first stone of a cathedral which was not destined to be completed on the imposing scale she had projected, and which has been reduced to one-sixth in the edifice that was consecrated only in 1835. The town consists of only one row of buildings, almost concealed in gardens and running for nearly three miles parallel with the Dnieper. Catherine's Palace, a bronze statue which represents her clad in Roman armour and crowned, and the garden of her magnificent favourite, Prince Potemkin, constitute the "sights" of Ekaterinoslaf, the more striking feature of which, however, is its Jewish population, huddled together in a special quarter between the river and the bazaar. A considerable number of them pursue the favourite Jewish occupation of money-changing, and the Ekaterinoslaf Prospekt is dotted with their stands and their money-chests, painted blue and red.

A drive over forty miles of Steppe, somewhat relieved in its monotony by numerous ancient tumuli, bring those who do not proceed by steamer to the great naval station and commercial port of Nicolaief, at the junction of the Ingul with the Bug. It was the site until 1775 of a Cossack setch, or fortified settlement, and in 1789 it received its present appellation in commemoration of the capture of Otchakof from the Turks on the feast-day of St. Nicholas. Destined from the first by Potemkin to be the harbour of a Russian fleet in the Black Sea, temporarily neglected by the naval authorities, Nicolaief reasserted its claim to that proud position after the fall of Sebastopol. It owes much of its present affluence to the sound administration of Admiral Samuel Greig, son of the admiral of Scotch parentage who, with the aid of some equally gallant countrymen, won for the Russians the naval battle of Chesmé in 1769. Next to Odessa, Nicolaief is the handsomest town in New Russia, as this part of the country was called after its conquest from the Turks and Tartars. Its large trade, mostly in grain, has been greatly promoted by the railway, which now connects this important harbour with Kharkof and other rich agricultural centres.

Of the six ports on the neighbouring Sea of Azof, Taganrog, where Alexander I. died in 1825, is the most considerable, although steamers have to anchor at a considerable distance from it, owing to the shallowness of the roadstead. The annual value of its exports of corn, wool, tallow, etc., is about five millions sterling, and, as at Nicolaief, British shipping is chiefly employed in the trade. Much of the produce shipped here comes from Rostov-on-the-Don, the chief centre of inland trade in the south-east provinces of Russia, and one in which many industries (especially the manipulation of tobacco grown in the Caucasus and the Crimea), are pursued. A short distance above this great mart is Novocherkask, the capital of the "Country of the Don Cossacks," anciently the abode of Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Bolgars, Khazars and Tartars. The present population dates from the Sixteenth Century, when renegades from Muscovy and vagrants of every description formed themselves into Cossack, or robber communities. They attacked the Tartars and Turks, and in 1637 took the Turkish fortress of Azof. Under the reign of Peter the Great the powerful and independent Cossacks were not much interfered with, but from 1718 they were gradually brought under subjection to the Tsar, whom they powerfully assisted in subsequent wars. The town was founded in 1804, and is adorned with a bronze monument to the famous Hetman (Ataman or chief) Platof, leader of the Cossacks between 1770 and 1816. It is usual to bestow on the Russian heir-apparent the title of "Ataman" of the Don Cossacks. The last investiture with Cossack bâton took place in 1887, when also the reigning Emperor confirmed, at a "circle," or open-air assemblage, all the ancient rights and privileges of the warlike Cossacks of the Don.

KHARKOF.

The chief town of the Kuban district is Ekaterinodar, a name which signifies, literally, "Catherine's gift," from having been founded by the sovereign of that name and bestowed, in 1792, together with the adjacent territory, on the Zaporogian, subsequently known as the Black Sea Cossacks. Catherine mistrusted their power and influence, and tempted them to the Kuban with grants of land and other privileges. The first service of some 20,000 of those new warrior settlers consisted in barring all egress from the mountains, by means of a "first fortified line" of stations that extended to Vladikavkas, where they united with the descendants of the Grebenski Cossacks, with whom they are not to be confounded. The predominant type amongst the Zaporogians is still that of the Little Russians, the Grebenski continuing to preserve their identity with the natives of Great Russia, whence their origin; and although the whole of this imposing force, maintained at half a million, has long since adopted the dress of the Caucasian mountaineers, the Cossacks remain true to the orthodox faith and to the customs of their forefathers, whose vernacular tongue has never been forgotten by them. The dress so universally worn by the male sex, even from boyhood, in all parts of the Caucasus, consists of a single-breasted garment, like a frock-coat, but reaching almost to the ankles, tightened in closely at the waist, with a belt from which are suspended dagger, sword, and frequently a pistol, and having on either breast a row of ten or twelve sockets, each of a size to hold a cartridge. A rifle, which every man possesses, is slung across the back; and a tall sheep-skin hat finished off at its summit with a piece of coloured cloth completes the costume.

The number of Cossacks in Transcaucasia being very limited, for a few only are stationed in each principal town, chiefly as an escort to the governor of the province, their duties are performed by Chapars, an irregular force, equally dashing horsemen, and trained in like manner from early youth in those singular exercises and breakneck evolutions for which the Cossacks of the Caucasus have become so famous. Setting their horses at full gallop, they will stand on the saddle and fire all around at an imaginary enemy; or throw the body completely over to the right, with the left heel resting on their steed's hind quarter, and fire as if at an enemy in pursuit, or turn clean round, and sitting astride facing the horse's tail, keep up a rapid fire. A favourite feat, among many others, is to throw their hat and rifle to the ground, wheel, and pick them up whilst going at the horse's fullest speed.