The northern portion of Russia consists chiefly of forest-land and morass, plentifully supplied with water, and broken up by numerous patches of cultivation; and the villages are generally composed of gray huts built on each side of a straight road which at times becomes a river of mud.
The big white church with its fine pear-shaped cupolas rising out of a bright green roof; the meadow in the foreground, through which meanders a sluggish stream; the whitewashed manor-house, with a verandah in front, standing on a bit of rising ground, and half concealed by a cluster of old rich-coloured pines: none of these details are beautiful in themselves, but all combine to form a very pleasant picture when seen from a distance, especially in the soft evening twilight. Every little household in these villages is a kind of primitive labour association, the members of which have all things in common, and submit to the arbitrary will of the Khosain or head of the family; while the wife of the Russian peasant is a very unromantic style of female, with very little sentiment in her otherwise kindly nature; but she manages to bring up her children on what is the veriest pittance of a wage, in a manner that would do credit to many better situated English peasant-women. In the north-eastern provinces of Russia the peasant has an extremely hard fight to maintain against the hostile forces of Nature, his field-labour sometimes resulting in no gain at all. He makes a living in various ways; and for whole days he wanders through the trackless forests in search of game; or he spends a month away from his home, fishing in some distant lake; or else devotes the summer to deep-sea fishing, bringing home, if he is lucky and frugal, enough money to tide him and his family over the winter.
In the excellent work, 'Russia, by D. Mackenzie Wallace, M.A., 1877,' from which we derive many of our facts, the author presents us with a 'family budget,' which will give a good idea of the expenditure of a peasant household in the far north. Its income during a tolerably prosperous year was L.12, 5s., chiefly obtained from the sale of game and fish. The expenditure was L.7, spent on ryemeal (2240 pounds), to supply the deficit of the harvest; L.3 on clothes, tackle, and ammunition; and L.2, 5s. paid in taxes.
As the peasant family of the old type is a kind of primitive association in which the members have their goods in common, so the village may be described as a primitive association on a larger scale. It has an administrator at its head, whose power is limited by the will of the heads of households themselves, forming a kind of village parliament, which is directly responsible to the state for the due and timely payment of all tithes and taxes. Various are the matters with which this village parliament has to deal, from the election of office-holders and the periodical collection of the taxes up to the redistribution of communal land—a subject which is often the occasion of lively scenes. But when once a decision is given, it is respected as scrupulously as any of the 'Acts' of our own House of Commons.
Thus we see in Russia the 'commune,' or 'mir' as it is called there, in full working order; and in a country ruled over by a despotic monarch it is perhaps the nearest approach to municipal or constitutional institutions that can with safety be attempted. The mir was instituted by the present Emperor or Czar, when he carried out that wise and humane act which will for ever be associated with his name—namely the emancipation of the serfs; and it has scarcely been long enough in existence yet to predict what form it may ultimately assume.
The Russian peasantry are, for the most part, grossly superstitious, and this may be owing in no small degree to the very inferior religious teaching to which they are accustomed; for we are told that they have not the faintest conception of anything like an inner religious life, but are the slaves of mere rites and ceremonies. For example, though a robber will kill a peasant on the highway, such are his religious scruples, that he will not eat a piece of cooked meat which he may find in his victim's cart, because perhaps it is a fast-day; and an artisan when about to break into the house of an Austrian attaché in St Petersburg, first entered a church and commended his undertaking to the protection of the saints, then killed the attaché in question. It is a species of grim fanaticism which binds the masses in Russia. The shrines in the public places are crowded with worshippers, who cover with their kisses the gilded pictures, while showers of small coins or copper money rattle into the boxes, which the priests hold in their hands. From these and other circumstances, we are warranted in saying that the Russo-Greek Church is about the most debased form of Christianity.
Not very high above the working classes of the towns in the matter of intellectual culture, come the traders. Many of them are very rich, but exceedingly ignorant, and do not bear a high character for honesty; but like every other class in Russia, this one also is being affected by the great changes which are taking place, and by which the old spirit of caste is dying out; while a number of nobles are infusing new ideas into mercantile circles.
Far above the trading classes stand the members of the official circles, who spend their days at their desks, and while away their evenings at card-playing, which is carried on to an extent unsurpassed in any country in Europe. This is doubtless owing to the eternal dullness which pervades Russian towns, but which one of their poets has declared to be the essential characteristic of Russian provincial life.
We come now to the nobles of Russia, of whom there is a very considerable number; but very small value is attached to a mere title, and there are hundreds of princes and princesses who have not the right to appear at court, and who would not be admitted into what is called in St Petersburg La Société, or for the matter of that, into refined society in any country. For instance, not long ago a certain Prince Krapotkin gained his living as a cabman in the Russian capital. The only genuine Russian title is Knyaz, which is commonly translated 'Prince.' The bearers of this title are the descendants of Rurik, of the Lithuanian Ghedimin, of the Tartar chiefs who were officially recognised by the czars, and of fourteen families who adopted it by imperial command during the last two centuries. Peter the Great introduced the foreign titles of Count and Baron, he and his successors conferring the title of count on sixty-seven families, and of baron on ten. Of the noble families, very few are rich, and none of them possess a shadow of political influence.