The fortress of Ismael is famous for the sieges sustained in it by the Turks against Souvarof. Its fortifications have not been much increased by Russia; she keeps in it a numerous garrison, and a considerable amount of artillery. The little flotilla of the Danube is stationed at the foot of the walls. The fort of Kilia is now quite abandoned.
The fortress of Khotin is half of Genoese, half of Turkish construction. The citadel or castle is an irregular square, flanked by enormous towers. The Turks and the Russians have added new fortifications to the old works, without however increasing the strength of the position. In the present state of military art, Khotin is of no importance whatever. Commanded on all sides by hills, and situated on the very edge of the Dniestr, it would not resist a regular siege of a few hours. The walls consist of courses of brick and cut stone, and bear numerous Genoese inscriptions. Over the principal gate are seen a lion and a leopard, chained beside an elephant bearing a tower. These figures are in the Eastern style, and date from the time of the Turks. The doors and the uprights of the windows are adorned with verses from the Koran. The great mosque of the fortress has unfortunately been demolished, and nothing remains of it but its minaret, which stands alone in the midst of the place, as if to protest against the vandalism of the conquerors. On the other side of the Dniestr, at a short distance from the river, is Kaminietz, the capital of Podolia.
Bender and Ackerman likewise possess two castles of Genoese and Turkish construction: the latter situated on the liman of the Dniestr, has been abandoned; the former, which stands on the main road to Turkey, has a garrison. Between Bender and Khotin, on the banks of the Dniestr, are the ruins of a fourth fortress called Soroka, which merits a special description, inasmuch, as it is altogether different from the other edifices we have noticed in Southern Russia. It forms a circular enclosure of thirty-one mètres, interior diameter. At four equidistant points of the circumference, stand as many towers, projecting externally in a semi-cylindrical form, whilst on the interior they are prismatic. Between the two towers on the river side, there is a fifth which commands the single gate of the castle. The interior diameter of the towers is 5.5 mètres; the thickness of the walls is 3.8 mètres. They have embrasures in the upper parts, and a few openings at various heights. All round the walls in the inner court there is a circular range of apartments on the ground, in tolerable preservation, and consisting of ten casemates seven mètres deep, lighted only from within. They formed probably, the stables of the fortress. Above this range are the remains of an upper story, which, of course, served with the towers for lodging the garrison. The whole building exhibits the greatest solidity, and the mortar is wonderfully hard. But it is a bitter disappointment to the traveller that there are no inscriptions on the walls, or sculpture of any kind to fix the date of the edifice. The fortress never had ditches; its strength consists only in the height and thickness of its walls. The only entrance is towards the Dniestr, four or five yards from the scarp that flanks the river. This arrangement was probably adopted in order to secure a means of retreat, and of receiving provisions by way of the river.—The general appearance of the castle reminded me of the Roman fortresses erected against the barbarians, remains of which exist in many parts of Europe.
Bessarabia was justly considered, at the period referred to above, as one of the most fertile and productive provinces of the Black Sea. Ismael and Remy were its two great export markets for corn; Ackerman sent numerous cargoes of fruit and provisions of all kinds yearly to Constantinople; the magazines of the fortresses were profusely filled with wheat and maize; the countless flocks of the Boudjiak steppes supplied wool to the East and to Italy; and Austria alone drew from them annually upwards of 60,000 heads of cattle. Such were the circumstances of Bessarabia at the time when the Russians, in the worst moment of their disasters, at the very time when Napoleon was entering their ancient capital, had the courageous cleverness to obtain the cession of that province, and advance their frontier to the Danube, at the same time securing the inestimable advantage of being free to withdraw their troops from it, and march them against the invader.
When the Russians took possession, the Nogais, many tribes of whom had previously emigrated, completely forsook their old possessions, and withdrew beyond the Danube, and thus there remained in Bessarabia only the Moldavian population, who were Greek Christians, like the Russians. The conduct of the government towards the Bessarabians was at first as accommodating and liberal as possible. Official pledges were given them, that they should retain their own language, laws, tribunals, and administrative forms of all kinds. The governors of the country were chosen from among the natives, and the province remained in the full enjoyment of its commercial immunities and franchises, which were the grand bases of its agricultural prosperity. But these valuable privileges soon begot jealousies; the old administration fell into discredit through its own injudicious pretensions, and perhaps also in consequence of political intrigues against it, and it became exposed to the incessant hostility even of the boyars. The outcry was so great, that the Emperor Alexander, wishing to satisfy the population, determined that a new constitution should be framed, which should be more in harmony with the habits, the wants, and the state of civilisation of the country.
A committee of twenty-eight was appointed to draw up this constitution, conspicuous among whom was M. Pronkoul, one of the most eminent boyars of the country. He had the chief hand in framing the constitution, and he promoted the adoption of its most liberal articles, with a very laudable spirit and much cleverness, no doubt, but with by no means a just discernment of the state of things. As soon as the commission had completed its task, Alexander visited Bessarabia, in 1818, and was welcomed with the most cordial gladness, and the most sumptuous rejoicings. He received from the province a national present of 5000 horses, and was quite amazed at the prosperity and the inexhaustible resources of his new conquest. It was naturally desired to take the opportunity of his presence for the ratification of the new constitution; but that was not to be had so readily, since it brought in question the principle of the political unity of the empire. It was rightly represented to Alexander that it would be imprudent and impolitic to give a final and decisive sanction to a system, the real value and fitness of which could only be made known by time. The emperor yielded to these considerations, and merely ordered that the constitution should be put in force, without prejudice to the future.
The fundamental principles of this constitution were as liberal as possible; too liberal, indeed, to have had the slightest chance of enduring. Bessarabia retained all its nationality; the governor and the vice-governor alone could be Russians, all the other functionaries were to be Moldavians; the province continued to enjoy all commercial immunities, and the finances, too, were under the immediate inspection and control of the natives. To any man of common sense and foresight, the maintenance of such a constitution was a chimera. Was it to be imagined that Russia would allow the subsistence of a conquered province on its extreme frontiers, in contact with Turkey, governing itself by its own laws, and possessing an administration diametrically opposed to that which controls the other governments of the empire?
The Moldavian boyars nevertheless considered the promulgation of the constitution as a victory, and thought in their infatuation they might defy all the chances of the future. But events soon undeceived them, and the mismanagement of their own institutions provoked the first blow against their privileges. In accordance with old customs the government continued to sell the taxes by auction, and they were generally farmed by the great landowners of the province. This vicious system of finance, which had been practised under the Oriental regimen of the hospodars, could not fail to have fatal consequences under the new system of things. As we have already said, Bessarabia had retained her commercial freedom in its full extent after her union with Russia. It rapidly degenerated into an abuse, through the improvident prodigality of the Moldavians, and the extravagant ideas of civilisation and progress that fermented in all their brains; luxury increased beyond measure among the nobles, and Kichinev, the capital, became famous through all the country for its sumptuous festivities, and the wealth of its ware-rooms. The consequence was that the receipts of the treasury proceeded in the inverse ratio of the progress of luxury; and the farmers, whose expenses swallowed up more than the revenue, were last unable to pay the sums they had contracted for. The imperial government was of course indulgent during the first years, and had not recourse to any severe measures. This conduct encouraged the defaulters, and the disorder of the finances at last reached such a pass as called indispensably for the strenuous intervention of the imperial government. The commercial franchises of the province were suppressed therefore in 1822, the prohibitive system of the imperial customs was introduced, and the payment of all arrears was rigorously exacted. This last measure of course gave occasion to endless suits and executions, and so the ruin of the principal families was accomplished at the same time as the destruction of all their political influence, and the government had then only to fix the day when its principles of political unity should have complete force in its new conquest.
The constitution thus impaired, subsisted, however, until the death of Alexander; but on the accession of Nicholas it was completely suppressed; Bessarabia was deprived of all its privileges, and even of its language, and was assimilated in all points of administration to the other provinces of the empire; with the exception, however, that the government, in order to ensure the ulterior success of its measures, took from the inhabitants the right of electing their captain ispravniks, or officers of rural police.[85]
So radical a revolution could not be effected without bringing with it serious perturbations. It is enough to recollect what we have said of the venality of the public functionaries, in order to guess what the Bessarabians must have had to endure at the hands of that multitude of Russian employés who took up their quarters in the towns and villages. The intrigues and pettyfogging artifices of these men complicated more and more the already numerous lawsuits; and the daily increasing perplexities in the relations between the landowners, the freedmen, and the serfs, overthrew all the elements of the national wealth. To all these causes of disorganisation were added the military occupation of the country in the time of the Turkish war, and this was the more onerous because the rich procured themselves exemption for money, and the whole burden fell on the petty proprietors and the peasants.