Visit to the Imperial Palace in the Kremlin--The Granovitaya.
Palata--The Terema, or Ancient Palace of the Czars--Cathedral of
Uspensky Sabor--Rarity of Good Paintings in the Russian Churches--
Public Discussions on Religion--Traps for the Unwary--Procession of
Russian Monks--New Church of Saint Saviour--Preparations for the
Coronation--Cathedral of Saint Basil--Sealing up Doors of Shops at
Night--Shopmen bowing to Saints--Bazaar--Chinese City--Russian
Vehicles.
Our friends got a good general idea of the city during the first day of
their residence in it. The next day they obtained tickets of admission
to the Imperial Palaces in the Kremlin, through a gentleman to whom
Cousin Giles had letters. They were accompanied in their visit by some
French friends of his. They were first shown the private rooms of the
Emperor and Empress, which had just been refurnished for their reception
after the coronation. All these rooms were on the ground floor. In the
centre of each was a large square pillar, supporting the storey above.
These pillars, with several screens and curtains in each room, made them
appear small and positively cosy, such as may be found in the house of
moderate size belonging to any lady or gentleman of somewhat luxurious
habits. English people would probably have chosen a more airy situation
for their private abode than the ground floor; but from the lowness of
these rooms they are more easily warmed in winter, and from their being
vaulted they are cooler in summer. After visiting the private rooms,
their guide conducted them up-stairs, when they passed through several
fine halls, similar in grandeur to those in the Hermitage at Saint
Petersburg, and along galleries filled with pictures of very doubtful
merit.
Through an opening in the new palace they walked into one of the old
palaces called the Granovitaya Palata. The second floor is occupied
entirely by the coronation hall of the Emperors. It is a low, vaulted
chamber, the arches resting on a huge square pillar in the centre. Here
the Emperor, clothed in royal robes, for the first time after his
coronation, sits in state, surrounded by his nobles, eating his dinner.
"Ah, I see emperors have to eat like other people," observed Harry when
he was told this. "I wonder, now, what the new Emperor will have for
dinner."
By far the most interesting building in the Kremlin is the ancient
palace of the Czars, called the Terema. It is complete as a residence
in itself, but the halls and sleeping-rooms are remarkably small
compared to those of the huge modern edifice by its side. The walls
from top to bottom are covered with the most strange arabesque devices
which imagination could design--birds, beasts, and fish, interwoven with
leaves and sea-weed of every description. In each room a different tint
predominates, although the same style of ornament is carried throughout,
and the same colours are to be found in each. Thus there is the green
room, the blue room, and the yellow room, and many other coloured rooms.
The ornaments on the banisters, screens, railings, and cornices are
great wooden heads of beasts--lions, or tigers, or monsters of some
sort. The part of the walls enclosing the stoves are of curiously
coloured tiles; indeed, the whole building is a most bizarre, strange
place, a perfect specimen of a Byzantine palace. In variety of
colouring it is something like the Alhambra, but, though equally
wonderful, it is barbarous in the extreme compared to that celebrated
edifice of Southern Spain. Our travellers climbed to the top of this
strange little palace, and went out on the roof, whence they looked down
on a whole mass of golden and coloured domes and minarets, a
considerable number of them belonging to the smallest and most ancient
church in the Kremlin. In the Granovitaya Palata is a window, at which
the Emperor shows himself on state occasions to the troops, drawn up on
the parade. It is one of the windows of the Hall of Justice, and here
suppliants used to be drawn up in a basket, to present their petitions
and to hear judgment pronounced.
"It would have been a convenient way of getting rid of a troublesome
petitioner to let it and the petitioner come down together by the run,
as you would say, Cousin Giles," observed Fred, laughing. "Some such
idea was probably in the minds of the inventors of the custom."
From the old palaces the party proceeded to the Treasury. It is
beautifully arranged, and full of arms and armour of all ages--the
coats, and boots, and hats, or crowns, or helmets, and swords, or
battle-axes of all the Czars who ever sat on the throne of Russia. Some
of the crowns, or other head-pieces, are literally covered with jewels,
placed as close together as the setting will allow. Most of them are
rather curious than elegant; indeed, they nearly all look as if they
belonged to a barbarous age and people.
Among other curious things there is a globe, studded with jewels, sent
by the Greek Emperor to Prince Waldemar, and the crown of the King of
Georgia, the diamond crown of Peter the Great, and the throne on which
Peter and his brother, both children at the time, were placed when he
was crowned. There is a curtain at the back, behind which their mother
stood, and, putting her hands through it, held them in, and guided them
to make the proper signs at the right moment, which movements caused
much wonder and admiration among the admiring multitude.
In the armoury is the chair of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. It is
like a litter, somewhat rudely constructed, or rather can be used as a
chair or litter by turns, having poles at the side by which it is
carried. There are some battered-looking kettle-drums, one belonging to
the same monarch. They were part of the spoils taken by Peter the Great
at the celebrated battle of Pultova, when the Russians at length gained
a victory over the Swedes, and Charles himself, hitherto victorious, was
obliged to seek safety in flight. The most curious articles in the
Museum are, however, the carriages, specimens of which are preserved
from the earliest times in which they were used. They are, as may be
supposed, huge, lumbering, gingerbread, lord-mayor-looking affairs. In
some the coach-box is several yards from the body, and the hind seat is
as many from it at the other end. There is a patriarch's carriage, like
a huge square trunk, and the travelling carriage of Catherine, which has
a table in the centre, and is very like a modern saloon railway
carriage. It is placed on runners instead of wheels, and could only
have been used in winter. Probably in her day the roads would not have
encouraged summer travelling.
From thence the friends went to the Uspensky Sabor, the cathedral church
in which the Emperors are crowned. The lofty roof is supported by four
round pillars, covered from capital to base with sheets of gold and
paintings. There is not a particle of the church which is not thus
ornamented. The effect is rich in the extreme, at the same time bizarre
and barbaric. There are five cupolas, with the faces of saints looking
down from each. An artist was making a drawing of the interior,
introducing the coronation--as it was to be. The picture was for the
Emperor. The outside of this church is ornamented with subjects totally
at variance with anything like a pure taste. There are several other
churches near it, all of which were being enclosed so as to form a
spacious court, where the ceremony of the Emperor's coronation was to
take place. Every available space was being filled with galleries to
hold spectators. Through this court he was to walk from the cathedral
to the palace.
The party then visited all the churches in the Kremlin in succession.
The interior walls are mostly covered with gilding and pictures of
saints, from base to cupola. In some of them, which are dimly lighted
with tapers, priests, in their gorgeous vestments, were chanting, with
fine sonorous voices, the evening service; incense was being waved, and
people from all sides were rushing in and bowing and crossing
themselves, and as quickly rushing out again. The Russians of the Greek
Church seem to think that much virtue exists in visiting a number of
churches or shrines in quick succession on the same day; and certainly
Moscow offers great facilities to the performance of this ceremony, for
a person cannot go many hundred yards in any direction without meeting
with a church, or chapel, or shrine of some sort. The churches in
Moscow do not generally possess any fine paintings, the pictures of
their saints showing merely the faces and heads. But there is one
church, that of Le Vieux Croyants a la Ragosky, which has a fine
collection. The priests of that church, being intelligent men, value it
properly.
A gentleman who joined our friends gave them several bits of interesting
information.
The small old church in the Kremlin was being renovated; nothing but the
whitewashed walls remained. They found that the gilding and paintings
which appeared so rich in the churches were merely fastened to wooden or
canvas panels, and placed against the walls, so that a day was
sufficient to turn a barn into a magnificent cathedral. He pointed out
that the gates were of different sizes. The largest was for the
admission of the Patriarch when he came to the church, the smaller for
that of the ordinary members of the community.
"Exactly," said Harry, "like the Irish peasant who has a big hole in the
door for the pigs to walk through, and a small one for the chickens.
All people are much alike."
Religious liberty is very much curbed in the country; but they were told
that every Sunday, at the Church of the Assumption, an open discussion
on matters of religion takes place, chiefly, however, among the persons
who wish to pass for savants. The priests seldom or never attend. It
is suspected that these discussions are encouraged by the Government,
not from any abstract love it possesses for truth, but for the sake of
ascertaining the opinions of those who attend them. If the governing
powers suspect, from any of the opinions he utters, that a person is
likely to prove dangerous, his movements and words are ever afterwards
narrowly watched till he is caught tripping, when he is without further
ceremony marched out of harm's way into Siberia.
As the party were walking round the Kremlin, they passed, outside the
Arsenal, a number of guns of all sizes, many of them very beautiful.
"All those guns were taken from us," observed one of their French
friends to Cousin Giles. "How curiously things change in this world!
Now, in early days our two nations were cutting each other's throats,
and yours was friendly to Russia; then lately we have been fighting side
by side against the Russians. Now, behold, here we are walking freely
and at peace within the walls of this ancient capital."
Thus discoursing, they descended into the gardens on the west side, and
proceeded towards the Church of Saint Saviour, then in course of
erection.
Their French friend smiled again: "Ah, this church, now, is building to
commemorate the retreat of the French from Russia," he observed. "The
Russians may well boast of what they did in those days, and we are not
likely to forget it."
The church is the finest in Moscow; the exterior is of white stone,
ornamented with groups of figures in the deepest relief. The
architecture is of the purest Byzantine order. The interior presented
but one vast vault of brick, without pillars or any other support but
the walls to its vast dome. Part of the walls were covered with wood
painted in imitation of marble, to show the effect of the proposed style
of ornament. It is in the form of a Greek cross. The altar is at the
east end. The church is warmed by means of several large stoves, whence
pipes are carried inside the walls all round the building, with vents at
intervals, out of which the hot air can be allowed to escape. Broad
flights of stone steps lead up to the entrances, which are on three
sides. Cousin Giles altogether preferred the edifice to that of the
Isaac Church in Saint Petersburg.
As our friends were returning homeward, a religious procession passed
by. It consisted of a long line of priests walking two and three
abreast, in somewhat irregular order, bearing banners of gold and
coloured cloths, fringed and bespangled. They were chanting loudly, but
not inharmoniously. Most of them had long straggling locks, which waved
about in the breeze, and gave them a very wild appearance, which was
increased by the careless, independent way in which they walked along.
The Russian priests seem to consider that, like the Nazarites among the
Jews, an especial virtue exists in the length of their hair. As the
procession passed through the streets, the people rushed out of their
houses, or crowded to the turnings, eager to see the sight. There they
stood, devoutly bowing and crossing themselves, though it was difficult
to say what particular object claimed this respect. Altogether the
procession, from the wild look of the priests, their loud voices, and
the gaudy banners waving in the air, had much more of a heathen than a
Christian character.
Vast preparations were at this time making for the expected coronation.
The spires and domes and walls of all the churches and public buildings
were being covered with laths, on which to hang the lamps for the
illumination of the city.
Magnificent arches were being erected all round the large square
opposite the Imperial Theatre; but they were of wood, and, though
painted to look like stone, here and there bits of the pine peeped
forth, showing the unsubstantial nature of the highly-pretentious
fabric. Workmen also crowded the churches, furbishing up gilt
candlesticks, refreshing the features of saints, adding rubies to their
faded lips and lustre to their eyes, cleaning and polishing in all
directions. Cousin Giles said it put him in mind of being behind the
scenes of a theatre,--carpenters, painters, and gilders were everywhere
to be seen; their saws and axes, their trowels and brushes seemed to
have no rest; nor could they afford it, for they were evidently much
behindhand with their preparations. Such furbishing, and painting, and
washing, Moscow never before enjoyed. The whole circuit of the walls of
the Kremlin, and its numerous towers, as well as the buildings in the
interior, were covered, from pinnacle and parapet to the base, with a
network of laths; so was the Cathedral of Saint Basil, and, indeed,
every edifice in the neighbourhood. When the whole was lighted up, they
agreed that the spectacle would be very fine, but they began to doubt
whether it would be worth while to return to the city for the play
itself after having witnessed all the preparations.
Cousin Giles told his companions that it is said that, when the Empress
Catherine used to make a progress through her dominions, the peasants
were driven up from all quarters towards the high road, and that wooden
houses were run up just before her to represent thriving villages. As
soon as she had passed they were pulled down again and carried on ahead
to do duty a second time, the mujicks, meanwhile, being compelled to
pace up and down before their pretended abodes, as Swiss peasants do
before the pasteboard cottages on the stage.
People in Moscow were looking forward with eager expectation to the
event of the coronation, and it was supposed that half the great people
of Europe would be there. It did not appear, however, that the
inhabitants were so anxious to see them for their own sakes as they were
to let their houses and lodgings and rooms at hotels at exorbitantly
high prices, every one expecting to reap a fine harvest out of the
pockets of the gaping foreigners.
The most curious church, perhaps, in the world--the most outrageously
strange of all the bizarre churches of Moscow--is the Cathedral of Saint
Basil, which stands close to the river, at the north end of a broad,
open space outside the walls of the Kremlin, and which space is bounded
on the other side by the Bazaar. It is in the most _outre_ style of
Byzantine architecture. There is a large tower somewhere about the
centre, running up into a spire, and eight other towers round it, with
cupolas on their summits. There is also a ninth tower, which looks like
an excrescence, in the rear. Each of these cupolas and towers is
painted in a different way, and of different colours; some are in
stripes, others in a diamond-shaped pattern, others of a corkscrew
pattern, and some have excrescences like horse-chestnuts covering them.
Then there are galleries and steps, and ins and outs of all sorts,
painted with circles, and arches, and stripes of every possible colour.
"Well, that is a funny church!" exclaimed Harry, as Fred ran off to find
the keepers to show them the entrance.
"An odd epithet to bestow on a church," observed Cousin Giles; "but I
cannot find a better."
Underneath the building there is a chapel, which has no connection with
the upper portion. A flight of steps led them into the building. Each
of the nine domes and the pinnacle covers a separate chapel, which is
again divided by a screen into two parts--one for the priests, the other
for the worshippers. From each of the domes above, a gigantic face of
the Virgin, or of some saint, looks down on those below. The huge,
calm-eyed faces gazing from so great a height have a very curious
effect. In the interior of the pinnacle a dove is seen floating, as it
were, in the air. Every portion of the interior walls of this strange
edifice is covered with the same sort of richly and many-coloured
arabesque designs seen in the old palace, while a sort of gallery runs
round the building, with an opening into all the chapels.
"A capital hide-and-seek place," exclaimed Harry. "Why, Fred, I would
undertake to dodge round here all my life, and you should not catch me
till I had grown into an old grey-headed man."
"You might find a more profitable way of spending your earthly
existence," said Cousin Giles; "yet I fear many people come in and go
out of the world, and yet are of very little more use than you would
thus be in their generation."
"Oh, I know that, Cousin Giles; I am only joking. I want to try how
useful I can be when I grow up, and how much good I can do."
"You can be useful in many ways, even now," observed their friend. "You
are useful if you set a good example to those with whom you associate.
You are doing God service if you show others that you are guided by His
laws, if you act in obedience to Him, if you confess Him openly before
men. All this can be done at every period of life. The old and young
can and must do it, if they hope for a happy hereafter, if they love the
Saviour who died for them; but more especially the young can do it,
while health and strength and clear unworn intellects are theirs."
Just after they left the cathedral, the bell of Ivan Veleki tolled forth
the hour of evening, and numbers of shopkeepers, long-coated and
long-bearded, rushed forth from their booths, and commenced a series of
bowings and crossings, looking towards the Holy Gate of the Kremlin,
which was directly in front of them. Having performed this ceremony for
some time, they faced about towards another shrine at the north end of
the square, and went through the same ceremony. By advancing a little
into the open space, they could get a glance at another picture of some
saint, when they bowed and crossed themselves as before. When their
evening's devotions were thus concluded, they went back to close their
shops. Having put up the shutters, or closed the folding-doors which
enclosed the front, one man held a candle, while another, with seal and
sealing-wax, put his signet, with the likeness of his patron saint, to
the door. No padlock or other means of securing it were used. Some
Jews and Tartars, not possessing the same confidence in the protecting
power of the saints, put padlocks on their doors. Very curious affairs
these padlocks are. They have been copied from the Tartars, or rather
from the Chinese. The key is a screw: by taking the screw out, the
padlock shuts; by screwing it in, it opens. As the shrines which claim
the poor Russians' devotion exist in every direction,--indeed, they
cannot walk twenty yards without seeing them,--while they run along on
their daily avocations they are continually bowing and crossing
themselves. The pictures of the saints which adorn these shrines were
probably intended to remind people of their religious duties; but, like
other unwise human inventions, which do not take into consideration the
evil tendencies of the human mind, they have led to a system of
degrading idolatry, while the simple truths of Christianity have been
superseded by a flimsy tissue of falsehoods. Although the members of
the Greek Church are iconoclasts, or image-breakers, and allow no actual
images to be set up on their altars, it must be owned that they pay just
as much adoration to the pictures of their saints as the Roman Catholics
do to the statues of theirs.
One of the most amusing places our friends visited in Moscow was the
great bazaar in the Chinese City. They made frequent trips through it,
although their purchases were neither very extensive nor expensive.
They bought some slippers made by the Tartars of Kazan, of gold and silk
and silver thread, beautifully worked, and some ornaments of silver and
steel made by the same people, and wooden bowls and spoons used by the
peasants, as well as their leather purses and cotton sashes of many
colours, and winter boots of white felt, and the head-dresses worn by
the women, and a hat such as is worn by ishvoshtsticks, and many other
things, all helping to illustrate the customs of the people. Among them
was a samovar or tea-urn. It is in shape like an ancient urn. In the
centre is a cylinder with a grating at the bottom. The water is held in
the space between the cylinder and the sides of the urn. It is filled
with water, and then a small piece of ignited charcoal is dropped into
the cylinder, which is filled with black charcoal. A chimney is then
placed above the charcoal, which now ignites and boils the water. By
adding fresh charcoal and more water, a supply can be kept up for hours
together. A frame fits on above the chimney, on which the teapot can be
placed, to keep it warm, while a lid, called a damper, is used to put
out the fire.
These samovars are used on all occasions, and are especially valued by
the peasants at their picnics or open-air tea-parties, of which they are
very fond. They purchased also several prints of the city, and some
very amusing ones descriptive of the battles between the Russians and
the Allies, or the Turks or Circassians, by which it appeared that the
accounts received by the rest of the world must be totally incorrect, as
in all instances, at the Alma, Inkermann, in the Caucasus, the
Muscovites were signally victorious, their enemy flying like chaff
before them.
The Chinese City, or Kitai Gorod, to the east of the Kremlin, was one of
their favourite resorts. The name is most appropriate; and certainly it
is most unlike any place in Europe. It is enclosed on three sides by a
thick buttressed and round-towered wall, the upper part of which
projects considerably; and altogether, from its strange style of
architecture, it looks as if it had been imported bodily from some city
of the Celestial Empire. The fourth side is formed by the east walls of
the Kremlin, of which the Kitai Gorod appears to have been an outwork.
The interior contains two long streets, and several smaller ones,
besides the truly Oriental bazaar, already spoken of, with its numerous
narrow lanes, running under one vast roof, dirty and mean, and crowded
with shops of every possible description. Tea-sellers, with their
Chinese signboards; paper-sellers, ironmongers, and perfumery and
spices, silks and cottons, and shoes and hats, and trunk-makers and
workers in leather,--indeed it is useless to enumerate all the trades
there carried on. There is generally a row or half a row of the stalls
of each trade together. As visitors pass along, the long-coated dealers
rush eagerly forward, and with bows and grimaces endeavour to induce
them to become customers. Here also the dealers in the holy pictures,
or images, as they are called, are to be found. These pictures have the
faces and hands only shown, the rest being covered with a casing of gold
or silver. They are of all sizes, from two feet to one or two inches
square; but as even for the smallest our friends were asked four
roubles, they declined buying any of them. Here, also, are sold cups
and censers, and all sorts of utensils used in churches. The
travellers, however, were little disposed to become purchasers.
Near the bazaar stood, ready to start, three or four diligences--huge
black machines, having a vast boot behind, a roomy inside, and a large,
comfortable-looking _coupe_. They were bound for Nishni-Novogorood,
where a large fair was taking place. Several rough-looking carts
followed them, piled up with goods for the same destination. The fair
of Nishni is the largest in Russia, perhaps in the world, at the present
day. Here the merchants from the west meet the traders and producers
from the numerous countries bordering Russia on the east, as well as
from all the Russian provinces, and exchange their various commodities.
Here transactions are arranged not only for the present, but for the
following year, and many a farmer undertakes to deliver timber, and
flax, and hemp still growing thousands of miles away, or hides and wool
yet adhering to the backs of his cattle or sheep on the far-off
prairies, or thousands of sacks of wheat yet ungrown, at Saint
Petersburg, Riga, or Odessa, with every certainty of being able to
fulfil his contract. Our friends were so interested with the account
they heard of Nishni that they were eager to visit it. Russian carts
are curious vehicles, made without a particle of iron. The wheels are
kept on by various contrivances; some have bits of wood from the
projecting edge of the side, into which the ends of the axles fit;
others have bows of wood from the perch, which fit on over the axle
where the linch-pin should be. The carts used for conveying passengers
are covered with an awning of black canvas, and look as if they were
water-tight, with a fair possibility of being made comfortable.
The travellers had many other things to see, both in and about Moscow,
but they resolved not to delay longer than necessary, as they were
anxious to study more of the manners and customs of the people in the
interior; and they therefore made preparations for their further
progress into the country.