In Joyful Russia ... With many illustrations, etc

Preface

. This book is neither a social tract, a political or eco nomic study, nor a guide-book. It is the record of a thoroughly delightful trip to a country which to me, at least, had all the charm of the unknown. I have tried to chronicle as graphically as lay within my untried powers the impressions I received, the gorgeous pageants I saw; and if my views of Russian conditions seem rose-coloured to some of my readers, let them remember that I saw the country in holiday attire; but let them also remember that a country of unmitigated gloom, such as others have pictured Russia to be, has never existed on the face of the globe, and never can exist. My experiences were gathered among all classes of people and over a large stretch of territory — from the Holy City to Helsingfors and beyond. Wherever I went, I found the same splendid national qualities, the same unity of character, ay, and the same content with the powers that be, which make Russia not merely a vast geographical term, but a great and mighty nation.

If I succeed in giving my readers but a part of the pleasure I experienced, I shall feel satisfied, and consider that, in some measure at least, the debt is paid which I owe to my captivating Russian hosts. John A. Logan, Jr. Washington, D. O, February 15, 1897. v JS'ikolsky gate of the Kremlin. CONTENTS. CHAPTETl PAGE I. — At the threshold of the Tsar . . . . 1 II. — An hour in Warsaw 10 III.— Guests of the Tsar 26 IV. — The dreaking of Russian bread .... 35 V. — AS SEEN EN ROUTE 51 VI. — Lovely, laughing Moscow 64 VII. — How we kept house in Moscow .... 70 VIII. — Round about TnE cow paths 81 IX. — Rain and etiquette 90 X. — Then the Tsar came 97 XI. — Proclaiming the coronation 106 XII. — The crowning of a Tsar 113 XIII. — The crowning of a Tsar 130 XIV. — An imperial feast 138 XV. — The Cossacks and Li Hung Chang . . . 149 XVI.— The Tsaritsa 159 XVII. — Bread and salt and dancing 167 XVIII. — The people's fete 174 XIX. — How we washed in Russia 184 XX. — The gala performance and the Russian stage . 193 XXI. — The city of the first modern Tsar . . . 200 XXIL— Russian horses 208 XXIII.— Russian races 217 XXIV. — Thb Russian church 231 XXV— Village life 241 XXVI. — Slavic literature 249 XXVIL— Slavic art 262 XXVIIL— A glance at Finnish Russia 268 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FACING PAGE Nikolsky gate of the Kremlin 8 Street scene in Warsaw 14 Street vender of sweets and prune cider 21 The Grand Duke Serge 28 Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovitch and wife, and Grand Duehess Olga 32 A peasant of the better class 43 A Russian village 56 View of the Kremlin from the west 62 The Grand Duchess Serge 07 Our little servant 72 Arc de Triomphe, Moscow 82 The holy or Redeemer's gate of the Kremlin .... 93 The dowager Empress 96 Chapel of the Iberian Mother of God 98 State carriage of the Empress 103 Proclaiming the coronation in the Red Square .... 107 Emperor's bedroom in tho Palace of the Kremlin . . . Ill Cathedral of St. Saviour, Moscow 113 Throne room, hall of St. Andrew 117 Hall of St. Alexander Nevskoi 122 Hall of St. George 127 Place of coronation in the Cathedral of the Assumption . . 130 The dowager Empress descending the red staircase . . . 136 The throne of Russia 143 Georgian and Caucasian costumes 151 Li Hung Chang and group 157 The imperial family 165 The Petrovski palace 168 The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess Vladimir .... 172 Royal pavilion, Kadynski Plain 179 Water cart 189 LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. x FACING PAGE Grand Opera House, Moscow 194 Statue of Peter the Great, St. Petersburg 200 Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, St. Petersburg .... 205 Troika sleigh 209 Bitiug and wagon 215 Trotting sulky 224 Chapel at Petrovski palace 232 A metropolitan of the Greek Church 235 One of Moscow's 1,600 churches 239 A Russian merchant — a koopyets 244 Count Tolstoi .253 Museum and Art Gallery, Moscow 262 Room in Empress's private suite in the palace of the Kremlin . 265 View of Helsingfors, Finland 268 A Finnish fisherwoman 273 Colored Plates The Emperor Frontispiece.

The Cathedral of St. Basil, Moscow 87 The Cathedral of the Assumption, Moscow 133 The Empress Chapter 1 . AT THE THRESHOLDOF THE TSAB. " Steavstttjite! " I said the conductor. "Go to the devil!" said I. " Pojaluista chas! " said the conductor with entreat ing insistence. "You go to the devil!" said I, half awake but wholly in earnest. Then I sat up, spurred into sudden and entire wakefulness, as the sleepiest man will often be, by a potent consciousness which " neither poppy nor mandra gora " can ever quite drown — a consciousness that some thing novel, interesting and long-waited for, has at last hap pened — that one of life's milestones has been reached. We were tired. We had gone " the pace " in Paris and Berlin, and had had to catch both sleep and rest as best we could en voyage; for the Dutch gentleman and the Chinese merchant prince who shared our compartment had jabbered together in execrable French with an in cessancy that then, there, and forever destroyed my belief in the phlegm and reticence of their respective nations.

Yet after one brief moment of somnolent impatience we woke promptly and good-naturedly, nor needed to rub our eyes, remembering that we must be on the threshold of Tsarland. It was one o'clock — 1 A. M. It was cold as the shores of Lake Michigan in March, and the wind and rain beat against our window-panes with all the vigour but none of the good-fellowship of a negro camp-meeting. We straightened our overcoats and stretched our legs, and rose to follow the guide, without so much protest as a frown, for we had travelled far to see Nicholas II crown him self with the crown of Peter the Great, the crown of all the Russias, and we were quite wilhng to stand about in a cruelly cold custom-house at that hour of the morning, while the suavest and slowest of officials examined each separate button of our two wardrobes — since that examination was part and parcel of the " open sesame " at which, and at which alone, the portals of Russia would cautiously but courteous^ swing wide.

The conductor was a " common or garden " Russian railway official; but the Kodak of my mind took a fine snap-shot of him, and the picture developed vividly on the plate of my memory, for he was the first Russian official I encountered in the exercise of his office. He wore a most gentlemanly looking frock coat of good black cloth, a pair of trousers tucked into high boots of black Russian leather, and a decidedly smart affair in the way of caps: a turban of black astrachan topped with a straight flat crown of black cloth, brightened up in front with the wheel and two silver wings of Mercury, which guards and conductors all over the Continent wear. His coat was buttoned diagonally from the top of his left shoulder to his waist. He wore a belt of patent leather fastened by a sturdy silver buckle.

On his left breast hung a silver chain with a whistle attached, which was tucked into the space between two of the upper buttons of his coat. Two peculiar united leather tubes hung from his belt. From one tube a little knob of green wood projected. A similar knob, identical in all but colour — it was red — stuck out of the twin tube. These knobs were on the handles of two flags — one emerald, one ruby — that were tightly furled and thrust into the leather eases. One meant " Stop," the other " Start." This was the conductor of one car. Had he been a master conductor, the conductor of the entire train, the crown of his hat would have been magenta coloured, his clothes would have been proud with magenta pipings, and his neck swathed in a magenta collar. In Russia the railways are under the direct control and man agement of the Government, and every railway official is a Government official, a Government servant.

Every train is under the charge of a master conductor, and each car has a conductor of its own — a man who combines the duties of an English guard with those of the blithe and nimble darky porters of the United States. " Stravstvuite! " the conductor had said, which meant " Good morning." " Go to the devil! " I had said, which meant " I am sleepy and I decline to get up." " Pojaluista chas! " the conductor had urged, which meant " If you please, it is one o'clock." " You go to the devil! " I had said, which meant, " Speak to me again if you dare! " Knowing no Eng lish, and perceiving that I knew no " Rus," he betook him self to French, and asked for our passports. We produced them. He pocketed them. He then beckoned to two or three subordinates, who possessed themselves of our hand baggage.

We hastened after them. I agreed to follow our passports, and G. agreed to follow our collars and brushes. But travelling man proposes and Russian official disposes. I was warned back with the utmost courtesy, but with no uncertainty of gesture. So we went into the custom-house together — G. and the satchels, the rug straps and I. The porters laid our small traps on a table in front of a patriarchal-looking Russian. He had a splendid gleaming white beard quite two feet long, and kindly, shrewd brown eyes. He spoke to us in fluent French, and looked through our parcels with entire courteousness and entire thoroughness. We were not asked whether we were or were not carrying anything dutiable. That impressed us, and impressed us pleasantly, in contrast to the rather insulting habit of our own custom-house officers, who first make you declare upon oath that your boxes con tain nothing dutiable, and then proceed to search for secreted proof that you have hed.

After a sojourn abroad, this always starts me back into my own country in a bit of ill-humour. When I am asked to pledge my word of honour as to the contents of my luggage, knowing per fectly well that my word, my very oath, will not be ac cepted as final, I always long to say, " You had better find out for yourself." The old Russian was surprisingly slow. He looked Oriental, and, as I overheard a pert English schoolboy, who had evidently hved in the East, say, " he moved Oriental." But that was of httle or no consequence to us. We had two hours to get through before we might go on toward Warsaw, and we were literally so hard up for some thing to do that it was a trifle better than nothing to watch the slim brown hands taking a thorough inventory of our smaller goods and chattels. The old official seemed to have an eye in every finger tip and two in each thumb.

Nothing escaped him. But he crushed nothing, and he ad dressed us now and then with a word or two of almost deprecatingly polite French, which made us quite feel that he was going through an empty though obligatory form, though both he and we knew perfectly well that it was quite the contrary. At last he closed each parcel, buckled each strap, and returned our keys with a bow and a word of thanks for our goodness in having complied with a rule which we were absolutely powerless to evade. He had altogether the manner of being under an obligation to us, and there was something so contagious about his courtesy that, on my word, I felt rather a boor for having given him so much trouble, and had half a mind to apolo gize as elaborately as my command of French would per mit. We were moving toward another room, where the boxes and large luggage had to be examined, when the con ductor who had disappeared with our passports accosted us.

It was not necessary, he informed me, to open my boxes, or to have them opened, as mine was a " diplomatic " passport. He added that he had been ordered to reserve a compartment for me and for monsieur my friend in the Warsaw train, and that in an hour, when that train was ready to start, he would see that our luggage was properly placed, and have the honour to guide us to our compart ment. I had no bombs with me, but I was more than glad that one of my three trunks escaped examination. My mother, who preceded us by a week or more to Moscow, had been betrayed and disappointed by her Paris milliner, and the contents of my hugest trunk consisted of a sine con glomeration of uniforms and chiffons, of waistcoats and satin trains. The Russians — though a smileless race, in the masses, at least — have a large and Epicurean sense of humour.

I was palpably travelling without a lady, and I should have felt sheepishly like a man dressmaker had all that feminine finery been dragged into the semi-light of that gusty, ill-lighted station, beneath the eyes of grinning moujiks, supercilious officials, and delighted fellow-passengers. I had a dull wait for G. It was one of the longest hours I can recall, but it was not long enough, and it was too cold and too dark and too early even to attempt to ex plore the old Polish city which Alexander I gave to the beautiful Marie Grudzinska, and which she, dying, be queathed to the kings of Poland, to be theirs and their heirs' forever. Much less was there time or light or op portunity to see the one really unique thing that the Alex androvno of to-day can boast — an almost unsurpassed and wonderfully interesting deer park.

They were through with G. at last; one more proof that everything has an ending — even a Russian custom house examination. We had still twenty minutes to spend, and we spent them in the station restaurant. We had a large supply of bread, butter, and tea, and were charged some thing that at the time seemed to us ridiculously small. We might have made a substantial meal of many courses had we elected to do so, for the buffet was largely supphed with eatables and drinkables. But our appetites were not fairly awake yet, and G. seemed a bit dispirited. I learned why afterward. He had bought a very Enghsh suit of clothes before leaving London — checker boards were not in it with the material of these garments, and a rainbow in the full flush of perfection was a thing of gray shreds and neutral-coloured patches if thrown into juxtaposition with these Bond Street trousers.

G. is acquisitive. He likes to get into touch, en rapport as he expresses it, with any nation he visits; and he delights to spend hours and hundreds in Regent Street and the Rue de Rivoli. He was peculiarly proud of this remarkable chef-d'œuvre of his London tailor, and felt distinctly rasped at what followed when the examining officer drew them forth and spread them widely on the examining table. The officer had said something in Russian to a brother official, who had replied in the same incomprehensible tongue. They had been quite grave, and twisted the well-waxed tips of their mustaches almost sadly. "But I'll be hanged if I don't believe the beggars would have laughed if they had not thought that it would have been impolite," G. grumbled when he told me of it. A pretty Frenchwoman who sat in the next dentist's chair — I mean who stood near watching her laces and gossamers and velvets and embroideries and exquisite lingerie being tumbled out of their chamois-lined, violet-scented boxes— had lifted up her pencilled eyebrows delicately, pursed up her vivid red lips daintily, and exclaimed, " Mon bon dieu!

" The tea they served us was boiling hot. We had to let it cool somewhat, but the Russians drink it so — even little mites who can scarcely lift the tall glasses in which it is served. It used to distress me when I thought of the tender inner coats of their throats, but they gulped it down with such evident relish and such unmistakable lack of discomfort, that I soon learned to mind my own business, my own tea-glass, and the scalding of my own throat. The Russian tea is very light of colour, very fragrant, and very grateful to the palate. They bring it to you with slices of lemon floating in it, and also bring you a small dish of lump, or rather stick, sugar, to use or not, as your taste may be. The Russians have two methods of using the sugar when they take it with their tea. The great majority tuck a goodly sized lump under their tongues, and leave its melting to the natural juices of the mouth and the trickling of the tea.

They who are elegant hold their tea-glass in one hand and their sugar-stick in the other. They take a nibble and then a swallow. But, how ever they take their tea, they all take it. And like the Siamese, the Russians not only drink tea out of doors, but commonly stop in the streets or public squares to brew and drink their favourite refresher. In Siam it is the noble who is followed by his servants carrying a stove and all the impedimenta of tea-making. At a sign from him they pause and prepare his dearly loved and non-intoxicating tipple, while he gravely waits, gravely drinks, and then gravely walks on until his next thirst halts him, when he again stops his cavalcade. And this is repeated as often as he feels inclined for a tiny cupful of the yellow fluid. This is so much a custom that on the streets of Bangkok no one but the lately arrived " globe-trotter " turns to look at it, and tea drinkers and tea makers are almost as many as moving pedestrians.

But in Russia it is the plebeian and not the patrician who is the nomadic open-air tea drinker. A pilgrim — of such the streets are always full — lifts from his back the bulging, gourd-shaped bundle which is all his luggage, and as likely as not all his earthly possessions, opens it, takes out his cheap samovar, and makes him or herself a brimming glassful of sizzling tea. A peasant family abroad for a holiday will pause anywhere and spend an hour or more over their tea. The mother makes it while the father and children watch with the utmost interest. When it is made, all sit down on some thing, on anything — or, if needs be, as nearly on nothing as is possible in this world of an omnipotent and vacuum abhorring Nature. Then they all drink and chatter and gaze at the well-dressed passers-by.

Often they regale themselves on tea and tea only. Sometimes they munch kalatschs as they drink. Kalatsch is the delicious national bread of which I for one feared that I never should get enough, until I discovered, as I soon did, that " eat much and eat often" is the first law of all Russian life, save that of the most impecunious. I never heard how kalatschs were made, but, to my thinking, they are the bread of breads. They are twisted, Oriental-looking things about twice the size of your fist, not altogether unlike a pret zel in appearance. We were few, we tea drinkers, in the Alexandrovno buffet. Almost all who broke their fast there were Rus sians, and all save the palpably poor Russians drank cham pagne. And the palpably poor were conspicuous by their absence. The Russian poor travel on foot, and it was too early in the morning for the station to be infested by mendicant hangers-about, if any such there be in Russia.

If it is true that every one in Russia drinks tea and drinks it often, it is even truer that every one in Russia who can afford it drinks champagne and drinks it all the time. In a hotel or a family mansion of any luxury the pop pings of the riotous cork outnumber the tickings of the clock. The men who waited upon us were dressed in the picturesque costume peculiar to all Russian waiters (there are no barmaids in Russia), but the effect was rather chilly in the cold, half-dark station. Each wore a long white smock, white trousers, slippers, and a red sash into which was tucked a Russian-leather pocketbook full of change. From 1 to 3 A. M. is not a choice time for sight seeing, nor a favourable hour for gaining new impressions; but three things did impress me indelibly during our two hours' wait at that Russo-Polish station.

It would have been a very sleepy and a very unobservant traveller that had failed to be impressed, first, with the something Oriental about the place and the people; secondly, with the quantity and the quality of the soldiers on duty; and, thirdly and most, by their dignified and self-contained manner. The more I saw of Russia, the more emphasis was given to my first impression — an impression that in many essentials Russia was more Oriental than European. I am, of course, greatly interested in all soldiers and in all things that pertain to soldiers. One corps of the Russian army is detailed for railway station service. Those at Alexandrovno — there were an incredible number of them — were a splendid-looking lot of men. They averaged well over six feet. They wore coarse, thick, heavy, blanket-like overcoats, well cut, and well put on.

Their black astrachan caps had scarlet crowns and smart white pompons. They wore the regulation sabre which is common to all the Russian service, from the private sol dier to the Grand Duke. It is very heavy. The scabbard is a cheap, cumbersome-looking affair of leather and brass. They wear their sabres edge upward, which is done, I imagine, by no other soldiery, certainly by none of Europe. It was cold, it was dark, it was dank, it was shivery, but for all that every one seemed saturated with good humour; and this was what I saw and felt through each hour of every day of the months we spent in Russia. I do not pretend to say that Siberia has no existence save in the imagination of the lexicographers. I do not deny that there are knouts in Russia, and that they are sometimes used. But I never saw one, never heard one whizzing through the wintry air.

The Russia I saw was a rejoicing and prosperous Russia. The icicles were wreathed with roses, the air was fragrant with loyalty and softly musical with blessings. I must write of Russia as I saw it; and as I saw it, it was mostly admirable. I contradict no one whose pen has preceded mine; but I can but feel that many of those pens have exaggerated, and that some of them have set forth much in malice. The people that I saw were con tented and brimful of rejoicing at the sacred coronation of their well-loved Tsar. There is doubtless much to regret and to mourn over in Russia, as there is and will be everywhere else until the millennium comes; but the Rus sia that I saw was a joyful Russia.

Chapter II. An Hour In Waksaw

I have been told that trains are sometimes missed in Russia. On my word, I don't see how it's done. The official on the platform and the official on the engine whistle away at each other with an emphasis and at a length that ought to make it clear to the thickest-headed traveller within miles that it behooves him to board his train. I never heard quite so much fuss made over an every-day occurrence as was made over the starting out of Alexandrovno of that Warsaw-bound train. True to his promise, the" conductor of our carriage — the conductor who had roused us two hours earlier — came for us when our waiting was over and showed us to the very comfortable compartment in which we were to travel on, where we found all our small luggage trimly stowed and not a porter in sight to tip. A few moments after we were seated — we had almost had time enough to grow impatient — the chief conductor, the conductor of the train, strolled leisurely across the platform, pulled out his whistle and gave a gentle, deprecating blow upon it.

There was an almost insolent pause, and then a lazy, indifferent an swer was sounded from the locomotive. " Off at last! " said G. But we were not off, nor were we to be off for some time. After a most respectable pause the whistle on the platform cried out in an almost imperative tone, " Are you ready?" At that the whistle in the engine answered, " Yes, I'm ready." Then there was a long, sullen silence. The officials stood about unconcernedly. Several passengers crawled on board. Three or four minutes passed. Then the whistle on the platform cried out, "Are you sure you're ready? " " Yes, you fool! " screamed back the other whistle, " I told you so." " Then why don't you go? " " I am going to go." "Then go!" But nothing went. After another pause the con ductor's whistle grew truly eloquent.

The engine whistle answered back for all it was worth, and the station re sounded and reverberated with what sounded for all the world like insane, metallic profanity. For now the con ductor was both blowing his whistle and pulling the rope of a bell that hung outside the station door. The station bell threatened. The station whistle entreated. The en gine whistle defied. And their noisy altercation treated us to an exhibition of sound that might safely have chal lenged the Chicago Fire Department in full flare to equal it. After an incredible time the engine gave a snort of mingled rage and despair. The conductor dropped the platform-bell rope, tucked his whistle into his breast, walked very deliberately to his compartment at the rear of the train, got in, touched his cap to some brother officials on the platform, and closed the door.

The engine gave a groan, then a shriek, and we were off — off at a pace that would have disgraced an active snail. It was our last look for months at darkness and night as we understood the words. It never was decently dark in Moscow; a couple of hours of deep gloaming was the depth of every night we saw there, and in St. Petersburg there was not even that much of an attempt on the part of night to array herself in sable robes. Our train moved on with annoying slowness, but easily. The road beds are admirable in Russia, at least so far as our experience went, and we travelled consider ably before we left the Empire. The credit for this, I understand, is due to American enterprise and skill in the person of Mr. Winans, the pioneer of railroad con struction in Russia. Our train was cold, but otherwise most comfortable.

Like all Russian trains, its carriages were very wide, and we had our compartment to ourselves; not the best way to study new Russian types, but for all that a consummation devoutly to be wished for when one is tired and travelling by night. Our conductor quickly made up two very clean and cosy beds upon the seats, and we tucked ourselves in between the sheets and rugs without detain ing each other with any elaborate or prolonged good nights. It was almost seven in the morning when we were awakened and made to understand that we were at Warsaw, for we had only travelled at an average rate of about twenty miles an hour. That is no slower than most Russian trains go. The Russians consider it safe, and time is absolutely no object to them. Railway accidents are almost unheard of there. After a dash into the toilet-room and a hasty brush and sponge, we hurried out on to the platform.

No one paid the slightest attention to us. Our conductor brought us our bags (our boxes were booked through to Moscow), touched his cap, said a few words of presum able farewell, which sounded civil but were quite incomprehensible, and disappeared. It was a cold, inhospitable station, and we spent a heart-breaking twenty minutes there trying to find some man, woman, or child who spoke or understood English, French, or German. G. even tried them with a little Latin. All in vain. We were tired, travel-stained, hungry, and in a hurry. At last G., who in a dilemma never fails to propound some brilliant but splendidly defective scheme, suggested our committing some breach of the law in the hope of attracting attention in some quarter, and being escorted to the police station, from which we could probably communicate with the American consul.

We seriously began to feel rather in a fix, when at last I spied a sign, " Wagons-Lits," and we executed a double quick toward the little office upon which it was painted. The man in charge spoke fluent French and was a brick into the bargain. We intended to push on to Moscow as soon as we comfortably could; but I knew the name of a hotel at which I wished to breakfast and hoped to find others of our party. Our " Wagons-Lits " friend found us a drosky (I dare say it was no less comfortable than the others of its kind), helped us into it, stowed our traps as best he could about our persons and that of our extraordinary Jehu, whom, by the way, he paid for us then and there, that we might be neither in doubt nor overcharged at the end of our drive, and, after telling the man where to take us and assuring us that we would find French spoken at our hotel, wished us a courteous bon voyage, and crowned all by almost declining the coin which we felt he had royally earned.