St. Petersburg--The Great Wealth of the Few--The Bitter Poverty of the
Many--Conditions Similar to Those Preceding the French Revolution.[2]
[Footnote 2: These letters were written in the early autumn of the
year, 1902, and present a glimpse of Russia as it then appeared.]
GRAND HOTEL DE L'EUROPE,
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA,
_September 18 (N. S.), 1902_.
So much has been jammed into the last two days that my pen is like to
burst. Splendor and squalor, the glitter of twentieth century
civilization, the sombre shadow of barbarism, are here entwined in
inextricable comminglement. The city is filled with stately buildings
of gigantic and imposing dimensions; with wide, straight boulevards
and streets. The sidewalks and _droschkies_ are gay with the dashing
and gaudy uniforms of innumerable soldiery, and the fine dresses of
elegant women. Yet many of these great buildings are in ill repair,
and what you at first imagine to be magnificent stone, reveals itself
to be a stucco of rotting wood and crumbling plaster; the broad
thoroughfares are abominably paved, and pitifully cared for by abject
wretches wielding dilapidated birch-stick brooms.
[Illustration: ENTERING THE NEVA.]
[Illustration: ALONG THE NEVA.]
The superb horses--stallions, all of them--whirl past, driven
by _izvostchiks_ in dirty, truncated plug-hats and blue
dressing-gown-like _kaftans_, whose sodden faces tell of _vodka_ and
hopeless haplessness. Beggars swarm (frightful creatures), and the
faces of the officers, fine big men in striking uniforms, are
dissipated, hard and cruel.
We are in a huge hotel. Big men in uniform open the door; big men in
livery fill the halls; the rooms are big, ours is immense, with double
windows, It is steam-heated, and also has hearth fires of burning
wood. The building is warmed all through, even the halls. There are
French waiters in the big dining-rooms; there is delicious food and
delightful coffee, whose aroma is very perfume of the Orient; the
beefsteaks are juicy, thick and tender. We have had no such meals
since leaving America. On each story there is an elaborate bar for
serving _vodka_ (a fierce white whisky distilled from wheat) and
drinks to the guests of that particular floor, and a single bath room,
and a single diminutive toilet for both sexes' common use.
The moment we set foot within the doorway of the hotel, up stepped an
official, in blue and gold, and demanded our passports, and we were
requested also to sign a paper like the one enclosed, viz.: