I had several commissions to execute for the purchase of souvenirs at
Ekaterineburg, and lost no time in visiting a dealer. While we were at
breakfast an itinerant merchant called, and subsequently another
accosted us on the street. At ordinary times, strangers are beset by
men and boys who are walking cabinets of semi-precious stones. A small
boy met me in the corridor of the hotel and repeated a lapidarious
vocabulary that would have shamed a professor of mineralogy.
At the dealer’s, I was very soon in a bewildering collection of
amethyst, beryl, chalcedony, topaz, tourmaline, jasper, aquamarine,
malachite, and other articles of value. The collection numbered many
hundred pieces comprising seals, paper, weights, beads, charms for
watch chains, vases, statuettes, brooches, buttons, etc. The handles
of seals were cut in a variety of ways, some representing animals or
birds, while a goodly portion were plain or fluted at the sides.
The prettiest work I saw was in paper weights. There were imitations
of leaves, flowers, and grapes in properly tinted stone fixed upon
marble tablets either white or colored. Equal skill was displayed in
arranging and cutting these stones. I saw many beautiful mosaics
displaying the stones of the Ural and Altai mountains.
Natural crystals were finely arranged in the shape of miniature caves
and grottoes. Beads were of malachite, crystal, topaz, and variegated
marble, and seemed quite plentiful. Malachite is the most abundant of
the half-precious stones of the Ural, crystal and topaz ranking next.
Aquamarine was the most valuable stone offered. It is not found in
the Urals but comes from Eastern Siberia.
In another establishment there were little busts of the Emperor and
other high personages in Russia, cut in crystal and topaz. I saw a
fine bust of Yermak, and another of the elder Demidoff, both in topaz.
A crystal bust of Louis Napoleon was exhibited, and its owner told me
it would be sent to the _Exposition Universelle_. Learning that I was
an American, the proprietor showed me a half completed bust of Mr.
Lincoln, and was gratified to learn that the likeness was good. The
bust was cut in topaz, and when finished would be about six inches
high.
Though no work was in progress I had opportunity to look through a
private “fabric.” Stone cutting is performed as by lapidaries every
where with small wheels covered with diamond dust or emery. Each
laborer has his bench and performs a particular part of the work under
the direction of a superintendent. Wages were very low, skilled
workmen being paid less than ordinary stevedores in America. For three
roubles, I bought a twelve sided topaz, an inch in diameter with the
signs of the zodiac neatly engraved upon it. In London or New York,
the cutting would have cost more than ten times that amount. The
Granilnoi Fabric employs about a hundred and fifty workmen, but no
private establishment supports more than twenty-five. The Granilnoi
Fabric was to be sold in 1867, and pass out of government control. The
laborers there were formerly crown peasants, and became free under the
abolition ukase of Alexander II. The palace and Imperial museum at St.
Petersburg contain wonderful illustrations of their skill.
Diamonds have been sought in the Urals, and the region is said to
resemble the diamond districts of Brazil. They have been found in but
a single instance, and there is a suspicion that the few discovered on
that occasion were a “plant.”
We remained two days at Ekaterineburg, repairing sleighs and resting
from fatigue. On account of the holidays, we paid double prices for
labor, and were charged double by drosky drivers. At the hotel, the
landlord wished to follow the same custom, but we emphatically
objected. A theatrical performance came off during our stay, but we
were too weary to witness it. Near the hotel there was a “live beast
show” almost an exact counterpart of what one sees in America. Music,
voluble doorkeepers, gaping crowd of youngsters, and canvas pictures
of terrific combats between beasts and snakes, all were there.
According to our custom we prepared to start in the evening for
another westward stride. The thermometer was low enough to give the
snow that crisp, metallic sound under the runners only heard in cold
weather. We took tickets for Kazan, and ordered horses at nine
o’clock. As we left the city, we passed between two monument-like
posts, marking the gateway.
Two or three versts away, we passed the zavod of Verkne Issetskoi, an
immense concern with a population sufficient to found a score of
western cities. In this establishment is made a great deal of the
sheet-iron that comes to America. The material is of so fine a quality
that it can be rolled to the thickness of letter paper without
breaking. Every thing at the zavod is on a grand scale even to the
house of the director, and his facilities for entertaining guests. All
was silent at the time of our passage, the workmen being busy with
their Christmas festivities.
Leaving the zavod we were once more among the forests of the Urals,
and riding over the low hills that form this part of the range. The
road was good, but there were more _oukhabas_ than suited my fancy.
I was on constant lookout for the steep road leading over the range,
but failed to find it. Before leaving New York a friend suggested that
I should have a severe journey over the Ural mountains which were
deeply shaded on the map we consulted. I can assure him it was no
worse than a sleigh ride anywhere else on a clear, frosty night. The
ascent is so gradual that one does not perceive it at all.
Ekaterineburg stands eight hundred feet above the sea; the pass,
twenty-four miles distant, is only nine hundred feet higher. The
range is depressed at this point, but nowhere attains sufficient
loftiness to justify its prominence on the maps. In Ekaterineburg I
asked for the mountains.
“There they are,” said the person of whom I enquired, and he waved his
hand toward a wooded ridge in the west. The designated locality
appeared less difficult of passage than the hills opposite Cincinnati.
“Don’t fail to tell the yemshick to stop at the boundary.” This was my
injunction several times repeated as we changed horses at the first
station. Eight or ten versts on our second course, the sleigh halted
and the yemshick announced the highest point on the road.
I stepped from the sleigh and waded through a deep snowdrift to the
granite obelisk erected by the first Alexander to mark the line
between the two continents. It Is a plain shaft—- Bunker Hill
monument in miniature—bearing the word “EUROPE” on one side, and
“ASIA” on the other. Two fir trees planted by His August Majesty are
on opposite sides of the monument.
[Illustration: EUROPE AND ASIA.]
A snow-drift in the middle of a frosty night is not the place for
sentimental musings. I rested a foot in each of two continents at the
same moment, but could not discover any difference in their manners,
customs, or climate.
Regaining the sleigh, I nestled into my furs, and soon fell asleep. I
was in Europe. I had accomplished the hope and dream of my boyhood.
But in my most romantic moments, I had not expected to stand for the
first time in Europe on the ridge of the Ural Mountains.
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN BEGGAR.]
After passing the boundary, we dashed away over the undulating road,
and made a steady though, imperceptible descent into the valley of the
Kama. As I commenced my first day in Europe, the sunbeams wavered and
glistened on the frost-crystals that covered the trees, and the flood
of light that poured full into my opening eyes was painfully dazzling.
Where we halted for breakfast, the station was neat and commodious,
and its rooms well furnished. We fared sumptuously on cutlets and
eggs, with excellent bread. Just as we were seated in the sleigh, a
beggar made a touching appeal, as explained by the doctor, in behalf
of the prophet Elias. The prophet’s financial agent was of so
unprepossessing appearance that we declined investing. Beggars often
ask alms in the interest of particular saints, and this one had
attached himself to Elias.
We met many sledges laden with goods _en route_ to the fair which
takes place every February at Irbit. This fair is of great importance
to Siberia, and attracts merchants from all the region west of Tomsk.
From forty to fifty million roubles worth of goods are exchanged there
during the four weeks devoted to traffic. The commodities from Siberia
are chiefly furs and tea, those from Europe comprise a great many
articles. Irbit is on the Asiatic side of the Ural mountains, about
two hundred versts northeast of Ekaterineburg. It is a place of little
consequence except during the time of the fair.
After entering Europe, we relied upon the stations for our meals,
carrying no provisions with us except tea and sugar. We knew the
peasants would be well supplied with edibles during Christmas
holidays, and were quite safe in depending upon them. A traveler in
Russia must consult the calendar before starting on a journey, if he
would ascertain what provision he may, or may not, find among the
people.
Congour was the first town of importance, and has an unenviable
reputation for its numerous thieves. They do not molest the post
vehicles unless the opportunity is very favorable, their
accomplishments being specially exercised upon merchandise trains.
Sometimes when trains pass through Congour the natives manage to steal
single vehicles and their loads. The operation is facilitated by there
being only one driver to five or six teams. This town is also famous
for its tanneries, the leather from Congour having a high reputation
throughout Russia. Peter the Great was at much trouble to teach the
art of tanning to his subjects. At present, the Russians have very
little to learn from others on that score. Peter introduced tanning
from Holland and Germany, and when the first piece of leather tanned
in Russia was brought to him he took it between his teeth and exerted
all the strength of his jaws to bite through it. The leather resisted
his efforts, and so delighted the monarch that he decreed a pension
to the successful tanner. The specimen, with the marks of his teeth
upon it, is still preserved at St. Petersburg.
While waiting for dinner at Congour, I contemplated some engravings
hanging in the public room at the station. Four of them represented
scenes in “Elizabeth, or the exiles of Siberia,” a story which has
been translated into most modern languages. These engravings were made
in Moscow several years ago, and illustrated the most prominent
incidents in the narrative.
There were many things to remind me I was no longer in Siberia, and
especially on the Baraba steppe. Snows were deeper, and the sky was
clearer. The level country was replaced by a broken one. Forests of
pine and fir displayed regular clearings, and evinced careful
attention. Villages were more numerous, larger and of greater
antiquity. Stations were better kept and had more the air of hotels.
Churches appeared more venerable and less venerated. Beggars increased
in number, and importunity. In Asia the yemshick was the only man at a
station who asked “navodku,” but in Europe the _chelavek_ or _starost_
expected to be remembered. In Asia, the gratuity was called “Navodku”
or whisky money; in Europe, it was “_nachi_,” tea money.
During the second night, we reached Perm and halted long enough to eat
a supper that made me dream of tigers and polar bears during my first
sleep. In entering, we drove along a lighted street with substantial
houses on either side, but without meeting man or beast. This street
and the station were all I saw of a city of 25,000 inhabitants. In
summer travelers for Siberia usually leave the steamboat at this
point, and begin their land journey, the Kama being navigable thus far
in ordinary water. Perm is an important mining center, and contains
several foundries and manufactories on an extensive scale. The doctor
assured me that after the places I had visited in Siberia, there was
nothing to be seen there—and I saw it.
A deep snow had been trodden into an uneven road in this part of the
journey. At times it seemed to me as if the sleigh and all it
contained would go to pieces in the terrific thumps we received. We
descended hills as if pursued by wolves or a guilty conscience, and it
was generally our fate to find a huge oukhaba just when the horses
were doing their best. I think the sleigh sometimes made a clear leap
of six or eight feet from the crest of a ridge to the bottom of a
hollow. The leaping was not very objectionable, but the impact made
everything rattle. I could say, like the Irishman who fell from a
house top, “’twas not the fall, darling, that hurt me, but stopping so
quick at the end.”
When the roads are rough the continual jolting of the sleigh is very
fatiguing to a traveler, and frequently, during the first two or three
days of his journey, throws him into what is very properly designated
the road fever. His pulse is quick, his blood warm, his head aches,
his whole frame becomes sore and stiff, and his mind is far from being
serene and amiable. In the first part of my land journey I had the
satisfaction of ascertaining by practical experience the exact
character of the road-fever. My brain seemed ready to burst, and
appeared to my excited imagination about as large as a barrel; every
fresh jolt and thump of the vehicle gave me a sensation as if somebody
were driving a tenpenny nail into my skull; as for good-nature under
such circumstances that was out of the question, and I am free to
confess that my temper was not unlike that of a bear with a sore head.
Where the roads are good, or if the speed is not great, one can sleep
very well in a Russian sleigh; I succeeded in extracting a great deal
of slumber from my vehicle, and sometimes did not wake for three or
four hours. Sometimes the roads are in such wretched condition that
one is tossed to the height of discomfort, and can be very well
likened to a lump of butter in a revolving churn. In such cases sleep
is almost if not wholly, impossible, and the traveler, proceeding at
courier speed, must take advantage of the few moments’ halt at the
stations while the horses are being changed. As he has but ten or
fifteen minutes for the change he makes good use of his time and
sleeps very soundly until his team is ready. During the Crimean war,
while the Emperor Nicholas was temporarily sojourning at Moscow, a
courier arrived one day with important dispatches from Sebastopol. He
was commissioned to deliver them to no one but His Majesty, and waited
in the ante-room of the palace while his name and business were
announced. Overcome by fatigue he fell asleep; when the chamberlains
came to take him to the Imperial presence they were quite unable to
rouse him. The attendants shook him and shouted, but to no purpose
beyond making so much disturbance as to bring the Emperor to the
ante-room. Nicholas ordered them to desist, and then, standing near
the officer, said, in an ordinary voice, “_Vashe prevoschoditelstvo,
loshadi gotovey_” (Your horses are ready, your Excellency). The
officer sprang to his feet in an instant, greatly to the delight of
the Emperor and to his own confusion when he discovered where he was.
The Russians have several popular songs that celebrate the glories of
sleigh-riding. I give a translation of a portion of one of them, a
song that is frequently repeated by the peasants in the vicinity of
Moscow and Nijne Novgorod. It is proper to explain that a _troika_ is
a team of three horses abreast, the _douga_ is the yoke above the
shaft-horse’s neck, and Valdai is the town on the Moscow and St.
Petersburg road where the best and most famous bells of Russia are
made.
A RUSSIAN SLEIGHING SONG.
Away, away, along the road
The fiery troika bounds,
While ’neath the douga, sadly sweet,
The Valdai bell resounds.
Away, away, we leave the town,
Its roofs and spires behind,
The crystal snow-flakes dance around
As o’er the steppe we wind.
Away, away, the glittering stars
Shine greeting from above,
Our hearts beat fast as on we glide,
Swift as the flying dove.