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

The Russian serf is obliged to work for his master but three days in the week; the other three he may work for himself on a portion of land assigned to him by law on his master's estate. He is never obliged to work on Sunday, and every saint's day or fête day of the church is a holyday. This might be supposed to give him an opportunity of elevating his character and condition; but, wanting the spirit of a free agent, and feeling himself the absolute property of another, he labours grudgingly for his master, and for himself barely enough to supply the rudest necessaries of life and pay his tax to the seigneur. A few rise above their condition, but millions labour like beasts of burden, content with bread to put in their mouths, and never even thinking of freedom. A Russian nobleman told me that he believed, if the serfs were all free, he could cultivate his estate to better advantage by hired labour; and I have no doubt a dozen Connecticut men would cultivate more ground than a hundred Russian serfs, allowing their usual non-working days and holydays. They have no interest in the soil, and the desolate and uncultivated wastes of Russia show the truth of the judicious reflection of Catharine II., "that agriculture can never flourish in that nation where the husbandman possesses no property."

It is from this great body of peasantry that Russia recruits her immense standing army, or, in case of invasion, raises in a moment a vast body of soldiers. Every person in Russia entitled to hold land is known to the government, as well as the number of peasants on his estate; and, upon receiving notice of an imperial order to that effect, the numbers required by the levy are marched forthwith from every part of the empire to the places of rendezvous appointed. It might be asked, What have these men to fight for? They have no country, and are brought up on immense levels, wanting the rocks, rivers, and mountains that inspire local attachments. It is a singular fact, that, with the Russian serf, there is always an unbounded love for him who stands at the head of the system of oppression under which they groan, the emperor, whom they regard as their protector against the oppression of their immediate masters; but to whatever cause it may be ascribed, whether inability to estimate the value of any change in their condition, or a feeling of actual love for the soil on which they were born, during the invasion of Napoleon the serfs of Russia presented a noble spectacle; and the spirit of devotion which animated the corps of ten thousand in the north extended to the utmost bounds of the empire. They received orders to march from St. Petersburgh to meet the advance of the French army; the emperor reviewed them, and is said to have shed tears at their departure. Arrived at the place appointed, Witgenstein ordered them to fall back to a certain point, but they answered "No; the last promise we made the emperor our father was, that we would never fly before the enemy, and we keep our word." Eight thousand of their number died on the spot; and the spirit which animated them fired the serfs throughout the whole empire. The scholar may sneer, but I defy him to point to a nobler page in Grecian or Roman history.

I shall make amends for this long discussion by hurrying on to Moscow. We rode hundreds of miles without meeting a hill; the country was bare of trees, and almost everywhere presenting the same appearance. We saw the first disk of the sun peeping out of the earth, watched it while soaring on its daily round, and, without a bush to obstruct the view, saw it sink below the horizon; and woke up at all times of night and saw the stars,

"Rolling like living cars of light For gods to journey by."

The principal and only large towns on our road were Orel and Toula, the former containing a population of four or five thousand, and presenting an imposing display of churches and monasteries gaudily painted and with gilded domes; the houses were principally of wood, painted yellow. Toula is the largest manufacturing town, and is called the Sheffield of Russia, being particularly celebrated for its cutlery. Everywhere the diligence created a great sensation; the knowing ones said it would never do; but at Orel one spirited individual said if we would wait three days for him he would go on with us. It can hardly seem credible, in our steamboat and railroad community, that a public conveyance could roll on for seven days and nights, through many villages and towns, toward the capital of an immense empire, and not take in a single way-passenger; but such was the fact; and on the morning of the seventh day, alone, as we started from Chioff, we were approaching the burned and rebuilt capital of the Czars, Moscow with gilded cupolas, the holy Moscow, the sanctified city, the Jerusalem of Russia, beloved of God, and dear to men.

CHAPTER III.

Moscow.—A severe Operation.—An Exile by Accident.—Meeting with an Emigré.—A civil Stranger.—A Spy.—The Kremlin.—Sepulchres of the Czars.—The great Bell.—The great Gun.—Precious Relics.

At daylight we arrived at the last post; and here, for the first time, we saw evidences of our approach to a great city. Four or five travelling-carriages were waiting for horses, some of which had been waiting all night; but our diligence being a "public accommodation," we were preferred, and had the first that came in. We took our places for the last time in the diligence, and passed two or three fine chateaux, our curiosity and interest increasing as we approached, until, at about five versts from Moscow, as we reached the summit of a gentle eminence, the whole city broke upon us at one view, situated in the midst of a great plain, and covering an extent of more than thirty versts. Moscow is emphatically the city of churches, containing more than six hundred, many of which have five or six domes, with steeples, and spires, and crosses, gilded and connected together with golden chains like those of Chioff. Its convents, too, are almost innumerable, rivalling the churches in size and magnificence, and even to us, coming directly from the capital of the Eastern empire, presenting a most striking and extraordinary appearance. As we passed the barrier, two of the most conspicuous objects on each side were the large Greek convents, enclosed by high walls, with noble trees growing above them; and as we rode through the wide and showy streets, the first thing that struck me as strange, and, in this inhospitable climate (always associated in my mind with rude and wintry scenes), as singularly beautiful, was the profusion of plants and flowers, with the remarkable degree of taste and attention given to their cultivation. In Greece and Turkey I had seen the rarest plants and flowers literally "wasting their sweetness on the desert air;" while here, in the heart of an inhospitable country, every house had a courtyard or garden, and in front a light open portico or veranda, ornamented with plants, and shrubs, and flowers, forced into a glowing though unnatural beauty. The whole appearance of the city is Asiatic; and as the exhibition of flowers in front of the better class of houses was almost universal, Moscow seemed basking in the mild climate of Southern Asia, rioting in its brief period of vernal existence, and forgetting that, in a few weeks, a frost would come and cover their beauty with the dreary drapery of winter.

At the office of the diligence my companion and myself separated. He went to a hotel kept by an English woman, with English company, and I believe, too, with English comfort, and I rode to the Hotel Germanica, an old and favourite stopping-place with the Russian seigneurs when they come up from their estates in the country. Having secured my room, I mounted a drosky and hurried to a bath. Riding out to the suburbs, the drosky boy stopped at a large wooden building, pouring forth steam from every chink and crevice. At the entrance stood several half-naked men, one of whom led me to an apartment to undress, and then conducted me to another, in one end of which were a furnace and apparatus for generating steam. I was then familiar with the Turkish bath, but the worst I had known was like the breath of the gentle south wind compared with the heat of this apartment. The operator stood me in the middle of the floor, opened the upper door of the stove, and dashed into it a bucketful of water, which sent forth volumes of steam like a thick fog into every part of the room, and then laid me down on a platform about three feet high and rubbed my body with a mop dipped in soap and hot water; then he raised me up, and deluged me with hot water, pouring several tubfuls on my head; then laid me down again, and scrubbed me with soap and water from my head to my heels, long enough, if the thing were possible, to make a blackamoor white; then gave me another sousing with hot water, and another scrubbing with pure water, and then conducted me up a flight of steps to a high platform, stretched me out on a bench within a few feet of the ceiling, and commenced whipping me with twigs of birch, with the leaves on them, dipped in hot water. It was hot as an oven where he laid me down on the bench; the vapour, which almost suffocated me below, ascended to the ceiling, and, finding no avenue of escape, gathered round my devoted body, fairly scalding and blistering me; and when I removed my hands from my face, I felt as if I had carried away my whole profile. I tried to hold out to the end, but I was burning, scorching, and consuming. In agony I cried out to my tormentor to let me up, but he did not understand me, or was loath to let me go, and kept thrashing me with the bunch of twigs until, perfectly desperate, I sprang off the bench, tumbled him over, and descended to the floor. Snow, snow, a region of eternal snow seemed paradise; but my tormentor had not done with me; and, as I was hurrying to the door, he dashed over me a tub of cold water. I was so hot that it seemed to hiss as it touched me; he came at me with another, and at that moment I could imagine, what had always seemed a traveller's story, the high satisfaction and perfect safety with which the Russian in mid winter rushes from his hot bath and rolls himself in the snow. The grim features of my tormentor relaxed as he saw the change that came over me. I withdrew to my dressing-room, dozed an hour on the settee, and went out a new man. In half an hour I stood in the palace of the Czars, within the walls of the Kremlin.