In joyful Russia

Preface

This book is neither a social tract, a political or economic 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 Eussian 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, su.ch as others have pictured Eussia 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 Eussia 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 Eussian hosts.

John A. Logan, Jr.

Washington, D. C, February 15, 1897.

CONTEN^TS

CHAPTER P4.GE

I. — At the threshold of the Tsae .... 1

II. — An hour in Warsaw 10

III.— Guests of the Tsar 26

IV. — The breaking 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 the 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

XXII. — Russian horses 208

XXIII.— Russian races 217

XXIV. — The Russian church 231

XXV.— Village life 241

XXVI.— Slavic literature 249

XXVII.— Slavic art 262

XXVIII.— A glance at Finnish Russia 268

LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS.

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

Duchess Olga 33

A peasant of the better class 43

A Russian village 56

View of the Kremlin from the west 63

The Gi'and Duchess Serge 67

Our little servant . .73

Arc de Triomphe, Moscow 83

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 the Palace of the Kremlin . . . Ill

Cathedral of St. Saviour, Moscow 113

Throne room, hall of St. Andrew 117

Hall of St. Alexander Nevskoi 123

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 .... 173

Royal pavilion, Kadynski Plain 179

Water cart 189

ix

X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PACING 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 183

The Empress 160

Chapter I AT THE THKESHOLD OF THE TSAE

" Stkavstvuite! " said the conductor.

"Go to the devil!" said I.

" Pojaluista chas! " said the conductor with entreating 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 he, hy a potent consciousness which " neither poppy nor mandragora" can ever quite drown — a consciousness that something novel, interesting and long-waited for, has at last happened — ^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 incessaney 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 Mcholas II crown himself with the crown of Peter the Great, the crown of all the Eussias, and we were quite willing 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 courteously swing wide.

The conductor was a " common or garden " Eussian 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 Eussian official I encountered in the exercise of his office. He wore a most gentlemanly looldng frock coat of good black cloth, a pair of trousers tucked into high boots of black Eussian 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

AT THE THRESHOLD OP THE TSAR. 3

flags — one emerald, one ruby — that were tightly furled and thrust into the leather cases. 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 magentacoloured, his clothes would have been proud with magenta pipings, and his neck swathed in a magenta collar. In Eussia the railways are under the direct control and management of the Government, and every railway of&cial 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 English, and perceiving that I knew no " Eus," he betook himself 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 Eussian 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 Eussian. 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 ns pleasantly, in contrast to the . rather insulting habit of our own custom-house officers, who first make you declare upon oath that your boxes contain nothing dutiable, and then proceed to search for secreted proof that you have lied. 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 perfectly 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 Eussian was surprisingly slow. He looked Oriental, and, as I overheard a pert English schoolboy, who had evidently lived in the East, say, "he moved Oriental." But that was of little 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 something 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 addressed 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 apologize as elaborately as my command of French would permit.

We were moving toward another room, where the boxes and large luggage had to be examined, when the conductor who had disappeared with our passports accosted

AT THE THRESHOLD OP THE TSAR. 5

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 compartment.

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 milhner, and the contents of my hugest trunk consisted of a fine conglomeration of uniforms and chiffons, of waistcoats and satin trains. The Eussians — 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 explore the old Polish city which Alexander I gave to the beautiful Marie Grudzinska, and which she, dying, bequeathed to the kings of Poland, to be theirs and their heirs' forever. Much less was there time or light or opportunity to see the one really unique thing that the Alexandrovno 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 Eussian 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 something 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 supplied 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 English 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 Kegent Street and the Eue de Eivoli. He was peculiarly proud of this remarkable chef-d'oeuvre 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 Eussian 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 Eussians 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 Eussian tea is very light of colour, very fragrant, and very grateful to the palate. They bring it to you with

AT THE THRESHOLD OP THE TSAR. 7

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 Eussians 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, however they take their tea, they all take it. And like the Siamese, the Eussians 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 Eussia 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 something, on anything — or, if needs be, as nearly on nothing as is possible in this world of an omnipotent and vacuumabhorring 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 muncli kalatschs as they drink. Kalatsch is the delicious nationaJI 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 Eussian 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 pretzel in appearance.

We were few, we tea drinkers, in the Alexandrovno buffet. Almost all who broke their fast there were Eussians, and all save the palpably poor Eussians drank champagne. And the palpably poor were conspicuous by their absence. The Eussian 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 Eussia. If it is true that every one in Eussia drinks tea and drinks it often, it is even truer that every one in Eussia who can afford it drinks champagne and drinks it all the time. In a hotel or a family mansion of any luxury the poppings 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 Eussian waiters (there are no barmaids in Eussia), 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 tuckecl a Eussian-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 Eusso-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 Eussia, the more emphasis was given to my first impression — an impression that in

JSikoLsky gate of the Kremlin.

AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TSAR. 9

many essentials Eussia 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 Eussian 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 Eussian service, from the private soldier 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 Eussia. 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 Eussia, and that they are sometimes used. But I never saw one, never heard one whizzing through the wintry air. The Eussia I saw was a rejoicing and prosperous Eussia. The icicles were wreathed with roses, the air was fragrant with loyalty and softly musical with blessings. I must write of Eussia 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 contented and brimful of rejoicing at the sacred coronation of their well-loved Tsar. There is doubtless much to regret and to mourn over in Eussia, as there is and will be everywhere else until the millennium comes; but the Eussia that I saw was a joyful Eussia.

CHAPTEE II.

AN HOUK IN WAESAW.

I HAVE been told that trains are sometimes missed in Eussia. 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 answer was sounded from the locomotive.

" Off at last! " said 0.

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 pas-

AN HOUR IN WARSAW. H

sengers 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 conductor's whistle grew truly eloquent. The engine whistle answered back for all it was worth, and the station resounded and reverberated with what sounded for all the world like insane, metallic profanity. For now the conductor 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 engine whistle defied. And their noisy altercation treated us to an exhibition of sound that might safely have challenged 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 ofiicials 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 Eussia, at least so far as our experience went, and we travelled considerably 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 construction in Kussia.

Our train was cold, but otherwise most comfortable. Like all Eussian trains, its carriages were very wide, and we had our compartment to ourselves; not the best way to study new Eussian 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 detaining each other with any elaborate or prolonged goodnights. 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 Eussian trains go. The Eussians consider it safe, and time is absolutely no object to them. Eailway 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 presumable 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