John Stephens - Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 2 (of 2)

During the whole of our last post our interest had been divided between the venerable city and the rogue Henri. My companion, who, by-the-way, spoke but little French disliked him from the first. We had long considered him in league with all the Jews and postmasters on the road, and had determined under no circumstances to take him farther than Chioff; but as we had hired him to Moscow, the difficulty was how to get rid of him. He might take it into his head that, if we did not know when we had a good servant, he knew when he had good masters; but he was constantly grumbling about his seat, and calculated upon three or four days' rest at Chioff. So, as soon as we drove up to the door of the hotel, we told him to order breakfast and posthorses. He turned round as if he had not fully comprehended us. We repeated the order, and for the first time since he had been with us he showed something like agility in dismounting; fairly threw himself from the box, swore he would not ride another verst that day for a thousand rubles, and discharged us on the spot. We afterward paid him to his entire satisfaction, indemnifying him for the money he had squandered in paying his debts at Odessa, and found him more useful at Chioff than he had been at any time on the road. Indeed, we afterward learned what was rather ludicrous, viz., that he, our pilot and interpreter through the wilderness of Russia, knew but little more of Russian than we did ourselves. He could ask for posthorses and the ordinary necessaries of life, count money, &c., but could not support a connected conversation, nor speak nor understand a long sentence. This changed our suspicions of his honesty into admiration of his impudence; but, in the mean time, when he discharged us, we should have been rather destitute if it had not been for the servant of a Russian traveller, who spoke French, and, taking our direction from him, we mounted a drosky and rode to the office of the diligence, which was situated in the Podolsk or lower town, and at which we found ourselves particularly well received by the proprietor. He said that the attempt to run a diligence was discouraging; that he had advertised two weeks, and had not booked a single passenger; but, if he could get two, he was determined to try the experiment. We examined the vehicle, which was very large and convenient, and, satisfied that there was no danger of all the places being taken, we left him until we could make an effort to dispose of our carriage. Relieved from all anxiety as to our future movements, we again mounted our drosky. Ascending the hill, we passed the fountain where St. Vladimir baptized the first Russian converts; the spring is held sacred by the Christians now, and a column bearing a cross is erected over it, to commemorate the pious act and the ancient sovereignty of Chioff.

The early history of this city is involved in some obscurity. Its name is supposed to be derived from Kiovi or Kii, a Sarmatian word signifying heights or mountains; and its inhabitants, a Sarmatian tribe, were denominated Kivi or mountaineers. It is known to have been a place of consequence in the fifth century, when the Suevi, driven from their settlements on the Danube, established themselves here and at Novogorod. In the beginning of the tenth century it was the capital and most celebrated and opulent city in Russia, or in that part of Europe. Boleslaus the Terrible notched upon its "golden gate" his "miraculous sword," called by the monks "the sword of God," and the Poles entered and plundered it of its riches. In the latter part of the same century the capital of Russia again fell before the conquering arms of the Poles. Kiev was at that time the foster-child of Constantinople and the Eastern empire. The voluptuous Greeks had stored it with all the luxuries of Asia; the noble architecture of Athens was festooned with the gaudy tapestry of Lydia, and the rough metal of Russian swords embossed with the polished gold of Ophir and Persia. Boleslaus II., shut up within the "golden gate" of this city of voluptuousness, quaffed the bowl of pleasure till its intoxicating draught degraded all the nobler energies of his nature. His army of warriors followed his example, and slept away month after month on the soft couches of Kiev; and in the language of the historian, as if they had eaten of the fabled fruit of the lotos-tree, at length forgot that their houses were without masters, their wives without husbands, and their children without parents.

But these tender relations were not in like manner oblivious; and, after seven years of absence, the Poles were roused from their trance of pleasure by the tidings of a revolt among the women at home, who, tired of waiting their return, in revenge gave themselves up to the embraces of their slaves. Burning under the disgrace, the Poles hurried home to wreak their vengeance on wives and paramours; but they met at Warsaw a bloody resistance; the women, maddened by despair, urged on their lovers, many of them fighting in person, and seeking out on the battle-field their faithless husbands: an awful warning to married men!

For a long time Kiev was the prey alternately of the Poles, the Lithuanians, and the Tartars, until in 1686 it was finally ceded by the Poles to Russia. The city is composed of three distinct quarters; the old, with its Polish fortifications, containing the palace of the emperor, and being the court end; the Petcherk fortress, built by Peter the Great, with ditches and high ramparts, and an arsenal capable of containing eighty or a hundred thousand stand of arms; and the Podolsk, or business part, situated at the foot of the hill on the banks of the Dnieper. It contains thirty thousand inhabitants besides a large military garrison, partly of Cossack troops, and one pretty good hotel; but no beds, and none of those soft couches which made the hardy Poles sleep away their senses; and though a welcome resting-place for a traveller through the wild plains of Russia, it does not now possess any such attraction as to put in peril the faith and duties of husbands. By its position secluded from intercourse with strangers, Kiev is still thoroughly a Russian city, retaining in full force its Asiatic style of architecture; and the old Russian, wedded to the manners and customs of his fathers, clings to it as a place which the hand of improvement has not yet reached; among other relics of the olden time, the long beard still flourishes with the same solemn dignity as in the days of Peter the Great. Lying a hundred miles away from the direct road between Moscow and the Black Sea, few European travellers visit it; and though several of them have done so since, perhaps I was the first American who ever passed through it.

We passed the morning in riding round to the numerous convents and churches, among which is the church of St. Sophia, the oldest in Russia, and, if not an exact model of the great St. Sophia of Constantinople, at least of Byzantine design; and toward evening went to the emperor's garden. This garden is more than a mile in length, bounded on one side by the high precipitous bank of the hill, undulating in its surface, and laid out like an English park, with lawn, gravel-walks, and trees; it contains houses of refreshment, arbours or summer-houses, and a summer theatre. At the foot of the hill flows the Dnieper, the ancient Borysthenes, on which, in former days the descendants of Odin and Ruric descended to plunder Constantinople. Two or three sloops were lying, as it were, asleep in the lower town, telling of a still interior country, and beyond was a boundless plain covered with a thick forest of trees. The view from this bank was unique and extraordinary, entirely different from anything I ever saw in natural scenery, and resembling more than anything else a boundless marine prospect.

At the entrance of the garden is an open square or table of land overlooking the plain, where, every evening at seven o'clock, the military band plays. The garden is the fashionable promenade, the higher classes resorting to it in carriages and on horseback, and the common people on foot; the display of equipages was not very striking, although there is something stylish in the Russian manner of driving four horses, the leaders with very long traces and a postillion; and soldiers and officers, with their splendid uniforms, caps, and plumes, added a brilliant effect.