Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, in the years 1817, 1818

Preface

. THE rapidity with which the following journey was performed will sufficiently account for the very imperfect observations contained in its recital ; though I am afraid it will be more obviously Urged as a. reason why the narrative *■'■• ' ■ .>' ■ should have been withheld altogether frOrti the Public. But, the establishment of the imperial court in the antient capital of Moscow, the details of the restoration of that city, and the route thence to Constantinople, are circumstances that have, at least, the recommendation of novelty ; and any information concerning the critical and unsettled political relations of the contiguous empires of Russia and Turkey, with which the recent flight of the Hospodar of Wallachia will probably be found to be connected, may have its value, especially when viewed with reference to the actual state of tranquillity of the rest of Europe. These considerations may not, however, prove sufficient to give much interest a2

PREFACE.

. to so hasty a narrative ; though, for my own part, I shall always reflect with great satisfaction on the adventures of a journey during which I enjoyed the pleasure of the society of my friend Mr. Legh, one of the most enterprising tra vellers of the present age ; and who has the merit of having been the first, since the days of Norden, to pass the for midable barrier of the cataracts of Syene, and to demonstrate the practicability of penetrating into Nubia, a country where so many curious discoveries still continue to be made. VALUE OF RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MONEY. A Rouble contains 100 copecks. According to the rate of exchange upon London, at Petersburg!], during the winter of 1817, 20 roubles were given for a pound sterling. One rouble in silver at that time equalled in value four roubles of the depreciated paper.

The quantity of silver contained in the silver rouble, and consequently its value, have undergone very little variation during the last century*. * From a passage in a speech made by Lord Carlisle to the Czar Alexey Michailo vitz (l66-t), it would seem, however, unless there be an error in his calculation, that a very great and almost incredible difference existed between the quantity of silver in a rouble of that period, and in one of the date of Peter the Great, though the interval of time amounts scarcely to forty years. The object of the mission of Lord Carlisle to the court of Moscow was to procure the restitution of the commercial privileges formerly enjoyed by the English merchants at Archangel, but of which they had been deprived by the Czar, on the pretext of their having been iuvolved in the rebellion against Charles I. The Czar, previously determined not to grant the request, used every argument to evade the question, and amongst other difficulties which were thrown in the way, made a demand of an extravagant loan from Charles II., of which, the ambassador speaks in the following terms : " I hope so impossible a summe to the greatest prince of Christendome to advance on the sudden, being I may name it to your Tzarskoy Majesty, ten thousand poods of silver, to the value of above thirty hundred thousand rubles, was not demanded on purpose to have a pretext to deny the privileges, and by proposing an impossibility to refuse what is rational." — A Relation of Three Embassies, p. 270.

But a poud *_= 40 lbs. Russian (36 lbs. avoirdupois) each containing 32 loths — 1280 loths X 3 — 3840 solotnicks. Now a rouble =_ 6-^ or 6.125 solotnicks ; therefore a poud = 3%.\"r. - — 627 roubles, consequently 10,000 pouds =. 6,270,000 roubles, instead of only 3,000,000, the number mentioned by Lord Carlisle. It is probable, therefore, that there is a great blunder in the calculation of the ambassador, which has consequently taken from his argument more than one half of its force. VI VALUE OF RUSSIAN AND TURKISH MONEY. s. d. The silver rouble of Peter the Great = 3 3 Empress Anne =3 6\ Elizabeth = 3 5\ Catherine = 3 1 1 Emperor Alexander *= 3 1 A Turkish piastre contains 40 paras. According to the rate of ex change upon London, at Constantinople, in 1818, 28 or 29 piastres were given for a pound sterling.

Chapter I. Contents

MOSCOW ITS PRESENT STATE THE KREMLIN EXERC1R-HAUS MONUMENTS OF MININ AND POJARSKY FORMER CONFLAGRA- TIONS OF MOSCOW MILITARY HOSPITALS QUIT MOSCOW TOULA-OREL THE DNIEPER KIEW — THE UKRAINE OUMAN COSSACKS OLWIOPOL — NOV-DOUBOSARI THE DNIESTER KICHE'NAU THE RIVER PRUTH. JOURNEY, fye fye 1 HE imperial family had occupied for several weeks the palace of the Kremlin, when the numerous balls and fetes, given to celebrate the reviving splendour of Moscow, were suddenly suspended by the melancholy news of the death of our lamented Princess Charlotte. At this gloomy moment we reached the ancient capital of the Czars ; I had passed some time amongst its ruins three years before, and was now to witness the almost incredible efforts of Russian industry in repairing the devastations of the campaign of 1812.

Early in the morning of the 4th December, when the curtain of the kibitka, in which we had travelled from Petersburg, was drawn aside, and we ventured to thrust our heads through the congealed breath that coated and stiffened the hairs of our bearskin pelisses, the moon's crescent was seen illuminating the gilded domes and grotesque turrets of this immense city. It is justly observed by the author of " A Re " lation of Three Embassies, performed by the Right Hon. B « the Earl of Carlisle in 166S and 1664," that " Moscovie " being scituat in so cold a climate, no wonder if the winters " be very long there, and the frosts exceeding violent, espe " cially in the most northerly provinces" (p. 28); and as the thermometer indicated —24° Reaumur, we felt the full force of the truism in all its wretchedness.

To obtain lodgings in any part of the town, now crowded with the suite of the Emperor and the various strangers attracted by the residence of the court, had been represented to us as impossible ; and, having made several fruitless attempts to procure accommo dation, we thought ourselves lucky in being permitted, at length, to enter the garret of a most filthy Russian hotel. We were the bearers of the official despatches to his Ex cellency Lord Cathcart ; but the news of our great national loss had already preceded us, having been conveyed the day before to the Emperor, by a courier sent from Hamburg, who had taken the more direct route of Warsaw. The demonstrations of grief on the part of the court were perhaps increased by the situation of the Grand Duchess Nicholas, from whom the empire looked to receive in a few months its suture sovereign ; and the accidental coincidence of the same name, Charlotte, gave additional strength to all si nister forebodings in the minds of a people whose superstition forms not the least striking feature of their character.

The nobility of Moscow sent a deputation of condolence to our ambassador, announcing that the grand fete, which they were on the point of giving, in honour of the visit of the imperial family, was postponed to a distant day. But the exterior of the town, and the examination of the astonishing progress that had been made in rebuilding the lately desolated capital, were objects of interest sufficient to occupy our curiosity, reconcile us in a great measure to the severity of the climate, and compensate for the want of comfort we experienced within doors. Our inn, with the exception of the garret allotted to ourselves, was full; through the crevices of the floor of our apartment, the piercing wind was constantly rushing, the effect of which the small stove in the corner was little able to counteract.

In the day-time innumerable mice were playing about, and at night swarms of bugs carried on their merciless attacks. A Russian officer's servant in the adjoining room was continually singing his monotonous ditty, and in the passage near our door was collected a crowd of fragrant Mougiks, regaling themselves over a brazen jar of hydromel. Compared with such miseries at home, the inclemency of the weather without was not to be regarded. In a sledge, and enveloped in good warm pelisses, we spent a great part of our time in the streets of Moscow. Of the ruins of a city that had contained a population of between three and four hundred thousand souls, many vestiges were still visible, but the great advances made towards obliterating the traces of disaster, were almost in conceivable. b Before the conflagration, which commenced on the 3d Sept., 1812, the houses of Moscow were estimated numerically at 12,000, but under each number were com prehended two, three, and sometimes even four, distinct dwellings.

The greater part were of wood, the rest were built of brick, faced with stucco ; of the whole number, it was calculated that nine-tenths were consumed. The quarter of the town, called the Bielgorod, (the White City,) was preserved by the exertions of the French, and the Kremlin, where Buonaparte lived, remained untouched, till the morning of the 23d October, when several parts of it were destroyed by the four distinct explosions, that announced the final departure of the enemy. " By the two first explosions," says Mr. James*, V part ' of the walls, and one of the towers towards the river, " were destroyed; by the third, the church of St. Nicholas, " and the four great bells of Moscow were blown up with " tremendous violence; at the same moment, the lofty " tower of Ivan Veliki, the first of the Czars, was rent from " the top to the base.

The fourth shock was by far the " most dreadful; the walls of the arsenal, which were up " wards of three yards in thickness, with a part of the gate " of St. Nicholas, and several adjacent pinnacles, were at ' once blown into the air; a concussion succeeding, that " shook the whole city to its foundations." p. 386. * Journal of a Tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland, fye In the summer of 1814, when I visited Moscow, in company with my friend, to whose full and accurate details of that eventful period I have nothing to add, few of the marks of the devastation, which he has described, had been removed ; but the scene was now greatly changed, within the precincts of the fortress every building had been renovated. The Empress Mother occupied the bel Stage of one of the chief palaces, and the standard of Alexander waved over the former residence of Napoleon.

The remaining members of the imperial family, with part of their numerous suites, were accommodated, as well as the confined apartments would admit, in other buildings within the walls of the Kremlin. To see the court of Russia established on the banks of the Moskwa, recalled the days of the Dukes of Moscovie, the Ivans and the Fedors, before the policy of Peter the Great had forcibly trans ferred the seat of government from the centre of the empire lo the shores of the Baltic. One morning we mounted to the summit of the famous tower, the " Great John/' to enjoy the magnificent pano ramic view seen from that elevation. Below us, the Czar of Casan, Astrachan, and Siberia, the self-upholder of all the Great, White, and Little Russia, accompanied by the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Michael, and Prince William of Prussia, was reviewing the Imperial Guards on the esplanade of the Kremlin.

Immediately beneath the walls of the fortress, was seen the frozen river that gives its name to the city; and beyond it, the quarter, which has a Russian appellation expressive of its situation, " on the " other side the Moskwa," analogous to the Trastevere of Rome, and which still exhibits many melancholy traces of destruction. Still farther towards the west, the flat land scape wrapped in one uniform covering of snow, appeared bounded by the inconsiderable eminences called the Spar row Hills. Turning round, the Kitaigorod, or Chinese city, where are the Exchange, and the chief magazines of the merchants, seemed entirely rebuilt, as well as the greater part of the Semlianigorod, and the Slobode, or Fauxbourg. But the palaces of the nobles remain much in the state in which they were left by the fire, nor is it likely that they will be speedily repaired.

It is well known, that though Petersburg has been for a century the residence of the Emperor and of the great officers attached to the court, yet the costly hotels and immense establishments of the chief nobles of Russia have been always to be found at Moscow, — of their magnificence an idea may be formed from the statement, that the number of domestics maintained in the household of the Countess Orloff, amounts to eight hundred. It is true, she is the richest heiress of the empire, and fortu nately did not suffer in the general calamity consequent on the invasion of the French, but from the enormous retinue of serfs in her hotel, some notion of the proportionate scale observed in minor establishments, may be acquired. The ruins of palaces, capable of containing so many inmates, are not easily repaired ; besides, it is said, that if some of the proprietors have been hitherto restrained from building by the want of funds, others have been glad of a pretext to remain quietly on their estates in the country.

The regalia of the empire and the curious reliques of the patriarchal palace, which had been removed to Nizney Novgorod, during the occupation of the city by the troops of Buonaparte, having been brought back with the restoration of peace, were the chief objects of curiosity in the Kremlin, exhibited to strangers. In the patriarchal palace, are preserved the splendid robes of the former haughty rulers of the Russian church, the bridles of whose horses were held on solemn processions by the Czar himself; and of these, together with the precious stones that were reported to be found there in great profusion, we were promised an inspection, through the kindness of M. Storch, who procured us admission. But the Archimandrite had failed in his appointment, and on ascending the narrow steps of the palace, which brought us into some dark chambers, resembling dungeons, we found two ignorant priests, awaiting our arrival.

As they had not the keys of the wardrobes, and were unable to gratify our curiosity, we were obliged to content ourselves with peeping through some glass cases, at diamonds, rubies and sapphires, many of which had the appearance of being factitious. The treasury, however, recompensed us for our disappointment; in one wing we saw the crowns of Casan, Astrachan, Georgia and Poland, enriched with superb turquois, the imperial robes, and coro nation chairs, from the time of Peter the Great, besides mag nificent presents from Persia, and a remarkably fine collec tion of silver-gilt embossed plate. In another part of the building were kept the sword worn by Peter at the battle of Pultawa, and the litter in which the wounded Charles XII. was carried on the same celebrated occasion. A rare display of Damascus swords, housings for horses, and saddles studded and literally covered with pearls, rubies, sapphires and turquois, formed a most imposing sight, and worthy of the greatness of the Russian empire.

But as we passed through a gate to the north-west of the Kremlin, this feeling of admiration was a little disturbed by a scene of a very dif ferent description. Below the fortress in the fosse, to the left, were crowded together four or five hundred Mougiks, shivering with cold and clad in the most wretched manner. With the squalid appearance of a horde of the rudest savages, they were eagerly devouring their portions of meagre soup, cooked before them in the open air, which happened at that moment to be of the temperature of — 25° Reaumur. Thus it is, in this strange country ; every thing is in extremes. The sumptuous palace is placed by the wooden hut; in the streets, the unintelligible Slavonian dialect is heard, mingled with accents of the purest French; on one side, you are jostled by a petit maitre, on the other come in rough contact with an unsophisticated bearded Mougik.

The very climate partakes of the same excessive inconvenience, for if the win ter is too cold, the summer is too hot. The heat during the latter season rises often to 28° Reaumur = 9-5 Fahrenheit; and in the winter of some few years ago, Professor Fischer observed by the spirit thermometer, a degree of cold corre sponding to — 37° Reaumur, in the neighbourhood of Mos cow. As we continued our walk, we came to the spot, on the mound to the north-west of the walls of the Kremlin, nearly opposite the palace of Pashkov, where workmen were employed in finishing the immense building, called the Exercir-Haus. Of dimensions said to be greater than those of any other room in the world, whose roof is unsupported by columns, it is of brick, with the exception of the soubasse ment, which is of red sandstone, obtained from quarries in the neighbourhood.

When the severity of the winter will not allow the troops to be paraded in the open air, their evolutions are to be performed in this enormous apartment. On the other side of the Kremlin, in the open space before the sacred gate, and in front of the church of the Blessed William, which was considered of such curious construction, that the Czar Ivan the Terrible, caused the eyes of the architect to be put out, in order that he might not be em ployed in erecting any similar edifice, stands the colossal c group of bronze, intended to commemorate the recent delivery of the city from the hands of the enemy, the sub ject of which is taken from the following historical event. In the turbulent interregnum that succeeded the rival pretensions of Chouiski and the false Demetrius, the troops of Sigismond, king of Poland, aided by a faction of discontented boyars in his interest, took possession of Moscow in the year 1611, burnt a considerable part of the city, pil laged the churches, and exercised the greatest cruelties towards its defenceless inhabitants.

Having fortified them selves in their position, they bade defiance to the rest of the empire; and the state of anarchy which every where prevailed, offered no prospect to the Russians, that their country would be speedily delivered from the ravages of its enemies. At this moment of despondency, however, Kozma-Minin, an obscure inhabitant of Nizney-Novgorod, by trade a butcher, assembled and harangued his fellow citizens, exhorted them to make every sacrifice for the good of the state, and endeavour to expel their insolent oppressors. Troops were collected from Dorogobouge, Viazma, and the territory of Smolensko; and, at the sug gestion of Minin*, the Prince Pojarski who had narrowly escaped with his life during the time of the assassinations committed by the Poles at Moscow, was nominated to the command of the patriotic army.

The capital, in the hands of the enemy, is rigorously blockaded, and the inhabitants reduced to the greatest extremity by famine, and the usual miseries attendant on a long siege. The humane Pojarski yields to the humble solicitations of the rebel boyars within the walls of Moscow, and kindly receives their wives, for whom they were no longer able to procure sustenance. But the siege is carried on with unabating vigour, and the Cossacks, under their leader Troubetski, who had joined the camp of Pojarski, take the Kitaigorod by assault, making the greatest havoc among the Poles. The besieged intrench themselves, however, in other parts of the city, until their distress increases to such a height, that after a resistance of eighteen months, during the latter part of which period, they were obliged to live on the most disgusting food, cats, dogs, rats, and even the flesh of their fellow-sufferers, they are compelled to capitulate, under the simple stipulation that they should not be put to death.

The sculptor has selected this portion of Russian history, related more circumstantially by l'Evesque*, on which to found the story of the monument, that is to perpetuate the memory of the retreat of the French from Moscow. On a lofty pedestal of granite, the figure of Pojarski, is repre sented in a sitting posture, his right hand resting on a short sword, and with a stern countenance, he is apparently ruminating on the disasters of his country. The heroical Minin stands by his side; with his left hand, he touches * Histoire de Russie, Tom. III. c the sword of Pojarski, and with his right points upwards, indicating that the hope of deliverance must come from the interposition of Heaven. Moros is the name of the Russian artist, and the statues were cast at Petersburg, and con veyed by water from that capital to Moscow.

During our stay at the latter place, they were not exhibited to the public eye, but concealed by a temporary building of wood, and it was with difficulty I obtained the glance which enables me to give the above general description. On the 6th January, (the Russian Christmas-day,) the ceremony of blessing the waters was to take place, the statues to be exposed, and the review of 120,000 troops was expected to increase the splendour and solemnity of the occasion. The burning of Moscow, the theme of admiration of the present age, will descend to posterity as one of the most remarkable events of the late war; and since the obstinacy of the Russians in refusing to appropriate to themselves the glory of the deed, has thrown an obscurity on the affair, any anecdote that tends to illustrate the history of that disaster, may be thought worth preserving.

Among the inhabitants who made their escape on the approach of the French, was a merchant of the highest respectability, who, carrying with him what property he could collect, left his home and fled to Petersburg. On the entrance of the enemy, his residence, situated in theBielgorod, the quarter that ultimately escaped conflagration, was occupied by one of the chief officers of TO CONSTANTINOPLE. the itat major. Some days after, a Russian servant of the proprietors, who had remained behind, made various at tempts to secrete himself about the premises, but was as often detected and repulsed ; until, at the request of the temporary police established by Buonaparte, he was ad mitted, under pretence of taking care of the furniture and other property of his absent master. But no sooner had he fixed himself in his old quarters, than he was discovered making several ineffectual trials to set the house on fire; and when interrogated as to the motive for such extraordi nary conduct, coolly replied, that " every thing around ** him was burning, and he did not see why his master's **■ house should escape."

With a degree of lenity almost surprising in an enraged enemy, he was only thrust out of doors, discontented at his own want of success, and evi dently considering his master and himself disgraced by not being permitted to partake of the general sacrifice. But this feeling seems now to have subsided; and the Russians, so far from assuming to themselves the merit of so heroical an act, have the strange inconsistency of ascribing it to the French, to whom the burning of the city, and the de struction of the magazines it contained, Avere the severest calamities. Connected with the question of who set fire to Moscow, is the destiny of the governor of the city during that momentous period. Whether the decisive step was the result of the determined zeal of Count Rostopchin, taking upon himself the tremendous responsibility of so bold a measure, or only carried into execution by his immediate orders, after having received the countenance of higher authority; still, as the destruction of the town is allowed on all hands to have been the saving of the empire, it would seem that the gratitude of the nation could not be too strongly expressed towards the governor of Moscow.

And yet Count Rostopchin was soon after removed from his appointment, and has now leave to travel. An explanation of this obscure occurrence has been given, which is extremely curious, and illustrates in a strong point of view the muta bility of popular favour. A short time before the arrival of the French, a Hamburg paper was stopped at the post-office, containing a pretended prophecy, that the enemy would soon be in possession of the two capitals of Russia, and the Czar driven beyond Casan. Through the indiscretion of the son of the post-master, the paragraph was shewn to a young man who translated it into the Russian language, bv which means it soon became universally circulated. The effect of this unlucky prophecy on the minds of a bigoted people, may easily be conceived, and the indignation of the governor was naturally directed against the publisher of such an ill-timed and ominous report.

He was accordingly imprisoned, and during the interro gation that followed, it appears that zeal for the public wel fare carried the governor too far; for after having upbraided TO CONSTANTINOPLE. the unfortunate culprit with his treasonable conduct, he struck him with his sword; and, finally, gave him up to be torn in pieces by the mob, and the Cossacks assembled in the court of his house. At this season of doubt, anxiety and popular fury, his fate did not excite much attention ; the important events which immediately succeeded sufficiently occupied the public mind, and Count Rostopchin was continued in his office for a year and a half after the evacu ation of the country by the French. But when the return of peace had brought with it more moderate sentiments and cooler reflection, the conduct of the governor was can vassed in the moments of security.

The friends of the wretched victim loudly demanded redress, and the post master, who had been sent to Siberia, petitioned to be re called from his exile. In short, the tide of popular feeling had taken a contrary direction, and notwithstanding the powerful protection of one branch of the imperial family, it was thought expedient to sacrifice the zealous governor. A sum of money was given by the emperor to the father of the indiscreet translator, and the post-master was elevated to the rank of a senator. The entire destruction of a capital, on the approach of an enemy, by the spontaneous and heroical devotion of its in habitants, is unprecedented in the annals of history; for the Athenians, when they fled to Salamis, were content to evacuate their native city and leave its empty walls to receive the advancing Persians; but it would seem that few towns have been more subject to conflagration from various and accidental causes than the ancient metropolis of Russia.

Moscow began to be considered the capital of Russia in the time of Dmitri Ivanovitch, who possessed the throne in the year 1380; and it was during his reign that the Tartars of Sarai and of the Volga sacked the city and put its inhabitants to the sword. On the retreat of these formidable invaders Dmitri, who had fled to Kostroma, returned to Moscow, which he rebuilt, and constructed the Kremlin, or fortress, of stone. " But before this period, in 1245, the civil discord of the " great dukes or princes of Russia," says Gibbon, " betrayed " their country to the Tartars. They spread from Livonia " to the Black Sea, and both Moscow and Kiow, the " modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes ; " a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps " indelible, mark which a servitude of two hundred years " has imprinted on the character of the Russians."—Gib bon's Decline and Fall, Vol. XI. p. 420.

In the reign of Ivan Vassilievitch, the first Czar, the Tar tars of the Crimea, at the instigation of Poland, made an inroad into Russia, and set fire to Moscow, in the flames of which 100,000 people are said to have perished. The sollowing relation of this event is to be found in Hakluyt's Collection of the early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries, of the English Nation. — Vol. I. p. 452. " A letter of Richard Vscombe to M. Henrie Lane, touch " ing the burning of the citie of Mosco, by the Crimme Tar " tar, written in Rose Island, the 5. day of August, 1571." " Master Lane I have me commended unto you. The **.*• 27 of July I arriued here with the Magdalene, and the " same day and houre did the Swalow and Harry arriue " here also. — At our comming I found Master Proctor here, *■* by whom wee vnderstand very heavie newes.

The " Mosco is burnt euerie sticke by the Crimme, the 24. day " of May last, and an innumerable number of people: " and, in the English house was smothered Thomas " Southam, Tofild, Waverley, Greenes wife and children, " two children of Rase, and more to the number of 25 " persons were stifeled in our beere seller: and yet in " the same seller was Rase, his wife, John Browne and " John Clarke preserued, which was wonderfull. And " there went into that seller Master Glouer and Master " Rowley also: but because the heate was so great, " they came foorth againe with much peril!, so that a " boy at their heeles was taken with the fire, yet they " escaped blindfold into another seller, and there, as " God's will was, they were preserued. The Emperour D " fled out of the field, and many of his people were " carried away by the Crimme Tartar : to wit, all the " yong people; the old they would not meddle with, but " let them alone; and so with exceeding much spoile, " and infinite prisoners, they returned home againe.