Chapter 8

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_ CHAPTER EIGHT

Visit to the Imperial Palace in the Kremlin--The Granovitaya. Palata--The Terema, or Ancient Palace of the Czars--Cathedral of Uspensky Sabor--Rarity of Good Paintings in the Russian Churches-- Public Discussions on Religion--Traps for the Unwary--Procession of Russian Monks--New Church of Saint Saviour--Preparations for the Coronation--Cathedral of Saint Basil--Sealing up Doors of Shops at Night--Shopmen bowing to Saints--Bazaar--Chinese City--Russian Vehicles.

Our friends got a good general idea of the city during the first day of their residence in it. The next day they obtained tickets of admission to the Imperial Palaces in the Kremlin, through a gentleman to whom Cousin Giles had letters. They were accompanied in their visit by some French friends of his. They were first shown the private rooms of the Emperor and Empress, which had just been refurnished for their reception after the coronation. All these rooms were on the ground floor. In the centre of each was a large square pillar, supporting the storey above. These pillars, with several screens and curtains in each room, made them appear small and positively cosy, such as may be found in the house of moderate size belonging to any lady or gentleman of somewhat luxurious habits. English people would probably have chosen a more airy situation for their private abode than the ground floor; but from the lowness of these rooms they are more easily warmed in winter, and from their being vaulted they are cooler in summer. After visiting the private rooms, their guide conducted them up-stairs, when they passed through several fine halls, similar in grandeur to those in the Hermitage at Saint Petersburg, and along galleries filled with pictures of very doubtful merit.

Through an opening in the new palace they walked into one of the old palaces called the Granovitaya Palata. The second floor is occupied entirely by the coronation hall of the Emperors. It is a low, vaulted chamber, the arches resting on a huge square pillar in the centre. Here the Emperor, clothed in royal robes, for the first time after his coronation, sits in state, surrounded by his nobles, eating his dinner.

"Ah, I see emperors have to eat like other people," observed Harry when he was told this. "I wonder, now, what the new Emperor will have for dinner."

By far the most interesting building in the Kremlin is the ancient palace of the Czars, called the Terema. It is complete as a residence in itself, but the halls and sleeping-rooms are remarkably small compared to those of the huge modern edifice by its side. The walls from top to bottom are covered with the most strange arabesque devices which imagination could design--birds, beasts, and fish, interwoven with leaves and sea-weed of every description. In each room a different tint predominates, although the same style of ornament is carried throughout, and the same colours are to be found in each. Thus there is the green room, the blue room, and the yellow room, and many other coloured rooms. The ornaments on the banisters, screens, railings, and cornices are great wooden heads of beasts--lions, or tigers, or monsters of some sort. The part of the walls enclosing the stoves are of curiously coloured tiles; indeed, the whole building is a most bizarre, strange place, a perfect specimen of a Byzantine palace. In variety of colouring it is something like the Alhambra, but, though equally wonderful, it is barbarous in the extreme compared to that celebrated edifice of Southern Spain. Our travellers climbed to the top of this strange little palace, and went out on the roof, whence they looked down on a whole mass of golden and coloured domes and minarets, a considerable number of them belonging to the smallest and most ancient church in the Kremlin. In the Granovitaya Palata is a window, at which the Emperor shows himself on state occasions to the troops, drawn up on the parade. It is one of the windows of the Hall of Justice, and here suppliants used to be drawn up in a basket, to present their petitions and to hear judgment pronounced.

"It would have been a convenient way of getting rid of a troublesome petitioner to let it and the petitioner come down together by the run, as you would say, Cousin Giles," observed Fred, laughing. "Some such idea was probably in the minds of the inventors of the custom."

From the old palaces the party proceeded to the Treasury. It is beautifully arranged, and full of arms and armour of all ages--the coats, and boots, and hats, or crowns, or helmets, and swords, or battle-axes of all the Czars who ever sat on the throne of Russia. Some of the crowns, or other head-pieces, are literally covered with jewels, placed as close together as the setting will allow. Most of them are rather curious than elegant; indeed, they nearly all look as if they belonged to a barbarous age and people.

Among other curious things there is a globe, studded with jewels, sent by the Greek Emperor to Prince Waldemar, and the crown of the King of Georgia, the diamond crown of Peter the Great, and the throne on which Peter and his brother, both children at the time, were placed when he was crowned. There is a curtain at the back, behind which their mother stood, and, putting her hands through it, held them in, and guided them to make the proper signs at the right moment, which movements caused much wonder and admiration among the admiring multitude.

In the armoury is the chair of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. It is like a litter, somewhat rudely constructed, or rather can be used as a chair or litter by turns, having poles at the side by which it is carried. There are some battered-looking kettle-drums, one belonging to the same monarch. They were part of the spoils taken by Peter the Great at the celebrated battle of Pultova, when the Russians at length gained a victory over the Swedes, and Charles himself, hitherto victorious, was obliged to seek safety in flight. The most curious articles in the Museum are, however, the carriages, specimens of which are preserved from the earliest times in which they were used. They are, as may be supposed, huge, lumbering, gingerbread, lord-mayor-looking affairs. In some the coach-box is several yards from the body, and the hind seat is as many from it at the other end. There is a patriarch's carriage, like a huge square trunk, and the travelling carriage of Catherine, which has a table in the centre, and is very like a modern saloon railway carriage. It is placed on runners instead of wheels, and could only have been used in winter. Probably in her day the roads would not have encouraged summer travelling.

From thence the friends went to the Uspensky Sabor, the cathedral church in which the Emperors are crowned. The lofty roof is supported by four round pillars, covered from capital to base with sheets of gold and paintings. There is not a particle of the church which is not thus ornamented. The effect is rich in the extreme, at the same time bizarre and barbaric. There are five cupolas, with the faces of saints looking down from each. An artist was making a drawing of the interior, introducing the coronation--as it was to be. The picture was for the Emperor. The outside of this church is ornamented with subjects totally at variance with anything like a pure taste. There are several other churches near it, all of which were being enclosed so as to form a spacious court, where the ceremony of the Emperor's coronation was to take place. Every available space was being filled with galleries to hold spectators. Through this court he was to walk from the cathedral to the palace.

The party then visited all the churches in the Kremlin in succession. The interior walls are mostly covered with gilding and pictures of saints, from base to cupola. In some of them, which are dimly lighted with tapers, priests, in their gorgeous vestments, were chanting, with fine sonorous voices, the evening service; incense was being waved, and people from all sides were rushing in and bowing and crossing themselves, and as quickly rushing out again. The Russians of the Greek Church seem to think that much virtue exists in visiting a number of churches or shrines in quick succession on the same day; and certainly Moscow offers great facilities to the performance of this ceremony, for a person cannot go many hundred yards in any direction without meeting with a church, or chapel, or shrine of some sort. The churches in Moscow do not generally possess any fine paintings, the pictures of their saints showing merely the faces and heads. But there is one church, that of Le Vieux Croyants a la Ragosky, which has a fine collection. The priests of that church, being intelligent men, value it properly.

A gentleman who joined our friends gave them several bits of interesting information.

The small old church in the Kremlin was being renovated; nothing but the whitewashed walls remained. They found that the gilding and paintings which appeared so rich in the churches were merely fastened to wooden or canvas panels, and placed against the walls, so that a day was sufficient to turn a barn into a magnificent cathedral. He pointed out that the gates were of different sizes. The largest was for the admission of the Patriarch when he came to the church, the smaller for that of the ordinary members of the community.

"Exactly," said Harry, "like the Irish peasant who has a big hole in the door for the pigs to walk through, and a small one for the chickens. All people are much alike."

Religious liberty is very much curbed in the country; but they were told that every Sunday, at the Church of the Assumption, an open discussion on matters of religion takes place, chiefly, however, among the persons who wish to pass for savants. The priests seldom or never attend. It is suspected that these discussions are encouraged by the Government, not from any abstract love it possesses for truth, but for the sake of ascertaining the opinions of those who attend them. If the governing powers suspect, from any of the opinions he utters, that a person is likely to prove dangerous, his movements and words are ever afterwards narrowly watched till he is caught tripping, when he is without further ceremony marched out of harm's way into Siberia.

As the party were walking round the Kremlin, they passed, outside the Arsenal, a number of guns of all sizes, many of them very beautiful.

"All those guns were taken from us," observed one of their French friends to Cousin Giles. "How curiously things change in this world! Now, in early days our two nations were cutting each other's throats, and yours was friendly to Russia; then lately we have been fighting side by side against the Russians. Now, behold, here we are walking freely and at peace within the walls of this ancient capital."

Thus discoursing, they descended into the gardens on the west side, and proceeded towards the Church of Saint Saviour, then in course of erection.

Their French friend smiled again: "Ah, this church, now, is building to commemorate the retreat of the French from Russia," he observed. "The Russians may well boast of what they did in those days, and we are not likely to forget it."

The church is the finest in Moscow; the exterior is of white stone, ornamented with groups of figures in the deepest relief. The architecture is of the purest Byzantine order. The interior presented but one vast vault of brick, without pillars or any other support but the walls to its vast dome. Part of the walls were covered with wood painted in imitation of marble, to show the effect of the proposed style of ornament. It is in the form of a Greek cross. The altar is at the east end. The church is warmed by means of several large stoves, whence pipes are carried inside the walls all round the building, with vents at intervals, out of which the hot air can be allowed to escape. Broad flights of stone steps lead up to the entrances, which are on three sides. Cousin Giles altogether preferred the edifice to that of the Isaac Church in Saint Petersburg.

As our friends were returning homeward, a religious procession passed by. It consisted of a long line of priests walking two and three abreast, in somewhat irregular order, bearing banners of gold and coloured cloths, fringed and bespangled. They were chanting loudly, but not inharmoniously. Most of them had long straggling locks, which waved about in the breeze, and gave them a very wild appearance, which was increased by the careless, independent way in which they walked along.

The Russian priests seem to consider that, like the Nazarites among the Jews, an especial virtue exists in the length of their hair. As the procession passed through the streets, the people rushed out of their houses, or crowded to the turnings, eager to see the sight. There they stood, devoutly bowing and crossing themselves, though it was difficult to say what particular object claimed this respect. Altogether the procession, from the wild look of the priests, their loud voices, and the gaudy banners waving in the air, had much more of a heathen than a Christian character.

Vast preparations were at this time making for the expected coronation. The spires and domes and walls of all the churches and public buildings were being covered with laths, on which to hang the lamps for the illumination of the city.

Magnificent arches were being erected all round the large square opposite the Imperial Theatre; but they were of wood, and, though painted to look like stone, here and there bits of the pine peeped forth, showing the unsubstantial nature of the highly-pretentious fabric. Workmen also crowded the churches, furbishing up gilt candlesticks, refreshing the features of saints, adding rubies to their faded lips and lustre to their eyes, cleaning and polishing in all directions. Cousin Giles said it put him in mind of being behind the scenes of a theatre,--carpenters, painters, and gilders were everywhere to be seen; their saws and axes, their trowels and brushes seemed to have no rest; nor could they afford it, for they were evidently much behindhand with their preparations. Such furbishing, and painting, and washing, Moscow never before enjoyed. The whole circuit of the walls of the Kremlin, and its numerous towers, as well as the buildings in the interior, were covered, from pinnacle and parapet to the base, with a network of laths; so was the Cathedral of Saint Basil, and, indeed, every edifice in the neighbourhood. When the whole was lighted up, they agreed that the spectacle would be very fine, but they began to doubt whether it would be worth while to return to the city for the play itself after having witnessed all the preparations.

Cousin Giles told his companions that it is said that, when the Empress Catherine used to make a progress through her dominions, the peasants were driven up from all quarters towards the high road, and that wooden houses were run up just before her to represent thriving villages. As soon as she had passed they were pulled down again and carried on ahead to do duty a second time, the mujicks, meanwhile, being compelled to pace up and down before their pretended abodes, as Swiss peasants do before the pasteboard cottages on the stage.

People in Moscow were looking forward with eager expectation to the event of the coronation, and it was supposed that half the great people of Europe would be there. It did not appear, however, that the inhabitants were so anxious to see them for their own sakes as they were to let their houses and lodgings and rooms at hotels at exorbitantly high prices, every one expecting to reap a fine harvest out of the pockets of the gaping foreigners.

The most curious church, perhaps, in the world--the most outrageously strange of all the bizarre churches of Moscow--is the Cathedral of Saint Basil, which stands close to the river, at the north end of a broad, open space outside the walls of the Kremlin, and which space is bounded on the other side by the Bazaar. It is in the most _outre_ style of Byzantine architecture. There is a large tower somewhere about the centre, running up into a spire, and eight other towers round it, with cupolas on their summits. There is also a ninth tower, which looks like an excrescence, in the rear. Each of these cupolas and towers is painted in a different way, and of different colours; some are in stripes, others in a diamond-shaped pattern, others of a corkscrew pattern, and some have excrescences like horse-chestnuts covering them. Then there are galleries and steps, and ins and outs of all sorts, painted with circles, and arches, and stripes of every possible colour.

"Well, that is a funny church!" exclaimed Harry, as Fred ran off to find the keepers to show them the entrance.

"An odd epithet to bestow on a church," observed Cousin Giles; "but I cannot find a better."

Underneath the building there is a chapel, which has no connection with the upper portion. A flight of steps led them into the building. Each of the nine domes and the pinnacle covers a separate chapel, which is again divided by a screen into two parts--one for the priests, the other for the worshippers. From each of the domes above, a gigantic face of the Virgin, or of some saint, looks down on those below. The huge, calm-eyed faces gazing from so great a height have a very curious effect. In the interior of the pinnacle a dove is seen floating, as it were, in the air. Every portion of the interior walls of this strange edifice is covered with the same sort of richly and many-coloured arabesque designs seen in the old palace, while a sort of gallery runs round the building, with an opening into all the chapels.

"A capital hide-and-seek place," exclaimed Harry. "Why, Fred, I would undertake to dodge round here all my life, and you should not catch me till I had grown into an old grey-headed man."

"You might find a more profitable way of spending your earthly existence," said Cousin Giles; "yet I fear many people come in and go out of the world, and yet are of very little more use than you would thus be in their generation."

"Oh, I know that, Cousin Giles; I am only joking. I want to try how useful I can be when I grow up, and how much good I can do."

"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 _coupe_. 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. _

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