_Moscow of the Citizens_
"Fair Moscow crowned: now towering high
And, seated on her throne of hills,
A glorious pile from days gone by."
DMITRIEV.
Peter "The Great" who is credited with having created the history of
Russia did little for Moscow, a town he, after his travels abroad,
always despised and constantly distrusted. He evicted the last private
owners from the Kremlin, and spoiled its palaces and treasures, but took
no measures to enhance its beauty or increase its wealth. It is
customary to date progress and civilisation from his reign; an anonymous
Russian poet has even written:
"Russia and Russia's strength lay hid in dreary night;
God said 'Let Peter be'--straightway they burst to light,"
but, so far as Moscow is concerned, his coming would be more truthfully
regarded as of the nature of an eclipse than as the harbinger of light.
Probably his reputation is due to the prominence of his person in
western Europe--where it is customary to mistake renown for
greatness--rather than his achievements.
Peter forsook Moscow, left her to the Church, which he served badly--and
to her citizens, whom he treated even worse. Benevolence was foreign to
his character; he could not mould Moscow to his ideal--if a passing whim
can be so termed--but before he realised his impotence in this, he
became brutal and fierce. He quarrelled with the Church, cruelly ill
used his wife--whom he forsook eventually, shamefully treated his
blood-relations--even torturing his half-sisters himself, and was to his
subjects such a father as he proved to his own unfortunate son Alexis,
who was done to death at his hands; in all these things behaving so
savagely that even the strongest were awed into hypocrisy. The citizens
of Moscow considered themselves the children of the Father of the
people--the Tsar who lived in the Kremlin--who cared for them and never
ceased to be anxious for their welfare. He alone was responsible for
their direction, with him was the Church, they knew not how to act
independently. The streltsi, the fighting men, the armed citizens, were
first of the Moscow townsmen to act of their own initiative, but they
were disciplined men who trusted their leaders--even when betrayed.
Peter exterminated the streltsi, the men who first of all his subjects
had supported his claims and protected his rights; it is in connection
with the streltsi that Peter is most enduringly associated with Moscow.
The scenes of that long struggle were, for the most part, enacted
outside the Kremlin; in the Kitai-Gorod of the merchants, in the
Bielo-Gorod of the freemen, in the sloboda of the foreign settlers, and
the Preobrajenski quarter where Peter was reared. It is this Moscow that
has suffered most from the invader and from fire; its memorials of
antiquity are few, those appertaining to Peter the Great and his time
may be counted on the fingers of one mutilated hand. The most
conspicuous marks are those of the Church. Continuing by that route
indicated in the last chapter, on issuing by the Valdimirski Gate from
the Kitai-Gorod, the road north is the Big Lubianka, running along the
crest of the hill towards the old village of
[Illustration: SRIETENKA--SDKHAREV BASHNIA]
Kuchko, long since incorporated with the town; on the right hand is the
palace of that Count Rostopchin who ordered the destruction of Moscow in
1812; on the left at the corner of the Kuznetski Most is the old church,
set apart from time immemorial for the benediction of fruit. As an old
writer states, "the Mahommedans would as soon eat pork as a Russian
unconsecrated apples." Further on, also on the left is the old monastery
of the Srietenka (Meeting), founded by Vasili Dmitrivich in gratitude of
the deliverance of Moscow threatened by the Tartars under Tamerlane in
1397; rebuilt by Theodore II. and containing a chapel to the Patriarch
Joachim, constructed by Peter I. in 1706. It has two other old churches,
one dedicated to St Nicholas, and the other to the Egyptian Virgin Mary,
neither of particular interest. This is a part of Moscow longest
inhabited by the peasant class, and continuing on past the boulevard,
which marks the old wall of the Bielo-Gorod, the Srietenka traverses the
Zemliaa Gorod, or earthen town, until the Sadovia is reached, where was
once the by no means formidable rampart of the outer wall; beyond this
the Miaschanska continues the road to the Kammer College earth rampart
at the Krestovski-Zastava. Beyond that is the highway to Ostankina, the
Marina Roshcha, and the village of Mordva. The eighteenth church passed
after leaving the Grand Square is dedicated to the Trinity and is
remarkable for a number of small shops within its walls, the windows but
a couple of feet high and the ceiling so near the pavement that buyers
have to stoop or kneel to bargain. An old order forbids that shops be
within a church, and a more recent one, any without it. These being
neither within nor without continue unmolested. In this district the
Streltsi were living at the close of the seventeenth century, and a
little further on is the Sukharev Bashnia, Peter's memorial to the
fidelity of a regiment of the force he exterminated. It is a curious
pile: an octagonal tower rises 200 feet above the roadway over high
archways and a large two-storeyed gallery above them. The beholder who
is told that this is like a ship will possess the credulity of Polonius
if he assent; but actually Peter modelled it as a ship to serve for the
elementary instructions of his future sailors. As all know, Peter
derived his idea of ships from the Dutch, but even that explains little
and leaves much to the imagination. As remote is the connection of
Sukharev with ships and the sea, so if not exactly a suitable monument
for an officer of Moscow's soldiery it was what Peter thought would
serve his purpose better than any other design. Its closest connection
with ships is at present; as a water tower it is not wholly useless
still. Its architecture is not remarkable, a mixture of Lombard with
Gothic that might have resulted from copying the Vosskresenski Gate and
substituting a tall straight tower for the ornate Gothic spires then the
fashion in Moscow. Considered a ship--the tower is the mast, the rooms
below are supposed to resemble the poop-deck and quarter-galleries of an
old man-of-war. The entrance is by a flight of steps from the Srietenka;
in the large room a number of Moscow youths were instructed in
arithmetic by a Scotch schoolmaster named Farquharson, and two Christ
Church scholars, Gwynne and Graves, whom Peter held practically as
prisoners there. Sometimes these pupils were taken to St Petersburgh to
drive piles for foundations of the new town, at others they were
exercised in elocution and deportment that they might the better
represent comedies for the diversion of the Court.
The teachers of the school knew nothing of Russian and the scholars only
their native tongue--such was Peter's way. Unhappy the scholars
[Russian poetry in cyrillic letters][E]
[E] "Stolid, forlorn, mum and glum,
Being Russian born--not deaf and dumb."
It is said a lodge of Freemasons used once to meet in a room of the
tower, and there not only were "black arts" practised but Peter convened
secret meetings of the State Council, a sort of Star Chamber. The
society of "Neptune" really consisted of Lefort the Swiss General,
Archbishop Theofan, Admiral Apraxin, Farquharson, Bruce, and Princes
Cherkassky, Galitzin, Menshikov, and Sheremetiev. Those in fact who were
for westernising Russia.
The story of the Streltsi and the part they played in the history
of Moscow is worth telling. They originated with the _oprichniks_
of Ivan the Terrible: transformed into a sort of hereditary
militia, they fought for Moscow when called upon, and in return
were allowed to reside tax free, to trade, to keep shops, mills and
ply various handicrafts. Their commandants tried to make serfs of
them. When some complained that the colonel of one regiment was
keeping back half the pay, Yazikov, the chief of the commanders,
ordered these petitioners to be flogged so as to teach them not to
complain of those in authority over them. Three days before
Theodore II. died, they accused Griboiedov of extortion, cruelty
and withholding pay and forcing them to work for him housebuilding,
even during Easter week. This complaint reached Dolgoruki: he
ordered the messenger to be flogged, but as the man was led away he
called to his fellows, "Brothers, I was but obeying your orders,"
thereupon they attacked the guard and released him. Complaints
became general: it was practically a revolt of the armed citizens
the government had to fear. For the moment it yielded. Griboiedov
was ordered to Siberia, but after only a day's imprisonment
reinstated. The Streltsi became alarmed. On the death of Theodore
they, among themselves, took the oath of fealty to Peter. Sophia
and her advisers intrigued and split the Streltsi. One regiment
under Sukharev remained faithful to the secret oath, to Peter, the
Naryshkins and Matvievs: the others demanded and received their
colonels whom they flogged--Griboiedov with the knout, the others
with rods--their property was confiscated, and the claims of the
Streltsi paid. The Sukharev regiment took Peter and his mother to
the Troitsa Monastery for safety, and it is in commemoration of
this action that the Tower was built.
The real cause of the later conflict arose from a deeper trouble, the
struggle for the throne between the children of Alexis by his first
wife, and Peter the eldest of those by his second. Ivan was weak, but
his sister Sophia, with her lover Galitzin and a court following opposed
to the innovations to be expected of Naryshkins' friends, supported him
most loyally. The Streltsi insisted that Peter should reign conjointly
with Ivan and carried their point, but Sophia, as regent, was entrusted
with certain powers. Both princes were crowned in 1682, but, owing to
intrigues, the court was divided into two factions--the supporters of
Ivan and Sophia, of Peter and the Matvievs. The Khovanskis were accused
of compassing the death of Theodore, and beheaded. Doubts as to Peter's
parentage were expressed; the trouble made previous to the marriage of
Natalia was remembered; others declared that Peter was a changeling,
really the son of Dr Van Gaden. Peter himself, according to the picture
of his patron saint painted on a board his exact size on the day of
birth, was then some twenty inches long by five and a half broad.
Moreover, there was a doggerel song of the period:
"What luck, oh, what joy! To the Tsar has been given
A heir, aye, a boy! sent us from heaven!
'Tis wondrous! 'tis rich! With laughter and mirth,
Great Peter Alexevich, first lord of the earth!"
Peter is said once to have met his reputed father, a rough haunter of
taverns in the foreign suburb. Throwing him roughly to the ground Peter
determined to learn whether or not he was his father. "_Batuch ka!_ How
should I know--I was not the only one," the fellow is reported to have
answered; but it was only a stale and salacious witticism of the sort
Peter loved--certainly not evidence. The struggle was further
complicated by camps of orthodox and dissenters. It was fought to the
bitter end by Sophia on behalf of her mother's children, against Peter
who was only her father's son; on behalf of herself too, for she had a
lover, and no liking for the seclusion of the cloisters to which the
daughters of the orthodox Tsars were relegated because they were of too
high birth to wed with their father's subjects, and their faith--which
they were not allowed to relinquish--an effectual barrier to matrimony
with a foreign prince. At first the revolt of the Streltsi had little
political significance beyond the fact that it was the forcible demand
of a part of the citizens for common justice.
For seven years Sophia directed the affairs of state with more or less
success; Ivan was simply her tool, with Peter she had greater trouble,
and in 1689, after a quarrel with her, he withdrew from Moscow and went
to Troitsa. A large party followed him. Sophia feared revolt and
appealed to the people in an eloquent address of three hours' duration.
"Wicked people have sown the seeds of discord; have made my brother
Peter believe his life is in danger. Do not credit such rumours. Do
not allow these to lead astray those faithful to the throne: they
will torture such until they can no longer endure, and nine persons
will denounce nine hundred. You know how I have directed the
affairs of this state for seven years; have made a glorious peace
with Poland, and worsted in battle the Turks and infidels; how I
have always thought of your needs and striven for your welfare. As
I have already done so shall I continue."
Sophia thought she had won over the crowd; instead this speech lost her
the support of influential leaders. When Galitzin left Moscow there was
a general rush of the people to Peter; then her friends were seized by
his order and she tried to escape to Poland, but was captured and
imprisoned in the Novo Devichi Convent where she was forced to take the
veil as Susannah, and lived in strict confinement until 1704. Ivan was
thrust aside; Peter usurped the throne, his weakly half-brother
surviving until 1696. Then Peter married Eudoxia Lapukhin, daughter of a
boyard. Trouble next arose when Peter, against the advice of nobles and
clergy, went abroad and worked like a slave under foreign rulers; it
was considered sacrilege of God's anointed so to do, and of its impolicy
there were soon signs, and Peter hurriedly returned to stamp out
discontent. He had found a new love, one Anna Mons, a German in Moscow,
and would have married her but she slighted him and took one of her own
countrymen; his wife he refused to see, accusing her of "certain
thwartings and suspicions." He wished also for proof of Sophia's
connection with the discontent amongst the Streltsi and people; in this,
notwithstanding all his energy and cruelty, he was unsuccessful.
"Peter on his return reopened the inquiry, and fourteen torture
chambers were conducted under his surveillance in the Preobrajenski
suburb. The fires were never allowed to burn down, nor the
gridirons on which his victims were charred to become cool either
by night or day. A most compromising letter from Sophia to the
Streltsi is generally considered to be a forged document, made up
of stray, incoherent scraps of information wrung from maddened
creatures in the torture chamber. Whereas fifteen blows with the
knout were equal to a capital sentence, one of the Streltsi was put
to the torture seven times and received in all ninety-nine blows,
yet confessed nothing. Korpatkov, unable to bear his tortures,
killed himself. Others of the Streltsi having been put to the
strappado, flogged, and burnt without getting any accusations; the
wives, sisters and female relatives of the Streltsi were tortured;
so were the ladies and sewing women in attendance on Sophia. Still
no evidence was forthcoming. Then Sophia herself was put to the
torture, Peter doing the hangman's work. She never wavered in
denying all connection with the movement. Her younger sister,
Marfa, was then strung up in turn and all that could be learned of
her was that she had apprised her sister Sophia of the return of
the Streltsi to Moscow and of their desire to see her rule
re-established. Peter was unwearying in his attendance in the
torture chambers, and it is said [F] took a fiendish delight in the
agony his own wrought cruelties produced on his relatives, but when
he failed to obtain evidence he determined to punish
indiscriminately. The executions of the Streltsi, like those of
Ivan the Terrible's victims, were in wholesale fashion. Five were
beheaded just outside the torture chamber by the Tsar Peter
himself; the courtiers of his bodyguard he commanded to do the
same, thinking doubtless they would enjoy the shedding of blood
even as he did. Two foreigners alone refused to comply with this
order. Some 200 Streltsi were crucified, impaled or hanged before
Sophia's windows in the Novo Devichi Convent: but most were
executed in the Grand Square under the wall of the Kremlin, viz.:--
200 on Sept. 30th, 1698
144 " Oct. 11th, "
205 " " 12th, "
141 " " 13th, "
109 " " 17th, "
65 " " 18th, "
106 " " 19th, "
"On some occasions a tree was used as a block; the victims placed
in rows along it, and their heads struck off by men of Peter's new
guard. Others were hanged; as late as 1727 the heads stuck on pike
points stood round the Lobnoe Mesto. In January 1699 came more
enquiries, more tortures, more executions, and then the
extermination of the Streltsi determined upon. There was a break
from 1699 to 1704 as Peter required the remaining Streltsi to aid
in the wars against Swedes and others, but after the revolt in
Astrakhan, the executions were renewed. Stragglers and deserters
from the corps, those related to them and who associated with them,
were placed under a ban--they might not be employed by anyone; none
might give them food, shelter, or assistance. They perished
miserably. In such manner did Peter exterminate the old Muscovite
militia."
[F] _Kostomarov_, vol. ii. p. 516.
Peter's cruelties, like those of Ivan Groznoi, did not pass unnoticed by
the Church. His treatment of the Streltsi called forth a fierce
denunciation from the Patriarch Adrian, who "beseeched him in the name
of the Mother of God to desist." "Get thee home!" answered Peter, "I
know that I reverence God and his most Holy Mother; more, perhaps, than
thou dost thyself. It is the duty of my sovereign office, and a duty I
owe to God, to punish with the utmost severity crimes that threaten the
general welfare." Unfortunately the Church had been deprived of its
privilege of intercession for the life of one accused, and Peter cared
nought for the spiritual power of the Church, as already stated. He even
with his own hand killed two priests, but afterwards expressed
contrition. The Church regarded him almost as anti-christ; the citizens
dreaded him and kept out of his way. "The nearer the Tsar the greater
the danger," a proverb of that time was believed in by all. Peter had
his proverb also, "the knout is no angel but teaches men to speak the
truth," and even as Ivan did, he went constantly in fear of
conspiracies, chiefly dreading his own relations. Eudoxia, now the nun
Helena in a convent at Suzdal, was believed to have corresponded with
Dositheus an Archimandrite who had predicted, or prayed for, Peter's
death. Glebov was the intermediary in the matter; he was impaled; the
prelate was broken on the wheel; a brother of the ex-tsaritsa was
tortured and beheaded; thirty others were executed or exiled, and
Eudoxia herself flogged and confined in an isolated convent at New
Ladoga. Peter, when there were no more conspirators, or accused, offered
a bribe of six roubles to all who made secret accusations, and
threatened with severe penalties any who held back information. The
better to protect his informers from reprisals by the people, they went
through the streets with their faces veiled, in order to search for
those whose names they did not know, but whom they had overheard in
indiscreet speech. The people hid away when "the tongue," as the masked
informer was called, was abroad in the streets, and for days the city
would appear to be quite deserted.
"Peter was hairless and decreed that those who could grow beards
should not be allowed to wear them. Ivan Naumov was flogged because
he would not shave; 100 roubles was the ordinary fine for wearing a
full beard, and many paid the tax repeatedly rather than submit to
Peter's order. These had also to wear a badge with the legend 'a
beard is a useless inconvenience,' and pay a fine whenever passing
the Redeemer Gate. There is a touch of irony in the fact that Peter
died of a chill which, may be, the full beard of a Moscow _Otets_
would have prevented. Although Peter was epileptic, he had no mercy
for those who suffered similarly. A woman, who in addition to this
infirmity was also blind, was put to the torture for disturbing a
congregation. A tipsy man had thirty lashes with the knout for
committing the like offence. A woman who found strange chalk marks
on a barrel of beer in her cellar, knew not what they meant, nor
did any one else; but she was put to the torture, and died under it
because unable to decipher them. Those whom Peter wished specially
to honour he made hangmen. An old boyard who liked not salad, as
'sour things did not agree with him,' was made to empty a large
bottle of vinegar by Peter; and a Jewess in his company who
declined to drink to the extent Peter wished, was there and then
beaten by him and made to drink much more."
It was an unequal struggle: a powerful autocrat attempting to force a
proud, stubborn people from the habits they had been taught to revere,
from practices that had made their city great and beautiful. The more
successful Peter became the greater was the opposition. His courtiers
wore wigs at court, as commanded, but even in the throne room removed
them immediately Peter was out of sight. After ten years Peter knew that
he could not conquer the Muscovites though he might kill them. As late
as 1722, when he had ordered all ladies above ten years of age to appear
at a reception, only seventy of the hundreds qualified did as commanded.
At St Petersburg it was different. There, no feeling of shame, no loss
of dignity followed the, to Moscow citizens, most ridiculous behaviour
of westerns. Peter's son Alexis, the Tsarevich, preferred Moscow and
Muscovite customs: in him Moscow trusted, and for this Peter hated him.
His friends wished him to enter a monastery until his father's death and
then "as they cannot nail the cowl to one's head," throw it off and
assume the crown. He did not, and his boast to forsake St Petersburg and
reinstate Moscow enraged Peter who, from that time, never ceased to
search for conspiracies, prompted by, or on behalf of Alexis, and
persecuted his son unmercifully. As all knew the young man was lured to
St Petersburg by his mistress, who was lavishly rewarded for her perfidy
by Peter, and that there he was repeatedly put to the torture, more than
once with Peter himself as executioner, and that he died mysteriously
one day after being "put to the question," _i.e._ tortured, earlier in
the day by a party of whom his father was one.
[Illustration: ST NICHOLAS "STYLITE"]
The Matviev's lived in that part of the city just outside the
Kitai-gorod, where Alexis had settled a number of little Russians from
the newly-acquired territory, the Ukraine. The Marosseika preserves the
name of this settlement, and passing up it from the Lubianski Ploshchad,
leaving All Saints' church on the right, Armianski, a street on the
left, will soon be reached. There, a couple of hundred yards along, on
the left is the old parish church of St Nicholas, built by Mikhail
Theodorovich, contiguous to the house of the Matviev's and the Tsarista
Natalia, where is now the tomb of the old voievode--a mean mausoleum, in
the classic style. The church shows but few traces of western influence:
it is of two storeys like most of the churches of the seventeenth
century and is surrounded with a gallery, formerly open, but now glazed
between the pillars. Near by is the Lazarev Institute, for the study of
eastern languages, and peeping over the trees will be seen the green
domes and pink belfry of the Monastery of St John Chrysostom, with five
churches of which the oldest was founded by Ivan Vasilievich in 1479;
the entrance is from the Zlato-ustinski pereulok. Opposite the Armianski
is the Kosmo-Damianski pereulok, with the Lutheran Church founded in
1582 by the Englishman Horsey for the foreign colony.
Continuing along the Marosseika, past the Church of the Assumption (p.
89), an interesting church will be found on the right, that of the
Pokrovka (Protection), and further along the same street, where it
changes its name to the Basmannia, the church of Vasili Ivanovich built
in 1517 and reconstructed in 1751, to which latter date its architecture
belongs. Turning into the Sadovia on the left, in the Furmanni pereulok,
the second on the left, will be found the oldest large house in Moscow,
the residence of Prince Usupov, quite in the style of the early
seventeenth century. The entrance is from the Charitonievski Boulevard,
the next turning on the left. The whole of this district suffered much
from the fires of past centuries and only such buildings as these
isolated churches and houses in their own courtyards escaped the general
conflagration. A little further along the Sadovia is the "Krasnoe
Vorot" or Red Gate to mark the old tower on the outer wall. It was built
as a triumphal arch for the Empress Elizabeth on her coronation, when
tables spread with viands for the people reached from there to the
Kremlin wall. The French made it a butt for musketry practice, using
sacred ikons for a bull's eye.
Architecture of a different type is to be found in that residential
quarter of the city between the Kremlin and the Prechistenka Boulevard.
Behind the Riding School is the Mokhovaia, a street to which front both
Universities and the Dom Pachkov, an old mansion in which is stored the
Rumiantsev art collection and museum of antiquities. The entrance is in
the Vogankovski pereulok, near the Znamenka.[G] It contains:--
[G] Open daily, 11 till 3; free on Sundays; 20 kopecks entrance on
other days.
(_a_) Foreign ethnological museum.
(_b_) The Dashkov ethnographical collection of Slavic antiquities;
life size figures of the races inhabiting Russia; in another hall
of Slavic races inhabiting Austrian and other adjacent lands.
(_c_) Mineralogical collection.
(_d_) Zoological collection; includes mammoth and Muscovite and
Siberian fossils.
(_e_) Slav and Christian antiquities, consisting mostly of early
specimens of eastern iconography from Mount Athos, and
archæological fragments. They are in four rooms on the _upper_
storey, and one ikon of Mosaic is particularly interesting, as are
also many of the specimens of Byzantine and Muscovite enamel and
niello, including an eleventh century Gold Cross.
(_f_) Picture Galleries.--Copies of Flemish, Spanish, Italian and
other schools, and the Pryanichnikov collection of Russian artists,
of which the best are: 1-10 by Ivanov; 42, 43, Chiernakov; 65, by
Repin; 157, 158, Aviazovski, and 201-203, Chedrin.
(_g_) Manuscripts and early printed Slav books, some very
beautifully illustrated. This section is closed during July and
August.
(_h_) Library of 200,000 standard works, and old prints and
engravings.
The Russian school is seen to better advantage on the south side of the
Moskva river, in the Tretiakov Galleries (Lavrushenski pereulok; open
daily, 10 to 4, except Mondays; admission free, catalogue in French, 20
kopeeks), a collection made by the brothers Paul and Sergius Tretiakov,
and now the property of the town. Most of the pictures are modern by
native artists; views of Moscow and of the historical and interesting
buildings in the town are by no means numerous. Apparently Russian
artists have not yet discovered that the Kremlin, as seen from across
the river, is as good a subject as is the Piazza San Marco at Venice, or
any other hackneyed city scene in Europe.
Most noteworthy among the paintings illustrating the history of
Moscow are:--The murder of Alexis by Ivan the Terrible, by J. E.
Repin (No. 782); a portrait of the same Tsar, by V. N. Vasnetsov
(No. 966); The Execution of the Streltsi, by B. J. Surikov (No.
737); St Nikita, the impostor, before the Tsarina Sophia, by B. G.
Peroff (No. 733), and the same Tsarina in the Novo devichi Convent
during the execution of the Streltsi, by J. E Repin (No. 761). Some
of the ancient customs and costumes of Moscow are represented in
No. 808, A Boyard Wedding, by C. B. Lebedev, and No. 1367, The
Handsel of Innocence, by Polenov--an excellent specimen of this
painter's best work, who does not show to advantage in his views of
the Terem (Nos. 1356-1366) and church interiors (Nos. 1349-1355).
Instructive also are the sketches Nos. 304-307, made by V. G.
Schwartz to illustrate Count A. Tolstoi's novel "Prince
Serebrenni," and 308-312, those made to Lermontov's "Bread Seller."
Notable pictures taken from scenes in Russian history are:--The
Battle of Igor Sviatoslaf's son against the Polovsti (No. 950), by
V. M. Vasnetsov; The "Black Council," held during the rebellion of
monks at the Solovetski Monastery in 1666, by S. D. Miloradovich
(No. 742); Peter the Great questioning his son Alexis, by N. N. Gay
(No. 636); The Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861, by G. G.
Myassoiedov (No. 495), and No. 252, by C. D. Flavitski, the
imprisonment of Princess Tarakanov in the fortress of Sts. Peter
and Paul, during a rise of the Neva--a sensational incident the
truth of which was questioned and disproved, when this picture was
exhibited at Paris in 1867. The incident represented in No. 394 by
N. B. Nevref, the enforced taking of the veil by the Princess
Usupov, was of such common occurrence in mediæval Russia, that no
question as to its possibility need be raised. Some of the best of
the war pictures of Vereshchagin are in this collection, and other
painters have contributed works illustrating the French invasion,
and more recent events, in a style quite as original and striking
as that of the Russian artist best known in western Europe. In all
the subject appears to be far more suggestive and interesting than
the craftsmanship. This is often weak, or worse, an unsatisfactory
imitation of the most impressive methods of the modern French
school.
Religious pictures are numerous and good: N N. Gay is represented
in forty-six works which include "The Morning of the Resurrection"
(641), "The Remorse of Judas" (642), "The Judgment" (643),
"Golgotha" (645), "What is Truth?" (640), and "Christ in
Gethsemane" (634). Several of his studies of "Christ on the Cross"
may be compared with the work of T. A. Bronnikov, "Campus
Scleratus" (461). The conventional style of "Ikon" painting is
evident in Nos. 727-730 by M. B. Nesterov, more particularly in the
pictures illustrating the life of St Sergius. No. 739, by B. J.
Surikov, represents the Boyarina Morosov being removed from among
the dissenting sect she did so much to establish.
The lighter, merrier, and more general life of the Russian people
is shown in a far greater number of pictures. Pryanichnikov has
humour as well as style (416-432), in 542, Maximov shows the
arrival of the "wizard" at a village wedding; 682 is an every day
village scene representing the homage paid to the ikon on its
visits; Yarochenko (701) shows the transport van with its exiles
committed for life and the free birds of the air mocking them.
Repin depicts truthfully the happy life of the peasants; 766, a
dance, 781, "The Unexpected Return," 797, St Cene. In the same vein
are also 857, Lebedev "Farings"; 863, Korovin, The Common Council;
775, 776, Answer of the Zaporogians to Mahomet's ultimatum;
1221-1224, the Second-hand market at Moscow, and 1256, An Evening's
Amusement, are by V. G. Makovski; The Emigrants, No. 1520, by S. B.
Ivanof, is depressing, but in 930 Madam A. L. Rievski shows in "A
Moment of Gaiety" the true character of the peasant.
In the streets Znamenka and Vozdvigenka are some characteristic Russian
mansions of the eighteenth century, for it was then that this quarter,
which had formerly been inhabited by palace servants and craftsmen,
began to take a more aristocratic character. That of Prince Sheremetiev
is the most bizarre; there also is the old
[Illustration: DOM CHUKINA]
town hall and the Foreign Archives. In various parts of the town, even
on the south side in the Kaloujskaya, will be found modern mansions,
that is, erected or rebuilt since the great fire, in the style of the
Moscow of the golden age. One of the best is the Dom Chukina near the
Tverskaya Triumfalnia--a monument no visitor can escape seeing. But
there is no long street without one or more buildings which attract the
attention of the stranger by some idiosyncracy of form or colour. No
matter in which direction one may go--in the bustling Kitai-Gorod, the
quiet and aristocratic Ostogenka, or the bourgeois Zamoskvoretski--soon
will be seen some interesting fane reaching above the buildings that
flank the street, and a portal distinguished by its cross and ikon
indicate the entrance to the sacred enclosure of some monastery, where,
amidst leafy foliage and bright verdure, is quiet and seclusion like
that of the oasis of the Temple amidst the dreary turmoil of London's
vastness. Take that very ordinary street, the Nikitskaya for example; it
is wholly common place, wedged in between districts devoted to ordinary
commerce, and the chilling respectability of moderate affluence, and
leads nowhere in particular. Yet even its name is interesting; did it
obtain it from the worthy founder of the Romanof dynasty? or from the
religious fanatic who argued points of ritual with Sophia and the
Patriarch? or from St Nikita, the saint who shut up Satan in a jar and
released him only on stipulated and agreed conditions?
It starts from the Alexander Gardens, the old western bank of the stream
Neglinnaia that once strengthened the defences of the Kremlin; passes
the entrance to the riding school, one of the great things Moscow has
produced since the fire of 1812. The length of this building is 360
feet, breadth 168, and its wooden roof, unsupported by perpendicular
stanchions, was considered a wonder of the world, when Alexander first
manoeuvered 2000 infantry, and 1000 cavalry beneath it. Then come the
Universities, the old and the new, one on each hand; beyond, on the
left, is the Nikitsky Monastery, enclosing four churches, one dating
from the founding of the monastery in 1682, at the end of the "golden
age." On the opposite side is the Academy of Science, on this the
Conservatorium, facing it a quaint old church of primitive architecture
and diminutive size; above its lowly belfry rears the square brick-built
tower of an English Church. The house of a boyard here, of a prince
there, bear names of note in Moscow's history, as Gagarin, Galitzin,
Chernichev, designate the owners of the houses on either side, and of
the side streets to right and left. The further from the Kremlin, the
centre, the more frequent and greater the inducement to turn aside to
inspect more closely the glittering and gaudy domes of churches, old and
new, which are thickly sprinkled over the whole district. Nor can the
stranger easily do amiss whichever way he turns. If towards the left, a
curious lofty belfry of open masonry will repay careful scrutiny, and
reveal close by other domed and pinnacled temples, lost amidst this
multitude of white walls and luxuriant verdure. If to the right, two
churches in close proximity, of unique design and, probably, oppressive
colouring, will encourage to further explorations in the same direction.
The oldest churches in the neighbourhood of the Arbat are, Boris and
Gleb, 1527; Tikhon, the wonder-worker, 1689; but the Church of the
Transfiguration is one of the most beautiful. In the Povarskaya, is that
of St Simon Stylite, 1676, and near, another interesting
church--Rojdestvenka.
Probably Moscow does not charm so strongly by reason of any particular
building or style as by the great diversity of its houses and churches,
both in design and colouring. More especially in those quarters where
the wooden log-houses still linger in their gardens, and where the
frame-houses are all made gay with white, cream, blue-gray, yellow and
pink body colour, and the roofs of dark green or still darker crimson;
there Moscow seems to belong to another world. It is, alas, disappearing
fast, and the spacious courtyards, with their trees and the gardens gay
with giant lilacs and golden-chain, are being built on, and houses that
stand shoulder to shoulder in plain and hideous uniformity level up the
largest village to the standard of a modern town made in Germany.
There is another aspect of Moscow which the summer visitor can never
know. That comes when the thermometer falls from its summer _average_ of
64.9° F. to its winter average of 14° F. This difference of 50° explains
much that appears wanton in the architecture of buildings great and
small; accounts for the galleries round the outside of the churches, for
the extensive vestibules; for thick walls, still thicker roofs, and
great spouts; for the plain surfaces and lack of projecting decorations,
gargoyles and angular mouldings; for the distempered walls, which alone
successfully stand the biting frosts of winter and the blistering summer
sun.
With the change to winter temperature a great quiet comes over the town,
wheeled traffic is stopped, sledges glide over the frozen roads, and
from the windless sky the great snowflakes can ever be seen idly and
slowly floating in their long and leisurely descent to earth. A reddened
sun appears for a short time each day in a leaden sky, and Moscow lives,
is more active, more itself, than when the light of summer decks its
walls and pinnacles in holiday garb. But at whatever season studied,
Moscow will reveal traces of the past; will show that she has long
smiled under the summer sun of good fortune and been wrinkled by the
winter of adversity; scorched, too, by the volcanic fire of her own
excesses, but now staid, hoary, strenuous, and of surprising vitality in
all--[Russian in cyrillic letters].