PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW.
IF you are weary reading of royal palaces, you will be sorry to be
invited to the one more gorgeously adorned and illustrated than any
other which you and I have entered in company. You have often heard of,
and perhaps have seen, some specimens of barbaric splendor! You have
associated with the word _barbaric_, ideas of Oriental and excessive
magnificence, laid on without the more refined and chastened taste of
modern civilization. It is a word the old Romans used to define _foreign
people_, and whatever came to Rome from foreign parts: all the world was
barbarous or Roman. We do not use the word in the same sense as
barbarous. But with it, in connection with gold and pearls and
decorations of the palace, we associate a wealth of luxury and
brilliancy of ornamentation, that would suit the meridian of Persia
rather than of Paris.
Not having seen the palaces of the interior of Asia, I cannot draw a
comparison between them and the royal residences of European monarchs.
But we are now on the border between the East and the West, between Asia
and Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civilization. Take
a map of the world and see where Moscow stands! What vast, uncultured,
desolate regions lie at the east of it, and still further on, what
empires and peoples that make up the bulk of the human race! Out of the
barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth’s plane, Russia is
emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town; a wall and a monument: a sign
and guide, signifying what Russia has been, and leading on to something
higher and better, though the future is still in the depths of political
and moral uncertainties.
The Tartar hordes have in ages past been fond of making raids upon
Moscow, and leaving her palaces heaps of smoking ruins. In old times the
Russians built them of wood for the most part, though one of stone
erected in 1484 is still standing. Then the Czars removed the capital to
St. Petersburg, and for a long time the Kremlin was without a palace or
an emperor. The celebrated Empress Anne gave Moscow a palace, and her
presence now and then, and Catharine II. designed a royal residence so
vast and gorgeous as to rival the palaces of the world, but it was never
finished; its model is preserved as a curiosity in the treasury. What
she did build, the French wantonly burned when they were compelled to
desert the city which its own inhabitants had consigned to destruction.
This house, at the doors of which we have been standing while I have
given you these historical facts, is the work of the late Nicholas, and
is only about twenty years old. It has no likeness in the various orders
of architecture; there is no correspondence or harmony between the
within and without of it: yet the whole interior is a blaze of gold and
upholstery that leaves all rules of taste and art out of the question.
We pass through the Empress’s drawing-room, hung with white silk, her
cabinet in crimson, her dressing and bath rooms with malachite mantels
and priceless ornaments; the Emperor’s cabinet, with magnificent
paintings of the proud French coming into Moscow, and the poor French
skulking out,—grim satires these on the horrors and fortunes of war; the
state apartments, with huge crystal vases at the entrance; the Hall of
St. George, with the names of regiments and soldiers inscribed in gold
upon the walls, who have been decorated with this order for bravery on
the field; the Hall of St. Andrew, hung with blue silk, and inscribed
with the names of heroes; the Emperor’s throne, more ostentatious and
imposing than any other in Europe; the audience-chamber and
banqueting-room, on which is lavished the last resource of gilt and
paint to make a show,—and yet when we are ushered into the Gold Court,
all former magnificence is for the moment forgotten in the dazzling
splendor that fills the place, as if the walls were blazing with living
golden light. A flight of steps at one end of the room, called “the red
stair case,” is never trodden upon but when the Emperor, on the greatest
of all occasions, goes to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This is part
of the old palace begun by Catharine, and has a history running back to
the time when John the Terrible stood here and saw the comet that he
construed into an omen of his doom. And up this flight of stairs came
Napoleon, the greatest of actors, when he took possession of the palace
of the Kremlin. And when he went down these stairs he began that descent
which never stopped till he touched the bottom of his tomb.
The right wing of the palace is the treasury building, with the most
remarkable collection of objects to be seen in Russia. The Tower of
London illustrates England as this museum tells the history of the
Russian empire. Her past and present intercourse with the Asiatic
nations, and her more modern commercial relations with the West, have
made Moscow the emporium of all that distinguishes her ancient and
modern commerce, and exchange of presents when treaties have been made.
What riches of plate, jewels, silks, manufactures, which China, India,
Persia, Armenia, and other powers, peoples, and tribes have poured into
the lap of this colossal power in the progress of centuries! When the
French were coming, the prudent Russians, foreseeing the evil, removed
these pearls and diamonds and rubies, these vessels of gold and silver,
these costly fabrics of art and toil which could never be replaced, and
concealed them far in the interior, where the feet of the enemy would
not be apt to follow them.
Among the historical curiosities here preserved with religious care, the
traveller from the land of liberty views with sorrow and indignation the
throne of Poland! Other thrones, as trophies of conquered kingdoms,
stand near. One of ivory was brought from Constantinople in 1472.
Another is from Persia, taken as long ago as 1660. It is covered with
876 diamonds, 1,223 rubies, and many other precious stones. Blazing in
front of these thrones is an orb, which the Greek emperors, Basilius and
Constantine, sent to Wladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kief, with a piece
of the true cross! This orb is adorned with fifty-eight diamonds,
eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, fifty emeralds, and
thirty-seven other stones, and with enamels colored in the highest style
of Grecian art, to tell the story of King David, of the land of Israel.
One of the most wonderful institutions of Moscow is the hospital for
foundlings, into which about twelve thousand children are taken yearly.
As many, if not more, are received into a similar institution in St.
Petersburg. It is said that no cities in the world surpass those of
Russia in the comforts provided for the care of these outcasts from the
birth, the most forlorn and helpless of all the objects that appeal to
human sympathy. The government makes a yearly grant of about a million
of dollars to this hospital in Moscow, and it has large resources
besides, so that there is no lack of funds to meet the wants of these
unfortunate little people, whose fathers and mothers forsaking them are
taken up by the Lord.
In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside the walls of
the asylum, and in, so that a child could be placed upon it outside, and
on the door-bell being rung the table would be set in motion, and the
infant is gently rolled into the house. The mother or friend who brought
the child and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its
charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet utterly unseen
and unknown. This system has its advantages, and many attendant evils.
But here in Moscow they affect no such mystery about the matter. The
hospital receives the infant children of poor and honest parents who are
willing to give their babes to the state, and it also takes the
offspring of sin and shame who are brought by their mothers or left on
the highway and picked up by the police or the wayfarer. A
reception-room is always open. A man or woman enters with a babe. No
question is asked but these:—
“Has the child been baptized?”
If yes, “By what name?” If it has not been baptized, that sacrament is
at once administered, and the name given is registered opposite a
number, which is hereafter worn as a sign around its neck, and this
number is handed to the person who brings the child. This number
entitles the bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim the
child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own children in the
country, and come here to get the wages and living in the hospital,
which are far better than they enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are
the mothers whose children are here, and as they have the number that
marks their own, they can easily change about till they get the care of
the babe they seek to watch, without its ever being known to be theirs.
Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good nursing can supply to
preserve the lives of these orphans. We go from ward to ward, admiring
the cleanliness, order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed
in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick flannel. They
are not laid on the hard knees or sharp hoops of unfeeling nurses to be
dressed, but they are suffered to lie on pillows of down while this
operation is performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and when
the child may be supposed to have gained some strength, they are sent
with their nurses into the country. They are, however, exposed to such a
climate, and the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a
tough child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half of
them die before they are twelve months old. Half of the remainder who
survive the year fall by the way before they grow up; and so it comes to
pass that only one quarter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these
children of the state live to be men and women. This is a small
proportion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them would have
lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital to care for them.
Another institute we find here in Moscow that has nothing to match it,
and cannot have in our democratic country. The female orphan children of
servants of the Emperor are taken into it, and eight hundred are
constantly receiving an education to fit them for being teachers! They
are bound to devote six years after they leave the institute to the
business of teaching in the interior of the empire. They have a small
salary, and thus provide for themselves while they are doing a good work
for the state. No foundlings are admitted into this house. The orphans
are all supposed to be children of honest parents, and this supposition
keeps up a higher tone of self-respect than would be possible among a
thousand children who did not know who their parents are.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing we have read of in the figure language of the
Bible, but men in sheep’s clothing I had never seen till I met them
to-day, in midsummer, in the market-places of Moscow. They could have
but one suit of clothing, and to cover their nakedness must wear it
summer and winter. It was made, “coat and pants,” of sheepskin with the
wool on, and was worn by some with the wool outside, and by others with
the wool in. On a day like this of sweltering heat, when it was not safe
for us to walk in the sun without parasols, these natives of the north,
with their winter clothes on, were not apparently oppressed; and it was
a comfort to believe that they had become accustomed to it, and had no
idea of any thing more enjoyable than an indefinite degree of heat.
As winter is the _longer half_ of the year, it is the _harvest_ time for
those who are in the line of buying and selling meats and all provisions
that are preserved by frost. As soon as the cold weather fairly sets in,
the fatted cattle and pigs and poultry are doomed to die by the hands of
the butcher. The carcasses are instantly frozen and sent to market. Here
it is packed up in enormous heaps, and families who are able to buy at
wholesale prices lay in their winter supplies, and those who live from
hand to mouth can buy at any time fresh meat that was killed in the
fall. The weather is so uniformly cold that little danger of a thaw is
apprehended, but if it comes, away goes the meat. And it must at any
time be cooked immediately on thawing, so that it is rather a precarious
mode of preserving provisions. But it is adapted to the country and
climate, it saves packing and salting, and has the advantage of
furnishing fresh meat, at moderate prices, at all times. The fish from
the White Sea are also kept, like wood-piles, in heaps with oxen and
sheep and deer. The flesh of mammoths and elephants of past ages has
been found in perfect preservation in the icy regions of the north, and
it is certainly one of the remarkable _provisions_ of nature that cold,
which is so destructive of animal life, should also be the preserver of
flesh, for indefinite periods, after the life principle has been
extinguished.
The Jews in Chatham Street, New York, who press their wares upon the
notice of passers by, are modest compared with the vendors of old
clothes and miscellaneous matters in the markets of Moscow. It was hard
to get away from them without making an investment in the most
undesirable of all worldly goods,—a coat that somebody else had cast
off. And such a jumble of things! reminding one of the sign on the
country store window-shutter of an alliterative dealer: “Bibles,
Blackball, Butter, Testaments, Tar, Treacle, Godly-books, and Gimlets,
for sale here.” Ironware, pot-metal, in the shape of utensils for
cooking, seemed to abound; and if the poorer people, who are the buyers
here, have any thing to cook, it is very pleasant to know it. Their food
is mainly milk, eggs, pickles, cabbage, and black bread, with beef and
mutton according to their ability to buy it. As a general thing the
Russian peasants are not underfed; the land being so largely in the
immediate care of the laborer himself, he can manage to get food for
himself and family. And as they clothe themselves in the rudest and most
primitive way, literally using skins of beasts, and in their natural
state, they ought to be able to live comfortably without handling much
money.
The “Riding School” of Moscow is the building in which a remarkable
museum is gathered. This building is one of the longest with an unbroken
area in the world, the roof, without a column to support it, covering a
space 560 feet long and 160 wide. It is constructed on this enormous
scale for the exercise of regiments, cavalry and foot, in winter, when
the weather is so severe as to render drills out of doors impossible.
The Ethnological Society of the North of Europe had selected this
place—and it was my good fortune to be here at the time—for the
exhibition of the Slavonic races in wax! Here they are in all their
varied employments, according to the climate, habits, and necessities of
the several peoples; with their actual surroundings of forest, ice,
snow, sea, river; the men, women, and children, with dogs, poultry,
oxen, reindeer, and sledges, hunting and fishing, freezing and trying to
keep warm, marrying and trading and travelling; here are Albanian
costumes, and there a cavern and human skeletons sitting in it, telling
a story I could not understand, and here a cottage out of whose roof the
smoke curls gracefully, and the open door and chickens and children
playing near, need no interpreter to speak of comfort and content.
If one were writing a volume of the manners and customs of the Slavonic
races, he would learn more of them by the study of this museum than in
months of travel among the people. The society is composed of learned
and thoughtful men of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, &c., who meet
annually for the collection and diffusion of useful knowledge on the
subject of their own race specially and the family of man. We are very
apt to think that, outside of our own English-speaking countries, there
is little doing to promote the civilization and thus the happiness of
the human race. Travel takes this and many other conceits out of a man.
One of the first things he learns, if he is capable of learning any
thing, is that he knows very little of what is going on in the world.
Then he finds that people whom he thought slow and only half civilized
are far ahead of him in many things, and by degrees he comes to the
conclusion that there is much in the world to be learned that he had
never dreamed of. But if he sticks to it that what he does not know is
not worth knowing, like my fellow countryman who insists that there is
more art in Illinois than in all Europe, then you may be sure that he
answers to the cane shown to Sydney Smith by one of this sort of
travellers who said:
“This stick, sir, has been all around the world, sir.”
“Is it possible,” replied Mr. Smith, “why it’s nothing but a stick for
all that!”