“You can be useful in many ways, even now,” observed their friend. “You are useful if you set a good example to those with whom you associate. You are doing God service if you show others that you are guided by His laws, if you act in obedience to Him, if you confess Him openly before men. All this can be done at every period of life. The old and young can and must do it, if they hope for a happy hereafter, if they love the Saviour who died for them; but more especially the young can do it, while health and strength and clear unworn intellects are theirs.”
Just after they left the cathedral, the bell of Ivan Veleki tolled forth the hour of evening, and numbers of shopkeepers, long-coated and long-bearded, rushed forth from their booths, and commenced a series of bowings and crossings, looking towards the Holy Gate of the Kremlin, which was directly in front of them. Having performed this ceremony for some time, they faced about towards another shrine at the north end of the square, and went through the same ceremony. By advancing a little into the open space, they could get a glance at another picture of some saint, when they bowed and crossed themselves as before. When their evening’s devotions were thus concluded, they went back to close their shops. Having put up the shutters, or closed the folding-doors which enclosed the front, one man held a candle, while another, with seal and sealing-wax, put his signet, with the likeness of his patron saint, to the door. No padlock or other means of securing it were used. Some Jews and Tartars, not possessing the same confidence in the protecting power of the saints, put padlocks on their doors. Very curious affairs these padlocks are. They have been copied from the Tartars, or rather from the Chinese. The key is a screw: by taking the screw out, the padlock shuts; by screwing it in, it opens. As the shrines which claim the poor Russians’ devotion exist in every direction,—indeed, they cannot walk twenty yards without seeing them,—while they run along on their daily avocations they are continually bowing and crossing themselves. The pictures of the saints which adorn these shrines were probably intended to remind people of their religious duties; but, like other unwise human inventions, which do not take into consideration the evil tendencies of the human mind, they have led to a system of degrading idolatry, while the simple truths of Christianity have been superseded by a flimsy tissue of falsehoods. Although the members of the Greek Church are iconoclasts, or image-breakers, and allow no actual images to be set up on their altars, it must be owned that they pay just as much adoration to the pictures of their saints as the Roman Catholics do to the statues of theirs.
One of the most amusing places our friends visited in Moscow was the great bazaar in the Chinese City. They made frequent trips through it, although their purchases were neither very extensive nor expensive. They bought some slippers made by the Tartars of Kazan, of gold and silk and silver thread, beautifully worked, and some ornaments of silver and steel made by the same people, and wooden bowls and spoons used by the peasants, as well as their leather purses and cotton sashes of many colours, and winter boots of white felt, and the head-dresses worn by the women, and a hat such as is worn by ishvoshtsticks, and many other things, all helping to illustrate the customs of the people. Among them was a samovar or tea-urn. It is in shape like an ancient urn. In the centre is a cylinder with a grating at the bottom. The water is held in the space between the cylinder and the sides of the urn. It is filled with water, and then a small piece of ignited charcoal is dropped into the cylinder, which is filled with black charcoal. A chimney is then placed above the charcoal, which now ignites and boils the water. By adding fresh charcoal and more water, a supply can be kept up for hours together. A frame fits on above the chimney, on which the teapot can be placed, to keep it warm, while a lid, called a damper, is used to put out the fire.
These samovars are used on all occasions, and are especially valued by the peasants at their picnics or open-air tea-parties, of which they are very fond. They purchased also several prints of the city, and some very amusing ones descriptive of the battles between the Russians and the Allies, or the Turks or Circassians, by which it appeared that the accounts received by the rest of the world must be totally incorrect, as in all instances, at the Alma, Inkermann, in the Caucasus, the Muscovites were signally victorious, their enemy flying like chaff before them.
The Chinese City, or Kitai Gorod, to the east of the Kremlin, was one of their favourite resorts. The name is most appropriate; and certainly it is most unlike any place in Europe. It is enclosed on three sides by a thick buttressed and round-towered wall, the upper part of which projects considerably; and altogether, from its strange style of architecture, it looks as if it had been imported bodily from some city of the Celestial Empire. The fourth side is formed by the east walls of the Kremlin, of which the Kitai Gorod appears to have been an outwork. The interior contains two long streets, and several smaller ones, besides the truly Oriental bazaar, already spoken of, with its numerous narrow lanes, running under one vast roof, dirty and mean, and crowded with shops of every possible description. Tea-sellers, with their Chinese signboards; paper-sellers, ironmongers, and perfumery and spices, silks and cottons, and shoes and hats, and trunk-makers and workers in leather,—indeed it is useless to enumerate all the trades there carried on. There is generally a row or half a row of the stalls of each trade together. As visitors pass along, the long-coated dealers rush eagerly forward, and with bows and grimaces endeavour to induce them to become customers. Here also the dealers in the holy pictures, or images, as they are called, are to be found. These pictures have the faces and hands only shown, the rest being covered with a casing of gold or silver. They are of all sizes, from two feet to one or two inches square; but as even for the smallest our friends were asked four roubles, they declined buying any of them. Here, also, are sold cups and censers, and all sorts of utensils used in churches. The travellers, however, were little disposed to become purchasers.
Near the bazaar stood, ready to start, three or four diligences—huge black machines, having a vast boot behind, a roomy inside, and a large, comfortable-looking coupé. They were bound for Nishni-Novogorood, where a large fair was taking place. Several rough-looking carts followed them, piled up with goods for the same destination. The fair of Nishni is the largest in Russia, perhaps in the world, at the present day. Here the merchants from the west meet the traders and producers from the numerous countries bordering Russia on the east, as well as from all the Russian provinces, and exchange their various commodities. Here transactions are arranged not only for the present, but for the following year, and many a farmer undertakes to deliver timber, and flax, and hemp still growing thousands of miles away, or hides and wool yet adhering to the backs of his cattle or sheep on the far-off prairies, or thousands of sacks of wheat yet ungrown, at Saint Petersburg, Riga, or Odessa, with every certainty of being able to fulfil his contract. Our friends were so interested with the account they heard of Nishni that they were eager to visit it. Russian carts are curious vehicles, made without a particle of iron. The wheels are kept on by various contrivances; some have bits of wood from the projecting edge of the side, into which the ends of the axles fit; others have bows of wood from the perch, which fit on over the axle where the linch-pin should be. The carts used for conveying passengers are covered with an awning of black canvas, and look as if they were water-tight, with a fair possibility of being made comfortable.
The travellers had many other things to see, both in and about Moscow, but they resolved not to delay longer than necessary, as they were anxious to study more of the manners and customs of the people in the interior; and they therefore made preparations for their further progress into the country.