_Ancient Customs and Quaint Survivals_
"The customs are so quainte
As if I would describe the whole
I feare my penne would fainte."
G. TURBERVILLE (1568).
Strange and unaccountable to the men of the Elizabethan age were the
manners and customs of the Muscovites; at this day, some of the things
these early visitors minutely described seem scarcely credible.
In many ways the life of the old boyards was not unlike that of their
Tsar. They fought and worshipped and maintained state; bought, sold and
sought wealth even as he did. There remain at least two old houses of
boyards in Moscow. One, the Potieshni Dvorets in the Kremlin, formerly
the dwelling of the Miloslavskis, is at the present time chiefly useful
as indicating the architecture of a Russian house in mediæval times; and
that only so far as the exterior is concerned, for the internal
arrangements have been so many times altered as to bear now but little
resemblance to a typical dwelling of the seventeenth century. The other
house, the Palata Romanovykh, or Dom Romanof, was at one time the
dwelling of the Romanof family and has been restored to as nearly as
possible resemble the state in which it was when the Tsar Michael was
elected to the throne in 1613. It is situated in the Varvarka,
contiguous to the spot on which the English factory stood, and in
addition to being a museum of minor antiquities serves well to
illustrate some of the habits of the nobles of Moscow in the sixteenth
century, for the house belonged to Nikita Romanof, grandfather of the
Tsar Michael, who himself gave the house in which his own father was
born to the adjoining monastery. Incorporated with those buildings, it
shared their vicissitudes; was injured by fire repeatedly, altered,
added to, then spoiled and sacked by the French.
It is not a large house: the frontage to the Varvarka is scarcely sixty
feet and built on sloping ground it presents but one storey to this
street. The principal entrance was from its own courtyard, where the
south front presents four storeys looking over the Moskva (_v._ page
108).
The ground floor is of undoubted antiquity; brick built, plastered and
painted. On this foundation is reared the wooden house in the true
Russian style. The low clock tower over the entrance has for a weather
vane, a griffin, the arms of the Romanofs; the windows are small,
ogival, and glazed with mica panes.
It is impossible that in so small a house there could have been any
accommodation for the multitude of retainers and body servants a boyard
had always about his house. These lived in separate dwellings around the
courtyard. The ground floor of Russian houses consisted of cellars and
storerooms. In these vaults were kept: wine, mead, kvas, ice, frozen and
salted meats and fish. The next storey in this house consists of
kitchens and domestic offices--in a house not built upon sloping ground,
these would be on the ground floor. The first floor, the _Bel étage_,
which, in all old Russian buildings--houses, churches and shops--is
reached by steps very similar to those from the courtyard to the
Varvarka street level in the Dom Romanof.
[Illustration: KRESTOVAIA IN THE DOM ROMANOF]
Entering the vestibule from the Varvarka, on the right are two small
rooms, one for the use of attendants the other now fitted as a nursery,
but undoubtedly originally an ante-chamber. The largest room on this
floor is called _Krestovaia_, or Chamber of the Cross. It was the
state-room. Here the boyard received the priests who came at
Easter-tide, Christmas, and other feasts and on special occasions to
offer congratulations or perform sacred offices. The roof is vaulted,
and, in addition to the niches seen in the walls, there are secret
recesses for the concealment of treasure. In the "sacred corner" is an
ancient ikon, and on the table before it, covered with a rich Persian
cloth, are two crosses. The stand, or mountain, was the rack on which,
upon all solemn or festive occasions, the family plate was displayed.
Among the old treasures preserved here are a cocoa-nut shell mounted as
a drinking-cup, and various other curious drinking-cups, bowls, and
vases; an equestrian statuette, silver-gilt, of Charles I., a gift from
that monarch to the Tsar Michael; two ewers presented by Charles II.; a
silver salt cellar, and a _puisoir_ presented by Martha Ivanovna, wife
of the Patriarch, to her son the Tsar in 1618. No doubt it was in this
room that the great banquets given by the boyard took place, but
ordinarily the boyard would eat in his own apartment, his wife in hers.
From this room a doorway leads to the private room of the boyard. This
"study" is heated by a stove of coloured tiles, variously ornamented and
bearing quaint inscriptions and designs, as a tortoise, "There is no
better house than one's own"; doves, "Fidelity unites us." The cases
contain some of the personal attire and weapons of the early boyards and
their descendants, as: a silk mantle, some swords and daggers, a staff,
the sceptre of the Tsar Michael, riding-boots, walking-sticks, and the
like. The high narrow-heeled riding-boots are very curious, so too, on
the copper inkstands, as antique in appearance as those of Chaucer's
day, will be seen the lion and unicorn, a Byzantine device often found
in Russia. There is also a low seat used for writing, for the Russian
placed the paper upon his knees, not on a table; his lines were not
straight, and much good paper was wasted.
There is an oratory communicating with this four-windowed apartment,
also two rooms used as nurseries; one for boys, the other for girls. In
these close, small rooms the children were reared, for it was the habit
of the Russians not only to hide their children from all strangers, but
to keep them from all but their most intimate friends and relatives.
A small doorway leads to a steep narrow staircase communicating with
the top storey, the _terem_ or women's apartments, consisting of a
reception room, a bed-chamber and turret; from these rooms the nursery
may also be reached by a still narrower staircase. The walls of the
reception room are covered with stamped leather, the woodwork is carved
in high relief, the stiff benches round the wall have stuffed seats and
are covered with brocade. There are a number of old coffers and close
wardrobes, also some curious clothing is displayed in cases.
The four-post bedstead cannot be considered a native institution. It is
peculiarly Scandinavian. The English adopted it from the Danes; the
English reintroduced it into Russia, finding that the Russians
themselves slept either on the stove, or on an eastern divan. More than
once the early English ambassadors to Russia have complained that
bedsteads were lacking, and it was long before their use became general.
The boyards kept their women folk hidden away in the _terem_ in almost
eastern seclusion. Jenkinson states that "the women be very obedient to
their husbands, and are kept straitly from going abroad but at some
seasons." Other travellers write that the women are hardly used by their
husbands, who beat them unmercifully; "and the women, though young and
strong, never resent even if the husband be old and weak." Herberstein
relates that a foreigner in Moscow married to a Russian woman was
upbraided by his wife because he never beat her as Russian husbands did
their wives, and that he then beat her to please her; but as
subsequently he cut off her legs, and finally her head also, the story
is worth nothing as evidence of a custom.
Sylvester in his "Domostroi" says a wife ought never to take the title
of Lady, but always to look on her husband as Lord. She was to concern
herself only with household affairs, and might be treated like a slave;
only the husband is enjoined "not to use a too thick stick, or a staffe
tipped with iron, nor to humiliate unduly by flogging before men."
Out of doors she was carried in a shuttered litter, and she wore the
_fata_ or veil; a special part of the church was assigned women, but the
wives and daughters of the boyards usually worshipped in their own
private chapels, and went to the Cathedrals but upon special and state
occasions. Then it was that suitors caught a glimpse of their future
brides, and received glances which bespake love.
As among eastern nations, the bridegroom usually did not see his wife
before marriage. When the preliminaries had been arranged and settled by
third parties, the bridegroom sent a present of sweetmeats and a whip to
his bride elect, who always spent the night before the marriage ceremony
at the house of the bridegroom's parents. On the day of the marriage he
put into one of his boots sweetmeats or a trinket, into the other a
whip; the newly wedded wife took off the boots, and to remove first that
which contained the trinket was considered the omen of a happy life for
the woman. "But if she light on the boot with a whip in it, she is
reckoned among the unfortunate and gets a bride-lash for her pains,
which is but the earnest penny of her future entertainment." There were
also other little passes during the complex ceremony, the winning of any
indicating the mastery during wedded life.
Such was the woman's lot in the seventeenth century, but much was done
to better it before Peter the Great introduced western freedom. Collins
wrote in 1674:--
"The Russian discipline to their wives is very rigid and severe,
more inhuman in times past than at present. Yet three years ago a
Moscow merchant beat his wife as long as he was able, with a whip
two inches round, and then caused her to put on a smock dript in
brandy, to which he set fire, and so the poor creature perished
miserably in flames. Yet none prosecuted her death, for there is no
law against killing a woman, or slave, if it happens on correction.
Some of these beasts will tie up their wives by the hair of the
head and whip them stark naked. Now parents make better matches for
their daughters, obliging husbands to contract to use them kindly,
without whipping, striking or kicking them."
Even Peter's code was cruel: it was during his reign that Le Bruyn saw a
woman executed in Moscow by being buried alive; covered up to her neck
in the dank black soil she lived but two days, whereas, on the same
authority, there were others who lingered ten or more. In Russia, as in
countries further west, the crime of petty treason, the murder of a
husband, was considered almost as heinous as high treason, and punished
accordingly.
Kept closely confined to a small apartment, living almost always in
heated rooms the Russian ladies had fair complexions; "white
cream-and-snow tinged with the faint hue of the inside of a camellia"
one poet describes it. Others are not so generous; Turberville writes:
"To buy her painted colours, doth allowe his wife a fee
Wherewith she deckes herselfe, and dyes her tawny skin;
She prankes and paints her smoakie face,
Browe, lippe, cheeke and chinne."
All writers complain that the women painted without art; many blacked
their teeth, and stained their nails with henna, a custom which obtained
with the wives of Russian merchants to the present century. So, too,
after Peter the Great forced women from the seclusion of the _terem_, it
was the custom of ladies to present to each other in public their paint
boxes, even as in the west men offered snuff. It was not until after the
French invasion that this custom died out, and Pushkin endeavoured to
advance the new order by deriding the practice and ridiculing the
English governors who followed it. On the other hand, a lady of the
court who, much to the chagrin of others, refused to paint her face, was
compelled to do so by order of the Tsar, to whom complaint had been
made.
As women were free in the Russia of the Norsemen, the seclusion in the
_terem_ was either a custom adopted from Byzantium or, more probably, a
precautionary measure to protect them from Tartar invaders. The purpose
of these invasions has already been stated, and as on one foray the
Tartars are reported to have taken away 400,000 captives from Russia,
the hiding of women and children in portions of the dwellings to which
men at no time had access was doubtless considered to enhance their
chances of escape during the temporary absence of the master in the
front of the battle; and from being a temporary retreat it became the
ordinary living apartments. But the custom was a town one; not practised
by villagers.
The Russians were largely flesh eaters, meat and fish constituted the
diet not only of the well to do but of the peasants. In the north Le
Bruyn found the natives feeding even their beasts on fish, and Ysbrant
noted the same practice among the inhabitants east of the Ural.
Jenkinson found that the Muscovites had "many sortes of meates, and
delight in eating gross meates and stinking fish." Brandy was served
round before eating commenced, a custom that still obtains and was
originally derived from the Norsemen. Collins states that horse-flesh
was forbidden; also hare, rabbit, and elk. At some seasons veal was
forbidden; any thing sweetened with sugar, or candy, on fast days; and,
at all times, dishes flavoured with musk, civet and beaver. The chief
dish at a banquet given to Herberstein was of swan, served with sour
milk, pickled gherkins and plums. There was abundance of corn, and some
of the commoner vegetables; the fruits were insipid; except filberts,
Herberstein found none of the sweeter kinds of fruit or nuts. Water
melons were grown and then, as now, the Russians fed upon many different
kinds of fungus; some thirteen varieties found in the neighbourhood of
Moscow are edible, but the Russian regards as scarcely wholesome the
only mushroom eaten in England.
Tea was known to the Russians of the middle ages; some quaint samovars
are preserved in the Dom Romanof, but the medieval Russ found his
greatest pleasure in drinking mead, brandy and strong liquors. Before
drinking it was the custom to blow in the cup; to guests and strangers
wine was offered by, or on behalf of, each member of the host's family,
in small cups or glasses, then, to conclude, a huge cup filled to the
brim from which it was the correct etiquette to take but a sip.
In Sylvester's "Domostroi" the correct etiquette for masters and
servants is set forth. At table the diner may "blow his nose, must spit
without noise, take care to turn away from the company, and put his foot
over the place." Instead of advising the lord to sell old slaves and
cattle, as Cato told the Romans to do, Sylvester requires that old
servants who are no longer good for anything must be "fed and clothed,
in consideration of their former services." Then, for the servant; "when
a man sends his servant to honest people, he should on arriving knock
softly at the door of the grand entrance; when the slave comes to ask
what he wants, he must reply 'I have nought to do with thee, but with
him to whom I am sent.' He must say only from whom he comes, so that the
man may tell his master. On the threshold of the chamber he will wipe
his feet on the straw. Before entering he will blow his nose, spit and
say a prayer. If no one calls _Amen!_ to him, he will say another
prayer; if there is still no answer, a third prayer in a louder voice.
If still no answer, he may then knock at the door. On entering he must
bow before the sacred ikon; then he will explain his errand: he must not
touch his nose, or spit, or cough; look neither to right nor left."
The Tsars derived much revenue from a _cursemay_ or drinking tavern in
each town, which was let out to tenants or bestowed upon some courtier
for a year or two, "then, he being grown rich, is taken by the Tsar and
sent to the warres again, where he shall spend all that which he hath
gotten by ill means, so that the Tsar in his warres is little charged,
but all the burden lieth on the poor people."
Jenkinson writes: "At my being there, I heard of men and women that
drunk away their children and all their goods at the Tsar's tavern, and
not being able to pay, having pawned himself, the taverner bringeth him
out to the highway, and beates him upon the legs; then they that pass
by, knowing the cause and peradventure, having compassion upon him,
giveth the money, so he is ransomed."
During carnival there were many deaths due to excessive drinking and the
extreme cold, for it was then that all had licence to drink and make
merry. The Tsar Vasili Ivanievich (1505-1533) gave permission to some of
his courtiers to drink at any time, but in order that their habits might
not corrupt the people they had to live apart in a special suburb, which
was appointed them on the south side of the river, where for a time all
the dwellers were known by the name of Nali or "Drinkers."
"Folke fit to be of Bacchus train, so quaffing is their kinde,
Drinke is their sole desire, the pot is all their pride;
The sob'rest head doth once a day stand needful of a guide,
And if he goe into his neighbour as a guest,
He cares for little meat, if so his drinke be of the best."
TURBERVILLE, 1568.
The Muscovites knew not how to dance. At their merrymakings they made
Tartars and Poles dance to amuse them; their music was obtained from
brass hunting horns, trumpets, cymbals and the bagpipes. Kotoshin states
that the boyards were "dull, ignorant men, who sit in silence, stroking
their beards and making no reply to anything said to them." The common
people amused themselves on the "sway" or sea-saw; they loved to
assemble in crowds and to sing and drink together. Some were drawn up
and down in chairs, others went round and round in flying-chairs affixed
to wheels pivoted, some perpendicularly, others horizontally; in short,
the prototypes of the "merry-go-rounds" and "high-flyers" of pleasure
fairs in Britain and elsewhere. In winter they sped down ice hills on
their small sledges (tobogganing), and few only took pleasure in field
sports, trapping birds and animals being part of the business of the
lives of most; coursing and falconry the privilege of the Tsar and his
suite.
In winter when the boyard stirred out of doors it was always in his
sledge, where he lay upon a carpet in the skin of a polar bear. The
sledge was drawn by a single horse "well decked," a little boy astride
its back, and servants of the boyard stood upon the tail of the sledge.
As traders they had an unenviable reputation. "The people of Moscow are
more cunning and deceitful than all others, their honour being
especially slack in business contracts--of which fact they themselves
are by no means ignorant for, whenever they traffic with foreigners,
they pretend, in order to attain greater credit, that they are not men
of Moscow but strangers." The market was in the Kitai Gorod. There the
foreign merchants had their warehouses, and for centuries a Gostinnoi
Dvor, not unlike the bazaar of Stamboul, occupied the site of the
recently erected New Rows (Novi Riadi), but even at the present day the
picturesque is not extirpated from the wholesale market. The Starai
Gostinnoi Dvor has quite a charm of its own, and the adventurous
sightseer who, not content with passing through it from the Ilyinka,
turns off into the alleys furthest from the Krasnoe Ploshchad towards
the wall of the Kitai-gorod, will see curious courtyards having large
galleries around them; huge hatch-ways communicating with the vast
vaults and stores below. Quaint shops line the wall of the Kitai-gorod
from the Varvarka gate right up to the Nikolskaya; with a sort of
permanent rag fair at that end, where, too, from the introduction of
printing, the stalls and shops of the booksellers have been located.
Another surviving market for miscellaneous articles--from old ikons and
bludgeons to picked up trinkets and immense samovars--is held from six
o'clock till noon on Sunday mornings around the Sukharev Bashnia. From
time immemorial a great fair for frozen fish and game has been held
outside the Kitai-gorod wall as soon as winter's frost sets in. In this
commercial district are various old churches of interest and, in the
Cherkassky pereulok, the place of legal combat for those who justified
their cause by an appeal to strength and skill.
[Illustration: WALL OF THE KITAI-GOROD. VARVARKA VOROT]
In the administration of justice much was lacking, the principle of the
paternal rule of the sovereign necessitating direct appeal by means of a
petition. Later, a _Prikase_ or office of direction was established, and
this was followed by others empowered with the control of affairs
relating respectively to carmen, Siberia, criminals, etc. As in all
countries, misdemeanours against the property or liberties of
individuals was regarded as a matter for personal redress by the party
aggrieved; only those against the crown called for the active
interference of the sovereign through his body-guard. The use of torture
and some western methods of judicial procedure were introduced by Sophia
Palealogus and the Italians who followed her, and were grafted upon
native customs.
In the reign of Ivan the Terrible, legal procedure was as follows:--
"When any dispute arises they appoint, in the first place, the land
owners to act as judges, and these if unable to settle the dispute,
refer the case to a higher magistrate. The complainant asks the
magistrate for leave to summon his adversary to court; the leave
granted, he calls an attendant (sergeant), cites the accused and
hurries him along to the court. The attendant keeps scourging the
man about the shins with the knout, until he can bring forward
someone who on his behalf can satisfy the law. If he has no friend
to go bail for him, the sergeant, grasping him by the neck, drags
him along and subjects him to blows, until before the court to
plead his cause. If it be a suit to recover a debt, the defendant
is asked by the magistrate whether he is in debt to the plaintiff,
and replies that he is not in his debt. Then the judge asks, 'In
what form can you make denial!' The defendant answers, 'Upon my
oath.' Thereupon the sergeant is forbidden by the magistrate to
administer further blows, until the evidence makes the case
clearer.
"The Muscovites are exempt from a great curse to a community, in
that they have no pettifogging lawyers. Every man conducts his own
case, and the plaint of the pursuer and defence of the accused are
submitted to the prince in the form of written petitions, craving
for a just sentence at his hands. When each party has supported his
case with all the arguments available, the judge asks the accuser
whether any arguments remain. He answers that he himself, or his
champion for him, will, with a strong hand, make good his
accusation on the person of his opponent, and he further demands
leave to engage with him in single combat. Liberty to fight is
accorded both disputants, who rush simultaneously to the onset. But
if one or both be not strong enough to fight, they engage
professional pugilists as substitutes. These men enter the lists
armed, chiefly with a war-club and a hunting-pole. The fighting is
on foot. He whose champion is beaten is cast at once in prison,
where he is most shamefully treated, until he ends his dispute with
his enemy. If of high rank it is not allowed to get proxies. If a
poor man has incurred a debt, and is unable to pay, the creditor
carries him off and makes him labour for him, yea he even lets out
his services on hire to someone else, until by his labour he fills
up the amount of his debt."
Harry Best, an Englishman, made good his claim against a defaulter in a
trial by combat, which resulted in an immediate petition by the
Muscovites to the Tsar, to forbid foreigners engaging in the lists with
citizens. As for criminals: thieves were imprisoned and knouted but were
not hanged for a first offence; for a second offence, a thief lost the
nose or an ear and was branded on the forehead; the third offence was
punished with crucifixion, which was a customary penalty long after the
days of Ivan IV. Impalement in various ways was also practised; heretics
were burned; false-coiners boiled in oil; during winter the condemned
were thrust under the ice and drowned. The long category of barbarous
punishments borrowed from the west, being minutely followed in addition
to excisions, amputations, mutilations and cruelties of local origin.
One of these may be mentioned, "the death by 10,000 pieces," when the
condemned was cut away bit by bit and the parts seared to prevent death
by hæmorrhage before it was necessary to attack a vital part. Another
form of it was to insert a hook under a rib and pull the bone out of the
side--the Muscovite equivalent of the western method of extorting money
from Jews by the extraction of tooth after tooth. Ivan "Groznoi"
practised even worse cruelties. The widow of one of his victims he put
astride a coarse rope and drew her to and fro upon it until sawn
through--in this rivalling the excesses of enthusiastic religious
persecutors in the Netherlands. More refined was his fiendish practice
of hanging in the doorway of a boyard's house his wife, child, or some
other loved one of the boyard, then compel the man to go to and fro past
the corpse that day by day became more repulsive. Worse even than this
did Ivan "Groznoi," the cruel Tsar, but his worst need not be mentioned
unless, at some future time, men name him not the "Terrible," but call
him the "Great."
In the days of Peter the Great men were still impaled or crucified; were
burned in small pens filled with straw; were beheaded on a block and
"hanged as elsewhere." Le Bruyn says, one day he saw a man burned alive,
and in another part of the town a woman buried, with small tapers
burning near her; and "all executions with such silence, that what takes
place at one end of the town is unknown at the other." Afterwards, were
such barbarities as the Empress Elizabeth ordered to be inflicted upon
the Boyarina Lapunof, and still later such cruelties as the Countess
Soltikov exercised on her serfs. In fact the tale of Moscow's woe was
not told until the advent to the throne of that greatest of dead Tsars,
Alexander II., the true reformer of Russia.
In the olden days the bearers of too illustrious names were forbidden to
marry; others might not marry without permission first obtained; leave
was necessary before one could carry arms. In times of peace it was
unusual for weapons to be worn, a staff shod with steel took the place
of sword or dagger, the voievodes only wore side arms generally. Trade
was the privilege of the Tsar, and those to whom he granted the right;
pen work was always done by humble secretaries or _diaks_--in the end
they became the masters, rather than the servants of their employers.
In their bearing towards their superiors, ecclesiastic and secular, the
Russian was abject in his deference; the customary mode of address being
similar to that of the east. In Byzantium the petitioner prostrated
himself and called, "May I speak and yet live?" In Moscow the Russ
cried, "Bid me not to be chastised, bid me speak, I the humble, etc.,"
and in Russian a petition, literally, is a "beating of the forehead"
before superiority. Peter the Great did much to discourage the abject
prostration of his subjects before the property of the crown, but as
late as the reign of the Emperor Nicholas some serfs were compelled to
uncover when passing any mansion of their lord, whilst other nobles
expressly forbade it. The Church never expressly forbade prostration
before sacred objects as Peter did before secular property, so in that,
the old custom survives. But it is probably owing to the earlier use,
and not particularly to the image of our Saviour over the Spasski Gate,
that it is customary still to uncover when passing to or from the
Kremlin by the state entrance. For in Russia when a practice has been
once enjoined by a person in authority it will be continued until
expressly forbidden. It is said that many years ago a distinguished
visitor to one of the royal residences inquired why it was thought
necessary to station a sentry in the centre of a grassplot in the
pleasure grounds. It was then discovered that once upon a time, a
Tsaritsa, long deceased, had noticed an early snow-drop budding forth at
that spot, and expressed her wish that the flower should be protected.
To ensure its safety a sentry mounted guard, and so for many years, day
and night, in all seasons, a sentry continued to be posted there; for,
although the circumstances had been forgotten, the order was
conscientiously obeyed.
The rites of the orthodox church are not subject to change, and the
ceremonies of to-day are practically the same as they were centuries
ago. One of the most characteristic is connected with the periodical
removal of some sacred picture from its ikonostas to a special service
in a church dedicated to some other saint, or associated with a
particular episode in the life of our Saviour. After a preliminary
service, the ikon is taken down and reverently borne away by the priests
appointed, attended by prelates, deacons, acolytes, choristers and the
bearers of "standards." These standards--_znamia_, literally
"token"--are akin to the banners of the western Church; they are of
diverse form, usually of metal, adorned with gems, and always have
either a representation of a saint or some sacred symbol upon them. Some
are but a fit setting to a small ikon; many are beautiful specimens of
metal work, others are of curious design, all are attractive; and when,
sometimes to the number of a hundred or more, they are carried aloft
through the streets of the old town, they add greatly to the stateliness
of an impressive pageant.
It is on such occasions as these--and they are many--that the attitude
of the people towards their church may be studied with advantage, and
the beholder will realise how strong is the affection of the orthodox
for all that pertains to their religion. The great reverence shown the
symbols, the fervour and sincerity of the greeting, are convincing
evidence of deeply-rooted belief, simple piety and existing close
relations between the Church and people. In short, a procession of this
kind does more than suggest the religious phase of mediævalism, it is a
revelation of its actual potency.
Easter is of course the great festival; then the Great Bell of Moscow
thunders forth that Christ has risen, and the people embrace each other
and with pious glee call "Vosskresenni Khristos" much as in the west
acquaintance greet each other with good wishes at the new year. Students
of comparative ecclesiasticism cannot afford to miss witnessing the
celebration of the feast in Moscow any more than they can that in Rome.
On Trinity Sunday not only are the churches strewn with newly cut
herbage and decorated with budding branches, but all houses "sport
greenery"--it is a combination of the old time customs of May-Day and
Yuletide in the west. The sacred ikons figure in all ceremonies, and
private individuals in times of distress requisition them. They are
conveyed with considerable pomp to the bedside of the dying, or to the
homes of the fortunate, pious in their rejoicing. The church is all
inclusive and makes no distinction; is as ready to comfort the most
notorious sinner as it is the devout communicant of irreproachable
rectitude and honour.
The ikon most desired is that known as the Iberian Mother of God, whose
chapel stands before the Vosskresenski Gate. Close by a carriage and six
remains in attendance, and usually towards evening it starts forth on
long journeys across the town, its round often unfinished when morning
dawns. Its place on the ikonostas is filled by a copy, but the original
is at once restored on its return. Men uncover as the carriage passes
by; those near, when it is carried to or from a house, prostrate
themselves or attempt to kiss it, some endeavour so to arrange that the
picture must be carried over them. Another ikon in request is that kept
at the Vladimirski Vorot; all have great homage paid them. Priests,
drivers, attendants, are uncovered, even in the depth of winter; and to
be appointed to any post in connection with it is counted a great
honour. It is said that the offerings of the thankful in return for the
privileges conferred by "visiting" have amounted to as much as £10,000
in a single year in respect of one picture alone. This money is part of
the church revenue--the servants attending with the ikon receiving
presents in addition.
[Illustration: A CHASTOK]
Originally the private ikon was a picture of the patron saint of its
owner. As every day in the year is a saint's day, the saint of the day
on which a person happened to be born was considered his patron; often
he took that saint's name, if some other were chosen then the recipient
must be christened on the day assigned to that saint, and thus the
"name" day is distinct from the birthday and is observed, whilst the
anniversary of one's birth may or may not be celebrated. Often, indeed
usually, an ikon of the Virgin now occupies the "sacred corner." It is
so placed that it must be visible on entering the room and receive the
obeisance of the orthodox; it is also, as it were, to be a witness of
all that takes place before it. To do anything wrong in the presence of
an ikon makes the fault the greater; persistent evil-doers screen the
ikon before wilfully transgressing. It was even made one of the charges
in the indictment of the false Tsar Dmitri that he neglected to veil the
ikon the day of his marriage. To western minds such an attitude is as
incomprehensible as the action related in one of Tolstoi's stories, of
the pious peasants who, about to murder their offspring, knelt
reverently by the hole they had made in the ice and prayed to God that
He would protect and bless them. But the Russian understands.
The private ikon, or some other sacred picture, always precedes the
corpse at the funerals of the orthodox. The obsequies of the wealthy are
still conducted with great pomp; the modern practice of hiding the
coffin beneath wreaths and crosses being combined with the more austere
solemnities of a statelier age. The church of St Sophia, on the south
side of the Moskva, opposite the Kremlin, is much used in connection
with military funerals and those of a public character. The peasant's
coffin is simply covered with a pall, and the bier carried through the
streets shoulder-high, with no other pomp than the ikon reverently borne
some paces ahead of the cortege. The hands of the dead one are closed
over a paper on which is printed a prayer for the repose of his soul,
the deceased's baptismal name being written in, and this is the only
justification for the assertions of the early writers that "the Russ
when he dies hath his passport to Saint Nicholas buried with him."
If it is the practice to decorate the ikon with presented jewels, it was
not only counted a sin but a crime to take any back again. Collins says
that the punishment for so doing was the loss of a hand, as befell a
woman "who thought she had but lent to the image" she favoured. With the
private ikon "they do as they will, decorating the ikon one day and with
the same tawdry themselves the next," an indication that the ignorant
peasant may treat his ikon much as the West African negroes treat their
fetiches.
A common object in Moscow of to-day is the watch-tower or chastok, where
night and day sentinels patrol on the look out for fires, not nowadays
so frequent or so disastrous as formerly, since the erection of wooden
houses within the town limits has been forbidden. In summer, when the
signal is run up on the staff, numerous one horse drays, each with a
small barrel of water, hurry to the scene and in somewhat primitive
fashion attempt to quench the conflagration. If a wooden house the fire
usually subsides when the roof with its thick layer of earth between
rafters and plates collapses. Dearly paid for experience has taught the
Muscovite how the spread of fires may best be stopped where water is
scarce and hydrants far distant. Primitive and mediæval in many things,
Moscow reveals how the people of long past ages overcame the
difficulties incidental to life in large cities, and a great fire will
bring together such an array of water carts as will convince the
beholder of the very thorough organisation of a department charged with
the duty of safeguarding public safety.
Even the vehicles exhibit a survival from mediævalism since each horse
is harnessed beneath a _duga_ or piece of bent wood intended to
strengthen the shafts, as it is by them alone the load is hauled, and
traces are unknown. The _duga_, just as it is to-day, was used with the
first wheeled vehicles introduced to Russia and will persist for aye.
But the observant stranger will not lack entertainment in Moscow,
especially if he shows generous toleration of primitive customs. If a
house be building, the simple and superstitious working man, his
original intention being now directed by the church to a manifestation
of piety, will first raise above all the scaffolding a well made, often
decorated, cross, so seeking a blessing from the good by the same sign
that his early ancestors sought to appease the powers of evil. The
carter, whose horse drops with heat sickness, will get the animal on his
legs again and cause him three times to cross the _duga_ he purposely
places thwartwise. To those versed in symbols an act as easy to
understand as the every day remedy of the kitchenmaid who puts the poker
across the bars of the grate to prevent the newly lighted fire from
being extinguished--a not commendable practice yet effective epithem.
Sprite ridden the Moscow peasant is still, but though "it" moves him to
do many things of which he knows not the reason, merely obeying the
prompting intuitively, he has forgotten what this "it" is that must be
appeased. A bridge, a girder cantilever across a wide estuary or a
couple of planks across a ditch, is not finished till some trifle has
been cast into the water, in this the mujik being not unlike the skipper
of a Grimsby trawler who tosses a new coin into the ocean before
lowering his net.
The enthusiast may attempt to trace the direct connection between
baksheesh, nachai, and the extortion of gratuities generally, with the
ancient practice of trifling sacrifices to some mythical demon; both old
as the offer of a cock by Socrates to Æsculapius, and world-wide as the
application of a door-key to the spine as a cure for nasal hæmorrhage.
In such matters may hap Moscow is as other towns, and neither mediæval
nor peculiar.
But whosoever of a summer's night will wander into the suburbs will hear
the policeman on his round beating two pieces of wood together with
aggravating rhythm. If the listener be country-bred the noise will
remind him of the farm boy of old days who, with wooden clapper, scared
birds from the corn. If he be so curious as to examine the instrument he
will find it to be a piece of board with a handle, and a wooden ball
attached to it with a piece of twine. The knocking of the two together
to produce an intermittent whirr is accomplished by a curious turn of
the wrist. The watchman will explain that the noise is to warn
garden-robbers and other depredators of his coming, or to advise his
employers that he is about his duty. The most learned ethnologist of the
west says that an identical instrument, handled in the same manner, is
employed by the minor priests of a wild race in the far far east to
drive away evil spirits from the native temple.
Further a-field--a twenty-five kopeck ride on a _lineika_ from the
Trubaya--Ostankina is reached. There is a curious and elegant church of
red brick built by Moscow artisans in the golden age, at the cost of the
boyard Mikhail Cherkassky. Near by is a great wooden palace, stuccoed
and prim, the property of the Sheremetievs. Passing through its park
where Le Bruyn shot his great crane flying by a single bullet from his
musket, and where the upper reaches of the Yauza are still haunted by
wild fowl, is a thick wood to the north of the stream, and in the middle
of that near the path, a clearing where at midday a drove of mares are
coralled and milked by men who speak a strange tongue, and are of quite
different appearance to the Muscovites. A mile further on is their
village, near a large pool. It is a poor, insignificant, rather dirty
and very untidy place. Mordva its name; Mordva its people, whose
ancestors, many centuries ago, left their home among the Altai Mountains
on the confines of Manchuria and spread westward over Russia, fighting
with their later conquerors almost to their own extermination. Various
isolated groups of this once powerful race are scattered about Russia,
mixing but little with its people. These, who through long centuries
have been resident in the heart of Muscovy, seems as incongruous and
impossible as would be the present occupation of Hampstead Heath by
survivors of ancient Picts in the full glory of their primitive customs.
It is nearest to the great towns that primitive methods and beliefs
persist most strongly, and just as in the villages about London,
antiquated farming implements and old country superstitions are more
plentiful than in the rural districts of England, so near Moscow the old
customs and manners die hard. In villages within easy walk of the
Kremlin, mediæval practices are rife, especially during the celebration
of marriages, and the performance of minor domestic pageants. The
curious, if persistent and lucky, may see the bowl of Tantalus presented
to the mother of the bride of yesterday, and as the liquor escapes the
cup by the hole in its bottom from which the profferer has removed his
finger, guess at the significance of the custom and speculate as to its
origin.
[Illustration: PETROVSKI MONASTYR]
Within the town almost every old building has its legends. Very diverse
are those connected with the Lobnoe Mesto on the Grand Square. It
derived its name--literally "the place of a skull"--from the Golgotha
that was erected there for the Easter Passion play which was performed
yearly before the church of the Trinity disappeared. From time
immemorial it has been _the_ place of public assembly, being to Moscow
what St Paul's Cross was to old London, and the _perron_ to Liége.
Therefore, as all who have studied the migration of symbols will know,
not only is it of very early origin, but associated with stories in some
form common to all peoples.
Another almost universal superstition is in Moscow attached to the
Sukharev Bashnia, which is supposed to be the feminine complement of the
Ivan Veliki tower in the Kremlin. The people call the Sukharev the
_jena_ (wife) of Ivan, and, according to tradition, Jack and Jenny get
nearer to each other every year.
Visitors for whom folk-lore has no attraction will look for the
picturesque in Moscow. The most characteristic view, the prospect the
tourist expects, is that seen by turning westward along the boulevard
from the Lubianka, and keeping along the south footpath, near the wall,
watch the old town appear little by little as the brow of the hill is
reached. Houses--of all sorts and colours--a façade like that of a
classic temple, domes blue, green and golden, the red tower of a
Chastok, a medley of roofs and walls, all these will appear framed in
the foliage of the trees on the boulevards, and those overhanging the
walls of the Rojdestvenka Convent, until the valley of the Neglinnaia is
right below and the crosses and domes of the Petrovski Monastery are
disclosed to view. Then it is time to cross the road to the centre of
the boulevard and see Moscow unfold itself--walls and towers changing
like the coloured fragments in a kaleidoscope. Opposite, where the bank
rises to the Strastnoi Monastery, was once the old village of
Vissotski--older, it is said, than Moscow town, or Kremlin, or even the
hall of Kuchkovo and the twelfth century hamlet on the Chisty Prud at
the back.
Again, ascend the belfry of St Nikita in the Goncharevskaya; time--the
very early morning, and see the rising sun glitter on the domes of the
Kremlin, and the churches of the Bielo Gorod; or, when it has long
passed the meridian, watch the afterglow reflected from the thousand
domes, tinting the white walls from the balcony of Krinkin's on the Hill
of Salutation. Stay on and watch the great white town, silent, reposeful
and glorious, fade into the haze of the "white-night"; see it shimmering
in the moonlight, or the glare of midday sun; sparkling feebly in the
blue star light, or glowing like a new-cast ingot in the blackness of
winter's midnight; see it how, when and where you may, solve the enigma
of its vitality if you can--but neither doubt its strength, nor question
its beauty.
[Russian poetry in cyrillic letters]