FEODOSIA,
July, 1888.
... The journey from Sumy to Harkov is frightfully dull. Going from Harkov
to Simferopol one might well die of boredom. The Crimean steppe is
depressing, monotonous, with no horizon, colourless like Ivanenko’s
stories, and on the whole rather like the tundra.... From Simferopol
mountains begin and, with them, beauty. Ravines, mountains, ravines,
mountains, poplars stick out from the ravines, vineyards loom dark on the
mountains--all this is bathed in moonlight, is new and wild, and sets one’s
imagination working in harmony with Gogol’s “Terrible Vengeance.”
Particularly fantastic are the alternating precipices and tunnels when you
see now depths full of moonlight and now complete sinister darkness. It is
rather uncanny and delightful. One feels it is something not Russian,
something alien. I reached Sevastopol at night. The town is beautiful in
itself and beautiful because it stands by a marvellous sea. The best in the
sea is its colour, and that one cannot describe. It is like blue copperas.
As to steamers and sailing vessels, piers and harbours, what strikes one
most of all is the poverty of the Russians. Except the “_popovkas_,” which
look like Moscow merchants’ wives, and two or three decent steamers, there
is nothing to speak of in the bay.
... In the morning it was deadly dull. Heat, dust, thirst.... In the
harbour there was a stench of ropes, and one caught glimpses of faces burnt
brick-red, sounds of a pulley, of the splashing of dirty water, knocking,
Tatar words, and all sorts of uninteresting nonsense. You go up to a
steamer: men in rags, bathed in sweat and almost baked by the sun, dizzy,
with tatters on their backs and shoulders, unload Portland cement; you
stand and look at them and the whole scene becomes so remote, so alien,
that one feels insufferably dull and uninterested. It is entertaining to
get on board and set off, but it is rather a bore to sail and talk to a
crowd of passengers consisting of elements all of which one knows by heart
and is weary of already.... Yalta is a mixture of something European that
reminds one of the views of Nice, with something cheap and shoddy. The
box-like hotels in which unhappy consumptives are pining, the impudent
Tatar faces, the ladies’ bustles with their very undisguised expression of
something very abominable, the faces of the idle rich, longing for cheap
adventures, the smell of perfumery instead of the scent of the cedars and
the sea, the miserable dirty pier, the melancholy lights far out at sea,
the prattle of young ladies and gentlemen who have crowded here in order to
admire nature of which they have no idea--all this taken together produces
such a depressing effect and is so overwhelming that one begins to blame
oneself for being biassed and unfair.... At five o’clock in the morning I
arrived at Feodosia--a greyish-brown, dismal, and dull-looking little
town. There is no grass, the trees are wretched, the soil is coarse and
hopelessly poor. Everything is burnt up by the sun, and only the sea
smiles--the sea which has nothing to do with wretched little towns or
tourists. Sea bathing is so nice that when I got into the water I began to
laugh for no reason at all....
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July 22.
... Yesterday we went to Shah-Mamai Aivazovsky’s estate, twenty-five versts
from Feodosia. It is a magnificent estate, rather like fairyland; such
estates may probably be seen in Persia. Aivazovsky [Translator’s Note: The
famous marine painter.] himself, a vigorous old man of seventy-five, is a
mixture of a good-natured Armenian and an overfed bishop; he is full of
dignity, has soft hands, and offers them like a general. He is not very
intelligent, but is a complex nature worthy of attention. He combines in
himself a general, a bishop, an artist, an Armenian, a naive old peasant,
and an Othello. He is married to a young and very beautiful woman whom he
rules with a rod of iron. He is friendly with Sultans, Shahs, and Amirs. He
collaborated with Glinka in writing “Ruslan and Liudmila.” He was a friend
of Pushkin, but has never read him. He has not read a single book in his
life. When it is suggested to him that he should read something he answers,
“Why should I read when I have opinions of my own?” I spent a whole day in
his house and had dinner there. The dinner was fearfully long, with endless
toasts. By the way, at that dinner I was introduced to the lady doctor,
wife of the well-known professor. She is a fat, bulky piece of flesh. If
she were undressed and painted green she would look just like a frog. After
talking to her I mentally scratched her off the list of women doctors....
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