Distant View of Saint Petersburg--How it is built--Enter the City of
the Czar--Its Appearance at First Sight--Mount a Drosky--The
Travellers reach their Hotel--Outline Sketch of Saint Petersburg--A
Tour round the City--Its Palaces and Public Buildings.
"There it is! There it is! There's the city--Saint Petersburg itself!"
exclaimed the young travellers, as, directly ahead, appeared rising out
of the water a line of golden domes, and tall spires and towers,
glittering brightly in the sun, like some magic city of ancient romance.
Conspicuous above all was the superb pile of the Isaac Church, the most
modern sacred edifice in the city, and by far the finest; and near it
was seen the graceful tower of the Admiralty, tapering up like a golden
needle into the blue sky. Soon other buildings--hospitals, and palaces,
and houses, and towers, either not so lofty or farther off--rose to
view; but no land could be discovered on which their bases might rest.
This vast city, they learned, was built by the imperial will of Peter
the Great on a marsh, he hoping to make it a great maritime port. Every
house in it stands on a platform of piles, driven far down into the soft
ground. Before a building can be erected, it is necessary thus to
prepare its foundations, often at an enormous expense.
The shores of the lake-like expanse along which they were steering were
covered with woods, from among which peeped the gilt domes of the
Imperial Palace of Peterhoff, and many other golden cupolas and spires,
and marble-white towers, and walls of churches and monasteries, and
palaces and villas, and also some stables, larger than any other edifice
in the neighbourhood, belonging to the Grand Duke Michael. On a hill
above them, a little distance to the west, appeared the unpretending
villa of the late Emperor. It is exactly like a second-class country
house. Here he used to delight to retire with his family from the cares
of state, and to throw aside completely all imperial grandeur.
"Ah! Notwithstanding his overpowering ambition, his towering pride and
haughtiness, that villa alone shows that he was a man after all,"
observed a fellow-passenger to Cousin Giles.
The head of the gulf narrowed a little, but very little, as they
advanced. A few buildings now appeared ahead, and their friend was
pointing out to the young travellers the walls of some barracks burnt
long ago, and the ancient galley mole which sheltered the Russian
galleys in the war with the Swedes, when on a sudden they found
themselves among vast warehouses and manufactories, and tanneries and
granaries, and the magnificent foundry and private residence of Baron
Baird, who is by birth and education an Englishman. All the buildings
are on the banks of the Neva, close to its very mouth. The steamer
making several sharp turns among crowds of steamers and shipping of all
sorts, they speedily found themselves in a region of colleges, and
palaces, and churches, and other public buildings, the houses, which
anywhere else would be palaces, each vying with the other in size and
magnificence, and forming a vast street, the clear, rapid Neva flowing
down the centre, with superb granite quays on each side of it. Nowhere
in the world is there a finer street, though the height of the houses is
lost from its great expanse. Along the line on either side arise marble
columns and golden spires and domes innumerable, the two sides being
connected by one bridge of iron--massive it must be to stand the ice--
and several bridges of boats, which can be removed at the approach of
winter; while in the centre of the stream were men-of-war and other
steamers, and numerous vessels which had brought articles for the Saint
Petersburg market. On the right side was the English quay, with a
handsome building at one end, used as an English hotel. Farther on was
the English church; and extending far away beyond it was palace after
palace, many in the Italian style, the mighty pile of the Winter Palace
being conspicuous above all, though in the far distance; and yet
numberless other proud edifices were to be seen reaching to the same
distance from it on one side as they do on the other. The travellers
had little time to observe these wonders before the steamer brought up
at a floating white and gold temple-looking building mooted at a granite
quay. Elegant as it looked, it was only the custom-house examining
shed. Under a graceful arch, which united a little office on either
side, the luggage was arranged, and bearded heroes in military costume
dipped their hands amid the clean linen and clothes. Their behaviour,
however, was civil; and, having taken possession of all the books they
found, with the exception of Bibles, which they gave back, they made a
sign that the boxes might be closed. The luggage was then turned out
through a gateway into the clean wide road, where there stood, as eager
and vociferous as any Irish carmen, ready to seize on it, a number of
drosky drivers. There are two sorts of hack droskies in Saint
Petersburg. One is somewhat like a small phaeton with wide wings; the
other has what Cousin Giles called a fore-and-aft seat, on which people
sit with their legs astraddle, the driver sitting perched on the end of
it. The horses, which are harnessed with ropes in shafts, are wiry,
shaggy-looking animals, and have high wooden bows arched over their
heads, with the idea of keeping them from stumbling. The drivers are no
less strange to English eyes than their vehicles. They are
long-bearded, shaggy-haired, keen-eyed men, with low-crowned,
broad-curling brimmed hats, wider at the top than at the head. They
wear long blue cloth coats, crossed at the breast, and fastened round
the waist with a red cotton sash. Their wide trousers are tucked into
high boots, and at their back hangs a square brass plate with their
number on it, serving the purpose of the London cabman's badge. They
are, indeed, under very similar regulations.
Cousin Giles chartered three of these vehicles to carry themselves and
their luggage, and the lads laughed heartily as they found themselves
seated astride on one of them, rattling along the quays and over the
bridge to the English hotel, among hundreds of similar vehicles and
long-coated, bearded people, who looked as if they did not think there
was anything strange in the matter at all.
The Miss Bensons, the kind-hearted landladies of the hotel, could just
manage to accommodate the travellers; and they soon found themselves
lodged in very clean rooms, and as comfortable as at any hotel in
England. After the fresh sea air they found the heat very great, and
the houses felt like stoves; indeed, they heard that the weather had
been excessively hot for some days. They, however, had come up with a
fresh breeze, which increased almost to a gale, and effectually cooled
the air.
Cousin Giles was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet; so, as
soon as dinner was over, he and his young companions sauntered out to
take in, as he said, as much of Saint Petersburg as they could that
evening. Just above the city the Neva divides itself into several
branches, which form a number of marshy islands, on which islands Saint
Petersburg is built. The streets have been laid out to accommodate
themselves somewhat to the turnings of the river; so that they are not
at right angles to each other, as might have been expected, though as
much regularity as possible has been observed. The most central spot is
the Admiralty Square, a vast, irregular, open space, with the river on
one side of it; and near the river stands, on a vast block of granite, a
colossal equestrian statue of Peter the Great, with his arm stretched
out in an attitude of command. Forming the different sides of this vast
open space are some of the finest public buildings in the city: the
Admiralty with its golden spire, the beautiful Isaac Church with its
superb granite columns, the Winter Palace with its long rows of richly
ornamented windows, the War Office, the Senate House, and many others.
At one end, with a crescent of fine buildings before it, which contain
the War Office, stands a lofty column of polished granite, consisting
only of two blocks of stone, it is said. It is called the Alexander
Column, and is dedicated to him as "the Restorer of Peace to the World."
He is so called by the Russians in consequence of the part he took in
the overthrow of Napoleon. On its summit stands a green bronze statue
of the Archangel Michael, holding the cross of peace in his hand. From
the space before the Admiralty radiate off the three longest and widest
streets in that city of wide and long streets. The centre one and
longest is called the Nevkoi Prospekt, or the Neva Perspective. The
names of other two may be translated Resurrection Perspective and Peas
Street. The larger streets in the city are called Perspectives. Even
the cross streets in Saint Petersburg are mostly wider than Bond Street,
and often as wide and long as Regent Street. Many canals intersect the
city, and enable bulky goods to be brought to within a short distance of
all the houses by water; so that heavily-laden waggons are never seen
ploughing their way through the streets, as in most cities. There are
no narrow lanes or blind alleys either, the abode of poverty and
pestilence, within the precincts of the palaces of the wealthy and
great. Here, truly, poverty and rags are removed out of sight; but
still they do not cease to dwell in the land. While our young
travellers were standing looking at the Alexander Column, their
fellow-voyager, Mr Henshaw, joined them. As he had been much in all
parts of Russia, he was able to give them a great deal of interesting
information.
"I would advise you first to get a general view of the city, and then
study details," said he. "Get a knowledge of the plan of the city, and
the mode in which it is constructed; then examine the outside of the
more important buildings; and, lastly, visit their interiors when they
contain anything worth seeing. The first thing you should do to-morrow
morning is to ascend the Admiralty tower; the scene from thence, as you
look down into the streets, teeming with their countless multitudes, is
very interesting, while you will also obtain a perfect bird's-eye view
of the whole city and surrounding land and water. We will now, if you
please, take a stroll along the quay beyond the Winter Palace. There
are many objects in that direction worth remarking."
Cousin Giles gladly assented to the proposal, and, returning to the
river, they continued eastward along its banks, passing the front of the
Winter Palace. Near to it they stopped to look at a magnificent pile,
called the Hermitage, which is about as unlike the residence of a
dweller in the wilderness as anything in nature can well be. Mr
Henshaw promised them a sight of the interior another day, and told them
it contained some of the most magnificent rooms in the world, and was
full of fine pictures, rich articles of _vertu_, and numberless valuable
curiosities.
"It was called the Hermitage by the Empress Catherine," said he,
"because she, purposed to retire thither from the cares of state--not,
however, to live the life of an anchorite, but to revel in that
indulgence of all the objects of sense to which her inclinations
prompted her."
"But come along," said Cousin Giles; "we agreed not to spend our time on
details till we had mastered the geography of the city."
So they continued their walk along the quays. Next to the Hermitage,
and joined to it by a passage over an arch which spans a canal,--like
the Bridge of Sighs at Venice, only smaller,--they passed the Imperial
Theatre, and then a succession of fine residences of nobles and private
persons, and lastly the Marble Palace of the Grand Duke Michael. It is
so called not because it is built of marble, but because it has marble
pillars. Across a street, on the same line, stands a fine pile, which
looks like another palace, but in reality contains only the stables and
offices, residences of servants, etcetera, belonging to the Marble
Palace. Among the palaces they passed was a huge white one, with a very
ugly portico.
"That," said Mr Henshaw, "was presented by the Emperor Alexander to the
Duke of Wellington, when he became a Russian field-marshal, that he
might have a house to inhabit should he ever visit Russia. On his death
it reverted to the Russian Government. Opposite to this row of palaces
the Neva is very wide. A branch of it runs away in a more northerly
direction, forming an island which has been covered with fortifications,
and is called the citadel. In the centre stands a church with a lofty
golden pinnacle. Beneath it lie buried the Russian Czars. Here is also
a cottage, built by Peter the Great, where he used to reside while
watching the progress of his navy and the uprearing of the now mighty
city, called after his patron saint."
"From a history I have been reading, I find that Peter was not nearly so
great a man as I fancied," observed Fred.
"Hush! Hush! That is treason here," answered Cousin Giles. "To his
valet he certainly was not great, as Carlyle would say, though he was a
very uncommon man. But we should not judge of people by what they
appear, or even by what they are doing, so much as by the results
produced by their doings. Now Peter contrived, certainly by no very
romantic or refined means, to produce a great number of very wonderful
results. He caused this great city to be erected, he built a large
navy, he taught people to navigate it who had scarcely before seen a
vessel bigger than a Finnish schooner, and he contributed to imbue a
population sunk in barbarism with a desire to assimilate to the
civilised nations of Europe, while he introduced many arts and sciences
before unknown into his country. Considering his powers and the little
support he could obtain from his countrymen, I must say I think he
worked wonders. He was, therefore, certainly what the world calls a
great man, though he had great faults, and many littlenesses and
contemptibilities. I acknowledge, also, that many far greater men have
lived, and are at present alive, and that there will be many more."
"You have defended Peter, and I think on the only grounds on which he
can be defended," said Mr Henshaw; "his private character will not for
a moment bear discussion."
"Certainly not," answered Cousin Giles; "remember, Fred, and Harry also,
that I do not say that he ought properly to be called great, if he is to
be judged by the law of Scripture, nor do I wish you to consider him so.
Who is there, indeed, who can be so called? But he was great according
to the received maxims of the world, by which maxims other men with as
little desert have received the same title."
"Before we return, I must take you to the Summer Gardens, where you see
the trees beyond the Marble Palace," said Mr Henshaw. "I wish to show
you the statue of Kryloff, the Russian Aesop, as he is called."
The Summer Gardens are surrounded by an iron railing, and contain long
rows of fine trees, and gravel walks, and seats, and statues, generally
of a very antique form and taste, happily now exploded, with heathen
deities' hideous faces, such as are to be seen in old prints. In the
centre of a small open space, surrounded by trees, stands the statue of
Kryloff, a fine, bronze, Johnsonian-looking, sitting figure, much larger
than life, with a book and pencil in his hand. The pedestal on which he
is placed has on each side figures of animals, in deep relief,
illustrating his fables. There is the stork and the wolf, and there are
bears and apes, and cats and dogs playing violins and violoncellos and
other musical instruments. Several mujicks (peasants) were gazing at
the figures with intense interest, apparently entering fully into the
spirit of the artist.
On their return along the quays, they stopped to look at the long
bridges of boats which cross the Neva in the summer. A portion of each
can be removed to allow vessels to pass up or down the stream; but by a
police regulation this can be only done with one bridge at a time, and
at a certain fixed hour of the day, so that the traffic across the river
receives no very material interruption. Near the end of one of them, on
the opposite side of the river, they observed a handsome edifice with a
fine portico before it, and two granite columns, ornamented with galleys
carved in white stone. This building they found was the Exchange.
Farther westward of it they observed other magnificent buildings, which
they learned were the Corps of Cadets,--the name is applied to the
building itself,--the Academy of Sciences, the University, the Academy
of Arts, and several others,--all covering a vast extent of ground
nearer the mouth of the river. By the time they reached their hotel
they were tolerably tired, and, to their surprise, they found that it
was nearly ten o'clock. Even then there was a bright twilight, though
it was too dark to enable them to distinguish more than the grand
outlines of the city.