CHAPTER LI.
Dr. Schmidt sold his sleigh and left Kazan by diligence the day after our arrival. I remained four days, and, when ready to start, managed to pick up a young Russian who was going to Nijne Novgorod. Each of us spoke two languages, but we had no common tongue. I brushed up all the Russian I had learned, and compelled it to perform very active service. Before our companionship ended I was astonished to find what an extensive business of conversation could be conducted with a limited capital of words.
Our communications were fragmentary and sometimes obscure, but we rarely became “hopelessly stuck.” When my knowledge of spoken words failed I had recourse to a “Manual of Russian-English conversation,” in which there were phrases on all sorts of topics. Examining the book at leisure one would think it abundantly fertile; but when I desired a particular phrase it was rarely to be found. As a last resource we tried Latin, but I could not remember a hundred words out of all my classics.
A regular thaw had set in, and the streets were in a condition of ‘slosh’ that reminded me of Broadway in spring. When we left the hotel, a crowd of attendants gathered to be remembered pecuniarily. The yemshick tied his horses’ tails in the tightest of knots to prevent their filling with snow and water. At the western gate we found a jam of sleds and sleighs, where we stuck for nearly half an hour, despite the efforts of two soldier policemen. When able to proceed we traversed a high causeway spanning the Kazanka valley and emerged into a suburb containing a large foundry. A mosque and a church, side by side, symbolized the harmony between Tartar and Russian.
Passing this suburb we reached the winter station of many steamboats and barges, among which we threaded our way. Seven versts from Kazan we reached the bank of the Volga.
The first view of the road upon the river was not inviting. There were many pools of surface water, and the continuous travel had worn deep hollows in the snow and ice. Some of the pools into which our yemshick drove appeared about as safe as a mill-pond in May. As the fellow ought to know his route I said nothing, and let him have his own way. We met a great many sleds carrying merchandise, and passed a train going in our direction. One driver carelessly riding on his load was rolled overboard, and fell sidewise into a deep mass of snow and water. He uttered an imprecation, and rose dripping like a boiled cabbage just lifted out of a dinner pot.
We headed obliquely across the river toward a dozen tow-boats frozen in the ice. The navigation of the Volga employs more than four hundred steamers, three-fourths of which are tows. Dead walls in Kazan frequently displayed flaming announcements, that reminded me of St. Louis and New Orleans. The companies run a sharp rivalry in freight and passenger traffic, their season lasting from April to October. The gross receipts for 1866 of one company owning thirty-four boats, was one million, two hundred and fifty-three thousand, and some odd roubles. This, after deducting running expenses, would not leave a large amount of profit. The surplus in the case of that company was to be applied to paying debts. “Not a copeck,” said my informant, “will the stockholders receive in the shape of dividends.”
I did not obtain any full and clear information touching the navigation of the Volga. The steamboats run from Tver, on the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway, to Astrachan, at the mouth of the river. The best part of the business is the transport of goods and passengers,—chiefly the former,—to the fair at Nijne Novgorod. The river is full of shifting sand-bars, and the channel is very tortuous, especially at low water. The first company to introduce steam on the Volga was an English one. Its success induced many Russians to follow its example, so that the business is now over done.
Here, as in the Siberian rivers, the custom prevails of carrying freight in barges, which are towed by tugs. All the steamers I saw were side-wheelers.
We changed horses on the south bank of the Volga, only twelve versts from Kazan. The right bank of the river presents an unbroken line of hills or bluffs, while the opposite one is generally low. The summer road from Kazan westward follows the high ground in the vicinity of the river, but often several versts away. The winter road is over the ice of the Volga, keeping generally pretty near the bank. A double line of pine or other boughs in the ice marks the route. These boughs are placed by the Administration of Roads, under whose supervision the way is daily examined. No one is allowed to travel on the ice until the officials declare it safe.
Night came upon us soon after passing the first station. The road was a combination of pitch-holes, water, soft snow, and detours to avoid dangerous places. The most unpleasant drives were when we left the river to change horses at the villages on the high bank. It was well enough going up, but in descending the sleigh sometimes endeavored to go ahead of the horses. Once we came near going over a perpendicular bank sixty or eighty feet high. Had we done so, our establishment would have not been worth fifty cents a bushel at the bottom of the bank.
Back from the Volga on this part of the route there were many villages of Cheramess, a people of Tartar descent who preserve many of their ancient customs. They are thoroughly loyal to Russia, and keep the portrait of the emperor in nearly every cottage. In accordance with their custom of veiling women they hang a piece of gauze over the picture of the empress. While changing horses, we were beset by many beggars, whose forlorn appearance entitled them to sympathy. I purchased a number of blessings, as each beggar made the sign of the cross over me on receiving a copeck. Russian beggars are the most devout I ever saw, and display great familiarity with the calendar of saints. One morning at Kazan I stood at my hotel window watching a beggar woman soliciting alms. Several poorly dressed peasants gave her each a copeck or two, and both giver and receiver made the sign of the cross. One decrepid old man gave her a loaf of bread, blessing it devoutly as he placed it in her hands. So far as I saw not a single well dressed person paid any attention to the mendicant. ‘Only the poor can feel for the poor.’
BEGGARS IN KAZAN.
BEGGARS IN KAZAN.
We encountered a great deal of merchandise, carried invariably upon, one-horse sleds. Cotton, and wool in large sacks were the principal freight going westward, while that moving toward Kazan was of a miscellaneous character. The yemshicks were the worst I found on the whole extent of my sleigh ride. They generally contented themselves with the regulation speed, and it was not often that the promise of drink-money affected them. I concluded that money was more easily obtained here than elsewhere on the route. Ten copecks were an important item to a yemshick in Siberia, but of little consequence along the Volga.
Villages were numerous along the Volga, and most of them were very liberally supplied with churches. We passed Makarief, which was for many years the scene of the great fair of European Russia. Fire and flood alike visited the place, and in 1816 the fair was transferred to Nijne Novgorod. One of the villages has a church spire that leans considerably toward the edge of the river.
About fifty versts from Nijne Novgorod the population of a large village was gathered, in Sunday dress, upon the ice. A baptism was in progress, and as we drove past the assemblage we caught a glimpse of a man plunging through a freshly cut hole. Half a minute later he emerged from the crowd and ran toward the nearest house, the water dripping from his garments and hair. As we passed around the end of the village, I looked back and saw another person running in the same direction.
THE IMMERSION.
THE IMMERSION.
Converts to the Russian church are baptized by immersion, and, once received in its bosom, they continue members until death do them part. What I have said of the church in Siberia will apply throughout all Russia. The government is far more tolerant in the matter of religion than that of any Roman Catholic country in Europe, and might reprove Great Britain pretty sharply for its religious tyrannies in unhappy Ireland. Every one in Russia can worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, provided he does not shock the moral sense of civilization in so doing. Every respectable form of Christian worship enjoys full liberty, and so does every respectable form of paganism and anti-Christianity. The Greek faith is the acknowledged religion of the government, and the priests, by virtue of their partly official character, naturally wield considerable power. The abuse or undue employment of that power is not (theoretically) permitted, however much the church may manifest its zeal. Every effort is made to convert unbelievers, but no man is forced to accept the Greek faith.
Traveling through Russia one may see many forms of worship. He will find the altars of Shamanism, the temples of Bhudha, the mosques of Islam, and the synagogues of Israel. On one single avenue of the Russian capital he will pass in succession the churches of the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, and the Episcopal faith. He will be told that among the native Russians there are nearly fifty sects of greater or less importance. There are some advantages in belonging to the church of state, just as in England, but they are not essential. I am acquainted with officers in the military, naval, and civil service of the government who are not, and never have been, members of the Greek church. I never heard any intimation that their religion had been the least bar to their progress.
The Pope, in his encyclical of October, 1867, complains of the conduct of the Russian government toward the Catholics in Poland. No doubt Alexander has played the mischief with the Pope’s faithful in that quarter, but not on account of their religion. In Warsaw a Russian officer, a Pole by birth, told me of the misfortunes that had fallen upon the Catholic monastery and college in that city. “We found in the insurrection,” said the officer, “that the monks were engaged in making knives, daggers, cartridges, and other weapons. The priests were the active men of the rebellion, and did more than any other class to urge it forward, and here is a specimen of iron-mongery from the hands of the monks. We found two hundred of these in the college recently suppressed. Many more were distributed and used.”
As he spoke he opened a drawer and showed me a short dagger fitting into a small handle. The point of the blade had been dipped in poison, and was carefully wrapped in paper. The instrument was used by sticking it into somebody in a crowd, and allowing it to remain. Death was pretty certain from a very slight scratch of this weapon.
If this gentleman’s story is correct, and it was corroborated by others, the Russian persecution of the Polish Catholics is not entirely without reason.
Among the dissenters in the Greek church there is a body calledStaroviersty(Old Believers). The difference between them and the adherents of the orthodox faith is more ritualistic than doctrinal. Both make the sign of the cross, though each has its own way of holding the fingers in the operation. The Staroviersty do not use tobacco in any form, and their mode of life is generally quite rigid. Under Catherine and Paul they were persecuted, and, as a matter of course, increased their numbers rapidly. For the past sixty years oppression has been removed, and they have done pretty nearly as they liked. They are found in all parts of the empire, but are most numerous in the vicinity of the Ural mountains.
Russia has its share of fanatical sects, some of whom push their religion to a wonderful extreme. One sect has a way of sacrificing children by a sort of slow torture in no way commendable. Another sect makes a burnt offering of some of its adherents, who are selected by lot. They enter a house prepared for the occasion, and begin a service of singing and prayer. After a time spent in devotions, the building is set on fire and consumed with its occupants. Another sect which is mentioned elsewhere practices the mutilation of masculine believers, and steals children for adoption into their families. Against all these fanatics the government exercises its despotic power.
The peasants are generally very devout, and keep all the days of the church with becoming reverence. There is a story that a moujik waylaid and killed a traveler, and while rifling the pockets of his victim found a cake containing meat. Though very hungry he would not eat the cake, because meat was forbidden in the fast then in force.
RUSSIAN PRIEST.
RUSSIAN PRIEST.
The government is endeavoring to diminish the power and influence of the priests, and the number of saints’ days, when men must abstain from, labor. Heretofore the priests have enjoyed the privilege of recruiting the clergy from their own members. When a village priest died his office fell to his son, and if he had no male heir the revenues went to his eldest daughter until some priest married her and took charge of the parish. By special order of the emperor any vacancy is hereafter to be filled by the most deserving candidate.
It is said that during the Crimean war the governor of Moscow notified the pastor of the English church in that city that the prayer for the success of Her Brittanic Majesty’s armies must be omitted. The pastor appealed to the emperor, who replied that prayers of regular form might continue to be read, no matter what they contained. The governor made no further interference.
About three o’clock in the afternoon of the second day from Kazan, the yemshick pointed out the spires of Nijne Novgorod, on the southern bank of the Volga. A fleet of steamers, barges, and soudnas lay sealed in the ice along the shore, waiting for the moving of the waters. The road to the north bank was marked with pine boughs, that fringed the moving line of sleighs and sledges. We threaded our way among the stationary vessels, and at length came before the town. A friend had commended me to the Hotel de la Poste, and I ordered the yemshick to drive there. With an eye to his pocket the fellow carried me to an establishment of the same name on the other side of the Oka. I had a suspicion that I was being swindled, but as they blandly informed me that no other hotel with that title existed, I alighted and ordered my baggage up.
This was the end of my sleigh ride. I had passed two hundred and nine stations, with as many changes of horses and drivers. Nearly seven hundred horses had been attached to my sleigh, and had drawn me over a road of greatly varied character. Out of forty days from Irkutsk, I spent sixteen at the cities and towns on the way. I slept twenty-six nights in my sleigh with the thermometer varying from thirty-five degrees above zero to forty-five below, and encountered four severe storms and a variety of smaller ones. Including the detour to Barnaool, my sleigh ride was about thirty-six hundred miles long. From Stratensk by way of Kiachta to Irkutsk, I traveled not far from fourteen hundred miles with wheeled vehicles, and made ninety-three changes. My whole ride from steam navigation on the Amoor to the railway at Nijne Novgorod was very nearly five thousand miles.
There was a manifest desire to swindle me at the bogus Hotel de la Poste. Half a dozen attendants carried my baggage to my room, and each demanded a reward. When I gave the yemshick his “na vodka,” an officious attendant suggested that the gentleman should be very liberal at the end of his ride. I asked for a bath, and they ordered a sleigh to take me to a bathing establishment several squares away. My proposition to be content for the present with a wash basin was pronounced impossible, until I finished the argument with my left boot. The waiter finally became affectionate, and when I ordered supper he suggested comforts not on the bill of fare. The landlord proposed to purchase my sleigh and superfluous furs, and we concluded a bargain at less than a twelfth of their cost.
After a night’s rest I recrossed the Oka and drove to the town. Here I found the veritable Hotel de la Poste, to which I immediately changed my quarters. The house overlooked a little park enclosing a pond, where a hundred or more persons were skating. The park was well shaded, and must be quite pleasant in summer. The town hardly deserves the name of Nijne (Lower) Novgorod, as it stands on a bluff nearly two hundred feet above the river. Its lower town contains little else than small shops, storehouses, poor hotels, and steamboat offices. The Kremlin, or fortress, looks down from a very picturesque position, and its strong walls have a defiant air. From the edge of the bluff the view is wide; the low field and forest land on the opposite side of the river, the sinuous Volga and its tributary, the Oka, are all visible for a long distance. Opposite, on a tongue of land between the Volga and the Oka, is the scene of the fair of Nijne Novgorod, the greatest, I believe, in the world.
There are many fine houses in the upper town, with indications of considerable wealth. I had a letter of introduction to the Chief of Police, Colonel Kretegin, who kindly showed me the principal objects of interest in and around the Kremlin. The monument to the memory of Minin Sukhoruky possessed the greatest historical importance. This man, a peasant and butcher, believed himself called to deliver Russia from the Poles in 1612. He awakened his countrymen, and joined a Russian noble in leading them to expel the invaders. A bronze monument at Moscow represents Minin starting on his mission. The memorial at Nijne is of a less elaborate character.
We drove through the fair grounds, which wore as empty of occupants as Goldsmith’s deserted village. It is laid out like a regular town or city, and most of its houses are substantially built. So much has been written about this commercial center that I will not attempt its description, especially as I was not there in fair season. The population of the town—ordinarily forty thousand—becomes three hundred thousand during the fair. More than half a million persons have visited the city in a single summer, and the value of goods sold or exchanged during each fair is about two hundred millions of roubles.
Colonel Kretegin told me that the members of the Fox embassy were much astonished at finding American goods for sale at Nijne Novgorod. It would be difficult to mention any part of the civilized world where some article of our manufacture has not penetrated.
TAIL PIECE