THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW.
M. BILLOT is a Swiss landlord, who keeps a good hotel in Moscow. He has
a charming wife and family around him, a well-trained corps of servants,
and makes his house a home for American and English guests. It is
something for a weary traveller to find a home when he gets to Moscow.
I have but one fault to find with Moscow’s bed and board. Mind, it is
not a complaint against mine host, M. Billot. It is the fault of the
city, that it is full of fleas. We charged upon them with a flea powder,
the second night of our sojourn there, but the powder about M. Billot’s
pillows was as troublesome as the fleas.
We had heard of this house and landlord; for the Swiss go into all the
countries of Europe, and some others, to keep the hotels. We found a
connected line of them all through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend
travellers to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we
arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot’s man, he put us
into a carriage, and away we were whirled over the roughest roads that
we had ever endured in a city. Moscow seemed to be too small for its
people, as the people appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The
streets were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and their
market-places presented the liveliest scenes imaginable.
[Illustration: THE KREMLIN.]
Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for every Christian
crosses himself before each of them; even the coachman in front of us
drops his whip from his right hand, and makes the sacred sign on his
breast, as he drives by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly
bow themselves at a great distance from the altar.
Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim apparently, for
after the city committed suicide in 1813, on the coming of Napoleon, it
was rebuilt in haste, without plan or purpose, but to get shelter for
living and trade. But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and
gradually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens about
them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid palace in the midst
of the white cottages of humble neighbors, and the three hundred and
seventy churches are interspersed, with their green or gilded cupolas
and shining stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses that
belong to some public institution, and then we break in upon a wide
square where the people seem to be gathered for some special purpose,
and out of this square the streets extend on every side. Then we come to
the high banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst of the
city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices crowning the hills
that rise from its side. The map of the city makes it appear circular.
The circumvallation is twenty miles in extent, and within this are two
concentric lines of fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for
defence, as this remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the
borders of barbarism.
THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.
I never had a very definite idea of the KREMLIN of Moscow. It has been
mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one
must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the
Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the
rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, the site for
the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign,
would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in
1340, walls of oak enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to
resist the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but treason
gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the citadel, and the
walls were destroyed. They were built again and again, but in 1485, when
it was needful to protect the Kremlin against the attack of artillery,
the walls were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid and
lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile and a half in
circumference. Five massive gates admit the flow of life to the temples
of religion and of justice within this enclosure. The chief entrance is
called the “Redeemer” Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is
like going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over it is
a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and no one may pass under it
without taking off his hat. Formerly, whoever was so hasty or forgetful
as to neglect this mark of respect, was punished by being compelled to
prostrate himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Emperor
of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as he enters this
gate. Hundreds were going in as I approached: on foot, in droskies, in
carriages, but all were mindful of the place, and entered as if they
were going into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates are
the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster guns, quite
antiquated by modern progress, but formidable in their proper place; and
the long rows that are marked as left behind by the French in their
retreat, tell a grim tale of the madness and folly of that disastrous
campaign. Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under
Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the Emperor was in
the city, it was long enough for him to attempt to blow up the tower
over this gate; but a miracle, as the superstitious Russians believe,
was wrought to preserve it; for over the gate is a picture of St.
Nicholas, “the comfort of suffering humanity,” and when the explosion
took place which was to blow this massive structure into ruins, it made
a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame of the picture, and there
it suddenly stopped, not cracking the glass over the picture, nor the
glass lamp hanging before it! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to
be put up in memory of the miracle.
We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, or esplanade,
with a scene immediately around, before, and below us, of interest,
grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A cloudless sky and a blazing sun are
over us. All the buildings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of
thirty-two churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and around,
are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. Each one of three
hundred and seventy churches has several domes, and besides them there
are theatres and palaces, and convents and other public buildings, roofs
painted green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and
spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, as in more
Oriental cities, and the river circling its way into and out of the
town, give us some idea of what Babylon or Nineveh might have been in
their vast enclosure and picturesque rural attractions within their
massive walls.
In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other structure in Moscow,
rises toward the sky the white, solid, simple Tower of IVAN; majestic in
its simplicity and height, as if it were the axis about which this fairy
world of Moscow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of
444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swinging in its
crown.
[Illustration:
PLAN OF THE CENTRE OF MOSKVA CITY.
_Scale of Feet._]
_A._ THE KREMLIN.
1. _Uspenski Sobore, or Cathedral._
2. _Archangelskoi Sobore._
3. _Annunciation Church._
4. _Spass na Boru Church._
5. _Birth of the Virgin Church._
6. _Granovitaya Palata._
7. _Court Church._
8. _Uair the Martyr Church._
9. _Constantine and Helen Church._
10. _Ivanovskaya Kolokolnya._
11. _Twelve Apostles Church._
12. _Holy Synod Office._
13. _Chudor Monastery._
14. _Voznesenskoi Nunnery._
15. _Our Saviour’s Gate._
16. _St. Nicholas’ Gate._
17. _Trinity Gate._
18. _Borovitskiya Gate._
19. _The Secret Gates._
_B._ THE KITAI GOROD.
1. _Pokrovskoi Sobore._
2. _Kazanskoi Sobore._
3. _Iverskaya Chapel._
4-25. _Churches and Monasteries; amongst which No 7 is the Church of
the Mother of God of Vladimir; and No. 15, the Church of the Mother of
God of Georgia._
26. _Varvarskiya Gate._
27. _Ilyinskiya Gate._
28. _Nikolskiya Gate._
29. _Voskresenskoi Gate._
30. _Monument of Minim and Pojarskii._
At the foot of the Ivan Tower, supported by a pedestal of stone, is the
largest bell in the world, and probably the largest that ever _was_ in
the world. A piece is broken out of its side, and the fragment is lying
near. The breadth of the bell is so great,—it is twenty feet
across,—that the cavity underneath has been used as a chapel, where as
many people can stand as in a circle sixty feet around.
In Russia, the bell is an instrument of music for the worship of God as
truly and really as the organ in any other country! This fact is not
mentioned in the accounts we have of the wonderful, enormous, and almost
incredibly heavy bells that have been cast in Moscow. But it is the key
to what would otherwise be difficult to explain. It appears absurd to
cast bells so large as to be next to impossible for convenient use; in
danger always of falling and dragging others to ruin in their fall. But
when the bell is a medium of communication with the Infinite, and the
worship of a people and an empire finds expression in its majestic
tones, it ceases to be a wonder that it should have a tongue which
requires twenty-four men to move, and whose music should send a thrill
of praise into every house in the city, and float away beyond the river
into the plains afar.
Moscow is the holy city of the Greek Church. Pilgrims come hither from
thousands of miles off, and on foot, and sometimes without shoes. I have
seen them with staves in their hand, and their travel-worn feet wound up
in cloths, wending their way to the sacred hill. And when they draw nigh
unto the city, and on the evening air the music of these holy bells is
first borne to their ears, they fall upon their faces, prostrate, and
worship God. If they could go no further, they would be content to die
there, for they have heard the bells of Moscow, and on their majestic
tones their souls have been taken up to heaven. This is the sentiment of
the superstitious peasant, and it is a beautiful sentiment, ideal
indeed, but all the more delicate and exalted.
As long as five hundred years ago, this casting of bells was an _art_ in
Russia. It is one of the fine arts now. Perhaps our great bell-founders
will not admit that the founders there have any more skill in their
manufacture than we have, and I am not sure that their bells have any
tones more exquisite than ours _would_ have if we would put as much
silver and gold into our bell-metal as they do. But so long as those
precious metals are at the present premium, little or none of them will
find its way into our church bells. We have not the idea of the Russian
as to the use of a bell. We use it to call the people to the house of
worship. They use the bell for worship. Our bells speak to us. Their
bells praise God. They cast their silver and their gold into the molten
mass, and it becomes an offering, as on an altar, to him who is
worshipped with every silvery note and golden tone of the holy bell.
This one great bell is the growth of centuries. In 1553 it was cast, and
weighed only 36,000 pounds. It fell in a fire, and was recast in 1654,
being increased to the astonishing weight of 288,000 pounds. This was
too vast a weight to be taken up to the top of the tower, and it was
sustained by a frame at the foot of it. In 1706, it fell in another fire
and was broken into fragments, which lay there on the ground about
thirty years. It was recast in 1733; four years afterwards a piece was
knocked out of the side of it, and it has been standing here on the
ground more than a century. It weighs 444,000 pounds! In the thickest
part it is two feet through. It has relief pictures on it of the Emperor
and Empress, of the Saviour and the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists.
Ascending the Ivan Tower, we find on three successive stories bells to
the number of thirty-four. Some of these are of a size to fill one with
astonishment had he not seen the giant below. The largest is on the
first story above the chapel, and weighs more than sixty tons. It swings
freely and is easily rung. I smote it with the palm of my hand,
supposing that such a blow could not produce the slightest vibration in
such a mighty mass of iron, but it rung out as clear and startling as if
a spirit within had responded to my knock without. Two bells are of
solid silver, and their tones are exquisitely soft, liquid, and pure. It
was exciting to go from one to another and strike them with their
tongues, or with your hand, and catch the variety and richness of their
several melodies.
The chapel below is dedicated to the patron saint of all ladies about to
be married, and it may be readily believed that the bell that gives
expression to their prayers will have, at least to their ears, the
sweetest tone of all the bells in Moscow.
I came down from the Kremlin to my lodgings at Billot’s, and, wearied
with the wanderings of the day, have been lying on the bed and looking
out on the city. It is just before sunset, and the day has been
oppressively warm. A delicious glow from the gorgeous west is bathing
all the domes and roofs with splendid colors, and silence is stealing in
with the setting sun upon the crowded town. It is the eve of one of
their most holy festivals of the church. One vast church edifice is
directly in view of my window and but a short way off. As I lie musing,
from this church comes the softest, sweetest tone of an evening bell.
Another tone responds. A third is heard. The Ivan Tower on the height of
the Kremlin utters his tremendous voice, like the voice of many waters.
And all the churches and towers over the whole city, four hundred bells
and more, in concert, in harmony, “with notes almost divine,” lift up
their voices in an anthem of praise, such as I never thought to hear
with mortal ears: waves of melody, an ocean of music, deep, rolling,
heaving, changing, swelling, sinking, rising, overwhelming, exalting. I
had heard the great organs of Europe, but they were tame and trifling
compared with this. The anthem of Nature at Niagara is one great
monotone. The music of Moscow’s bells is above and beyond them all. It
is the voice of the people. It utters the emotions of millions of
loving, beating, longing hearts, not enlightened, perhaps, like yours,
but all crying out to the great Father, in these solemn and inspiring
tones, as if these tongues had voices to cry: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”