CHAPTER XMoscow of the Citizens

“Among the objects of greatest antiquity are the sacerdotal robes of the high clergy. They are in the case near the altar; the ‘Omophorium of the sixth Œcumenical Council’ of the catalogue, is said to have belonged to St Nicholas the wonder-worker, Archbishop of Mirliki, and worn by that saint at the Council at Nice: Sabas thinks that it was presented to Alexis by Gregory of Nicea who visited Moscow in 1655, with letters from the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople testifying to its genuineness. It belonged to the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was present at the Assembly of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Fathers of the Church, and, latterly, opinion inclines to its having originated with him. Equally ancient is a mitre, easily recognised from other ‘crowns’ in the case by its pointed shape, similar to those of ancient Byzantium. It was presented to the Tsar Theodore; the donor, Miletius Piga, of Alexandria, wrote that, apart from the gems with which it is adorned and the rich material, its age and reputation, it is to be esteemed above its intrinsic value because taken to the Council at Ephesus by Cyril, in 431. The mitre of the Patriarch Job, 1595, differs from those of later date by reason of its very flat top—the shape of aklobook, hat, or ancient crown—rather than a mitre. The mitres ranged with it were constructed by the directions of Nikon, and equal in richness and other details the royal crowns.“Of croziers and their equivalents there are many specimens, the most venerated, however, is that of St Peter, by the altar on the Uspenski Sobor,—the staffthat passed from pontiff to pontiff through the centuries. There are three of the five in the sacristy of tau shape and beautiful, they belonged to Philaret; the others to Nikon. The processional cross of Nikon has but four points. Of copes there are forty-one; the oldest is that of Peter, the Metropolitan (1322), used afterwards at the consecration of the Patriarchs. Thepanagiaor pyx worn by a bishop, or higher prelate, is often an exquisite piece of jewelry. That catalogued as No. 4 is of onyx, with a superposed layer having the crucifixionin relievo; on the reverse, a Greek cross, the Emperor Constantine and Helena, his mother. It belonged to the Patriarch Job and has a most beautiful settingof Russian enamel and niello work of the sixteenth century. No. 11 is also of onyx, with ruby and pearl decoration, it appertained to Peter. No. 3. is a sardonyx of elaborate workmanship and unusual size; it has a reliquary containing a fragment of the robe of royal purple with which the Saviour was mockingly invested, and is believed to have been produced to the order of Ivan IV. to commemorate the birth of Dmitri. No. 25 contains an emerald of purest water, three-fifths of an inch in diameter. In another is also a fine emerald which weighs 38 carats. There are in addition jewels, rings, seals, cups, goblets, crosses, and other trinkets of the fathers of the Russian Church, and amongst them an object known as the ‘Antik,’ which has puzzled the learned. It is a shell of mother-of-pearl, shaped like a woman’s breast, and on this in fine gold, beautifully enamelled, the Gorgon’s head, the fanged heads of the serpent-locks intertwined and biting each other. It is on a base of rock-crystal, gold encrusted, and the medallions enamelled with representations of different buildings—it has figured in the inventory since 1648, when it had a double case of dark green velvet. The fine collection of church plate is principally of the seventeenth century and later.“In the adjoining Mirovarennaya Palata, the Holy Chrism is prepared every other year, in strict conformance with the original instruction. It is, when prepared, taken in sixteen silver phials to the Uspenski Sobor and then at a special service during Lent (usually Holy Thursday) consecrated by the Metropolitan, and further hallowed by the addition of a few drops of the oil from the vessel of ‘Alabaster’ in which the Holy Chrism was first brought into Russia from Constantinople, the vessel having never been emptied, since the quantity taken for this purpose is immediately replaced by the addition of that newly made. The ‘Alabaster’ is a long-necked flask of copper, wholly covered with scales of mother-of-pearl, and is supposed to be of the same size and form as that box of ointment Mary Magdalene offered Jesus.“The library of the Synod contains about one thousand Slavic MSS. on Church rites and copies of the scriptures, many between the seventh and twelfth centuries, and five hundred Greek MSS. of even earlier date. They were got together by the patriarch Nikon for the purpose of comparison, and restoring the ritual of the Russian Church to its original, or at least earlier, rule. The printed books have mostly been removed to other collections, and the MSS. are of interest only to those well acquainted with the rites of the early Christian Church, and such students are readily granted access to them.”

“Of croziers and their equivalents there are many specimens, the most venerated, however, is that of St Peter, by the altar on the Uspenski Sobor,—the staffthat passed from pontiff to pontiff through the centuries. There are three of the five in the sacristy of tau shape and beautiful, they belonged to Philaret; the others to Nikon. The processional cross of Nikon has but four points. Of copes there are forty-one; the oldest is that of Peter, the Metropolitan (1322), used afterwards at the consecration of the Patriarchs. Thepanagiaor pyx worn by a bishop, or higher prelate, is often an exquisite piece of jewelry. That catalogued as No. 4 is of onyx, with a superposed layer having the crucifixionin relievo; on the reverse, a Greek cross, the Emperor Constantine and Helena, his mother. It belonged to the Patriarch Job and has a most beautiful settingof Russian enamel and niello work of the sixteenth century. No. 11 is also of onyx, with ruby and pearl decoration, it appertained to Peter. No. 3. is a sardonyx of elaborate workmanship and unusual size; it has a reliquary containing a fragment of the robe of royal purple with which the Saviour was mockingly invested, and is believed to have been produced to the order of Ivan IV. to commemorate the birth of Dmitri. No. 25 contains an emerald of purest water, three-fifths of an inch in diameter. In another is also a fine emerald which weighs 38 carats. There are in addition jewels, rings, seals, cups, goblets, crosses, and other trinkets of the fathers of the Russian Church, and amongst them an object known as the ‘Antik,’ which has puzzled the learned. It is a shell of mother-of-pearl, shaped like a woman’s breast, and on this in fine gold, beautifully enamelled, the Gorgon’s head, the fanged heads of the serpent-locks intertwined and biting each other. It is on a base of rock-crystal, gold encrusted, and the medallions enamelled with representations of different buildings—it has figured in the inventory since 1648, when it had a double case of dark green velvet. The fine collection of church plate is principally of the seventeenth century and later.

“In the adjoining Mirovarennaya Palata, the Holy Chrism is prepared every other year, in strict conformance with the original instruction. It is, when prepared, taken in sixteen silver phials to the Uspenski Sobor and then at a special service during Lent (usually Holy Thursday) consecrated by the Metropolitan, and further hallowed by the addition of a few drops of the oil from the vessel of ‘Alabaster’ in which the Holy Chrism was first brought into Russia from Constantinople, the vessel having never been emptied, since the quantity taken for this purpose is immediately replaced by the addition of that newly made. The ‘Alabaster’ is a long-necked flask of copper, wholly covered with scales of mother-of-pearl, and is supposed to be of the same size and form as that box of ointment Mary Magdalene offered Jesus.

“The library of the Synod contains about one thousand Slavic MSS. on Church rites and copies of the scriptures, many between the seventh and twelfth centuries, and five hundred Greek MSS. of even earlier date. They were got together by the patriarch Nikon for the purpose of comparison, and restoring the ritual of the Russian Church to its original, or at least earlier, rule. The printed books have mostly been removed to other collections, and the MSS. are of interest only to those well acquainted with the rites of the early Christian Church, and such students are readily granted access to them.”

Such a brief account does scant justice to one of the finest and most complete collections of ecclesiastical furniture the world has produced; but, interesting as some of the objects are to all beholders, it is to the student of ecclesiasticism that they will appeal with greatest force. To him also, the technique of ritual; the customs appertaining to the dispersion of relics among newly-built churches and restoration of those injured by time and accident; together with many other matters of Church rule and procedure which find illustration in this collection, should prove both attractive and instructive. Of greater general interest is the story of the struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the rise of heresy and states of different forms of dissent; that dramatic movement of ecclesiasticism which is world wide, continuous, and of perennial concern to all.

Whatever heresies may have existed in early Russia, with the ascendancy of Moscow these perished, and the prelates had only to guard against the wiles of Rome and to stay its power on the confines of the kingdom. During the reign of Vasili the Blind the unsuccessful attempt of the Metropolitan Isidor to introduce Romish practices intensified the conservatism of the prelates. In 1582, Anthony Possevin, a Jesuit emissary of the Pope, Gregory XIII., had long discussions with Ivan the Terrible in the Granovitaia Palata respecting the union of the Churches. Ivan was outspoken: the emissary returned unsatisfied.

The false Dmitri’s view has already been given: he was overthrown and the supremacy of the orthodox prelates increased by Boris Godunov’s initiation of the Patriarchate. The Tsar Michael and his father Philaret appear to have been always in accord, and then the temporal power of the prelates was equal to that of the sovereign. Alexis, a boy of seventeen, was unfortunate in having as collaborator the sturdy Nikon. After hisabsence in the war against the Poles he found Nikon, as Veliki Gossudar, a title reserved for the Tsars, absolutely autocratic. The Tsar objected to the use of the title by the Patriarch; Nikon resigned his office, and retired to the Vosskresenki Monastery on the Varvarka, expecting Alexis would seek him, but the Tsar did not visit him nor did he appoint another patriarch. Nikon had already given great offence to the clergy for, attracted by some text on one of the ecclesiastical vestments that had been received from Greece, he recognised a considerable difference between the Greek rendering and that current in Slavonic; prosecuting his investigations further he found many discrepancies and tried in all things to revert to the older practice. His action was construed as the introduction of new procedure—and consequently vigorously opposed—and orthodoxy split into two camps; those who agreed with the head of the Church that the ancient practice was correct and should be introduced and the more conservative who would not depart from that to which they had been accustomed, and it is they who are known as the “Old Believers,” for the alterations proposed by Nikon ultimately became general. Although the Patriarch had resigned he continued to receive the clergy and concern himself with the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. In 1654 he angered the people by going into private chapels and houses and removing all copies of the ikon Nerukotvorenni, “not made with hands,” because unlike the ikons of Mount Athos. The priest visited Moscow, and the people paraded the empty ikon cases and the defaced ikons, attributing to this outrage the plague from which so many suffered, and the clergy then left Moscow in large numbers fearing assault. In 1659 the Tsar’s emissaries informed him that he ought no longer to interfere. He thereupon withdrew from Moscow. In Advent 1664 he suddenly reappeared withmany monks at early matins in the Uspenski Cathedral, peremptorily ordered the officiating clergy to perform certain offices. The clergy at once apprised the Tsar, who in turn ordered his boyards to command Nikon to leave the Cathedral. Nikon pleaded that he had been instructed by Jonas in a vision to act as he had done, but the Tsar only repeated the command; he stated then that he had power to heal the sick, but the Tsar was inflexible and Nikon retired. At a council in 1666 he was formally deposed, and withdrew to a distant monastery where he continued his researches; he was pardoned by the Tsar Theodore in 1681 but died whilst on his journey to meet his sovereign.

Joachim, the succeeding Patriarch, opposed Nikon’s innovations, and held tenaciously to the customary practice and attempted to stifle schism by persecuting relentlessly. He forbade Catholics to worship, banished Jesuits, barely tolerated Calvinists and Lutherans, and burned to death Kullman the German mystic for proclaiming false doctrines. When he died in 1690 he besought Peter to drive all heretics and unbelievers from Russia—it is to him that Peter erected the chapel on the Srietenka. As in 1682 and earlier, the “old believers” had been cruelly tortured for not conforming to the innovations of Nikon, more especially the unfortunate and obstinate Boyarina Morozov and her sister Princess Urusov, so with the change of the head of the Church the people were condemned for such acts as they had previously been commended for performing, and now knew not whom to believe. With the accession of Peter to sole power, and the enforcement by him of practices foreign to former habit, the people associated all his innovations with those purely clerical ones which had recently met with opposition and caused persecution and suffering. It was impossible to stamp out opposition, exile but spread the discontent.When Peter quarrelled with the Church, the clergy were unable to cope with the popular reaction against the innovations of Nikon and his disciples. Peter was at last induced to persecute the noncontents, but these, disgusted with his secular innovations, fled into distant parts of the country and even abroad, where for long they were politically an element of grave danger to the state, but, the rule of Nikon was established and the old believers regarded as Raskolniki, or dissenters.

These, under persecution, and lacking adequate direction again split into two sections; one, the popovtsi, or those who acknowledge the priesthood and depend for their clergy upon schismatics from among the orthodox, who after ordination, find their practice preferable.

They are quite insignificant in comparison with the Bezpopovtsi, or those who do not have ordained priests, but are more powerful because united, whereas the bezpopovtsi number as many different brotherhoods as there are distinct dissenting sects in England. The best known among these are theDukhobortsi, who deny the divinity of the Holy Ghost, strongly oppose civil authority, refuse to pray for their sovereign or the head of the orthodox church, and consider death by starvation or fire, so long as it is self-wrought, to be the highest duty. Nearly akin to them are the terribleSkoptsior mutilators, and the fanaticKhlysti, or Flagellants, and many others. To the orthodox church all who are notslavopravniare alike. The civil government has always discriminated between the harmless and those whose tenets are opposed to the welfare of the individual and to the commonwealth.

The orthodox regard the discussion as terminated: the Tsaritsa Sophia herself was present in the Granovitaia Palace, at the discussions of the Patriarch with the chief of the Ras Kolniks, a fanatic Nikita. There were stormy scenes; at the close each sect claimedto have the right, and for long afterwards there were frequent discussions between the supporters of both parties, around the porch of the Blagovieshchenski Sobor.

CHURCH AND GATE OF MARY OF VLADIMIRCHURCH AND GATE OF MARY OF VLADIMIR

Of the churches of the orthodox, the number in Moscow is indeed great; add to these the cathedrals, the new Xram, chapels, monasteries and convents, and the claim of Moscow to its title of City of Churches will not be questioned. It is quite impossible even to enumerate those worth seeing. Instead take a typical street, say the Nikolskaya in the busiest part of thecommercial Kitai-Gorod. It contains the Monastery of the Images, Za-ikono-spassky Monastyr—once, 1679, an academy; Church of the Virgin of Kazan, interesting as founded in 1630 by Prince Pojarski; the Nikolævski Monastyr, Greek, founded in 1556, and in 1669, with two churches; opposite it the old Monastery of the Epiphany, Bogoyavlenni, founded in 1396, with a church to Boris and Gleb and several others of lesser note—a large establishment with an extensive cemetery but the buildings of course modern. The Synodalia Typografiia; the printing house of the Synod, founded in 1645, the façade always painted a light blue, with the lion and unicorn, and other Byzantine decorations, in white. Then near the Vladimirski Vorot, the church to the Virgin, dating from the time of the boy-Tsars, Ivan and Peter, and opposite the second largest monastery, and most often used church in the Kitai gorod, that of the Trinity. In all eleven churches or chapels within less than 200 yards—and that is characteristic of Moscow. Among other tserkvi well worth seeing are:—

Kitai-Gorod.In the Varvarka: St Barb, St George the Martyr, St Maxim the Confessor, and the Monastery of the Resurrection. In the Ilyinka: St Nicholas of the Great Cross, St Elias. Also the Holy Trinity in the Cherkassky, St Anne in the Zariadi, and of the Virgin of Georgia, but St Ipatius is in the Ipatievski, and St Nicholas near the Moskvretski Bridge.Bielo-Gorod.The Srietenka, built by John Taylor; All Saints, the Transfiguration, and the Manifestation.

Bielo-Gorod.The Srietenka, built by John Taylor; All Saints, the Transfiguration, and the Manifestation.

“Fair Moscow crowned: now towering highAnd, seated on her throne of hills,A glorious pile from days gone by.”Dmitriev.

PETER “THE GREAT” who is credited with having created the history of Russia did little for Moscow, a town he, after his travels abroad, always despised and constantly distrusted. He evicted the last private owners from the Kremlin, and spoiled its palaces and treasures, but took no measures to enhance its beauty or increase its wealth. It is customary to date progress and civilisation from his reign; an anonymous Russian poet has even written:

“Russia and Russia’s strength lay hid in dreary night;God said ‘Let Peter be’—straightway they burst to light,”

but, so far as Moscow is concerned, his coming would be more truthfully regarded as of the nature of an eclipse than as the harbinger of light. Probably his reputation is due to the prominence of his person in western Europe—where it is customary to mistake renown for greatness—rather than his achievements.

Peter forsook Moscow, left her to the Church, which he served badly—and to her citizens, whom he treated even worse. Benevolence was foreign to his character; he could not mould Moscow to his ideal—if a passing whim can be so termed—but before he realised hisimpotence in this, he became brutal and fierce. He quarrelled with the Church, cruelly ill used his wife—whom he forsook eventually, shamefully treated his blood-relations—even torturing his half-sisters himself, and was to his subjects such a father as he proved to his own unfortunate son Alexis, who was done to death at his hands; in all these things behaving so savagely that even the strongest were awed into hypocrisy. The citizens of Moscow considered themselves the children of the Father of the people—the Tsar who lived in the Kremlin—who cared for them and never ceased to be anxious for their welfare. He alone was responsible for their direction, with him was the Church, they knew not how to act independently. The streltsi, the fighting men, the armed citizens, were first of the Moscow townsmen to act of their own initiative, but they were disciplined men who trusted their leaders—even when betrayed.

Peter exterminated the streltsi, the men who first of all his subjects had supported his claims and protected his rights; it is in connection with the streltsi that Peter is most enduringly associated with Moscow. The scenes of that long struggle were, for the most part, enacted outside the Kremlin; in the Kitai-Gorod of the merchants, in the Bielo-Gorod of the freemen, in the sloboda of the foreign settlers, and the Preobrajenski quarter where Peter was reared. It is this Moscow that has suffered most from the invader and from fire; its memorials of antiquity are few, those appertaining to Peter the Great and his time may be counted on the fingers of one mutilated hand. The most conspicuous marks are those of the Church. Continuing by that route indicated in the last chapter, on issuing by the Valdimirski Gate from the Kitai-Gorod, the road north is the Big Lubianka, running along the crest of the hill towards the old village of

SRIETENKA—SDKHAREV BASHNIASRIETENKA—SDKHAREV BASHNIA

Kuchko, long since incorporated with the town; on the right hand is the palace of that Count Rostopchin who ordered the destruction of Moscow in 1812; on the left at the corner of the Kuznetski Most is the old church, set apart from time immemorial for the benediction of fruit. As an old writer states, “the Mahommedans would as soon eat pork as a Russian unconsecrated apples.” Further on, also on the left is the old monastery of the Srietenka (Meeting), founded by Vasili Dmitrivich in gratitude of the deliverance of Moscow threatened by the Tartars under Tamerlane in 1397; rebuilt by Theodore II.and containing a chapel to the Patriarch Joachim, constructed by Peter I. in 1706. It has two other old churches, one dedicated to St Nicholas, and the other to the Egyptian Virgin Mary, neither of particular interest. This is a part of Moscow longest inhabited by the peasant class, and continuing on past the boulevard, which marks the old wall of the Bielo-Gorod, the Srietenka traverses the Zemliaa Gorod, or earthen town, until the Sadovia is reached, where was once the by no means formidable rampart of the outer wall; beyond this the Miaschanska continues the road to the Kammer College earth rampart at the Krestovski-Zastava. Beyond that is the highway to Ostankina, the Marina Roshcha, and the village of Mordva. The eighteenth church passed after leaving the Grand Square is dedicated to the Trinity and is remarkable for a number of small shops within its walls, the windows but a couple of feet high and the ceiling so near the pavement that buyers have to stoop or kneel to bargain. An old order forbids that shops be within a church, and a more recent one, any without it. These being neither within nor without continue unmolested. In this district the Streltsi were living at the close of the seventeenth century, and a little further on is the Sukharev Bashnia, Peter’s memorial to the fidelity of a regiment of the force he exterminated. It is a curious pile: an octagonal tower rises 200 feet above the roadway over high archways and a large two-storeyed gallery above them. The beholder who is told that this is like a ship will possess the credulity of Polonius if he assent; but actually Peter modelled it as a ship to serve for the elementary instructions of his future sailors. As all know, Peter derived his idea of ships from the Dutch, but even that explains little and leaves much to the imagination. As remote is the connection of Sukharev with shipsand the sea, so if not exactly a suitable monument for an officer of Moscow’s soldiery it was what Peter thought would serve his purpose better than any other design. Its closest connection with ships is at present; as a water tower it is not wholly useless still. Its architecture is not remarkable, a mixture of Lombard with Gothic that might have resulted from copying the Vosskresenski Gate and substituting a tall straight tower for the ornate Gothic spires then the fashion in Moscow. Considered a ship—the tower is the mast, the rooms below are supposed to resemble the poop-deck and quarter-galleries of an old man-of-war. The entrance is by a flight of steps from the Srietenka; in the large room a number of Moscow youths were instructed in arithmetic by a Scotch schoolmaster named Farquharson, and two Christ Church scholars, Gwynne and Graves, whom Peter held practically as prisoners there. Sometimes these pupils were taken to St Petersburgh to drive piles for foundations of the new town, at others they were exercised in elocution and deportment that they might the better represent comedies for the diversion of the Court.

The teachers of the school knew nothing of Russian and the scholars only their native tongue—such was Peter’s way. Unhappy the scholars

Зане разумъ весь собралъ и чинъПриродный русскій, не нѣмчинъ.[E]

[E]“Stolid, forlorn, mum and glum,Being Russian born—not deaf and dumb.”

It is said a lodge of Freemasons used once to meet in a room of the tower, and there not only were “black arts” practised but Peter convened secret meetings of the State Council, a sort of Star Chamber. The society of “Neptune” really consisted of Lefortthe Swiss General, Archbishop Theofan, Admiral Apraxin, Farquharson, Bruce, and Princes Cherkassky, Galitzin, Menshikov, and Sheremetiev. Those in fact who were for westernising Russia.

The story of the Streltsi and the part they played in the history of Moscow is worth telling. They originated with theoprichniksof Ivan the Terrible: transformed into a sort of hereditary militia, they fought for Moscow when called upon, and in return were allowed to reside tax free, to trade, to keep shops, mills and ply various handicrafts. Their commandants tried to make serfs of them. When some complained that the colonel of one regiment was keeping back half the pay, Yazikov, the chief of the commanders, ordered these petitioners to be flogged so as to teach them not to complain of those in authority over them. Three days before Theodore II. died, they accused Griboiedov of extortion, cruelty and withholding pay and forcing them to work for him housebuilding, even during Easter week. This complaint reached Dolgoruki: he ordered the messenger to be flogged, but as the man was led away he called to his fellows, “Brothers, I was but obeying your orders,” thereupon they attacked the guard and released him. Complaints became general: it was practically a revolt of the armed citizens the government had to fear. For the moment it yielded. Griboiedov was ordered to Siberia, but after only a day’s imprisonment reinstated. The Streltsi became alarmed. On the death of Theodore they, among themselves, took the oath of fealty to Peter. Sophia and her advisers intrigued and split the Streltsi. One regiment under Sukharev remained faithful to the secret oath, to Peter, the Naryshkins and Matvievs: the others demanded and received their colonels whom they flogged—Griboiedov with the knout, the others with rods—their property was confiscated, and the claims of the Streltsi paid. The Sukharev regiment took Peter and his mother to the Troitsa Monastery for safety, and it is in commemoration of this action that the Tower was built.

The real cause of the later conflict arose from a deeper trouble, the struggle for the throne between the children of Alexis by his first wife, and Peter the eldest of those by his second. Ivan was weak, but his sister Sophia, with her lover Galitzin and a court following opposed to the innovations to be expected ofNaryshkins’ friends, supported him most loyally. The Streltsi insisted that Peter should reign conjointly with Ivan and carried their point, but Sophia, as regent, was entrusted with certain powers. Both princes were crowned in 1682, but, owing to intrigues, the court was divided into two factions—the supporters of Ivan and Sophia, of Peter and the Matvievs. The Khovanskis were accused of compassing the death of Theodore, and beheaded. Doubts as to Peter’s parentage were expressed; the trouble made previous to the marriage of Natalia was remembered; others declared that Peter was a changeling, really the son of Dr Van Gaden. Peter himself, according to the picture of his patron saint painted on a board his exact size on the day of birth, was then some twenty inches long by five and a half broad. Moreover, there was a doggerel song of the period:

“What luck, oh, what joy! To the Tsar has been givenA heir, aye, a boy! sent us from heaven!’Tis wondrous! ’tis rich! With laughter and mirth,Great Peter Alexevich, first lord of the earth!”

Peter is said once to have met his reputed father, a rough haunter of taverns in the foreign suburb. Throwing him roughly to the ground Peter determined to learn whether or not he was his father. “Batuch ka!How should I know—I was not the only one,” the fellow is reported to have answered; but it was only a stale and salacious witticism of the sort Peter loved—certainly not evidence. The struggle was further complicated by camps of orthodox and dissenters. It was fought to the bitter end by Sophia on behalf of her mother’s children, against Peter who was only her father’s son; on behalf of herself too, for she had a lover, and no liking for the seclusion of the cloisters to which the daughters of the orthodox Tsars wererelegated because they were of too high birth to wed with their father’s subjects, and their faith—which they were not allowed to relinquish—an effectual barrier to matrimony with a foreign prince. At first the revolt of the Streltsi had little political significance beyond the fact that it was the forcible demand of a part of the citizens for common justice.

For seven years Sophia directed the affairs of state with more or less success; Ivan was simply her tool, with Peter she had greater trouble, and in 1689, after a quarrel with her, he withdrew from Moscow and went to Troitsa. A large party followed him. Sophia feared revolt and appealed to the people in an eloquent address of three hours’ duration.

“Wicked people have sown the seeds of discord; have made my brother Peter believe his life is in danger. Do not credit such rumours. Do not allow these to lead astray those faithful to the throne: they will torture such until they can no longer endure, and nine persons will denounce nine hundred. You know how I have directed the affairs of this state for seven years; have made a glorious peace with Poland, and worsted in battle the Turks and infidels; how I have always thought of your needs and striven for your welfare. As I have already done so shall I continue.”

Sophia thought she had won over the crowd; instead this speech lost her the support of influential leaders. When Galitzin left Moscow there was a general rush of the people to Peter; then her friends were seized by his order and she tried to escape to Poland, but was captured and imprisoned in the Novo Devichi Convent where she was forced to take the veil as Susannah, and lived in strict confinement until 1704. Ivan was thrust aside; Peter usurped the throne, his weakly half-brother surviving until 1696. Then Peter married Eudoxia Lapukhin, daughter of a boyard. Trouble next arose when Peter, against the advice of nobles and clergy, went abroad and worked likea slave under foreign rulers; it was considered sacrilege of God’s anointed so to do, and of its impolicy there were soon signs, and Peter hurriedly returned to stamp out discontent. He had found a new love, one Anna Mons, a German in Moscow, and would have married her but she slighted him and took one of her own countrymen; his wife he refused to see, accusing her of “certain thwartings and suspicions.” He wished also for proof of Sophia’s connection with the discontent amongst the Streltsi and people; in this, notwithstanding all his energy and cruelty, he was unsuccessful.

“Peter on his return reopened the inquiry, and fourteen torture chambers were conducted under his surveillance in the Preobrajenski suburb. The fires were never allowed to burn down, nor the gridirons on which his victims were charred to become cool either by night or day. A most compromising letter from Sophia to the Streltsi is generally considered to be a forged document, made up of stray, incoherent scraps of information wrung from maddened creatures in the torture chamber. Whereas fifteen blows with the knout were equal to a capital sentence, one of the Streltsi was put to the torture seven times and received in all ninety-nine blows, yet confessed nothing. Korpatkov, unable to bear his tortures, killed himself. Others of the Streltsi having been put to the strappado, flogged, and burnt without getting any accusations; the wives, sisters and female relatives of the Streltsi were tortured; so were the ladies and sewing women in attendance on Sophia. Still no evidence was forthcoming. Then Sophia herself was put to the torture, Peter doing the hangman’s work. She never wavered in denying all connection with the movement. Her younger sister, Marfa, was then strung up in turn and all that could be learned of her was that she had apprised her sister Sophia of the return of the Streltsi to Moscow and of their desire to see her rule re-established. Peter was unwearying in his attendance in the torture chambers, and it is said[F]took a fiendish delight in the agony his own wrought cruelties produced on his relatives, but when he failed to obtain evidence he determined to punish indiscriminately. The executions of the Streltsi, like those of Ivan the Terrible’s victims, were inwholesale fashion. Five were beheaded just outside the torture chamber by the Tsar Peter himself; the courtiers of his bodyguard he commanded to do the same, thinking doubtless they would enjoy the shedding of blood even as he did. Two foreigners alone refused to comply with this order. Some 200 Streltsi were crucified, impaled or hanged before Sophia’s windows in the Novo Devichi Convent: but most were executed in the Grand Square under the wall of the Kremlin, viz.:—200onSept.30th,1698144"Oct.11th,"205""12th,"141""13th,"109""17th,"65""18th,"106""19th,"“On some occasions a tree was used as a block; the victims placed in rows along it, and their heads struck off by men of Peter’s new guard. Others were hanged; as late as 1727 the heads stuck on pike points stood round the Lobnœ Mesto. In January 1699 came more enquiries, more tortures, more executions, and then the extermination of the Streltsi determined upon. There was a break from 1699 to 1704 as Peter required the remaining Streltsi to aid in the wars against Swedes and others, but after the revolt in Astrakhan, the executions were renewed. Stragglers and deserters from the corps, those related to them and who associated with them, were placed under a ban—they might not be employed by anyone; none might give them food, shelter, or assistance. They perished miserably. In such manner did Peter exterminate the old Muscovite militia.”

“On some occasions a tree was used as a block; the victims placed in rows along it, and their heads struck off by men of Peter’s new guard. Others were hanged; as late as 1727 the heads stuck on pike points stood round the Lobnœ Mesto. In January 1699 came more enquiries, more tortures, more executions, and then the extermination of the Streltsi determined upon. There was a break from 1699 to 1704 as Peter required the remaining Streltsi to aid in the wars against Swedes and others, but after the revolt in Astrakhan, the executions were renewed. Stragglers and deserters from the corps, those related to them and who associated with them, were placed under a ban—they might not be employed by anyone; none might give them food, shelter, or assistance. They perished miserably. In such manner did Peter exterminate the old Muscovite militia.”

[F]Kostomarov, vol. ii. p. 516.

Peter’s cruelties, like those of Ivan Groznoi, did not pass unnoticed by the Church. His treatment of the Streltsi called forth a fierce denunciation from the Patriarch Adrian, who “beseeched him in the name of the Mother of God to desist.” “Get thee home!” answered Peter, “I know that I reverence God and his most Holy Mother; more, perhaps, than thou dost thyself. It is the duty of my sovereign office, and a duty I owe to God, to punish with the utmost severity crimes that threaten the general welfare.” Unfortunatelythe Church had been deprived of its privilege of intercession for the life of one accused, and Peter cared nought for the spiritual power of the Church, as already stated. He even with his own hand killed two priests, but afterwards expressed contrition. The Church regarded him almost as anti-christ; the citizens dreaded him and kept out of his way. “The nearer the Tsar the greater the danger,” a proverb of that time was believed in by all. Peter had his proverb also, “the knout is no angel but teaches men to speak the truth,” and even as Ivan did, he went constantly in fear of conspiracies, chiefly dreading his own relations. Eudoxia, now the nun Helena in a convent at Suzdal, was believed to have corresponded with Dositheus an Archimandrite who had predicted, or prayed for, Peter’s death. Glebov was the intermediary in the matter; he was impaled; the prelate was broken on the wheel; a brother of the ex-tsaritsa was tortured and beheaded; thirty others were executed or exiled, and Eudoxia herself flogged and confined in an isolated convent at New Ladoga. Peter, when there were no more conspirators, or accused, offered a bribe of six roubles to all who made secret accusations, and threatened with severe penalties any who held back information. The better to protect his informers from reprisals by the people, they went through the streets with their faces veiled, in order to search for those whose names they did not know, but whom they had overheard in indiscreet speech. The people hid away when “the tongue,” as the masked informer was called, was abroad in the streets, and for days the city would appear to be quite deserted.

“Peter was hairless and decreed that those who could grow beards should not be allowed to wear them. Ivan Naumov was flogged because he would not shave; 100 roubles was the ordinary fine for wearing a full beard, and many paid thetax repeatedly rather than submit to Peter’s order. These had also to wear a badge with the legend ‘a beard is a useless inconvenience,’ and pay a fine whenever passing the Redeemer Gate. There is a touch of irony in the fact that Peter died of a chill which, may be, the full beard of a MoscowOtetswould have prevented. Although Peter was epileptic, he had no mercy for those who suffered similarly. A woman, who in addition to this infirmity was also blind, was put to the torture for disturbing a congregation. A tipsy man had thirty lashes with the knout for committing the like offence. A woman who found strange chalk marks on a barrel of beer in her cellar, knew not what they meant, nor did any one else; but she was put to the torture, and died under it because unable to decipher them. Those whom Peter wished specially to honour he made hangmen. An old boyard who liked not salad, as ‘sour things did not agree with him,’ was made to empty a large bottle of vinegar by Peter; and a Jewess in his company who declined to drink to the extent Peter wished, was there and then beaten by him and made to drink much more.”

It was an unequal struggle: a powerful autocrat attempting to force a proud, stubborn people from the habits they had been taught to revere, from practices that had made their city great and beautiful. The more successful Peter became the greater was the opposition. His courtiers wore wigs at court, as commanded, but even in the throne room removed them immediately Peter was out of sight. After ten years Peter knew that he could not conquer the Muscovites though he might kill them. As late as 1722, when he had ordered all ladies above ten years of age to appear at a reception, only seventy of the hundreds qualified did as commanded. At St Petersburg it was different. There, no feeling of shame, no loss of dignity followed the, to Moscow citizens, most ridiculous behaviour of westerns. Peter’s son Alexis, the Tsarevich, preferred Moscow and Muscovite customs: in him Moscow trusted, and for this Peter hated him. His friends wished him to enter a monastery until his father’s death and then “asthey cannot nail the cowl to one’s head,” throw it off and assume the crown. He did not, and his boast to forsake St Petersburg and reinstate Moscow enraged Peter who, from that time, never ceased to search for conspiracies, prompted by, or on behalf of Alexis, and persecuted his son unmercifully. As all knew the young man was lured to St Petersburg by his mistress, who was lavishly rewarded for her perfidy by Peter, and that there he was repeatedly put to the torture, more than once with Peter himself as executioner, and that he died mysteriously one day after being “put to the question,”i.e.tortured, earlier in the day by a party of whom his father was one.

ST NICHOLAS “STYLITE”ST NICHOLAS “STYLITE”

The Matviev’s lived in that part of the city just outside the Kitai-gorod, where Alexis had settled a number of little Russians from the newly-acquired territory, the Ukraine. The Marosseika preserves the name of this settlement, and passing up it from the Lubianski Ploshchad, leaving All Saints’ church on the right, Armianski, a street on the left, will soon be reached. There, a couple of hundred yards along, on the left is the old parish church of St Nicholas, built byMikhail Theodorovich, contiguous to the house of the Matviev’s and the Tsarista Natalia, where is now the tomb of the old voievode—a mean mausoleum, in the classic style. The church shows but few traces of western influence: it is of two storeys like most of the churches of the seventeenth century and is surrounded with a gallery, formerly open, but now glazed between the pillars. Near by is the Lazarev Institute, for the study of eastern languages, and peeping over the trees will be seen the green domes and pink belfry of the Monastery of St John Chrysostom, with five churches of which the oldest was founded by Ivan Vasilievich in 1479; the entrance is from the Zlato-ustinski pereulok. Opposite the Armianski is the Kosmo-Damianski pereulok, with the Lutheran Church founded in 1582 by the Englishman Horsey for the foreign colony.

Continuing along the Marosseika, past the Church of the Assumption (p. 89), an interesting church will be found on the right, that of the Pokrovka (Protection), and further along the same street, where it changes its name to the Basmannia, the church of Vasili Ivanovich built in 1517 and reconstructed in 1751, to which latter date its architecture belongs. Turning into the Sadovia on the left, in the Furmanni pereulok, the second on the left, will be found the oldest large house in Moscow, the residence of Prince Usupov, quite in the style of the early seventeenth century. The entrance is from the Charitonievski Boulevard, the next turning on the left. The whole of this district suffered much from the fires of past centuries and only such buildings as these isolated churches and houses in their own courtyards escaped the general conflagration. A little further along the Sadovia is the “Krasnœ Vorot” or Red Gate to mark the old tower on the outer wall. It was built as a triumphal arch for the Empress Elizabeth on her coronation, when tables spread withviands for the people reached from there to the Kremlin wall. The French made it a butt for musketry practice, using sacred ikons for a bull’s eye.

Architecture of a different type is to be found in that residential quarter of the city between the Kremlin and the Prechistenka Boulevard. Behind the Riding School is the Mokhovaia, a street to which front both Universities and the Dom Pachkov, an old mansion in which is stored the Rumiantsev art collection and museum of antiquities. The entrance is in the Vogankovski pereulok, near the Znamenka.[G]It contains:—

(a) Foreign ethnological museum.(b) The Dashkov ethnographical collection of Slavic antiquities; life size figures of the races inhabiting Russia; in another hall of Slavic races inhabiting Austrian and other adjacent lands.(c) Mineralogical collection.(d) Zoological collection; includes mammoth and Muscovite and Siberian fossils.(e) Slav and Christian antiquities, consisting mostly of early specimens of eastern iconography from Mount Athos, and archæological fragments. They are in four rooms on theupperstorey, and one ikon of Mosaic is particularly interesting, as are also many of the specimens of Byzantine and Muscovite enamel and niello, including an eleventh century Gold Cross.(f) Picture Galleries.—Copies of Flemish, Spanish, Italian and other schools, and the Pryanichnikov collection of Russian artists, of which the best are: 1-10 by Ivanov; 42, 43, Chiernakov; 65, by Repin; 157, 158, Aviazovski, and 201-203, Chedrin.(g) Manuscripts and early printed Slav books, some very beautifully illustrated. This section is closed during July and August.(h) Library of 200,000 standard works, and old prints and engravings.

(a) Foreign ethnological museum.

(b) The Dashkov ethnographical collection of Slavic antiquities; life size figures of the races inhabiting Russia; in another hall of Slavic races inhabiting Austrian and other adjacent lands.

(d) Zoological collection; includes mammoth and Muscovite and Siberian fossils.

(e) Slav and Christian antiquities, consisting mostly of early specimens of eastern iconography from Mount Athos, and archæological fragments. They are in four rooms on theupperstorey, and one ikon of Mosaic is particularly interesting, as are also many of the specimens of Byzantine and Muscovite enamel and niello, including an eleventh century Gold Cross.

(f) Picture Galleries.—Copies of Flemish, Spanish, Italian and other schools, and the Pryanichnikov collection of Russian artists, of which the best are: 1-10 by Ivanov; 42, 43, Chiernakov; 65, by Repin; 157, 158, Aviazovski, and 201-203, Chedrin.

(g) Manuscripts and early printed Slav books, some very beautifully illustrated. This section is closed during July and August.

(h) Library of 200,000 standard works, and old prints and engravings.

[G]Open daily, 11 till 3; free on Sundays; 20 kopecks entrance on other days.

The Russian school is seen to better advantage on the south side of the Moskva river, in the Tretiakov Galleries (Lavrushenski pereulok; open daily, 10 to4, except Mondays; admission free, catalogue in French, 20 kopeeks), a collection made by the brothers Paul and Sergius Tretiakov, and now the property of the town. Most of the pictures are modern by native artists; views of Moscow and of the historical and interesting buildings in the town are by no means numerous. Apparently Russian artists have not yet discovered that the Kremlin, as seen from across the river, is as good a subject as is the Piazza San Marco at Venice, or any other hackneyed city scene in Europe.

Most noteworthy among the paintings illustrating the history of Moscow are:—The murder of Alexis by Ivan the Terrible, by J. E. Repin (No. 782); a portrait of the same Tsar, by V. N. Vasnetsov (No. 966); The Execution of the Streltsi, by B. J. Surikov (No. 737); St Nikita, the impostor, before the Tsarina Sophia, by B. G. Peroff (No. 733), and the same Tsarina in the Novo devichi Convent during the execution of the Streltsi, by J. E Repin (No. 761). Some of the ancient customs and costumes of Moscow are represented in No. 808, A Boyard Wedding, by C. B. Lebedev, and No. 1367, The Handsel of Innocence, by Polenov—an excellent specimen of this painter’s best work, who does not show to advantage in his views of the Terem (Nos. 1356-1366) and church interiors (Nos. 1349-1355). Instructive also are the sketches Nos. 304-307, made by V. G. Schwartz to illustrate Count A. Tolstoi’s novel “Prince Serebrenni,” and 308-312, those made to Lermontov’s “Bread Seller.”Notable pictures taken from scenes in Russian history are:—The Battle of Igor Sviatoslaf’s son against the Polovsti (No. 950), by V. M. Vasnetsov; The “Black Council,” held during the rebellion of monks at the Solovetski Monastery in 1666, by S. D. Miloradovich (No. 742); Peter the Great questioning his son Alexis, by N. N. Gay (No. 636); The Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861, by G. G. Myassoiedov (No. 495), and No. 252, by C. D. Flavitski, the imprisonment of Princess Tarakanov in the fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul, during a rise of the Neva—a sensational incident the truth of which was questioned and disproved, when this picture was exhibited at Paris in 1867. The incident represented in No. 394 by N. B. Nevref, the enforced taking of the veil by the Princess Usupov, was of such common occurrence in mediæval Russia, that no question as to its possibility need be raised. Some ofthe best of the war pictures of Vereshchagin are in this collection, and other painters have contributed works illustrating the French invasion, and more recent events, in a style quite as original and striking as that of the Russian artist best known in western Europe. In all the subject appears to be far more suggestive and interesting than the craftsmanship. This is often weak, or worse, an unsatisfactory imitation of the most impressive methods of the modern French school.Religious pictures are numerous and good: N N. Gay is represented in forty-six works which include “The Morning of the Resurrection” (641), “The Remorse of Judas” (642), “The Judgment” (643), “Golgotha” (645), “What is Truth?” (640), and “Christ in Gethsemane” (634). Several of his studies of “Christ on the Cross” may be compared with the work of T. A. Bronnikov, “Campus Scleratus” (461). The conventional style of “Ikon” painting is evident in Nos. 727-730 by M. B. Nesterov, more particularly in the pictures illustrating the life of St Sergius. No. 739, by B. J. Surikov, represents the Boyarina Morosov being removed from among the dissenting sect she did so much to establish.The lighter, merrier, and more general life of the Russian people is shown in a far greater number of pictures. Pryanichnikov has humour as well as style (416-432), in 542, Maximov shows the arrival of the “wizard” at a village wedding; 682 is an every day village scene representing the homage paid to the ikon on its visits; Yarochenko (701) shows the transport van with its exiles committed for life and the free birds of the air mocking them. Repin depicts truthfully the happy life of the peasants; 766, a dance, 781, “The Unexpected Return,” 797, St Cene. In the same vein are also 857, Lebedev “Farings”; 863, Korovin, The Common Council; 775, 776, Answer of the Zaporogians to Mahomet’s ultimatum; 1221-1224, the Second-hand market at Moscow, and 1256, An Evening’s Amusement, are by V. G. Makovski; The Emigrants, No. 1520, by S. B. Ivanof, is depressing, but in 930 Madam A. L. Rievski shows in “A Moment of Gaiety” the true character of the peasant.

Notable pictures taken from scenes in Russian history are:—The Battle of Igor Sviatoslaf’s son against the Polovsti (No. 950), by V. M. Vasnetsov; The “Black Council,” held during the rebellion of monks at the Solovetski Monastery in 1666, by S. D. Miloradovich (No. 742); Peter the Great questioning his son Alexis, by N. N. Gay (No. 636); The Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861, by G. G. Myassoiedov (No. 495), and No. 252, by C. D. Flavitski, the imprisonment of Princess Tarakanov in the fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul, during a rise of the Neva—a sensational incident the truth of which was questioned and disproved, when this picture was exhibited at Paris in 1867. The incident represented in No. 394 by N. B. Nevref, the enforced taking of the veil by the Princess Usupov, was of such common occurrence in mediæval Russia, that no question as to its possibility need be raised. Some ofthe best of the war pictures of Vereshchagin are in this collection, and other painters have contributed works illustrating the French invasion, and more recent events, in a style quite as original and striking as that of the Russian artist best known in western Europe. In all the subject appears to be far more suggestive and interesting than the craftsmanship. This is often weak, or worse, an unsatisfactory imitation of the most impressive methods of the modern French school.

Religious pictures are numerous and good: N N. Gay is represented in forty-six works which include “The Morning of the Resurrection” (641), “The Remorse of Judas” (642), “The Judgment” (643), “Golgotha” (645), “What is Truth?” (640), and “Christ in Gethsemane” (634). Several of his studies of “Christ on the Cross” may be compared with the work of T. A. Bronnikov, “Campus Scleratus” (461). The conventional style of “Ikon” painting is evident in Nos. 727-730 by M. B. Nesterov, more particularly in the pictures illustrating the life of St Sergius. No. 739, by B. J. Surikov, represents the Boyarina Morosov being removed from among the dissenting sect she did so much to establish.

The lighter, merrier, and more general life of the Russian people is shown in a far greater number of pictures. Pryanichnikov has humour as well as style (416-432), in 542, Maximov shows the arrival of the “wizard” at a village wedding; 682 is an every day village scene representing the homage paid to the ikon on its visits; Yarochenko (701) shows the transport van with its exiles committed for life and the free birds of the air mocking them. Repin depicts truthfully the happy life of the peasants; 766, a dance, 781, “The Unexpected Return,” 797, St Cene. In the same vein are also 857, Lebedev “Farings”; 863, Korovin, The Common Council; 775, 776, Answer of the Zaporogians to Mahomet’s ultimatum; 1221-1224, the Second-hand market at Moscow, and 1256, An Evening’s Amusement, are by V. G. Makovski; The Emigrants, No. 1520, by S. B. Ivanof, is depressing, but in 930 Madam A. L. Rievski shows in “A Moment of Gaiety” the true character of the peasant.

In the streets Znamenka and Vozdvigenka are some characteristic Russian mansions of the eighteenth century, for it was then that this quarter, which had formerly been inhabited by palace servants and craftsmen, began to take a more aristocratic character. That of Prince Sheremetiev is the most bizarre; there also is the old

DOM CHUKINADOM CHUKINA

town hall and the Foreign Archives. In various parts of the town, even on the south side in the Kaloujskaya, will be found modern mansions, that is, erected or rebuilt since the great fire, in the style of the Moscow of the golden age. One of the best is the Dom Chukina near the Tverskaya Triumfalnia—a monument no visitor can escape seeing. But there is no long street without one or more buildings which attract the attention of the stranger by some idiosyncracy of form or colour. No matter in which direction one may go—in the bustling Kitai-Gorod, the quiet and aristocratic Ostogenka, or the bourgeois Zamoskvoretski—soon will be seen some interesting fane reaching above the buildings that flank the street, and a portal distinguished by its cross and ikon indicate the entrance to the sacred enclosure ofsome monastery, where, amidst leafy foliage and bright verdure, is quiet and seclusion like that of the oasis of the Temple amidst the dreary turmoil of London’s vastness. Take that very ordinary street, the Nikitskaya for example; it is wholly common place, wedged in between districts devoted to ordinary commerce, and the chilling respectability of moderate affluence, and leads nowhere in particular. Yet even its name is interesting; did it obtain it from the worthy founder of the Romanof dynasty? or from the religious fanatic who argued points of ritual with Sophia and the Patriarch? or from St Nikita, the saint who shut up Satan in a jar and released him only on stipulated and agreed conditions?

It starts from the Alexander Gardens, the old western bank of the stream Neglinnaia that once strengthened the defences of the Kremlin; passes the entrance to the riding school, one of the great things Moscow has produced since the fire of 1812. The length of this building is 360 feet, breadth 168, and its wooden roof, unsupported by perpendicular stanchions, was considered a wonder of the world, when Alexander first manœuvered 2000 infantry, and 1000 cavalry beneath it. Then come the Universities, the old and the new, one on each hand; beyond, on the left, is the Nikitsky Monastery, enclosing four churches, one dating from the founding of the monastery in 1682, at the end of the “golden age.” On the opposite side is the Academy of Science, on this the Conservatorium, facing it a quaint old church of primitive architecture and diminutive size; above its lowly belfry rears the square brick-built tower of an English Church. The house of a boyard here, of a prince there, bear names of note in Moscow’s history, as Gagarin, Galitzin, Chernichev, designate the owners of the houses on either side, and of the side streetsto right and left. The further from the Kremlin, the centre, the more frequent and greater the inducement to turn aside to inspect more closely the glittering and gaudy domes of churches, old and new, which are thickly sprinkled over the whole district. Nor can the stranger easily do amiss whichever way he turns. If towards the left, a curious lofty belfry of open masonry will repay careful scrutiny, and reveal close by other domed and pinnacled temples, lost amidst this multitude of white walls and luxuriant verdure. If to the right, two churches in close proximity, of unique design and, probably, oppressive colouring, will encourage to further explorations in the same direction.

The oldest churches in the neighbourhood of the Arbat are, Boris and Gleb, 1527; Tikhon, the wonder-worker, 1689; but the Church of the Transfiguration is one of the most beautiful. In the Povarskaya, is that of St Simon Stylite, 1676, and near, another interesting church—Rojdestvenka.

Probably Moscow does not charm so strongly by reason of any particular building or style as by the great diversity of its houses and churches, both in design and colouring. More especially in those quarters where the wooden log-houses still linger in their gardens, and where the frame-houses are all made gay with white, cream, blue-gray, yellow and pink body colour, and the roofs of dark green or still darker crimson; there Moscow seems to belong to another world. It is, alas, disappearing fast, and the spacious courtyards, with their trees and the gardens gay with giant lilacs and golden-chain, are being built on, and houses that stand shoulder to shoulder in plain and hideous uniformity level up the largest village to the standard of a modern town made in Germany.

There is another aspect of Moscow which thesummer visitor can never know. That comes when the thermometer falls from its summeraverageof 64.9° F. to its winter average of 14° F. This difference of 50° explains much that appears wanton in the architecture of buildings great and small; accounts for the galleries round the outside of the churches, for the extensive vestibules; for thick walls, still thicker roofs, and great spouts; for the plain surfaces and lack of projecting decorations, gargoyles and angular mouldings; for the distempered walls, which alone successfully stand the biting frosts of winter and the blistering summer sun.

With the change to winter temperature a great quiet comes over the town, wheeled traffic is stopped, sledges glide over the frozen roads, and from the windless sky the great snowflakes can ever be seen idly and slowly floating in their long and leisurely descent to earth. A reddened sun appears for a short time each day in a leaden sky, and Moscow lives, is more active, more itself, than when the light of summer decks its walls and pinnacles in holiday garb. But at whatever season studied, Moscow will reveal traces of the past; will show that she has long smiled under the summer sun of good fortune and been wrinkled by the winter of adversity; scorched, too, by the volcanic fire of her own excesses, but now staid, hoary, strenuous, and of surprising vitality in all—Это матушка Москва.

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