City Hall, at the entrance of the broad street between it and the
Gostinny Dvor, on the Nevsky, stands a tiny chapel, which is as thriving
as the bazaar, in its own way, and as striking a compendium of some
features in Russian architecture and life. Outside hangs a large image
of the "Saviour-not-made-with-hands,"--the Russian name for the sacred
imprint on St. Veronica's handkerchief,--which is the most popular of
all the representations of Christ in _ikoni_. Before it burns the usual
"unquenchable lamp," filled with the obligatory pure olive-oil. Beneath
it stands a table bearing a large bowl of consecrated water. On hot
summer days the thirsty wayfarer takes a sip, using the ancient Russian
_kovsh_, or short-handled ladle, which lies beside it, crosses himself,
and drops a small offering on the dish piled with copper coins near by,
making change for himself if he has not the exact sum which he wishes to
give.
Inside, many _ikoni_ decorate the walls. The pale flames of their
shrine-lamps are supplemented by masses of candles in the huge standing
candlesticks of silver. A black-robed monk from the monastery is
engaged, almost without cessation, in intoning prayers of various sorts,
before one or another of the images. The little chapel is thronged;
there is barely room for respectfully flourished crosses, such as the
peasant loves, often only for the more circumscribed sign current among
the upper classes, and none at all for the favorite "ground reverences."
The approach to the door is lined with two files of monks and nuns:
monks in high _klobuki_, like rimless chimney-pot hats, draped with
black woolen veils, which are always becoming; _tchernitzi_, or lay
sisters, from distant convents, in similar headgear, in caps flat or
pointed like the small end of a watermelon, and with ears protected by
black woolen shawls ungracefully pinned. Serviceable man's boots do more
than peep out from beneath the short, rusty-black skirts. Each monk and
nun holds a small pad of threadbare black velvet, whereon a cross of
tarnished gold braid, and a stray copper or two, by way of bait, explain
the eleemosynary significance of the bearers' "broad" crosses, dizzy
"reverences to the girdle," and muttered entreaty, of which we catch
only: "_Khristi Radi_"--For Christ's sake.
People of all classes turn in here for a moment of prayer, to "place a
candle" to some saint, for the health, in body or soul, of friend or
relative: the workman, his tools on his back in a coarse linen kit; the
bearded _muzhik_ from the country, clad in his sheepskin _tulup_, wool
inward, the soiled yellow leather outside set off by a gay sash; ladies,
officers, civilians,--the stream never ceases.
The only striking feature about the next building of importance, the
_Gradskaya Duma_, or City Hall, is the lofty tower, upon whose balcony,
high in air, guards pace incessantly, on the watch for fires. By day
they telegraph the locality of disaster to the fire department by means
of black balls and white boards, in fixed combinations; by night, with
colored lanterns. Each section of the city has a signal-tower of this
sort, and the engine-house is close at hand. Gradskaya Duma means,
literally, city thought, and the profundity of the meditations sometimes
indulged in in this building, otherwise not remarkable, may be inferred
from the fact discovered a few years ago, that many honored members of
the Duma (which also signifies the Council of City Fathers), whose names
still stood on the roll, were dead, though they continued to vote and
exercise their other civic functions with exemplary regularity!
Naturally, in a city which lies on a level with the southern point of
Greenland, the most characteristic season to select for our observations
of the life is winter.
The Prospekt wakes late. It has been up nearly all night, and there is
but little inducement to early rising when the sun itself sets such a
fashion as nine o'clock for its appearance on the horizon, like a pewter
disk, with a well-defined hard rim, when he makes his appearance at all.
If we take the Prospekt at different hours, we may gain a fairly
comprehensive view of many Russian ways and people, cosmopolitan as the
city is.
At half-past seven in the morning, the horse-cars, which have been
resting since ten o'clock in the evening, make a start, running always
in groups of three, stopping only at turnouts. The _dvorniki_ retire
from the entrance to the courtyards, where they have been sleeping all
night with one eye open, wrapped in their sheepskin coats. A few shabby
_izvostchiks_ make their appearance somewhat later, in company with
small schoolboys, in their soldierly uniforms, knapsacks of books on
back, and convoyed by servants. Earliest of all are the closed carriages
of officials, evidently the most lofty in grade, since it was decided,
two or three years ago, by one of this class, that his subordinates
could not reasonably be expected to arrive at business before ten or
eleven o'clock after they had sat up until daylight over their
indispensable club _vint_--which is Russian whist.
Boots (_muzhiki_) in scarlet cotton blouses, and full trousers of black
velveteen, tucked into tall wrinkled boots, dart about to bakery and
dairy shop, preparing for their masters' morning "tea." Venders of
newspapers congregate at certain spots, and charge for their wares in
inverse ratio to the experience of their customers; for regular
subscribers receive their papers through the post-office, and, if we are
in such unseemly haste as to care for the news before the ten o'clock
delivery--or the eleven o'clock, if the postman has not found it
convenient otherwise--we must buy on the street, though we live but
half a block from the newspaper office, which opens at ten. By noon,
every one is awake. The restaurants are full of breakfasters, and
Dominique's, which chances to stand on the most crowded stretch of the
street, on the sunny north side beloved of promenaders, is dense with
officers, cigarette smoke, and characteristic national viands
judiciously mingled with those of foreign lands.
Mass is over, and a funeral passes down the Nevsky Prospekt, on its way
to the fashionable Alexander Nevsky monastery or Novo-Dyevitche convent
cemeteries. The deceased may have been a minister of state, or a great
officer of the Court, or a military man who is accompanied by warlike
pageant. The choir chants a dirge. The priests, clad in vestments of
black velvet and silver, seem to find their long thick hair sufficient
protection to their bare heads. The professional mutes, with their
silver-trimmed black baldrics and cocked hats, appear to have plucked up
the street lanterns by their roots to serve as candles, out of respect
to the deceased's greatness, and to illustrate how the city has been
cast into darkness by the withdrawal of the light of his countenance.
The dead man's orders and decorations are borne in imposing state, on
velvet cushions, before the gorgeous funeral car, where the pall, of
cloth of gold, which will be made into a priest's vestment once the
funeral is over, droops low among artistic wreaths and palms, of natural
flowers, or beautifully executed in silver. Behind come the mourners on
foot, a few women, many men, a Grand Duke or two among them, it may be;
the carriages follow; the devout of the lower classes, catching sight of
the train, cross themselves broadly, mutter a prayer, and find time to
turn from their own affairs and follow for a little way, out of respect
to the stranger corpse. More touching are the funerals which pass up the
Prospekt on their way to the unfashionable cemetery across the Neva, on
Vasily Ostroff; a tiny pink coffin resting on the knees of the bereaved
parents in a sledge, or borne by a couple of bareheaded men, with one or
two mourners walking slowly behind.
From noon onward, the scene on the Prospekt increases constantly in
vivacity. The sidewalks are crowded, especially on Sundays and holidays,
with a dense and varied throng, of so many nationalities and types that
it is a valuable lesson in ethnography to sort them, and that a secret
uttered is absolutely safe in no tongue,--unless, possibly, it be that
of Patagonia. But the universal language of the eye conquers all
difficulties, even for the remarkably fair Tatar women, whose national
garb includes only the baldest and gauziest apology for the obligatory
veil.
The plain facades of the older buildings on this part of the Prospekt,
which are but three or four stories in height,--elevators are rare
luxuries in Petersburg, and few buildings exceed five stories,--are
adorned, here and there, with gayly-colored pictorial representations of
the wares for sale within. But little variety in architecture is
furnished by the inconspicuous Armenian, and the uncharacteristic Dutch
Reformed and Lutheran churches which break the severe line of this
"Tolerance Street," as it has been called. Most fascinating of all the
shops are those of the furriers and goldsmiths, with their surprises and
fresh lessons for foreigners; the treasures of Caucasian and Asian art
in the Eastern bazaars; the "Colonial wares" establishments, with their
delicious game cheeses, and odd _studena_ (fishes in jelly), their
pineapples at five and ten dollars, their tiny oysters from the Black
Sea at twelve and a half cents apiece.
Enthralling as are the shop windows, the crowd on the sidewalk is more
enthralling still. There are Kazaks, dragoons, cadets of the military
schools, students, so varied, though their gay uniforms are hidden by
their coats, that their heads resemble a bed of verbenas in the sun.
There are officers of every sort: officers with rough gray overcoats and
round lambskin caps; officers in large, flat, peaked caps, and
smooth-surfaced voluminous cape-coats, wadded with eider-down and lined
with gray silk, which trail on their spurs, and with collars of costly
beaver or striped American raccoon, and long sleeves forever dangling
unused. A snippet of orange and black ribbon worn in the buttonhole
shows us that the wearer belongs to the much-coveted military Order of
St. George. There are civilians in black cape-coats of the military
pattern, topped off with cold, uncomfortable, but fashionable chimneypot
hats, or, more sensibly, with high caps of beaver.
It is curious to observe how many opinions exist as to the weather. The
officers leave their ears unprotected; a passing troop of soldiers--
fine, large, hardy fellows--wear the strip of black woolen over their
ears, but leave their _bashlyks_ hanging unused on their backs, with
tabs tacked neatly under shoulder-straps and belts, for use on the
Balkans or some other really cold spot. Most of the ladies, on foot or
in sledges, wear bashlyks or Orenburg shawls, over wadded fur caps, well
pulled down to the brows. We may be sure that the pretty woman who
trusts to her bonnet only has also neglected to put on the necessary
warm galoshes, and that when she reaches home, sympathizing friends will
rub her vain little ears, feet, and brow with spirits of wine, to rescue
her from the results of her folly. Only officers and soldiers possess
the secret of going about in simple leather boots, or protected merely
by a pair of stiff, slapping leather galoshes, accommodated to the
spurs.
For some mysterious reason, the picturesque nurses, with their
pearl-embroidered, diadem-shaped caps, like the _kokoshniki_ of the
Empress and Court ladies, their silver-trimmed petticoats and jackets
patterned after the ancient Russian "soul-warmers," and made of pink or
blue cashmere, never have any children in their charge in winter.
Indeed, if we were to go by the evidence offered by the Nevsky Prospekt,
especially in cold weather, we should assert that there are no children
in the city, and that the nurses are used as "sheep-dogs" by ladies long
past the dangerous bloom of youth and beauty.
The more fashionable people are driving, however, and that portion of
the one hundred and fourteen feet of the Prospekt's width which is
devoted to the roadway is, if possible, even more varied and
entertaining in its kaleidoscopic features than the sidewalks. It is
admirably kept at all seasons. With the exception of the cobblestone
roadbed for the tramway in the centre, it is laid with hexagonal wooden
blocks, well spiked together and tarred, resting upon tarred beams and
planks, and forming a pavement which is both elastic and fairly
resistant to the volcanic action of the frost. The snow is maintained at
such a level that, while sledging is perfect, the closed carriages which
are used for evening entertainments, calls, and shopping are never
incommoded. Street sweepers, in red cotton blouses and clean white linen
aprons, sweep on calmly in the icy chill. The police, with their
_bashlyks_ wrapped round their heads in a manner peculiar to themselves,
stand always in the middle of the street and regulate the traffic.
We will hire an _izvostchik_ and join the throng. The process is simple;
it consists in setting ourselves up at auction on the curbstone, among
the numerous cabbies waiting for a job, and knocking ourselves down to
the lowest bidder. If our Vanka (Johnny, the generic name for cabby)
drives too slowly, obviously with the object of loitering away our
money, a policeman will give him a hint to whip up, or we may effect the
desired result by threatening to speak to the next guardian of the
peace. If Vanka attempts to intrude upon the privileges of the private
carriages, for whom is reserved the space next the tramway track and the
row of high, silvered posts which bear aloft the electric lights, a
sharp "_Beregis!_" (Look out for yourself!) will be heard from the first
fashionable coachman who is impeded in his swift career, and he will be
called to order promptly by the police. Ladies may not, unfortunately,
drive in the smartest of the public carriages, but must content
themselves with something more modest and more shabby. But Vanka is
usually good-natured, patient, and quite unconscious of his shabbiness,
at least in the light of a grievance or as affecting his dignity. It was
one of these shabby, but democratic and self-possessed fellows who
furnished us with a fine illustration of the peasant qualities. We
encountered one of the Emperor's cousins on his way to his regimental
barracks; the Grand Duke mistook us for acquaintances, and saluted. Our
_izvostchik_ returned the greeting.
"Was that Vasily Dmitrich?" we asked in Russian form.
"Yes, madam."
"Whom was he saluting?"
"Us," replied the man, with imperturbable gravity. Very different from
our poor fellow, who remembers his duties to the saints and churches,
and salutes Kazan Cathedral, as we pass, with cross and bared head, is
the fashionable coachman, who sees nothing but his horses. Our man's
cylindrical cap of imitation fur is old, his summer _armyak_ of blue
cloth fits, as best it may, over his lean form and his sheepskin
_tulup_, and is girt with a cheap cotton sash.
The head of the fashionable coachman is crowned with a becoming
gold-laced cap, in the shape of the ace of diamonds, well stuffed with
down, and made of scarlet, sky-blue, sea-green, or other hue of velvet.
His fur-lined armyak, reaching to his feet,--through whose silver
buttons under the left arm he is bursting, with pads for fashion or with
good living,--is secured about his portly waist by a silken girdle
glowing with roses and butterflies. His legs are too fat to enter the
sledge,--that is to say, if his master truly respects his own dignity,
--and his feet are accommodated in iron stirrups outside. He leans well
back, with arms outstretched to accord with the racing speed at which he
drives. In the tiny sledge--the smaller it is, the more stylish, in
inverse ratio to the coachman, who is expected to be as broad as it is
--sits a lady hugging her crimson velvet _shuba_ lined with curled
white Thibetan goat, or feathery black fox fur, close about her ears. An
officer holds her firmly with one arm around the waist, a very necessary
precaution at all seasons, with the fast driving, where drozhkies and
sledges are utterly devoid of back or side rail. The spans of huge
Orloff stallions, black or dappled gray, display their full beauty of
form in the harnesses of slender straps and silver chains; their
beautiful eyes are unconcealed by blinders. They are covered with a
coarse-meshed woolen net fastened to the winged dashboard, black,
crimson, purple, or blue, which trails in the snow in company with their
tails and the heavy tassels of the fur-edged cloth robe. The horses, the
wide-spreading reddish beard of the coachman, parted in the middle like
a well-worn whisk broom, the hair, eyelashes, and furs of the occupants
of the sledge, all are frosted with rime until each filament seems to
have been turned into silver wire.
There is an alarm of fire somewhere. A section of the fire department
passes, that imposing but amusing procession of hand-engine, three
water-barrels, pennons, and fine horses trained in the _haute ecole_,
which does splendid work with apparently inadequate means. An officer in
gray lambskin cap flashes by, drawn by a pair of fine trotters. "_Vot on
sam!_" mutters our _izvostchik_,--There he is himself! It is General
Gresser*, the prefect of the capital, who maintains perfect order, and
demonstrates the possibilities of keeping streets always clean in an
impossible climate. The pounding of those huge trotters' hoofs is so
absolutely distinctive--as distinctive as the unique gray cap--that
we can recognize it as they pass, cry like the _izvostchik_, "_Vot on
sam!_" and fly to the window with the certainty that it will be "he
himself."
* Since the above was written, this able officer and very efficient
prefect has died.
Court carriages with lackeys in crimson and gold, ambassadors' sledges
with cock-plumed chasseurs and cockaded coachmen, the latter wearing
their chevrons on their backs; rude wooden sledges, whose sides are made
of knotted ropes, filled with superfluous snow; grand ducal _troikas_
with clinking harnesses studded with metal plaques and flying tassels,
the outer horses coquetting, as usual, beside the staid trot of the
shaft-horse,--all mingle in the endless procession which flows on up
the Nevsky Prospekt through the Bolshaya Morskaya,--Great Sea
Street,--and out upon the Neva quays, and back again, to see and be
seen, until long after the sun has set on the short days, at six minutes
to three. A plain sledge approaches. The officer who occupies it is
dressed like an ordinary general, and there are thousands of generals!
As he drives quietly along, police and sentries give him the salute of
the ordinary general; so do those who recognize him by his face or his
Kazak orderly. It is the Emperor out for his afternoon exercise. If we
meet him near the gate of the Anitchkoff Palace, we may find him sitting
placidly beside us, while our sledge and other sledges in the line are
stopped for a moment to allow him to enter.
Here is another sledge, also differing in no respect from the equipages
of other people, save that the lackey on the low knife-board behind
wears a peculiar livery of dark green, pale blue, and gold (or with
white in place of the green at Easter-tide). The lady whose large dark
eyes are visible between her sable cap and the superb black fox shawl of
her crimson velvet cloak is the Empress. The lady beside her is one of
her ladies-in-waiting. Attendants, guards, are absolutely lacking, as in
the case of the Emperor.
Here, indeed, is the place to enjoy winter. The dry, feathery snow
descends, but no one heeds it. We turn up our coat collars and drive on.
Umbrellas are unknown abominations. The permanent marquises, of light
iron-work, which are attached to most of the entrances, are serviceable
only to those who use closed carriages, and in the rainy autumn.
Just opposite the centre of this thronged promenade, well set back from
the street, stands the Cathedral of the Kazan Virgin. Outside, on the
quay of the tortuous Katherine Canal, made a navigable water-way under
the second Katherine, but lacking, through its narrowness, the
picturesque features of the Fontanka, flocks of pigeons are fed daily
from the adjoining grain shops. In the curve of the great colonnade,
copied, like the exterior of the church itself, from that of St. Peter
at Rome, bronze statues, heroic in size, of generals Kutuzoff and
Barclay de Tolly, by the Russian sculptor Orlovsky, stand on guard.
Hither the Emperor and Empress come "to salute the Virgin," on their
safe return from a journey. Hither are brought imperial brides in
gorgeous state procession--when they are of the Greek faith--on
their way to the altar in the Winter Palace. We can never step into this
temple without finding some deeply interesting and characteristically
Russian event in progress. After we have run the inevitable gauntlet of
monks, nuns, and other beggars at the entrance, we may happen upon a
baptism, just beyond, the naked, new-born infant sputtering gently after
his thrice-repeated dip in the candle-decked font, with the priest's
hand covering his eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils, and now undergoing
the ceremony of anointment or confirmation. Or we may come upon a bridal
couple, in front of the solid silver balustrade; or the exquisite
liturgy, exquisitely chanted by the fine choir in their vestments of
scarlet, blue, and silver, with the seraphic wings upon their shoulders,
and intoned, with a finish of art unknown in other lands, by priests
robed in rich brocade. Or it may be that a popular sermon by a
well-known orator has attracted a throng of listeners among the lofty
pillars of gray Finland granite, hung with battle-flags and the keys of
conquered towns. What we shall assuredly find is votaries ascending the
steps to salute with devotion the benignant brown-faced Byzantine Virgin
and Christ-Child, incrusted with superb jewels, or kneeling in "ground
reverences," with brow laid to the marble pavement, before the
_ikonostas_, or rood-screen, of solid silver. Our Lady of Kazan has been
the most popular of wonder-working Virgins ever since she was brought
from Kazan to Moscow, in 1579, and transported to Petersburg, in 1721
(although her present cathedral dates only from 1811), and the scene
here on Easter-night is second only to that at St. Isaac's when the
porticoes are thronged by the lower classes waiting to have their flower
and candle decked cakes and cream blessed at the close of the Easter
matins.
One of the few individual dwelling-houses which linger on the Nevsky
Prospekt, and which presents us with a fine specimen of the rococo style
which Rastrelli so persistently served up at the close of the eighteenth
century, is that of the Counts Stroganoff, at the lower quay of the
Moika. The Moika (literally, Washing) River is the last of the
semicircular, concentric canals which intersect the Nevsky and its two
radiating companion Prospekts, and impart to that portion of the city
which is situated on the (comparative) mainland a resemblance to an
outspread fan, whose palm-piece is formed by the Admiralty on the Neva
quay.
The stately pile, and the pompous air of the big, gold-laced Swiss
lounging at the entrance on the Nevsky, remind us that the Stroganoff
family has been a power in Russian history since the middle of the
sixteenth century.
It was a mere handful of their Kazaks, led by Yermak Timofeevitch, who
conquered Siberia, in 1581, under Ivan the Terrible, while engaged in
repelling the incursions of the Tatars and wild Siberian tribes on the
fortified towns which the Stroganoffs had been authorized to erect on
the vast territory at the western foot of the Ural Mountains, conveyed
to them by the ancient Tzars. Later on, when Alexei Mikhailovitch, the
father of Peter the Great, established a new code, grading punishments
and fines by classes, the highest money tax assessed for insult and
injury was fifty rubles; but the Stroganoffs were empowered to exact one
hundred rubles.