Fred Markham in Russia; Or, The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Well, that is the funniest building I ever saw,” he exclaimed. “It looks as if it was built up of sentry-boxes, and Hansom’s cabs, and dovecots, and windmills, and pig-sties, and all sorts of other things. It was built, I see, by Ivan the Cruel, and it is said that he was so pleased with its strangeness that he put out the eyes of the unfortunate architect, to prevent his ever building another like it.”

“Pleasant gentleman he must have been,” observed Evergreen. “A new way he took to reward merit.”

“Rather an old way,” said Cousin Giles. “I do not think that any sovereign would venture on such a proceeding now-a-days.”

Putting off their visit to the bizarre little cathedral, they turned to the right through the Sacred Gate. Mr Evergreen did not observe that every one passing under it took off his hat, and very nearly got a prod from the sentry’s bayonet for his neglect of that ceremony. The story goes, that the picture over the gateway was unscorched by fire, and that the lamp continued burning all the time the French were in occupation of the city, untrimmed and unattended. A newly-recruited regiment of soldiers, without arms, were marching through, and it was curious to observe each man in succession doff his cap and cross himself as he passed the spot. High and low, rich and poor, all do the same. The only persons who neglected the duty were some wild-looking, dark-eyed lads, whose marked features and olive complexions at once proclaimed them to be Zingari or gipsies, of whom a great number are found in Russia. Moscow is said, like Rome, to stand on seven hills, of which that occupied by the Kremlin is the highest. It is not, however, as much as a hundred feet above the Moscowa, which flows in a horseshoe form directly to the south of it. It is enclosed by four walls of irregular length—that at the west end being so short that the space it occupies is almost triangular. Round the walls are about eighteen towers, which vary in shape and height, though they all have high-pointed roofs covered with green tiles. Outside the walls are gardens with grass, and trees, and gravel walks. In the interior, on the south side, is a magnificent esplanade and terrace overlooking the river, and the strange jumble of coloured buildings which compose the city. The rest of the ground is occupied with a collection of churches of all shapes and sizes and colours, and towers, and convents, and palaces. One palace, however, surpasses them all in beauty and size, though its shining white walls and richly-carved façade and general bran-new appearance look sadly out of place among all the venerable, grotesque, many-coloured, odd-shaped, Byzantine edifices which are dotted about in its neighbourhood. It looks like some huge intruder into the place, which all the old inhabitants are collecting to put forth again; or like an emu in a poultry-yard, at which all the parti-coloured cocks and hens and ducks are crowing, and cackling, and quacking, in a vain endeavour to frighten him out. It required more than one visit to the spot before our friends could learn the geography of the place, and distinguish the numerous churches of all sizes, and heights, and shapes, and varieties of outside and inside adornment. The chief, called the Cathedral, has its walls painted with subjects taken from Scripture, which to the purer taste of Protestants appear shocking and blasphemous. However, our travellers did not then attend to the details of the strange occupants of the Kremlin. Their object was to obtain a comprehensive view of the city from the summit of that gaunt old monster, the Tower of Ivan Veleki. They first, however, examined the huge bell which stands on a pedestal at its foot. This bell was once suspended on the top of a tower, which was burnt, and the bell in its fall had a little piece broken out of it. When they got up to it, they found that this little piece was far too heavy for any ten men to lift, and that the gap it left was big enough for a man to walk through.

The door of the old tower was open, and they mounted a well-conditioned flight of circular steps towards the summit. Having climbed to the top of the first flight, they passed through a door into another tower, where there hung a peal of huge bells,—one more vast than the rest, which, on being struck, gave forth a wondrously musical sound.

“I should not like to be near that fellow while he was ringing,” cried Harry; “he would make noise enough to deafen a rhinoceros.”

They did not stop to hear those famous bells, but climbed on till they stood high above all the surrounding edifices. As they gazed forth from the narrow stone balcony which ran round the dome, they beheld rising on every side a sea of spires, domes, cupolas, minarets, towers, and roofs of every conceivable colour, shape, and size, not altogether unlike a vast garden filled with brobdignagian tulips, but with more hues than any tulip bed ever possessed; and, in addition to the many-coloured tints of the rainbow, there appeared numberless balls of burnished gold and silver, glittering brightly in the sun.

Cousin Giles first ascertained their position by his compass. Turning to the north, they observed in that direction fewer churches, but numerous villas and lines of wood, with the arid steppe beyond them. To the south-west arose the Sparrow Hills, those celebrated heights whence Napoleon and his then victorious army first caught sight of that magic city which they deemed was soon to be the reward of all their toils, but yet which, ere many days had passed, was to prove the cause of their destruction. In the same direction the Moscowa was seen flowing down towards the city, to circle round a portion of it under the walls of the Kremlin, and then to run off again at an acute angle to the east. To the south, on a plain near the banks of the river, rose high above other buildings the red towers and walls of the Donskoy Convent, several other convents, carefully painted of different colours, being scattered about.

“The birds which have their nests there can have no fear of mistaking their proper abodes on their return from their morning flight,” observed Harry, who generally formed quaint notions on what he saw.

Directly below them were the numerous and strange gold, and black, and blue, and green domes of the churches of the Kremlin,—its dark-green pointed towers, its wide gravelled esplanade, the roofs of its vast palaces and public buildings, its belt of turreted walls and gardens with their green lawns and shade-giving trees; but stranger still was the city itself, with its thousands of coloured cupolas, turrets, domes, spires, roofs, and walls. To define this strangeness more clearly, there were domes of bright-blue, with golden stars and golden chains hanging from the golden crosses which surmounted them. There were some domes of size so vast that they looked like huge mountains of gold; some were of dark blue, and others of green and gold; some were black, and others shone like burnished steel; some were perfectly white, others grey, and others of the lightest blue, scarcely to be distinguished from the tint of the azure expanse amid which they reared their heads, except by the golden ball and cross and glittering chains above their summits.