_Moscow of the Princes_
"As pearls thy thousand crowns appear,
Thy hands a diamond sceptre hold,
Thy domes, thy steeples, bright and clear
Seem sunny rays in eastern gold."--DMITRIEV.
Vasili III. succeeded his father and reigned in Moscow for nearly thirty
years. From the historical point of view, he is unfortunate, as he
followed a sovereign recognised as "Great," whose conquests and
innovations changed the destiny of Moscow, and was succeeded by a ruler,
who, by his barbarities, won for himself the surname of "Terrible."
Vasili III. was not a warrior, and when he made war it was by preference
against Slavonic peoples in the west. His chief delight was in building:
churches, monasteries, city-walls, palaces--none of these came amiss to
him; he constructed some of all, leaving Moscow much stronger, richer
and more beautiful than he found it. He made the most of such services
as the Italian masters could render, but in those times, all that was
done in Moscow in any one age appears to have been executed at the
command of the reigning prince. The houses of the nobility have all
disappeared, and to the date of Vasili III. there appear to have been no
founders of churches in Moscow, other than the princes. Not that these
necessarily found the labour or material; as often as not a church was
built from the proceeds of a fine laid upon some town or government at
the pleasure of the prince.
Vasili was the first to build a stone palace in the Kremlin, that known
as the Granovitaia, which is still standing. But Herberstein wrote that
Vasili would not live in it, preferring his old palace of wood.
During his reign the Tartars got as near Moscow as the Sparrow Hills;
there they sacked the royal palace and cellars containing large stores
of mead. They became intoxicated with the liquor and advanced no
further, but the leader obtained from Vasili a treaty in which he
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Horde and promised yearly tribute.
Vasili's voievodes at Riazan, thinking the terms shameful, intercepted
the returning Tartars, routed them, and got back the treaty. The
following year, goaded to action, Vasili got an army together and went
out towards the Khan, challenging him to battle. The Khan answered that
he knew the way into Russia, and was not in the habit of asking his
enemies when he should fight. In revenge for this insult, Vasili
established a fair at Makharief, on the Volga; it ruined the mart of
Kazan and was subsequently moved to Nijni-Novgorod, where it is still
held yearly.
Vasili married first, Solomonia Saburov, but, as after twenty years of
married life she had no son, he forced her to take the veil and married
Helena Glinski, of Lithuania. This gave great offence to the Church;
when he sent specially to the highest authority on the technical
question, Mark, Patriarch of Jerusalem, is reported to have made the
following remarkable prediction:--
"Shouldst thou contract a second marriage thou shalt have a wicked
son; thy states shall become a prey to terrors and tears; rivers of
blood shall flow; the heads of the mighty shall fall; thy cities
shall be devoured by flames."
Vasili disregarded the decision of the Church and married a most able
and enlightened woman, who had the foresight to surround the Kitai Gorod
with a wall of good masonry, and it is said, named that part of the town
after a similarly designated enclosure in her native place. She bore
Vasili two sons, Ivan, the Tsarevich, who was later the "terrible" Tsar,
succeeding to the throne in 1533, when but three years of age. The
younger son, Yuri, fared badly at the hands of his cruel brother.
[Illustration: KITAI GOROD, ILYINKA GATE]
The Moscow of the Princes was of wood, and the vestiges remaining are
unimportant. Some of the later buildings, as the palace of the Terem and
towers of the Kremlin wall, have been built in the style of the wooden
erections they replaced; but it is not easy to picture Moscow as it was
before Ivan's Italian workmen raised their walls of brick and stone.
The town was of great size; in 1520 it contained 41,500 dwellings and
100,000 inhabitants. Its circumference was nearly twelve miles. The
Grand Prince and his relations lived in the Kremlin; so did a few of the
richest and most powerful nobles. In the Kitai Gorod lived the traders,
the wealthy boyards and foreigners. The Bielo Gorod, "White" or Free
Town, was occupied by boyards, merchants and privileged citizens; in the
outer ring lived the artisans and labourers. The churches and chapels
were numerous. Ivan Kalita built ten when there were already eighteen in
the town, in 1337; in the reign of Vasili III. there were as many
monasteries and nunneries, and upwards of three score churches and
chapels.
The first dwelling in the Kremlin was the Prince's habitation,
originally called the Prince's apartment, which served only as a _pied à
terre_ for the Prince when passing through. When Moscow became a place
of residence then a house was put up near where the Great Palace now is.
Then followed the usual dependences; including a prison or dungeon. Even
at that early date the Russian carpenters were able craftsmen; how
expert they afterwards became the wonderful wooden palaces and churches
of Russia accurately demonstrate.
The Princes of Moscow were not extravagant, their palaces consisting of
four chambers, _en suite_--the one most distant from the entrance was
the sleeping-room; then, adjoining it, the oratory or private chapel;
the room for living or affairs of the town, the anti-chamber; the
vestibule; add kitchens and domestic rooms on a lower floor, and the
early palaces of the Russian princes is complete.
Vasili III. required no more; his palace in the Kremlin consisted, on
the _bel étage_, of the vestibule, an anti-chamber, and two rooms. In a
separate building, reached by a corridor or covered staircase, the
bathroom and storerooms. Above the _bel étage_, either a large open
loft, or a belvedere pierced with windows on all sides and communicating
with the terrace. The apartments reserved for the children, and for
relations of the sovereign, were in separate buildings offering similar
accommodation.
The roof was invariably ornamented with carved wood-work and with gay
colours. The distinctive colour for the windows of the Terem was red.
Further ornamentation consisted in shaping the roof conical, making it
arched or in superposing cones on two arches; these were furnished with
small grills and covered with shingles.
Each house had its private chapel, so the agglomeration of connected
buildings that constituted a palace in the Kremlin in old days contained
many chapels, and they now number more than a dozen. Apart from these
private chapels within the palace, the Princes used the churches for the
safer keeping of their treasure.
Ivan III. used the Church of St Lazarus now in the palace for his
treasury; his wife, the Church of St John the Baptist, near the
Borovitski Gate. To steal from the church was sacrilege, to take from
the house of even the Tsar, simply robbery. The churches were used as
treasuries also by the nobles, and doubtless much of the church-plate
throughout Russia was originally deposited for safe keeping, whilst the
owners went against Tartars or Livonians. All the churches were rich,
and all, time after time, were spoiled by invaders; thus hiding-places
were made in or near all the old churches.
Near the residence of the ruler were the very similar dwellings of the
minor princes. In the days of Vasili III., of Grand Dukes even, for, as
Moscow conquered other principalities, their former rulers were brought
to the Kremlin and lived under the surveillance of the "Grand Prince of
all the Russias," rendering him such military service as he demanded. In
time these nobles became an element of danger, intriguing for the
succession and quarrelling among themselves for precedence. Vasili III.
was the first ruler to treat them harshly and he spared none, not even
his own near relatives if he thought they aspired to the succession. To
render them less dangerous they were not employed as war-leaders, men of
lower rank, the drujni of the Tsar and other princes being entrusted
with command in the field and acting also as governors of provinces.
Burned down time after time and usually put up again in wood, Moscow,
with all its conflagrations, was nearly three centuries before it
contained a dwelling-house of brick or stone, and more than two before
enclosed with a wall. The reason being that stones of any kind were
scarce in the neighbourhood of Moscow, whilst wood was plentiful.
With a palace in the Kremlin the rulers soon set to work to have palaces
elsewhere. The one at the Sparrow Hills seems to have been most often
resorted to in the early days, but with the advent to Russia of Sophia
Paleologus and the introduction of western customs, not only was the
single palace found inadequate, but Ivan's successors all built
dwellings in the forest or in villages near Moscow where they could go
for sport, or when driven from town by fire, pestilence or revolt.
The most pressing need of the rulers of Moscow when they entered into
relations with the west was a hall for entertaining visitors. It was for
this purpose that the Granovitaia (chequered) Palace was constructed by
the Italian workmen Ivan induced to work in Moscow for the then high
wages of ten roubles a month. It was at this period that the Tsars began
to evolve a special court etiquette. Previously anyone who could force
his way through the throng by whom the princes were surrounded might
speak with them. From the first the court etiquette, though not
elaborate, was firmly insisted upon. Those who came to the palace had to
dismount at some distance from the grand entrance, and approach it on
foot. This accounts for the joy of Bowes, the English envoy, who rode
right up to the grand entrance before dismounting. Those officers sent
to meet foreign envoys had orders not to be the first to dismount; if
the envoy knew the etiquette the parties on meeting would sit for hours
facing each other, then agree to dismount simultaneously. Herberstein
held back after throwing his feet out of the stirrups, so was last to
touch earth, and he counts this a gain to his master. Common people and
lower nobles were not allowed to pass the Tsar's residence covered, and
"must uncover as soon as it is within view."
"The city is built of wood and tolerably large, and at a distance
appears larger than it really is, for the gardens and spacious
courtyards in every house make a great addition to the size of the
town, which is again greatly increased by the houses of the smiths
and other artificers who use fires. These houses extend in a long
row at the end of the city, interspersed with fields and meadows.
Moreover not far from the city are some small houses, and the other
side of the river some villas where, a few years ago, the Tsar
built a new city for his courtiers, who had the privilege of the
Tsar to drink at all seasons, which was forbidden to most, who
were free to drink only at Eastertide and Christmas. For that
reason the Nali, or drinkers, separated themselves from intercourse
with the rest of the inhabitants to avoid corrupting them by their
mode of living. Not far from the city are some monasteries, which
of themselves appear like a great city to persons viewing them from
a distance."--_Herberstein._
In addition to the gilded domes of its cathedrals, and the bright red
roofs of its palaces, during the reign of Vasili III. Moscow commenced
to accumulate other ornamental work quite as wondrous to the pilgrims
from other Russian towns. Aleviso of Florence is unusually credited with
the work upon the doors and lintels of the old churches within the
palace, the porches of the Vossnesenski, Blagovieshchenski, and other
Cathedrals within the Kremlin. The gilded and embossed metal work of the
doors, the carved and bright-coloured columns and lintels, impressed
visitors with the wealth of Moscow since the precious metals were so
lavishly employed for merely decorative purposes. There are not many
specimens of the work of this period still in existence, such as remain
are now for the most part preserved _within_ the palace instead of
being, as formerly, exposed to the weather; but practically the whole of
the wooden Moscow of the Princes was destroyed by fires during the reign
of Ivan IV.
[Illustration: TEREM--ENTRANCE TO CHAPEL OF ST LAZARUS]