RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.
I HAD always supposed the WINTER Palace of the Emperor was an edifice
prepared with some special reference to the climate of this northern
country. It is called the Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as
a matter of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend the
summer. This is a vast structure on the very border of the river Neva,
and in the midst of the city. It is built of brown stone, and makes some
pretence to architectural elegance.
It, the palace, has five thousand inhabitants! I confess that those
figures of speech seem to be very large, and it is a wonder how so many
people can find employment in the service of one household. But the ways
of royalty are not readily comprehended by mortals of common clay, and
perhaps if we knew how many servants there are who have servants to wait
upon them, how all these have families of their own, and these are all
to be fed and lodged within these walls, we may begin to understand that
one house may become a village, and quite populous also.
But if this number of dependents exceeds that of any other palace in
Europe, as it probably does, it is safe to say that it is the most
gorgeously decorated and furnished. Whatever extravagance the wit of man
could devise to adorn a house has been lavished here, and the result is
what might be expected,—a great display without that quiet elegance
which distinguishes true from meretricious art. The Russian is between
the Eastern and Western. The Russian is not a barbarous people, nor yet
thoroughly civilized. On the borders of the two, he delights in the
barbaric splendor of the Orientals, and has not yet reached the point
where simplicity imparts the highest charm to elegance and grandeur.
This accounts for the architecture of Russian palaces and temples. More
emphatically it shows itself in the immense amount of gold which
overlays every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their
churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising sun.
The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest in the
Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led over miles of
polished floors to look through room upon room, in endless mazes lost,
seeing the same things substantially everywhere, and hearing the same
story over and over again about the kings and queens that slept here and
died there; though, as it was built since 1840, there is little or no
historic interest about it. But the crown jewels are worth seeing. One
loves to look at a diamond worth a million, though he cannot use it for
a button. The Orloff diamond is as famous as the Koh-i-noor, and was,
perhaps, at one time part of the same stone. Its history is romantic. It
was once the eye of an idol in a temple in India, and being plucked out
and stolen by a soldier, it passed through many hands till Count Orloff
bought it and gave it to the Empress of Russia. It cost the Count or the
Empress about three hundred thousand dollars. It weighs 194 carats,
being eight carats more than the Koh-i-noor weighed when it came from
India. The Orloff is the largest of the crown jewels in Europe. The
imperial crown itself is radiant with the most magnificent gems, forty
or more in number, and the crown of the Empress contains the most
beautiful mass of diamonds known to be set together; a hundred of them
at least. Some of the richest are precious stones presented to Russia by
sovereigns in the East who would conciliate this mighty power. And what
are they good for, when gathered into such a treasury? They are the
playthings of royalty; baubles that delight the eye, pure carbon that is
sold by the ton for a few dollars, but in the form of a diamond, it has
a value scarcely to be reckoned, when they lie around in such heaps as
we see them here.
The Hermitage is a palace near to the other, in which are the Russian
galleries of art. If it was surprising to find in Madrid the most
valuable collection of paintings in Europe, it was not less astonishing
to find in Russia such magnificent pictures and so large a number of
those that deserve admiration. For many years past the government has
been spending large sums of money in the purchase of pictures. It has
had and has its agents in Italy, and in every picture mart in Europe,
ready to pay any price for “an old master.”
And it has shown its good sense in this, that when it cannot compass the
original, it gets the best possible copy, and hangs it on its walls,
with its story fairly told. This is the true way to cultivate the taste,
and instruct the intellect of the nation in art. Catharine the Great
built a pavilion on the end of the Winter Palace, to which she might
retire from the cares of State, and here she drew around her the wits of
the age. She called it the Hermitage, and that it might be a real
refuge, into which royalty and its stiltedness could not intrude, she
made a curious code of laws to govern the company that she here
assembled.
The Hermitage is now the Royal Museum, and its grandeur and extent are
unequalled. It is 515 feet long and 375 feet wide. The roof of this vast
hall is supported by sixteen columns, each one a single block of granite
from Finland, with Corinthian capitals of Carara marble. Successive
stories on the same scale are filled with statues and pictures, and
curious works of art, in which the genius and skill of all schools and
nations are represented. Even to mention them would take up more of your
time than would be proper for me to consume, and I let them pass
unnoticed. I was even more interested in Peter the Great’s gallery,
where his turning-lathes and other tools that he used with his own hands
are preserved; and what is even more remarkable, the instruments that he
manufactured for himself, from a telescope to a walking-stick. His iron
staff that he carried about with him would not be credited as genuine,
were it not that a wooden rod tells of his gigantic stature, and thus
makes it quite probable that he could walk with a rod of iron.
Art-culture in Russia has advanced to a far higher point than we would
expect to find. The painting and sculpture of Russia in the Paris
exhibition astonished the outside world, and the galleries in the
Hermitage devoted to native art are marvellously illustrated with
splendid achievements of the chisel and pencil.
In all countries I am more interested in studying the condition of the
masses than the “upper classes.” In all countries the rich and the
titled, the “well-to-do in the world,” can take care of themselves, and
they are substantially the same kind of people in all civilized lands.
The nobles of England, of France, of Germany, of Russia, have plenty to
eat and to drink and they know wherewithal they are to be clothed, and
when one is travelling in their country, he has no need to ask whether
or not they are enjoying themselves after their own fashion, and have
any need of human sympathy. But when we pass through a Russian town with
a thousand huts in it, all about the same size, and not one aspiring to
the dignity of a respectable American farm-house, and see vast tracts of
land well tilled, but not a house nor a man in sight, then I wonder how
the people live in these parts; what do they eat and drink, and do they
have enough? Are they contented and happy, or do they hunger and pine,
and drag out a miserable sort of life of it, here in these far-away
lands?
In the agricultural districts of Russia, not very far away from the
chief cities, a laborer gets for a day’s work his food and about fifty
copeks, or, of our money, about forty cents a day. A mechanic gets about
one rouble, which is a hundred copeks, or about eighty cents of our
money, for a day’s work, and he finds his own food. In the winter season
beef is sold in St. Petersburg for ten or twelve cents a pound, and in
summer it is as low as eight cents. This will enable you to compare the
rate of wages with the price of food, and to see that there is not so
great a difference in the cost, to the poor, of living in that country
and ours, as might at first be supposed.
The rent of the hotel at which I am staying in St. Petersburg—and it is
one of the largest in the kingdom—is about fifteen thousand dollars per
annum, and that is about seven per cent on the valuation of the
property.
The food of the peasantry is largely composed of cabbage soup, which is
a great article among them, and they consume it day after day, year in
and year out, and are always fond of it. This is one of the pleasantest
compensations of Providence, that people may continue to be fond of a
dish that they have to eat every day. Their bread is black, and they
have some meat, for it is not costly, and on the whole they are
comfortably fed. So they are decently clothed. Their dress has the
appearance of warmth and comfort, too much for the hot weather that is
now raging; but they have so much cold and so little heat, that they do
not care to make a change for the brief summer. A poor peasant swelters
in a jacket of sheepskin with the wool on it, or wears a fur collar if
he can afford it, and sticks to it under a blazing hot sun, as well as
in midwinter.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN A RUSSIAN CITY.]
A peculiar custom is observed in Russia that I never noticed elsewhere.
You are expected always to take off your overcoat on entering the house
to make a call, of business or pleasure. Even when you call at the bank,
to draw or deposit your money, a liveried servant in the hall conducts
you to an anteroom, where you lay aside your overcoat and hat, and then
enter the business-room as if you were to be presented to the lady of
the mansion. My bankers here are Wynken & Co., at the end of the iron
bridge over the Neva, and, upon entering, I was shown to a seat, and my
letter of credit taken by a clerk to one of the firm, who immediately
came out from his office, and after a few complimentary inquiries, asked
me what he could do for me, and in a few minutes the business was done.
A despot is the Emperor of Russia. We have come to associate only a bad
meaning with the word _despot_. It had not such a sense as we liberty
worshippers give it. Now it means a tyrant, a hard master, one who has
unlimited power and uses it to oppress. _Despotes_ is the Greek word for
master in the New Testament, and sometimes the _Lord_ himself is spoken
of and addressed under this name. The apostle Paul says: “Let as many
servants as are under the yoke, count their own _despots_ worthy of all
honor.” And again: “they that have believing _despots_;” and again, he
commands servants to be obedient unto their own _despots_. So Peter
tells them to be subject to their own _despots_. And good old Simeon
cries; “_Despotes_, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” And
Peter speaks of those who deny the _despotes_ that bought them; and in
Rev. vi. 10, we read: “Plow long, O _despotes_, holy and true,” &c.
These quotations show us the good sense in which the word was once used;
and now, when we speak of a despotic government, we do not understand
that it is necessarily an oppressive government, but one in which the
power is concentrated in the hands of one man, who can use it at his
pleasure, unrestrained by constitution or legislature.
Justice is administered under laws the issue of the sovereign will, and
liable to be repealed at his pleasure. _Trial by jury_ is of recent
introduction, and may be considered as an experiment. In the court-room
I inquired of an intelligent gentleman how it was working. He said,
quite well; and then related the following incident to show how the
royal will comes in, even to the smallest affairs of private citizens:
An officer under the government promised to give a certain _place_ of
profit to a man, who was soon surprised to find that it was given to
another. Such mishaps are not unusual in milder governments, I believe.
But the disappointed office-seeker sought the man who had promised it to
him, and slapped his face in open court, charging him with a breach of
faith. He was arraigned and tried by jury for the assault and battery,
and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, or more
accurately,—“Served him right.” The verdict was received with great
applause. The Emperor gave the office-seeker and the office-holder also,
the striker and the struck, appointments in distant parts of the empire,
where neither of them wanted to go or to stay, and thus he punished them
both: one for breaking his word, and the other for breaking the peace.
There is a vein of humor in such administration of justice.
“The bookkeeper of a mercantile house in Thorn was arrested in the
Russian town of Rieszawa, by the burgomaster of that place, on a
perfectly unfounded charge of an intention to smuggle. Although the
bookkeeper succeeded in establishing his respectability, he was thrown
into a dirty prison cell, and kept there twenty-four hours. His
principal, of course, complained of this most unjustifiable treatment,
and has lately received an official communication that the burgomaster
has also been imprisoned twenty-four hours, and in the same prison in
which he had shut up the unhappy bookkeeper.”
M. Andreoli, a Russian writer, who was exiled some years ago to Siberia,
is now contributing to the _Revue Moderne_, under the title of
“Souvenirs de Sibérie,” his recollections not only of Siberian but also
of Russian life. In the last number of the _Revue_ he tells a story, the
end of which belongs to the present reign, the beginning to the reign of
Paul, of whose period it is strikingly characteristic. The Emperor’s
favorite was at that time a young French actress, of whom he was madly
jealous. One evening, at a ball, he noticed that a young man named
Labanoff was paying her a great deal of attention. He did not lose his
temper, but at the end of the ball gave orders that Labanoff should be
arrested and thrown into the citadel. He only intended to keep him there
a few days, “to make him more serious,” after which he proposed to
reprimand him and to appoint him to an office which had been solicited
for him. Labanoff, however, was forgotten. At the death of Nicholas,
Alexander II., then full of magnanimity, liberated all the prisoners in
the citadel, without exception. In a vaulted tomb, in which it was
impossible to stand upright, and which was not more than two yards long,
an old man was found, almost bent double, and incapable of answering
when he was spoken to. This was Labanoff. The Emperor Paul had been
succeeded by the Emperor Alexander I., and afterwards by the Emperor
Nicholas; he had been in the dungeon more than fifty years. When he was
taken out he could not bear the light, and, by a strange phenomenon, his
movements had become automatic. He could hardly hold himself up, and he
had become so accustomed to move about within the limits of his narrow
cell that he could not take more than two steps forwards without turning
round, as though he had struck against a wall, and taking two steps
backwards, and so on alternately. He lived for only a week after his
liberation.
We often read such facts as these, and they are sad and awful
illustrations of what unlimited power may be left to do. Recently there
have been horrible stories of cruelties inflicted by the agents of the
Russian government, but they are not worse than have sometimes been
perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice in other and more
enlightened countries.
Look on the map of Asia and see that vast country of SIBERIA, a part of
the colossal empire of Russia. The tales that are told of the exiles of
Siberia have formed a large part of the sensational literature of other
days. In that lone, distant, cold, inhospitable clime, is the region
where for many long years this government has sent its prisoners of
state, and many others who have incurred the despotic displeasure.
Banished for life is to all intents and purposes death. The wife of the
exile, if not allowed to go with him and share his sorrows in a wretched
land, is free to be married again. His property goes to his heirs as if
he were dead. He has not even his own name in Siberia, but is known by
the _number_ that he receives when he enters upon his new estate.
It is terrible to think that one imperfect man holds in his own hand
such power. The mere possession of it tempts to evil. And limit it as we
may, divide it among many, apply checks and balances, there will yet be
abuses under all systems of human government. Even our own boasted
democratic republican form has its defects. We have made ignorance and
vice too mighty in our popular elections, and have come to know that no
despot is more irresponsible than the many-headed monster of a corrupt
and unthinking multitude.
Taking a boat on the Neva and being rowed across to the Academy of
Science, we made an interesting visit to the Zoological Museum, which
has some things of interest far beyond that of any other museum in the
world. Here we have something more than fossils, we have the veritable
meat of the mammoth and mastodon and elephant, and perhaps they may all
belong to one and the same animal. But the Siberian rivers have
furnished ice-tombs in which these beasts have been buried for
centuries, and when they are brought to light by the change in the
course of the streams, or by accidental discovery, they are certainly
the most interesting of all the remains of extinct races. The great
mammoth in this museum was found in 1799, on the banks of the river Lena
in Siberia, and the flesh was so fresh upon it that the beasts and birds
of prey were ready to devour it as soon as it was exposed.
The chief interest in this Russian collection lies in the actual skin
and hair and flesh of these animals so remarkably preserved. Here is a
rhinoceros, but of a species now extinct, with its head almost entirely
covered with the original skin, and its feet also, the fine hair being
still visible. The seals and otters, sharks and sea-horses, sword-fish
and alligators, lions, tigers, bears, elks, and mooses; birds of
countless kinds,—make up an assortment wonderful in its extent and
variety, and the more interesting as the pursuit of science has led to
the gathering of splendid specimens from the tropical regions, to be
contrasted with the aboriginal growth of these Arctic climes.
It was the edge of evening as we returned from this expedition, and the
declining sun was flooding the river and the eastern shore with golden
glory. We were tired; the evening was cool and refreshing; the scene was
beautiful, indeed exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept
by us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream.
The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander Column, the Admiralty
Buildings, and other splendid edifices were on the western bank, the
fortress and arsenal and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac
and Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed to be far away
from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. We rowed along under the stern
of a vessel and read her name, “Favorite, Arbroath;” it sounded Scotchy,
and hailing a sailor leaning over the ship’s side, I asked him, “where’s
Arbroath?”
“Aboot twelve miles from Dundee,” he said.
“And what brings you here?”
“The ship,” he answered, and then added that the cargo was fire-brick,
made in England, and brought here for the Russians, who make great use
of it in their stoves. He did not like the Russians, he said, and hoped
he should never have to come there again.
Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we walked up and down
the river enjoying the evening breeze, he soon passed us with another
company in his boat, and taking off his cap saluted us as old customers
with a grace that would do credit to a Paris waterman.
It was half-past nine o’clock when we saw the last rays of the sun on
the spire of the arsenal church, and we then went home. It is now eleven
o’clock at night, and I am writing by the light from the window opening
into a court. It would be easy to write all night without a candle.
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN PORTER.]