ST. PETERSBURG
AGENTS
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SLEDGING WITH THE " PRISTYAZHKA," OR SIDE-HORSE
SLEDGING WITH THE ' PRISTYAZHKA,
OR SIDE-HORSE
ST. PETERSBURG/
PAINTED BY
F. DE HAENEN
DESCRIBED BY
G. ; DOBSON>
AUTHOR OF ' RUSSIA'S RAILWAY ADVANCE INTO CENTRAL ASIA
LONDON
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK
1910
Preface
THE Author, Mr. G. Dobson, who was for many
years correspondent of the Times in St. Petersburg,
aims at giving as complete an account of the
Russian capital as could possibly be contained
within the comparatively small compass of the
present volume. The following chapters accord-
ingly include the history of the origin of St.
Petersburg, an explanation of the political ideas
and objects connected with it, a critical descrip-
tion of the city as it appears to-day and as
it impressed other writers in earlier years, and
sketches of the life and types of its inhabitants.
Some little attention has also been given to a
somewhat neglected part of the story of its origin,
that is to say, to the state of affairs in this region
long before the time of Peter the Great, which
rendered the creation of such a settled basis on the
Neva a vital necessity for Russia's progress on
European lines.
Contents
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
PAGES
Characteristics Spaciousness Remoteness of St. Peters-
burg from other centres Its surroundings Ap-
proaches to St. Petersburg by land and water
Contrast with Germany . . . . . I 14
CHAPTER II
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF ST. PETERSBURG
Struggle between old and new Revolutionary influence
Cradle of new ideas The Constitution Slavophiles
and Westerns Liberal reforms Nihilists St. Peters-
burg, Persia, and Turkey Reaction The Dooma 15 28
CHAPTER III
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST
History of the Neva region England's sea trade with
Russia Finns and Novgorodians Neva route in the
time of Saxon England Hanseatic league Slavs and
Scandinavians Roman-Swedish crusade Victory of
Alexander Nevsky Teutonic knights Swedish and
Russian fortresses Civil war Treaty of Stolbovo 29 -*5
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT ON THE NEVA
PAGES
Swedish proselytism Nyenskantz, the nucleus of St. Peters-
burgTrade under the Swedes Peter the Great's
conquest of the Neva ..... 46 58
CHAPTER V
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING
Foundation of St. Petersburg Attitude of Swedes
Cronstadt St. Petersburg fortress Beginning of
trade Opposition Compulsory settlement . 59 73
CHAPTER VI
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG
Under Peter I. Death of Peter II. Catherine II.
Succeeding monarchs Paul I. Expenditure of Grand
Dukes . 7483
CHAPTER VII
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED
Russian, English, and other foreign criticism The poet
Pooshkin's description ..... 84 92
CHAPTER VIII
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY
Peter the Great's bureaucracy Foreign influence Govern-
ment departments and official titles Merchants
Hospitality Social and Political life Court balls
and ceremonies 93 106
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER IX
ST. PETERSBURG ' HURRYING UP '
Its insalubrity Impending sanitation Contaminated
water Increased activity Electric trams Police
and traffic Changes and improvements Shops
Sports ........ 107 123
CHAPTER X
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ST. PETERSBURG
Peasant element Migration into and out of the city
Summer workmen Barracks and Government build-
ings Working population : Lomovoi, Izvostchik,
Dvornik, Policeman ..... 124 143
CHAPTER XI
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS
Summer flitting Winter gaiety Students Mixture of
races British colony Antiquated survivals . 144 151
CHAPTER XII
ENVIRONS OF ST. PETERSBURG
Tsarskoe Selo Pavlovsk Krasnoe Selo Peterhoff
Gatchino Oranienbaum Sestroretsk - The
islands ........ 152158
INDEX . . 159
List of Illustrations
IN COLOUR
1. Sledging with the ' Pristyazhka/ or Side-Horse Fronlix piece'
FACING 1'ACE
2. The Emperor and Empress in Ancient Dress . . 4
3. The late Father John of Cronstadt in his Garden . 1 2
4. One of the Palace Grenadiers ..... 20
5. The Members leaving the Dooma . . . .28
6. Ice-Cutting on the Neva 36
7. Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul . .60
8. Monument of Peter I. ... ... 76
9. Cossacks of the Guard and Imperial Bodyguard . . 92
10. Easter Day 100
11. A Russian Wet-Nurse 108
12. A Dish of Tea from a Samovar . . . . .116
13. A Russian Servant in Summer Dress . . . .124
14. The Frozen- Meat Market 140
15. The Palace Quay of the Neva 148
16. Peterhoff 156
xi
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN BLACK AND WHITE
FACING PAGE
17. Easter Eve . 9
18. A Troika 16
19. The State Dooma . . . .25
20. The Tsar Reviewing his Troops ..... 32
21. Kazan Cathedral 49
22. Schliisselburg Fortress, on Lake Ladoga . . .56
23. A Droshky- Drivers' Tea-Stall 81
24. On the Road to Execution in Former Days . . 88
25. Court Ball 97
26. Blessing the Neva , . . . . .104
27. Nevsky Prospect 113
28. Public Sledge, Halfpenny Fare 120
29. Officer and Sentinel . . .129
30. Coachmen of Nevsky Prospect 136
31. The Outside Porter . . . . . .145
32. Students ......... 152
Sketch-Map of St. Petersburg at end of volume.
ST. PETERSBURG
CHAPTER I
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Characteristics Spaciousness Remoteness of St. Petersburg
from other centres Its surroundings Approaches to St.
Petersburg by land and water Contrast with Germany.
IN starting to describe a foreign city, with which
the author has long been perfectly familiar, pro-
bably the best method to adopt will be to recall
his first impressions of it. Naturally, in the course
of some thirty years the external character of
St. Petersburg has undergone many changes.
Every effort has been made, as far as concerns
outward appearances, to place it as nearly as
possible on a level with the great capitals of the
West. Consequently, the visitor of to-day will
not meet with as many survivals of the past as
the author did when he first landed on the banks
of the Neva. The alterations that have since been
1
2 ST. PETERSBURG
made must be classed amongst improvements
common to the development of all great cities
of the present day. The foreign visitor, there-
fore, will find repeated many of the features of
his own native capital. On the other hand, St.
Petersburg exhibits features which are peculiarly
its own, and which have remained unaltered not
only for the last thirty years, but from its very
foundation. A pretty good idea of these peculi-
arities of the city and its locality may perhaps be
conveyed to the reader if the author points them
out here in the light in which they first interested
him many years ago.
His attention was first of all struck by the
spaciousness of the place, the extensive scale on
which the Imperial City had evidently been laid
out, and the immense waste of land in which
Peter the Great had planted his so-called ' Paradise.'
The author could not help noticing the handsome
appearance of the principal buildings and the
extreme lowness of the geographical situation.
There was also a look of relative emptiness about
many of the large, open squares and wide, long
thoroughfares, which at times seemed too big for
the small number of inhabitants straggling through
them. After London and Paris, there was some-
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 3
thing of the air of a provincial town in comparison,
in some places, of an enormous village, although
one of palaces and cathedrals. The largest buildings
seemed dwarfed by the great open spaces surround-
ing them. The immediate neighbourhood of the
celebrated St. Isaac Cathedral presented a striking
contrast to that of St. Paul's, so disgracefully
hemmed in by bricks and mortar on Ludgate Hill.
The houses built round this magnificent Russian
temple were kept at a most respectful distance
from the very first. Two fine public gardens, one
of which is quite a park, were subsequently laid
out on two sides of it, and yet so much free space
has been left all round the sacred edifice that a
military review could be held in front of it with-
out the least difficulty. In arrangement of streets
it was easy to see that the town had not been left,
so to speak, to make itself, but had been marked
out on a regular plan of straight lines intersecting
one another at more or less right angles. This
plan is best seen on the Vassili OstrofF, the largest
island of the Neva delta, and a very important part
of St. Petersburg. The most peculiar feature of
this district is the nomenclature of the streets. The
inhabited area is divided into rectangular blocks
of buildings, which form a series of parallel avenues
4 ST. PETERSBURG
at right angles with the Nicholas Quay of the
river. These avenues, or streets, have no separate
names or numbers, as in New York, but each side
of a street is called a ' line,' so that there are two
lines in each street, and these lines are numbered
1 to 27. Cutting straight across them at consider-
able intervals of distance, and running parallel with
the Quay, are three very long thoroughfares called
the Big, Middle, and Little Prospects. This word
'prospect' is applied instead of street or road to
many other main thoroughfares in all parts of the
city, the most important of them all, of course,
being the Nevsky Prospect. For the most part,
this regularity of construction is disturbed only
where rows of houses were made to follow the
windings of natural streams, utilized to form the
network of canals, which run through the southern
part of the town.
Everything at first seemed to have an air
of newness and modernity. The whiteness and
light-coloured tints of the stuccoed fronts of
houses, which never get black, thanks to the
general use of wood fuel instead of coal, helped
to strengthen this impression. There were no
remains of antiquity. We should perhaps make
an exception in this respect for the two Egyptian
EMPEROR AND EMPRESS IN ANCIENT
DRESS
ot the Tsar and Tsaritsa of the old Muscovite
Empire, as worn at an historical costume ball in
the palace.
EMPEROR AND EMPRESS IN ANCIENT DRESS
of the Tsar and Tsaritsa of the old Muscovite Empire, as worn ;>t an historical
costume ball in the palace
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 5
sphinxes, brought from ancient Thebes, and set up
on the river quay, opposite the Imperial Academy
of Fine Arts. These Egyptian relics occupy a
similar position to that of Cleopatra's Needle on
the Thames Embankment. Nothing outside of
collections in museums and palaces dated back
farther than the time of Peter the Great and
the reign of Queen Anne in England. The
author in his rambles came upon no eyesores in
the form of congested slums, and there appeared
to be no narrow, tortuous lanes and alleys, no
obstructive blocks standing in the way of modern
requirements. The city must have been projected
with large ideas as to the future growth of its
street traffic, and although this has greatly increased
during the writer's experience, there is still ample
accommodation for its further development. I
believe there has been only one insignificant
example of the widening of thoroughfares in St.
Petersburg to meet the necessities of increasing
traffic in the whole course of its history. This
occurred recently, when two or three canal bridges
were widened to give more room for the new
electric trams.
When Peter the Great set about building
St. Petersburg, he was not content to construct the
6 ST. PETERSBURG
nucleus of it only in one particular spot, leaving
its expansion to take place in the usual natural
way. He had various establishments placed on
both sides of the river at immense distances from
each other. The Alexander Nevsky Monastery,
for instance, was built at one end of the Nevsky
Prospect, nearly three miles from the Admiralty
at the other end, and it took more than a century
to fill up the intervening space.
It has often been objected that St. Petersburg is
so very remote from all other great centres of
Russia, as well as from those of neighbouring
countries generally. It stands far aloof from all
other lines of communication, both in Russia and
on the rest of the European continent. It lies on
the road to nowhere in particular, except, perhaps,
the Arctic Seas. So much has this been felt to be
the case in recent years that the more direct rail-
way routes from the Baltic to Moscow, and into
the very heart of the country, have been assiduously
exploited at the expense of the capital. In short,
as far as regards land communication, St. Peters-
burg is situated at the most inconvenient and out-
landish end of Russia that could possibly have
been chosen for it. Peter the Great, who only
hankered after ' sea power,' cared nothing for land
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 7
routes. Although he was only distantly, or
scarcely at all, related to the Vikings, who founded
the older Russian dynasty of the Ruriks, he never-
theless inherited and revived in a remarkable
degree their peculiar predilection for boats and
waterways. The inconveniences of this remote
ness of St. Petersburg from the older centres of its
own ' hinterland ' has been referred to by the
Russian writer Naryshkin in the following manner:
' A State which has its capital at one of its ex-
tremities is like an animal with its heart on one
of its finger-tips, or its stomach on the end of one
of its big toes.'
It may not be a matter of much consequence to-
day, in view of the prospects of racing motors and
our contempt for distance, and still less will it be
so probably in the near future, when the airship
comes into general use ; but one cannot help think-
ing that, had the Russian capital been placed in a
somewhat more accessible position, it would have
been better for the outside world as well as for
Russia. No one is prepared to say where else it
could have been put, but all seem to agree as to
the inconvenience of its present position. It might
have been more to the advantage of the inhabitants
if Peter had begun to build a mile or two farther
8 ST. PETERSBURG
up the river at Okhta, where he compelled the
Swedes to leave off. On all sides of St. Peters-
burg there are no other towns of any importance
for hundreds of miles, either on Russian territory
proper, or across the Russo-Finnish frontier in its
close vicinity. Tver is 300 miles and Moscow
400 miles south-eastward ; Vilna, the former capital
of Lithuania, is more than 400 miles south-west-
ward ; and Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, is
nearly 300 miles to the north-west. If we turn
due north, there is nothing in that direction but
Archangel, another 600 or 700 miles away, and the
North Pole. The nearer towns of Novgorod,
PskofF, and Narva, which were once of such great
importance in Russian politics and trade, have long
since sunk into provincial insignificance. They at
one time carried on an extensive commerce with
the western world, and in truth constituted
Russia's real ' window into Europe ' centuries
before Peter the Great opened his window on the
Neva. The first two centres of early Russian self-
government, Novgorod and PskofF, of famous
memory, were crushed and reduced by Ivan the
Terrible for the benefit and aggrandisement of
Moscow. All three towns were subsequently
superseded by Peter's new capital.
EASTER EVE
Priest blessing the first food after the Lenten fast outside a
church on Easter Eve
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 9
St. Petersburg thus stands, comparatively speak-
ing, in the midst of a wilderness, surrounded by
swamps and forests. Many of these swamps are
still indicated on detailed maps as ' Nicholas Bog/
' Round Bog,' etc. Balakirieff, the Court jester of
Peter the Great, described the position of his
master's new capital in the following melancholy
strain : ' Na odnoi storonye more na drougoi gore, /
na traitye mokh, na chetvertoi okh /' (On one side
the sea, on the other sorrow, on the third moss, on
the fourth a sigh). At the same time, notwith-
standing the lowness of the situation and un-
healthy condition of the soil, a number of beautiful
summer retreats are to be seen in the environs of
St. Petersburg, many of them having been estab-
lished for members of the Imperial Family. There
are also villas of the aristocracy and wealthier
citizens, as well as humbler wooden cottages for
the poorer inhabitants. If, however, you venture
to go among the rural population of the surround-
ing country, you may chance to come upon Russian,
Esthonian, and Finnish peasants still leading an
existence as primitive and cheerless as that of their
ancestors ages ago. The proximity of the chief
city of the Empire seems to have had little or no
influence over them for good. Of course, one must
10 ST. PETERSBURG
be careful in drawing general conclusions, as extra-
ordinary contrasts and exceptions are to be met
with. Considerable changes also in this respect
are expected to result from the great political
reforms of the last four years. For the present
these very reforms only help to make the contrast
between the enlightenment of the better classes
and the degradation of the lower orders all the
more striking. Of all European countries of to-
day, Russia is the only one in which we can
witness a struggle going on between the newest
ideas of the most modern civilization and such an
awful state of things as that depicted by Count
Tolstoy in his * Power of Darkness,' and by Maxim
Gorky in his ' Creatures that once were Men.'
When the author made his first visit to St. Peters-
burg by sea, he thought the latter part of the route
extremely uninteresting. It was particularly so
when one considered that the last portion of it for
a couple of hundred miles or more lay through the
Finnish Gulf, which in some places, I believe, is
not more than about thirty miles from one coast
to the other. It is true the passage amongst the
rocks and islets of the Finnish side is a delightful
one, but that is a dangerous coast, and the larger
steamers steer wide of it, far out in the gulf.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 11
Therefore, there was nothing to attract attention,
and no coast scenery to admire, after leaving
Scandinavia. What appeared strange was that
there were no indications of our being near to
such a great city as St. Petersburg, even within
a few miles only of its actual site. After having
seen the picturesque and charming view of the
channel leading into Stockholm, the approach
to St. Petersburg was certainly not inviting. The
only relief of the monotonous outlook was that
of the warning lights at night, and an occasional
glimpse of low-lying shores in the day-time, until
we neared the end of the voyage. Finally, we
came in sight of the mid- water forts of Cronstadt,
stretching across the entrance to the mouth of the
Neva.
At that time there was no sea canal to enable
vessels of deep draught to proceed up the river in
safety. Passengers had either to tranship into
Russian river boats, which landed them at the
quays of the town, or else to cross over the channel
at Cronstadt to the small settlement of Oranien-
baum, whence they were able to reach St. Peters-
burg by train. The only change since made in
these arrangements is that visitors, if they choose,
may now come right into St. Petersburg port on
12 ST. PETERSBURG
ocean-going steamers through the sea or Cronstadt
Canal.
After leaving Cronstadt, there was no sign of
St. Petersburg being immediately in front of us
until we caught sight of a brilliant glitter in the
hazy distance, which, we were told, was a reflection
from the gilded dome of the St. Isaac Cathedral,
the Russian St. Paul's, and the highest building in
the city. As the boat brought us nearer to this
luminous landmark, the city itself seemed literally
to rise out of the water. This .aspect of the
situation was afterwards fully confirmed to us
when we mounted to the top of the dome of
St. Isaac's, and looked down upon the immense
volume of water in which the city seemed to
float.
On a later occasion, when the author selected
the land route for his next trip to St. Petersburg,
he found the last half of the journey to it, through
Russian territory, even less inspiring than the
voyage through Russian waters. The most won-
derful sight of all was the glaring difference between
Russia and Germany. The transition from the one
country to the other was a revelation in itself.
Probably no other two neighbouring countries in
the world ever exhibited such a distinct contrast on
THE LATE FATHER JOHN OF CRONSTADT
IN HIS GARDEN
His surname was Sergieff.
*
FIRST IMPRESSIONS 13
their very boundaries between different states of
culture as that presented by Russia and Germany
near the frontier stations of Eydtkuhnen and
Verjbolovo. On the German side of the small
stream forming the frontier line strict order,
discipline, and neatness, well-tilled fields, tidy
farms and homesteads, deer- stocked parks, and
well-kept woods were the rule. The other side of
the line is best described by saying that it exhibits
just the reverse of all this. Right up to St. Peters-
burg clusters of wretched wooden huts and log-
cabins, many of them in a broken-down condition,
and without the least traces of gardens or comfort
of any kind, were passed in monotonous repeti-
tion, one village being exactly like every other.
A poverty-stricken look hung over the dreary, flat
landscape. Only near Vilna was there any enliven-
ment of the scene, and here, too, there was actually
a railway-tunnel, a thing unheard of over thousands
of miles of Russian railway outside the Crimea and
the Caucasus.
The arrival at St. Petersburg by rail was just as
abrupt as the arrival there by boat. There were
no suburbs to serve as an introduction ; no running
of the train between miles of houses on a level
with the first-floor windows. The railway-station
14 ST. PETERSBURG
was right on the edge of the city, where it stands
at the present day.
The general coup d'odl of St. Petersburg is
certainly a magnificent one when you get there,
but it cannot be said that the city is located in the
midst of a rich and prosperous-looking part of
Russia.
CHAPTER II
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF
ST. PETERSBURG
Struggle between old and new Revolutionary influence Cradle
of new ideas The Constitution Slavophiles and Westerns
Liberal reforms Nihilists St. Petersburg, Persia, and
Turkey Reaction The Dooma.
THE subjects which have always most interested
the author in his Russian studies are what may
perhaps be called the ideological and political
aspects of St. Petersburg. As a city which
represents a long struggle brought down to the
present day of the new against the old, of Europe
against Asia, it seems to occupy quite a unique
position. As everybody knows, it did not spring
from any national growth, but was the deliberate
creation of one single mind in the person of the
'most imperious of crowned revolutionists.'* The
work of that one man eventually revolutionized
Russia in a way that he could never have expected.
* " LTEmpire des Tsars," by Anatole Leroy Beaulieu.
15
16 ST. PETERSBURG
It is from this point of view that the present
chapter is written.
Six years ago, in 1903, St. Petersburg celebrated
the two-hundredth anniversary of its foundation.
This year (1909) the whole of Russia celebrates
the bicentennial jubilee of the great victory of
Poltava, by which Peter the Great secured the
safety and the future of his new capital. That
crushing defeat of the Swedish enemy, whose one
idea was to destroy Peter's work on the Neva, was
called by him the ' resurrection ' of Russia.
Posterity has fully confirmed this opinion of the
immense importance of that decisive battle in
shaping the destinies of the Russian Empire.
From that moment St. Petersburg was free to
pursue unmolested the task assigned to it of
transforming and modernizing the old Muscovite
system. In following this aim ever since with
more or less consistency, it has at last turned
Russia into a constitutional country. The Con-
stitution may not be a perfect one, seeing that so
far it gives the Dooma control over legislation only,
without any real power over the administration,
but the establishment of the new legislative in-
stitutions is an immense advance in the right
direction. It is a result that Peter himself could
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 17
never have had the least notion of bringing about,
for, as we know, while in England he expressed
an unfavourable opinion on the limitation of royal
power by a parliament. He was not so much
interested in the inoculation of Russia with foreign
political ideas as he was in the introduction rather
of the practical and technical sides of West
European civilization. St. Petersburg was estab-
lished by the autocratic will of Peter as a means
of reforming the Russian people, and gaining the
respect of foreign powers ; it has now succeeded in
reforming autocracy itself. Without St. Peters-
burg this could never have been done.
From the first days of its existence St. Petersburg
became the centre of new ideas in opposition to
the old order of things at Moscow. All modern
tendencies have invariably penetrated into Russia
through St. Petersburg. Going back as far as the
eighteenth century, we know that Catherine II.,
surrounded by her famous statesmen, contemplated
a most thorough reorganization of Russian life and
administration. The far-reaching nature of the
hopes of the great Empress in this respect are
clearly indicated in the well-known observation
which she made to Diderot, to the effect that it
was her intention to introduce the tiers etat. At
3
18 ST. PETERSBURG
that time there was no middle class in Russia.
The population was divided principally into
peasantry and nobility, the merchants being merely
trading peasants. Although most of the reforms
which Catherine had in view were never practically
realized, it may be safely asserted that no ideas of
the kind could have ever originated in the centre
of old Muscovy.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century
St. Petersburg was the cradle of all new political
ideas. This time, however, they emanated not
from the Sovereign, but from the people, or rather
from the nobility. This refers, of course, to the
Decembrist movement in 1825, which distinctly
aimed at the liberation of the serfs and the estab-
lishment of a constitutional form of government.
That movement engulfed a number of officers
serving in the first regiments of the guard, and
representing the best families in Russia. Some
of them lost their lives on the scaffold, and
hundreds more perished in the mines and wilds
of Siberia.
Beginning with the thirties of the last century,
Russian intellectual life came to be divided into
two camps : the Slavophiles and the Westerns.
The headquarters of the Westerns, led by Granofsky
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 19
and Belinsky, was in St. Petersburg. The essence
of their teaching was to make Russia European.
The idea of the Slavophiles of Moscow, headed by
such men as Samarin, Aksakoff, and Khomiakoff,
was to keep Russia as she was. Therefore, the
ideals of the Westerns were in the future ; those
of the Slavophiles in the past.
The sixties saw the commencement of the
realization of the ideals of the Westerns. With
the accession to the throne of the Emperor
Alexander II., many European principles of
political life began to be adopted, and history leaves
no room for doubt that the embodiment of those
principles met with the most stubborn resistance
from the partisans of the old Russian system. It
was only due to the magnanimous determination
of Alexander II. that Russia was recast in moulds
borrowed from the West. In that process St.
Petersburg was the laboratory of all the measures
then introduced. Such were the emancipation of
the serfs, the establishment of local self-government,
of county and municipal councils, the reform of the
judicial institutions, and a modified freedom of the
press. It cannot be denied that these measures
were radically new and uncongenial to the great
mass of the Russian people. Many Russians, there-
32
20 ST. PETERSBURG
fore, detested St. Petersburg, which, it is true, was
very far away from the Russia endeared to them
by history and tradition. Subsequent experience,
however, proved that these great reforms were
gradually accepted by the people, and that they
contributed most powerfully towards the national
progress in civilization.
St. Petersburg has been the centre of all political
movements. Right away from the commencement
of the sixties Nihilism and other forms of revolu-
tionary activity, which in many respects have
exercised such an unhappy influence on the develop-
ment of political institutions in Russia, have always
been centralized in St. Petersburg. Such move-
ments were greatly checked at times, especially
during the severe reign of Alexander III., when
the revolutionists seemed to be completely sup-
pressed ; but discontent burst forth again with
renewed vigour during Russia's disastrous war
with Japan, and culminated in the establishment
of Russian representative government.
It is not too much to say that revolutionary
St. Petersburg has also helped in no small degree
to revolutionize and 'constitutionalize' the countries
of the Near East. The subtle influence of the
great northern capital has penetrated far and wide
ONE OF THE PALACE GRENADIERS
doing sentinel duty at the Alexander Column in
front of the Winter Palace. The men of the Palace
Grenadiers are tried veterans from the army, who
do sentinel duty at the imperial monuments, and
form a Guard of Honour in the palace on State
occasions.
ONE OF THE PALACE GRENADIERS
doing sentinel duty at the Alexander Column in front of the Winter Palace. The men of the
Palace Grenadiers are tried veterans from the army, who do sentinel duty at the imperial
monuments, and form a guard of honour in the palace on state occasions
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 21
through the Caucasus and the Transcaspian, where
Russia has no ethnographical frontiers, as in
Western Europe, which cut her off completely from
her next-door neighbours.
St. Petersburg has thus been the inlet for the
European culture required by Russia in her civiliz-
ing mission in the East, and Turkey and Persia
with their newly established constitutions have
indirectly felt the effects of what has occurred on
the banks of the Neva.
Long after the original Slavophile opposition
from Moscow had apparently died out, the baneful
influence of St. Petersburg on ' Holy Russia ' was
again the theme of reactionary writers and
Chauvinists in the Russian press. In the very
mildest of their criticisms these journalists treated
the St. Petersburg period of reforms as having
been, at least, premature and disastrous for the
nation. The revival of such an agitation was
favoured by the unfortunate circumstances attend-
ing the accession to the throne of the present
Emperor's father, Alexander III. The latter 's
father, Alexander II., had just been cruelly murdered
in the streets of St. Petersburg, and this set the
new Tsar against all liberal ideas. Moreover, his
well-known Russian tastes and anti-German feelings
22 ST. PETERSBURG
created an atmosphere extremely favourable to
the Moscow agitators. The prime mover in this
new campaign against the modern capital was
Katkoff, the famous editor of the Moscow Gazette,
the champion of Russian ' orthodoxy, autocracy,
and nationality.' He or one of his colleagues raised
the cry in the press of ' back to Moscow/ thereby
meaning a return to the old national ideals as dis-
tinguished from those of the West, to which
they believed the Tsar Emancipator had fallen a
victim.
Some enthusiasts of that time, who were in
favour of re- Russianizing Russia, even went so far as
to send their letters through the post addressed to
' Petrograd ' instead of St. Petersburg, grad or
gorod being the Slavonic word for town or the
German burg. The German names which Peter
the Great was so fond of giving to everything
were always an eyesore to the old-world Russian,
and are not altogether pleasing to the Russian
patriot of to-day. The Emperor Alexander III.
himself was influenced against this German nomen-
clature, and although he did not change any of the
names adopted by Peter, he consented to give back
to the university town of Dorpat its old Slavonic
name of Yourieff, and to make corresponding
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 23
alterations in the names of several other places
in the Baltic provinces.
The old Slavophiles of the thirties and the
Reactionaries under Alexander III. were in reality
working for the same old ideals, which the influence
of St. Petersburg had rudely shaken. Russian
orthodoxy and nationality had been greatly
weakened by Peter the Great's German bureau-
cracy, but there had been no apparent weakening
of autocracy. That was no part of Peter's intention,
for he exercised his autocratic function with irre-
sistible and brutal effect. As Alexander III. pro-
claimed at the beginning of his reign, the autocratic
power was handed down ' unimpaired ' by Peter to
his heirs and successors. The Bureaucracy, however,
continued to strengthen itself at the expense of the
Autocracy, without this fact being clearly discerned
by the occupant of the throne. The most arbitrary
and cruel acts were performed in the name of the
autocratic power without ever coming to the
knowledge of the Emperor. It was, of course,
impossible for the Sovereign to control the legion
of minor autocrats who held undisputed sway in
his name in all parts of his vast dominions. Finally,
as we have seen, the Autocrat of all the Russias
had to call into existence representative institutions
24 ST. PETERSBURG
in order to save the situation. This all- important
step was, without any doubt, a great triumph for
St. Petersburg, and the legitimate outcome of its
influence.
Until this establishment of a Russian constitu-
tion, the efforts of Slavophiles and Reactionaries
above described against the progressive ideals of
St. Petersburg were considered to be the last that
would ever be heard of the old opposition to Peter
the Great's * window into Europe.' Recent events
have thoroughly proved the fallacy of this forecast.
The assembling of an elected Dooma was the signal
for the organization of more violent reaction by the
so-called ' Union of Russian People.' This ultra-
patriotic association recruited an army of scouts
and hirelings (boy ev ay a droozjeena) under the
name of ' black gangs,' which showed that the old
Adam of Russian home politics was still alive,
only disporting itself under a new guise. It is
also noticeable that it was again a rabid re-
actionary editor of the Moscow Gazette, the late
M. Gringmuth, who was the soul of the movement
in the ancient capital.
The leaders of these 'black gangs' even
threatened to mar the celebration of the great
victory of Poltava by making a demonstration in
THE STATE DOGMA
A member speaking from the tribune
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 25
that town during the ceremonies and festivities in
the presence of the Emperor and the Court, but
their intentions were frustrated in time by official
interference. At the moment of writing this
chapter their late president is under citation to
appear before a Finnish court of justice as a
suspected accomplice in the political murder of a
member of the Dooma named Herzenstein. He
has so far refused to obey the summons on the
ground that as a Russian he does not recognize
Finnish law, and there seems to be no authority
strong enough to compel him.
It will thus be seen that St. Petersburg is richly
interesting in regard to the ideas which it has
always propagated, as also in regard to those with
which it has always been at war. An entirely
new policy was embodied in its very buildings,
and it still represents a great foreign influence
in the country of which it is the capital. It
remains significant of the violent break with all
that went before it, and of the introduction of what
was completely at variance with the deep-rooted
habits and traditions of the people. In short,
it remains emblematic of the Europeanization
of Russia, the end of semi- Asiatic Muscovy, and
the establishment of the modern State. Even to-
4
26 ST. PETERSBURG
day it is not typical of the Russian ' hinterland '
away off the main lines of communication which
run through the few principal towns.
The latest and most important creation of the
forces and influence spread by St. Petersburg
throughout the country is, of course, the national
Dooma, and the author ventures to spell the name
of it in a different way from the usual one for the
following reason :
This word, which is comparatively new in
English print, has already, however, become
fashionable in a form that does not convey the
proper Russian sound of it. One constantly hears
it pronunced with the more usual sound of the
English u, as in 'tune.' Its proper pronunciation
is exactly the same as that of the English word
' doom ' with the addition of a short a sound at the
end. In this spelling no mistake could possibly be
made in the pronunciation. What more natural,
therefore, than to write it 'Dooma' instead of
Duma ? I venture to suggest this alteration in the
spelling of Duma with considerable diffidence, not-
withstanding the obvious reason for it, because
any attempt to correct the orthography of a
foreign word which has already received general
currency in the British press is liable to be
IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS 27
resented as a pedantic interference with estab-
lished usage.
In the next place, it may be mentioned that the
word 'Dooma,' as meaning the Russian Parliament,
is called in Russia the * State Dooma ' (Gosoo-
darstvennaya Dooma). With this qualification it is
distinguished from a municipal dooma or council
(G-orodskaya Dooma). England has just begun to
make the acquaintance also of these town ' doomas '
in connection with a loan floated for the Dooma
of Moscow. In the 'renovated' Russia of the
immediate future, these other doomas will probably
be heard of quite frequently. The word is derived
from a Russian root meaning thought, reflection, etc.
From the historical point of view it may be
interesting to note that the term ' dooma,' as sig-
nifying an institution of the realm, did not appear
for the first time in 1906, or in connection with
the establishment of the municipal councils in
1872. Institutions called by that name date
back as far as the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, when they exercised most important
functions in the old system of Russian government.
The ' Dooma ' of those days was the Council of the
Russian Boyars, the Barons of Russia. Like all
old parliaments, it was a mere consultative body,
42
28 ST. PETERSBURG
but no measure of importance was ever passed into
law without the advice and consent of the Boyars.
It was only after the introduction of Ivan the
Terrible's policy of crushing all forces which tended
to modify the autocracy that the old ' Dooma ' of
the Boyars began to lose its importance, and
eventually it completely disappeared about the
time when Peter the Great came to the throne.
THE MEMBERS LEAVING THE DOGMA
i i
THE MEMBERS LEAVING THE DOGMA
CHAPTER III
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST
History of the Neva region England's sea trade with Russia
Finns and Novgorodians Neva route in the time of Saxon
England Hanseatic league Slavs and Scandinavians
Roman- Swedish crusade Victory of Alexander Nevsky
Teutonic knights Swedish and Russian fortresses Civil
war Treaty of Stolbovo.
THE character and achievements of Peter the Great
quite eclipsed the fame of his predecessors on the
Russian throne. The new Russia which he in-
augurated, and which he and his successors forced
upon the world's astonished attention, soon caused
the old order of things at Moscow to be forgotten.
The originality of Peter's genius and policy made
it difficult to associate his work with anything that
had gone before it. The old semi-Asiatic Russia
seemed to fade into myth and legend in comparison.
Peter's reign was so wonderful that it completely
overshadowed everything that had led up to it, and
seemed to detach him entirely from the history of
the past. This was particularly the case with regard
29
30 ST. PETERSBURG
to the antecedents of the region in which he estab-
lished St. Petersburg.
The position of affairs on the banks of the Neva
prior to the period of Peter the Great attracted no
attention in England, for obvious reasons. It is a
question whether anything at all was known about
it. The Baltic was nearly a Swedish lake, and
other seafaring nations were excluded from it as
much as possible. England's first intercourse with
ancient Russia and the Muscovite Government
was conducted almost exclusively through the
more remote northern port of Archangel. It was
at this place that Russia was accidentally discovered
by Englishmen in 1553, when Richard Chancellor
strayed into the White Sea while trying to make the
north-eastern passage to China. Instead of a new
passage to China this unexpected discovery opened
up a new sea-route to Russia. The Swedes then
held sway in the Baltic Sea, and tried to prevent
us from trading direct with Russia through that
channel. The Poles, as well as the Swedes, opposed
all commerce especially English commerce with
Russia in the Baltic and Gulf of Finland, while
they at the same time endeavoured to prevent
Russia's expansion towards open water in that
direction. Their policy was to repress their great
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 31
Muscovite neighbour, and keep him as much as
possible out of touch with the Western world.
The Kings of Sweden and Poland both became
exasperated against England, on account of advice
and assistance given to the Tsar by Queen
Elizabeth's envoys and the English merchants at
Moscow. In 1569 the Poles seized some English
ships on their way to Narva, and King Sigismund
subsequently declared war against England for
paying no heed to his remonstrances. Thus
access to Russia through the Baltic was rendered
exceedingly difficult for the English 'merchant
adventurers ' of those days, and business with
Moscow was therefore carried on almost entirely
by way of the long and circuitous route round the
North Cape. They never attempted apparently to
penetrate farther into Russia by sea through the
Gulf of Finland, for if the Baltic Sea was nearly
a Swedish lake, the Finnish Gulf was probably
quite one.
When Peter the Great appeared on the Neva
and crippled the sea power of Sweden, it seemed
as if the history of this almost unknown part of
Russia was only then beginning. In this connec-
tion it was generally believed that St. Petersburg
had been founded in the midst of quite uninhabit-
32 ST. PETERSBURG
able swamps and forests. This was true only as
far as concerns the existence of these swamps and
forests, but not as regards the absence of popula-
tion. The whole country hereabouts, covering an
area larger than that of the United Kingdom, was
then, and still is to a great extent, swampy. And
this seems to have been an advantage in one
respect, for it was the bogs and forests that
protected old Novgorod, 120 miles south of
St. Petersburg, against the hordes of Tartar
horsemen when they overran and devastated the
rest of Russia. The entire lake region of this part
of Northern Russia is essentially part and parcel of
the adjoining 'land of the thousand lakes,' which
is the most watery country in the world. Its
beautiful lake system fully answers to this poetical
appreciation, but its native name, Suomenmaa (the
Swampy Region, alias Fenland or Finland), is not
so attractive. There can be no doubt, therefore,
about the swampy character of the site of
St. Petersburg. But this did not prevent it from
being a place of human abode long before either
Swedes or Muscovites appeared on the scene.
One of the hardiest of human races, the Finns,
settled here in very remote times, and gave
Finnish names to every part of the Neva delta.
THE TSAR REVIEWING HIS TROOPS
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 33
Peter the Great renamed all these places, or turned
their Finnish names into Russian. This fact alone
proves that the inhabitants of St. Petersburg were
by no means the first dwellers on the Neva. What
did swamp matter to the adamantine Finn ? His
very name, denizen of the swamp (Suomalaine),
seemed to argue a preference for this kind of
country. His power of resistance to the unhealthy
effects of local conditions, which afterwards helped
to destroy so many other lives in St. Petersburg,
was part of his early reputation. Eventually,
notwithstanding these unfavourable conditions of
the country, the Finn became one of the chief
causes which induced the other races of Northern
Europe to endeavour to obtain a footing on the
banks of the Neva. In pursuit of this purpose, the
Novgorodian Russians and the Swedes followed
the Finns into these parts. They built here castles
and founded settlements, which changed hands
between them several times over during the long
struggle for permanent possession.
In the earliest times of which there is any record
of this part of Russia, the Neva served as an artery
of trade between Europe and Asia. The whole
region through which this river flows was part of
the territory of Novgorod called the ' Vodsky Fifth.'
34 ST. PETERSBURG
The city of Novgorod was divided for adminis-
trative purposes into five sections, each of which
had outlying territory attached to it. The ' fifth '
in question was called after one of the three tribes
of aboriginal inhabitants of Finnish stock, named
Izjora, Korelia, and Vod who dwelt along the banks
of the Neva. Their names were identical with those
of the districts which they inhabited, and two of
these names, Izjora and Korelia, exist at the present
day. This Vodsky Fifth extended from Lake
Ladoga, along the left bank of the Neva and the
shore of the Finnish Gulf in the direction of Revel,
and on the right bank of the river and northern
shore of the gulf as far as the little river Sestra,
which is now distinguished by a fashionable
watering-place named Sestroretsk, about eighteen
or twenty miles from St. Petersburg.
According to Arabian and Persian chronicles, in
the period of our Saxon Kings of England the
Persians, and even the Hindus, received wares from
the West along this trading-route. These goods
were either landed at the mouth of the Dvina, or
brought to Novgorod along the waterway now
commanded by St. Petersburg, whence they were
conveyed down the Volga to Eastern markets.
Evidence of this ancient traffic between East and
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 35
West has been brought to light in discoveries of
large accumulations of Saxon and Arabian coins,
dug up in several places at the mouth of the Neva,
and on the shores of Lake Ladoga. Nestor, the
patriarch of Russian literature (eleventh century),
wrote that 'the Neva served as a means of com-
munication between peoples of the West and
Novgorod through the Volkhoff; by the Neva
they went into the Varangian Sea, and by that sea
to Rome.' That was when the Russians were still
on good terms with the Varangians, or Scandi-
navians, whose Princes they had once invited to
come and rule over them. Later on the Russians
and Swedes began to quarrel, through the efforts of
both peoples to secure the allegiance of the Finns.
The Novgorodians appear to have begun the con-
flict by making themselves masters of a part of
Southern Finland. And thus it was that the
Russians entered upon the long series of hostilities
with the descendants of their former friends and
helpers, the Variags, which lasted for no less than
six centuries. In fact, it may be said that the
great political struggle which Imperial Russia has
waged with the Finnish Constitutionalists for the
last ten years or more down to the present moment
is essentially a Swedish question. Everything in
52
36 ST. PETERSBURG
the religion, culture, laws, and political life of
Finland which goes to make opposition to Russia is
of Swedish origin. It is, therefore, only natural that
the Finns should be inspired by Swedish ideals in
preference to dictation from St. Petersburg.
When the Hanseatic League began to flourish, a
considerable business was worked up through the
channels of the Neva and the Volkhoff with the
' Sovereign Great Novgorod,' as that city was then
styled by its independent citizens. This was facili-
tated by the Hanseatic towns having direct water
communication with Novgorod through the Gulf of
Finland, the Neva, and the Ladoga Lake, into
which the VolkhofF empties itself. At the junction
of the VolkhofF with the lake there appears to
have been a town or settlement, with guest-houses
and storage, belonging to Russian and German
merchants.
A notable part in this trade between the Russians
and the Hansa towns was played by the ancient
city of Wisby, the capital of the island of Gotland,
in the Baltic, near the Swedish coast. This rich
and important member of the great commercial
confederation was the principal depot and dis-
tributing centre for the Oriental wares which were
brought to Europe along the rivers of Russia. It had
ICE-CUTTING ON THE NEVA
ICE- CUTTING ON THE NEVA
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 37
its representatives in Novgorod, and in a commercial
sense that Russian city has been called the daughter
of Wisby. It is pretty certain that, through the
transactions of Wisby and her neighbours with the
Russians, the latter were better known to Western
Europe in those early days than they were later
under the despotism of the Moscow Tsars. The
merchants of Wisby were renowned for their
wealth, and its shippers for their seamanship.
Their celebrated Water-recht, or Sea Code, passed
into the maritime law of nations, and in an old
ballad it was said that ' the Gotlanders weighed
out gold with stone weights, and played with the
choicest jewels ; the swine ate out of silver
troughs, and the women spun with distaffs of
gold.'
This profitable commerce, however, suffered
considerably from the strife which gradually sprang
up between Slavs and Scandinavians over the
allegiance of the Finns and the command of the
Neva. In 1143 the Swedes, assisted by the Finns,
attacked the Russians at Ladoga, and were re-
pulsed. From that time the contest became
serious, and, in spite of several treaties of peace,
it went on intermittently for 600 long years. A
stop was finally put to it, once and for all, by the
38 ST. PETERSBURG
Peace of Abo in 1743, which finally confirmed
Russia in possession of the whole of the Neva
district and the Gulf of Finland.
Besides the Swedes on the one hand, the Danes
began to approach through the Baltic provinces on
the other. In 1223 Pope Innocent III. persuaded
Voldemar II. of Denmark to lead his troops
through Esthonia, and build a castle at Narva, on
the River Narova. Then came the Teutonic
Knights and Brothers of the Sword, who also tried
to extend their conquests into the region of the
Neva. The struggle with these German intruders
took place in the south-western part of the present
province of St. Petersburg, and lasted about 400
years. In the end their possessions in the Baltic
provinces were divided between the Swedes and
the Poles.
The ostensible object of those German and
Livonian Knights was to spread Christianity by
dint of the sword amongst the ' Baltic heathen and
Russian schismatics,' and their example was followed
with great enthusiasm by the Swedes. It is strange
to think nowadays that Russia, who was the great
champion of Christianity against the savage pagans
from Central Asia, was herself to be made the
victim of a religious war at the hands of Western
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 39
Christians. A holy crusade was, in fact, under-
taken against the ' heathen Russians ' at the behest
of the Pope, conveyed in a Bull to the Archbishop
of Upsala in 1237. Pope Gregory IX. promised
absolution and eternal happiness to all who took
part in this war, and great preparations were made
for it during two years. Exciting sermons were
preached in all the churches, and the priests pointed
to a comet, which appeared at the time to the east
of Sweden, as a sign from the Almighty indicating
the direction to be taken by the crusaders. Large
numbers of volunteers were recruited from all
parts, and adventurers of all kinds were induced to
join the ranks. The Swedes took with them also
many Norwegians and Finns, and a great many of
the clergy, including several Bishops. The head of
the expedition was the famous Jarl Birger, brother-
in-law to King Erick of Sweden. Just as if they
were marching against the infidel and 'unspeak
able ' Turk, the Swedish regiments embarked with
the singing of hymns, while their priests held aloft
the cross and bestowed the blessing of the Church.
The Swedish war-ships set sail for Abo, then the
capital of Finland, and thence, up the Gulf of
Finland, into the Neva.
It was the intention of Jarl Birger first to attack
40 ST. PETERSBURG
Ladoga, and then seize Novgorod, and convert the
Russians to Latinism. He landed his forces at the
mouth of the Izjora, a tributary of the Neva, where
in ancient times there had been a prosperous town
or settlement in connection with the Hanseatic
trade. This spot is only about fifteen miles up the
River Neva above St. Petersburg. From this halt-
ing-place Jarl Birger sent out an insolent challenge
to the Grand Prince, or Grand Duke, Alexander
Yaroslavovitch, who was then the elected Prince of
Novgorod. Prince Alexander at once gave orders
to muster all available troops, and hastened to the
old Cathedral of St. Sophia, where he was surrounded
by a crowd of alarmed and weeping citizens. In
front of the altar he prayed long and fervently
before setting out against the foe. The religious
element in this campaign especially roused the
patriotic sentiments and ardour of the Russians.
At the same time the Grand Duke was greatly
impressed by an incident which occurred to a
trusty servant of Novgorod a sort of warden
of the marches in the Izjora territory named
Pelagoosy. This man was a Finn, converted from
paganism, and he was devoted to the Russians and
Eastern Orthodoxy. He related how, while watch-
ing the enemy day and night, he had once seen the
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 41
Russian saints Boris and Gleb standing in a boat
on the Izjora, and had heard them urge the boat-
men to row faster, as they wished to help their
kinsman the Grand Duke Alexander. This story,
told confidentially to the Grand Duke, helped to fire
his pious ardour, and was accepted as a presage of
coming victory.
The Russian troops drew near to the camp of
the Swedes at the mouth of the Izjora without, it
seems, rousing the least suspicion of their approach.
There was no idea of the Russians moving so quickly,
and Jarl Birger and his men were quietly resting
after the long voyage. Their confidence was appar-
ently so great that they took no trouble to send
out scouts or make reconnaissances. At any rate,
the Swedes suddenly found themselves attacked in
the very midst of their tents, on the morning of
July 15, 1240. So sudden and so furious was the
Russian onslaught that many of the crusaders had
no time to recover themselves, and fled for refuge
to their boats. The Grand Duke himself tried to
engage Birger, and dealt him such a blow in the
face that, according to the Russian chronicle, he
* set his seal on the physiognomy of the Swedish
commander.' Prodigies of valour are recorded of
the Russians on this occasion. History has preserved
6
42 ST. PETERSBURG
the names of many who plied their favourite weapon,
the axe, with awful effect among the foe, and of
others who leapt into the water in pursuit of the
retreating Swedes, and killed them in their boats.
The Swedish and Norwegian crusaders were com-
pletely routed.
The author has dwelt on some of the details of this
important battle because of the great value attached
to it by the Russians in connection with the site of
St. Petersburg. For this exploit the Grand Duke
was canonized under the name of St. Alexander
Nevsky, or St. Alexander of the Neva. One of
the first things which Peter the Great considered
it his duty to do, when he began the foundation of
St. Petersburg, was to have St. Alexander Nevsky
made the patron saint of his new capital, and
cause a magnificent monastery to be built in his
name for the reception of the saint's remains.
This establishment, the well-known Alexander
Nevsky Lavra, is conspicuously situated at one
end of the Nevsky Prospect, near the left bank of
the Neva, and only a few miles from the spot
where the famous victory was gained.
On receiving the good news, the Novgorodians
joyfully exclaimed that the 'Romans had been
defeated and disgraced.' By this, of course, they
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 43
referred to the part taken in the expedition by the
Roman Catholic Church, and it clearly shows the
importance of the religious element on this occa-
sion. The Swedes and Germans had, in fact, now
undertaken to convert the Russians to Roman
Catholicism at the point of the sword.
This great victory, however, only checked the
Swedes for a time. Meanwhile the Russians were
beset by other enemies, the Teutonic Knights, who
had captured Pskoff the " younger sister of Nov-
gorod" and other places on Russian territory.
These crusaders would also soon have been on the
Neva had the Novgorodians not marched against
them in 1284, and destroyed their fortress at
Korporye.
In 1300 the Swedes, who were then strong in
Finland, established the castle of Viborg, and re-
appeared on the Neva. This time they endeavoured
to establish a fortified position, which they named
Landskron, or Crown of the Land, on the riverside,
near the outlet of the small river Okhta. But the
work was not allowed to go on long, for the next
year it was completely destroyed by Prince Andre,
a son of Alexander Nevsky. This was the first
attempt to establish a Swedish town j,within the
limits of the present Russian capital.
62
44 ST. PETERSBURG
In order to be able to offer greater resistance to
these continual encroachments, the Russians in
1323, built a fortress at Ladoga, on a small island
at the head of the Neva, where that river flows out
of the lake. They called it after the name of the
island, Oryekhoff, or Oryeshek (a nut), because the
island was shaped like a hazel-nut. This fortifica-
tion of the source of the Neva somewhat troubled
the Swedes, and King Magnus was induced to send
ambassadors to conclude peace. But in 1384 that
same King not only renewed the war, but he
himself sailed into the Neva, at the head of the
Swedish fleet, and summoned the inhabitants of
the district to choose between death and acceptance
of the Roman Catholic faith. After anchoring
off Birch Island, now the Petersburg side, where
Peter the Great, over three centuries later, laid the
foundation of his new city, the Swedish King pro-
ceeded to Ladoga, and captured Oryekhoff. The
name was then translated into Swedish as Noteburg,
from not, a nut. Not very long after the return of
the King to Sweden this fortress was retaken by
the Novgorodians, and 800 of the Swedish garrison
were either killed or wounded.
In 1411 Oryekhoff, alias Noteburg, was seized
a second time by the Swedes, and held by them for
SITE OF ST. PETERSBURG IN THE PAST 45
more than a hundred years. Once again it became
Russian, and then once more Swedish. At last,
at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the
seventeenth centuries, circumstances became par-
ticularly favourable for the Swedes. Novgorod
had lost its independence to Moscow, and Russia's
national power was greatly weakened by sedition
and rivalry for possession of the throne. In this
state of things Charles IX. of Sweden even assisted
the Russians in their difficulties by sending an army
against the false Demetrius and the Poles who sup-
ported that pretender. For this service the Russians
promised to accept the younger son of Charles as
their Tsar, but the honour was never conferred.
During this so-called Smootnoe Fremya, or
period of troubles, the Swedes took advantage of
the opportunity to settle themselves firmly on the
Neva and Lake Ladoga. After the first Romanoff
had been elected to the throne, they were con-
firmed in possession by the Treaty of Stolbova,
a village near Ladoga. This treaty was made
with the first Tsar of the new dynasty on
February 27, 1617. There was again war with
the Muscovites, but in the long run the Swedes
remained masters of the situation on the Neva
down to the advent of Peter the Great.
CHAPTER IV
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT ON
THE NEVA
Swedish proselytism Nyenskantz, the nucleus of St. Petersburg
Trade under the Swedes Peter the Great's conquest of
the Neva.
AFTER the fall of Novgorod as an independent
unit, the Moscow Tsars took measures to colonize
the old dependencies of that once Republican city.
The Swedes did the same, especially after the
Treaty of Stolbovo, when all the lands of the Neva
and Izjora basins were formally incorporated into
the Swedish province of Ingria, or Ingermanland.
By that treaty, Russian noblemen, monks, and
other subjects of the Tsar on the ceded territories,
were allowed to leave within a fortnight if they so
desired. All Russians remaining after that short
notice came under the Swedish Crown. Neverthe-
less, large numbers continued to go over to Moscow
long afterwards, and of this the Swedes complained.
Consequently, in October, 1649, the Tsar, Alexis
46
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 47
Michailovitch, father of Peter the Great, undertook
to pay Sweden for the runaway Russians, and
promised to receive no more of them. It is pretty
certain that religious dislike had a good deal to do
with this flight, for Sweden did not cease to pro-
selytize, although she had given up crusading
proper, and had become the champion of Protest-
antism. The zeal of the King of Sweden for the
cause of the Reformed Church expressed itself in
the establishment of a Russian printing-press at
Stockholm, whence religious literature was issued
for distribution among the orthodox Russians in
Ingermanland and Korelia. The same was done
for the Finns, and in this way the Swedish Church
taught every Finnish peasant to read the Bible.
Its chances of doing this for the Russians were
limited, and the Russian Church itself is a very
long way from having accomplished it even at the
present day.
It is related that Gustavus Adolphus had the
idea of sending Mecklenburg peasants to colonize
Korvu-saari, or Birch Island, on which Peter after-
wards began the work of building the new city.
This was suggested by one of the King's Generals,
who had taken part in the long struggle with the
Russians, and who knew the local conditions.
48
ST. PETERSBURG
Some of the Swedish commanders had been re-
warded with valuable estates on the Neva, and
they must have been well aware of the importance
of having a strong colony there. Such a plan was
no doubt a feasible one during the Thirty Years'
War. In all probability, many Mecklenburgers
would have then been found willing to leave their
desolated homesteads and settle in a new country
under the protection of the Protestant hero ; but
the fall of Gustavus Adolphus, at the Battle of
Liitzen, put an end to the scheme.
The most important enterprise of the Swedes on
the Neva at this time was undoubtedly the establish-
ment of Nyenschantz, or Nyenskantz now Okhta
at the mouth of the small tributary of the Neva
bearing that name. This took place at the sugges-
tion of the well-known Swedish General De la
Gardie, whose descendants eventually entered the
Russian service. A small fortress was first built
on the right bank of the Neva in 1632, and a small
but flourishing town soon grew up in the neigh-
bourhood. On the same spot there had been a
Russian commercial settlement prior to 1521, in
which year it was destroyed by sea-pirates. At a
much earlier date Landskron, the first attempt at a
Swedish settlement here, was also located in this
3 J
tf g
Q !
w a
S a
I 1 '
N
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 49
vicinity. To-day the same site is occupied by a
populous and important suburb of St. Petersburg
called Big and Little Okhta. Opposite to it, on the
left bank of the Neva, is Smolny, with its fine
Cathedral by Count Rastrelli, and Institute for
Daughters of the Nobility. Not far from Smolny
Institute is the Taurid Palace, the seat of the
State Dooma, originally the mansion of Catherine's
renowned favourite and General, Prince Potemkin,
the conqueror of the Crimea.
In the seventeenth century Smolny was a colony
of Russian tar-distillers, from whom it derived its
name (smola, pitch). The colony was dependent
upon Nyenskantz, and an interesting fact in con-
nection with it illustrates the attitude of the
Swedes towards the Russian colonists in general
at this period. The Russians at Smolny were
under the religious control of the authorities of the
Swedish Church. The Chief Superintendent of
religious matters in Ingermanland was then the
Bishop of Narva, the learned Gezelius, who had
studied at Oxford and Cambridge. His duties
included periodical visits to the Swedish and
Finnish clergy at Nyenskantz. On such occasions
he inspected their churches and schools, and crossed
over to Smolny to hear the Russian priests put the
7
50 ST. PETERSBURG
members of their flock through a catechism that
had been drawn up by the ecclesiastical authorities
at Stockholm.
This circumstance not only gives an insight
into the relations between Swedes and Russians in
the flourishing period of Swedish rule on the Neva,
but also shows that this locality in the dopetrof-
skiya, or ' ante-Peter ' times, came to be something
more than the haunt of a few Finnish fishermen.
Former writers who described it as such were
apparently not acquainted with all the historical
data on the subject. There was no lack of fisher-
folk here, it is evident, and the Neva salmon were
famous ; but there was also a prosperous com-
mercial body, carrying on a considerable trade with
Liibeck and Amsterdam. For example, during
the summer of 1691 over 100 foreign vessels dis-
charged their cargoes on the Neva, the goods being
probably sent up the River Volkhoff to Novgorod.
There is also evidence that the commercial com-
munity of Nyenskantz was a wealthy one, if we
may judge by the fact that one of its merchants,
by the name of Frelius, was able to lend a large
sum of money to Charles XII. in his war against
Russia.
The floating traffic between Smolnyand Okhta,
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 51
two very important parts of St. Petersburg, has been
on the increase ever since this period of Swedish rule.
Its growing requirements have long demanded the
construction of a bridge across the Neva at these two
points, where direct communication is still carried
on only by means of a ferry and a service of small
steamboats. For many centuries boats and barges
have been used here to communicate between the
two banks. Only this summer (1909) the Muni-
cipal Dooma started the construction of a bridge,
after a discussion of the question which had lasted
for thirty years.
On Swedish maps of the year 1670 some forty-
five villages and farms are dotted over the area
now occupied by St. Petersburg. There was good
pasture-land, abundance of water-fowl, and plenty
of winged and four-footed game in the surrounding
woods. The elk was then hunted here by the
Swedes, as it is still by the Russians, in the
immediate neighbourhood of St. Petersburg. One
extensive preserve, owned by a Swedish nobleman,
skirted that part of the river-side which is now the
Palace Quay, and the gamekeeper's lodge was not
far from Princess SoltykofFs mansion, now occupied
by the British Embassy.
Such was the state of things on the Neva when
72
52 ST. PETERSBURG
Peter the Great began to turn his serious attention
in that direction. The great reformer had returned
from his historical visits to England and Holland,
had put down rebellion in Moscow, and made an
unsuccessful attempt to wrest Narva from the
grasp of the Swedes. He was now resolved to
attack Noteburg and Nyenskantz, and get control
of the Neva.
Immediately after Peter's defeat at Narva, he
set about preparing for another campaign with
extraordinary energy and resource. What he him-
self achieved and what he forced others to accom-
plish so rapidly is simply marvellous when we con-
sider the condition of the country and the people
at the time. The survivors of the disaster at
Narva were rallied, fresh recruits mustered from all
sides, ships built, hundreds of cannon cast out of
bells taken from churches and monasteries, and
religious services, which took up so much time, were
suspended to enable priests and monks to take part
in the one absorbing task of the hour. While all
this was going on, the chief centres of activity being
Moscow and Novgorod, Peter somewhat suddenly
marched off with five battalions of troops to Arch-
angel. This expedition was supposed to be the
effect of a rumour that the Swedes intended to
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 53
assail that port. There is reason, however, to
believe that Peter availed himself of the diversion
to screen his plans against Noteburg, for we find
him sending secret orders to have the fact of his
northern journey bruited about in the foreign press,
with the object of deceiving the Swedes. It was
even rumoured abroad that he had set out from
Archangel for the coast of Sweden.
On arriving at Archangel, Peter witnessed the
launch of two small frigates, which he named the
Holy Spirit and the Courier. He then had them
dragged overland from the Bay of Onega to the
northern end of the Onega Lake, where they were
relaunched, and sent on the River Svir into Lake
Ladoga. For this purpose many miles of road had
to be made, with enormous labour, through thick
forests and swamps ; and the work of moving these
vessels on rollers placed under their keels as they
were drawn along, and prevented from listing, was
exceedingly difficult. In fact, seeing the obstacles
naturally presented by the stumps of felled trees, it is
not easy to understand how this was accomplished.
Peter shared in all this manual toil much like a
common soldier or workman, sending out orders
all the time to Moscow and Novgorod.
Before Peter could get to Ladoga, the Swedish
54 ST. PETERSBURG
squadron on that lake was defeated by Colonel
Tirtoff with a flotilla of Cossack boats. The
Swedish Admiral Nummers retreated to Viborg,
with a loss of five ships and 300 men, thus leaving
the waters of Lake Ladoga in the possession of the
Russians.
Peter reached Ladoga at the end of September,
1702, and there met Field-Marshal Sheremetieff,
with an army of 12,000 men from Novgorod. The
Tsar's original plan of attacking Noteburg on the
ice in the preceding winter had been abandoned
on account of a very unusual thaw. The town of
Ladoga surrendered without any resistance, but
the beleaguered garrison in Noteburg fought a
good fight under its Commandant, Schlippenberg.
The bombardment was carried on fiercely for
eleven days. On October 11, when a great con-
flagration broke out in the fortress, and the
battered walls were being scaled by the besiegers,
the Swedes lowered their flag, and the Russians
were again masters of their old citadel of Oryeshek.
Only 83 Swedes were left unwounded. In this
siege the Russians had 564 officers and men killed,
and 938 wounded. The ammunition expended by
them amounted to 15,196 cannon-shot, bombs, and
hand-grenades, and 72 tons of gunpowder.
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 55
The key of the fortress, which was handed over
by the Swedish Commandant, was nailed by Peter's
orders to the top of the principal bastion, and
Oryeshek, alias Noteburg, was renamed Schliissel-
burg, from the German word Schlussel, a key.
With this key Russia again unlocked for herself
the door to the Baltic.
Peter went in triumph to Moscow for the winter,
and returned to Ladoga in the spring of 1703, to
make preparations for the capture of Nyenskantz.
At the end of April, Sheremetieff's troops from
Ladoga were enabled to get close to the fortress of
Nyenskantz, under cover of the intervening woods.
The Tsar himself passed in front of it on the river,
with sixty boats full of soldiers, under a heavy fire
from the ramparts. His object was to intercept
any assistance for the Swedes likely to arrive at the
mouth of the Neva from Viborg. Peter landed
these troops on the island of Viti-saari, now
Gootooefsky, and returned at once to Sheremetieff's
camp.
The reduction of Nyenskantz was not difficult.
The garrison consisted of only about 800 men, and
after one night's bombardment the Swedish Com-
mandant Apollof consented to negotiate. On
May 1 he and his men were permitted to retire to
56 ST. PETERSBURG
Viborg, and the Russians entered into posses-
sion of what proved to be the nucleus of modern
St. Petersburg.
One of the first things which Peter did was
to rename the place Schlotburg, or Slottburg,
although the Russians had much earlier given it
the name of Kantz, from the last part of the word
Nyenskantz. Peter had a mania for bestowing new
names in German, instead of in his own language.
Judging from specimens of his composition, the
use of his native tongue, both as regards hand-
writing and style, was not one of his strong points.
His autograph often looks as if it had been produced
under the influence of great nervous excitement.
In all probability the constant twitching and
jerking of his face and limbs, reported of him by
many of his contemporaries, had something to
do with the ugly scrawls which he has left to
posterity.
The surrender of Nyenskantz had only just
been effected when the Swedish Admiral Nummers
appeared at the mouth of the Neva with a relief
squadron. Being quite unaware of the transfer of
the fortress, he signalled to it by firing twice, and
Peter ordered an answer to be given in the same
manner. Then, during the night, Peter sallied
SCHLUSSELBURG FORTRESS, ON LAKE LADOGA
The'object of centuries of strife between Russians and Swedes, and subsequently used
as a prison for important political offenders down to 1906
THE SWEDES AND PETER THE GREAT 57
forth from behind the island of Gootooefsky with a
flotilla of thirty boats, and surrounded and attacked
two of the Swedish ships which had approached
closer than the others. After a fierce struggle he
captured them both, having killed or wounded
nearly everybody on board. The Russians had
only small firearms and hand-grenades, and yet
they gained the mastery, in spite of the hail of
shot poured into them, not only from the two ships
actually being attacked, but also from the others,
which were obliged to lie off at a distance on
account of low water. It is strange how powerless
the Swedish war-vessels seem to have been against
the Russian boat crews. Peter himself was, it is
said, the first to board one of the ships with a
grenade in his hand.
In all the operations on Lake Ladoga and the
Neva, which Peter really conducted in person, it
pleased him to assume inferior rank under his Field-
Marshal, Sheremetieff. When he was in Holland
he had himself called Min Her Peter Mikhailoff,
the shipwright ; in conquering the site of St. Peters-
burg he styled himself Mr. Bombardier Captain
Peter.
There was still some fighting to be done with the
Swedes at various other points, and the position on
8
58 ST. PETERSBURG
the Neva had yet to be rendered perfectly secure
by the subsequent capture of Narva arid the defeat
of Charles XII. at Poltava, but for all practical
purposes it was now completely in Peter's grasp.
He was able to proceed at once to realize his
cherished ideas of founding a European city and
making Russia a naval Power.
CHAPTER V
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING
Foundation of St. Petersburg Attitude of Swedes Cronstadt
St. Petersburg fortress Beginning of trade Opposition
Compulsory settlement.
AFTER the capture of Nyenskantz, Peter the Great
lost no time in setting to work to carry out his
project of establishing a commercial town in con-
nection with the utilization of the mouth of the
Neva. Nyenskantz itself was unsuited to the pur-
pose, being situated a little too far up the river,
where the latter makes a sharp bend towards the
south. It was therefore decided at a Council of
War to select a spot nearer to the sea. After
careful exploration, Peter's choice fell upon the
point where the Neva, before entering the Gulf of
Finland, branches into three main channels, with
several minor ramifications, which form a number
of islands of different shapes and sizes. On the
first of these islands a very small one, known by
the Finnish name of ' Yanni-saari ' (Janni-saari) or
59 82
60 ST. PETERSBURG
Hare Island Peter started the building of the
fortress of St. Petersburg. Immediately behind
Yanni-saari, across a narrow watercourse forming
a natural moat at the back of the fortress, was
the large island called in Finnish ' Koivu-saari,'
or Birch Island, now the Petersburg side, on which
the first buildings outside the fortress were erected.
On May 16, 1703, Peter the Great, surrounded
by his officers and friends, cut the first turf in the
centre of Yanni-saari, and buried a stone casket
containing relics of St. Andrew the Apostle, and a
few gold coins. Having turned up a couple of sods
with a soldier's spade, he placed one on the other
in the form of a cross, and commanded a cathedral
to be built here, within the walls of a fortress,
dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. Artillery
salutes were fired, and Peter received the congratu-
lations of the assembled company.
Tradition states that during the ceremony an
eagle was observed soaring over the head of the
Tsar, attention having been directed towards it by
the noise of its wings, which was distinctly audible.
Shortly afterwards it settled upon a rough kind of
triumphal arch marking the position of the future
gate of the fortress, and which was made by the
stems of two tall birch saplings bent towards each
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 61
other and tied together at the top. The bird was
brought to the ground, and taken alive. The record
of what took place is somewhat confusing, but the
eagle was apparently shot at and wounded by
one of the attendant soldiers. In any case, the
incident greatly delighted Peter, who regarded it as
an augury of future success. He had the eagle's legs
bound together with a handkerchief, held it perched
on his gloved hand while the clergy performed the
rite of consecrating the improvised gateway, and
then took it with him in his yacht back to Nyen-
skantz. It became a tame favourite in the palace,
and was finally kept by Peter's orders in the guard-
room of the fortress at Cronstadt, under the name
of ' The Commandant.' Peter seems to have had
a liking for birds and animals, for besides favourite
dogs he subsequently kept various other four-footed
creatures and a large aviary in the garden attached
to his summer-house on the southern side of the
river.
Wooden barracks and houses were rapidly put
up to accommodate the troops from Nyenskantz,
and the chief officers and civil officials. Russia
being essentially a country of wood, this building
material was naturally the first to be used. For
himself, Peter had a small hut with only three
62 ST. PETERSBURG
rooms, built of logs and roofed over with shingles,
just outside the fortress on the adjoining island of the
Petersburg side, and later on he had it enclosed in
a second building to protect it against the weather.
We may infer from this that he intended to pre-
serve it for the edification of future generations,
and accordingly this more than modest abode for
so mighty a monarch still exists as an object of
curiosity, and a depository of various relics of the
founder of St. Petersburg. His bedroom here has
been turned into a chapel, where prayers are fre-
quently offered up in front of the holy image which
accompanied him in all his campaigns, including
that of Poltava. Peter disliked large and lofty
dwelling-rooms. The relative smallness and rather
cramped appearance of the apartments in the old
palace at Moscow had not spoiled him in this
respect. The so-called * palaces ' which he first
built for himself on the Neva that is to say, the
first hut near the fortress ; his summer-house still
standing in the garden close to the British Em-
bassy ; even the first winter palace, the Monplaisir
pavilion at Peterhoff, and another house at Cron-
stadt were all mere cottages or shanties in com-
parison with the magnificent structures raised by his
luxurious successors. James Keith, afterwards the
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 63
famous Prussian Marshal, who entered the Russian
service for a time, after Peter's death wrote of him :
6 He loved more to employ his money on ships
and regiments than sumptuous buildings, and was
always content with his lodging when he could see
his fleet from his window.'
The work of founding St. Petersburg was carried
on almost under the eyes and guns of the Swedes,
who threatened to interfere all the time by land
and sea. Two months only after beginning the
fortress Peter sent General Chambers with a force
to repel the enemy under General Kronhjort on
the old Finnish border at the River Sestra, whilst
Admiral Nummers, with nine Swedish men-of-war,
lay anchored off the mouth of the Neva all through
the summer of 1703. The Swedes appear to
have shown great indecision at this juncture.
When they did take the offensive, a little later,
Peter's position on the Neva was too strong for
them. They failed at first to take Peter's work
here seriously. At Stockholm it was the subject
of much joking. Among other criticism or satire,
it was proposed that the Tsar should call his new
town not Petropolis, after himself, but Leperopolis,
after the name of the island (Hare Island) on
which the fortress was begun, and in malicious
64 ST. PETERSBURG
allusion to the first battle of Narva, when the Rus-
sians were reported to have run away in a panic
like hares. Some of the members of the Swedish
Council of State prophesied that it would soon be
destroyed by the floods. When Charles XII. re-
ceived the first news of its foundation, he merely
said : 6 Let the Tsar tire himself with the useless
work of founding new towns ; we shall reserve to
ourselves the glory of taking them/
Peter's energy and activity at this period were
prodigious. In October of the same year, when
the ice had already begun to float down the Neva,
and the Swedish squadron had withdrawn to
Finnish Waters, he sailed eighteen miles out from
the mouth of the river to Kotlin, now Cronstadt,
where he took soundings, and resolved at once to
fortify that island and construct a midwater fort,
which he named Kronslot (again a Swedish name,
be it observed, instead of a Russian one), to protect
the navigable passage. This fort was built with
great labour and difficulty in sinking the submarine
foundation during the ensuing winter; and once
Cronstadt was fortified, the fortress at St. Peters-
burg became practically useless. As Eugene
. Schuyler states in his ' Peter the Great,' this
fortress, * on which so much money and so much
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 65
life was spent, protected nothing. Its guns could
never reach the enemy unless the town had been
previously taken. It now protects nothing but the
Mint and the cathedral containing the Imperial
tombs. During the reigns of Peter's successors its
walls were used as a suitable background for fire-
works and illuminations, and its casemates have
always been found convenient for the reception of
political prisoners. Strategically it may have been
necessary to protect the mouth of the Neva, but
this was done by Cronstadt.' At first some of its
casemates were placed at the disposal of traders for
storing wine and other wares ; and one of the first
political prisoners to be incarcerated here, and done
to death in a way that has always remained a
mystery, was Peter the Great's own son, Alexis.
Nevertheless, this useless fortress was recon-
structed in all seriousness with more solid material
some six or seven years later. Its ramparts and
six bastions were at first built of wood and earth,
which was subsequently replaced by stone revet-
ments and masonry. Of the six bastions, the work
on one was superintended by the Tsar himself ; that
on each of the other five respectively by Men-
shikoff (the first Governor-General of St. Peters-
burg), and the other principal men round Peter
9
66 ST. PETERSBURG
Golovin, ZotofF, Troubetskoy, and Naryshkin.
There were four rows of wooden buildings within
the walls, and opposite to the guard-house stood a
wooden horse with a very sharp back, on which
delinquents from the army were forced to sit for
hours ; and also a post surrounded with spikes in the
ground, where similar offenders were made to stand
or walk, attached by a chain fastened on one arm.
In the immediate vicinity of these instruments of
torture, so characteristic of Russian conditions at
the time, was the house of the first Ober-Com-
mandant of the fortress, Jacob Bruce, one of the
many Scotchmen then in the service of Russia.
Next to the fortress, Peter gave the greatest
attention to the building of the Admiralty and
shipbuilding yards on the opposite side of the
Neva, where the Tsar's favourite work was soon
going on at a rapid pace. In fact, the left bank of
the Neva, on which the principal quarter of the
city eventually developed, was partly peopled in
the first instance by shipwrights Dutch and other
foreign experts in naval construction together
with great numbers of workmen.
In November of the first year of St. Petersburg's
existence Peter was immensely pleased at the
arrival of the first foreign merchant- vessel in front
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 67
of his embryo fortress. This was a Dutch boat,
laden with wines and salt, from one of Peter's old
acquaintances at Zaandam. It has been said that
Peter himself went out to meet this vessel, and
personally acted the pilot in guiding it up the river,
but this has since been contradicted by Bozjerianoff,
who states that Peter had gone to Moscow at the
time. At any rate, Peter gave orders that this
lucky vessel, which was named the St. Petersburg,
should be allowed ever afterwards to bring goods
into the Neva free of all taxes and dues ; and on
this occasion its skipper, Auke Wybes, was feasted
by Menshikoff, and presented with 500 gold ducats.
The men of his crew also received 30 thalers.
The next ships to arrive, one English and another
from Holland, were treated in a similar manner,
the gratuities to their captains being 300 and 150
ducats respectively. By means of these and other
encouragements Peter soon attracted foreign trade
to St. Petersburg, and ruined the prospects of
Archangel that creation of British merchant
adventurers for many years to come.
Nothing has yet been said about the employment
of labour by Peter in his gigantic enterprise. The
brilliancy of his genius was such that it tends to
throw a glamour over the brutality of his methods,
92
68 ST. PETERSBURG
and seems to palliate the terrible suffering which
the execution of his high designs inflicted upon vast
numbers of his long-suffering subjects. And yet
this is the most painfully interesting detail of Peter's
work. Although he assumed the European title of
Emperor, he still remained a real autocratic Tsar of
Muscovy. ~The slavery of ancient Egypt, which
produced the pyrSHfiids, could not have been worse
than that which produced St. Petersburg. The
whole of Russia was compelled to take part in the
making of it, and it has been estimated that over
100,000 persons perished in course of the opera-
tions. Some even put the figure at double this
number. Twenty thousand navvies, including the
Swedish prisoners, were engaged only on the con-
struction of the fortress, and, as far as concerns the
Russians, their primitive habits were such that, in
the absence of a proper supply of implements, they
raked the soil up with their hands, and carried
it to the ramparts in pieces of matting, and even
in the tails of their shirts. Men were driven here
against their will from all parts of the Empire, not
only Russians, but also Tartars, Calmucks, and
other Asiatics. There was frightful mortality
amongst them, owing to the severity of the climate
and the unhealthy conditions in which they were
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 69
forced to live. Those who fell ill simply dropped
down on the ground and obstinately refused all
medical assistance, preferring to die. The new
capital which Peter forced upon an unwilling
Russia began by filling its cemeteries from the
very first, and its evil reputation for overcrowding
them out of all proportion to its population has
been steadily maintained down to the present time.
In its early days sickness and the death-rate were
greatly increased by frequent floods. During
Peter's reign there were no less than seven more or
less serious inundations, and it seems a marvel that
the town was not washed away in its infancy. It
was only the tenacity of Peter himself that saved it
at this early stage. At one of the Tsar's parties, or
* assemblies,' as he called his first social gatherings,
the water suddenly invaded the rooms of the palace,
and Peter and his guests had to escape by wading
through it ankle-deep. The one or two available
routes leading to the town were strewn with decay-
ing carcasses of horses and cattle, sunk deep in the
mire of numerous bogs. Everybody, nobleman and
peasant alike, hated the place, while Peter loved to
write about it as his * paradise.' Many of the
soldiers and workmen ran away whenever they
could get the chance, but most of them were soon
70 ST. PETERSBURG
caught and brought back. Deserters from their
regiments who voluntarily gave themselves up were
ordered, as a special act of clemency in considera-
tion of their repentance, to be thrashed with the
knout and sent to hard labour in building St.
Petersburg. Although the governors of the
provinces had a very hard time under Peter, not
one of them, it was said by Prince Gregory
Dolgorooky, cared to come to live on the Neva.
The Princess Mary, half-sister to Peter, remarked
to an intimate friend : ' Petersburg will not endure
after our time. May it remain a desert !'
No volunteers could be found, either for work or
residence, in St. Petersburg. Peter therefore had
to contend against the opposition of his people as
well as natural difficulties. Such a state of things
made progress too slow for this headlong reformer,
and he soon resolved to resort t^^he most drastic,
measures of compulsion.^/ Accordingly, in 1710, he
ordered 40,000 workmen a year for three years to
be sent to St. Petersburg from the provinces, and
with a view of attracting masons, he further com-
manded that no stone buildings should be erected
in any part of the Russian Empire outside of St.
Petersburg under penalty of banishment to Siberia
and confiscation of property. Is it surprising if,
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 71
after this, the Russian interior continued to be built
of wood ? By another ukase the Tsar ordered that
everybody entering St. Petersburg should bring
with them a certain quantity of stone. In 1714
the authorities of the province of Archangel were
ordered to send 3,000 men to work on the fortifica-
tions at Cronstadt. All officials, nobles, and land-
owners possessing not less than thirty families of
peasant serfs were obliged to settle in St. Peters-
burg, and build for themselves houses either of
wood or stone, according to their means. One of
Peter's decrees, dated May 26, 1712, reads as
follows : ' 1. One thousand of the best families
of the nobility, etc., are required to build houses
of beams, with lath and plaster, in the old English
style, along the bank of the Neva from the
Imperial palace to the point opposite Nyenskantz.
2. Five hundred of the best-known merchant
families, and five hundred traders less distinguished,
must build for themselves wooden houses on the
other side of the river, opposite to the dwellings of
the nobility, until the Government can provide them
with stone houses and shops. 3. Two thousand
artisans of every kind painters, tailors, joiners,
blacksmiths, etc.- must settle themselves on the
same side of the river, right up to Nyenskantz.' j In
72 ST. PETERSBURG
this autocratic way the young city of Peter's
making was built up in an incredibly short space of
time. Its durability, however, was not very great.
Very few of its buildings remain among the great
piles of brick and stone as well as wooden houses
which constitute the Petersburg of to-day.
Peter and his advisers seem to have been
unable to fix definitely upon any one spot as a
centre. The extremely unfavourable conditions of
the geographical situation probably made this im-
possible. The consequence was that a great many
persons had to continually shift their homes in
accordance with Peter's frequent changes of plan,
and this only increased the general discontent.
The first settlement was near the fortress, where
stood the Government offices, the wooden Church
of the Trinity, and the famous tavern called the
' Osteria,' at which Peter and his boon- companions
used to take their drams. After many persons had
settled down in that neighbourhood they were made
to build houses on the opposite side of the river.
At one time the Tsar wished to make Cronstadt a
commercial town, and compelled the provinces to
put up large buildings there, which were never
used. Then he had a special plan for making
a regular Dutch town, or a second Venice, of the
ST. PETERSBURG IN THE MAKING 73
Vasili Ostroff (in Finnish, Elk Island, where that
animal was hunted in the times of the Finns and
Swedes), with canals running through all the streets.
The nobility were consequently ordered to erect
expensive houses in that quarter, but they soon had
to abandon them, owing to the discovery that the
lowness of the situation, and the difficulties of com-
municating with the mainland during the seasons of
floating ice on the river, rendered the scheme quite
impracticable. At the same time there was long a
lingering doubt as to the new city being made the
actual capital. It would appear that only after the
victory at Poltava, in 1709, Peter finally made up
his mind to make it the permanent capital, and
had all Government institutions still remaining at
Moscow transferred to the banks of the Neva.
10
CHAPTER VI
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG
Under Peter I. Death of Peter I. Peter II. Catherine II.
Succeeding Monarchs Paul I. Expenditure of Grand Dukes.
FOR more than twenty years Peter the Great was
enamoured of the building up of his new European
capital. Even when the calls of war and other
serious matters demanded his presence elsewhere, he
never forgot the interests of his beloved ' paradise '
on the Neva. From the battle-field of Poltava,
on the night after the great victory, he wrote to
Apraxin: 'Now, with God's help, the last stone
has been laid of the foundation of St. Petersburg.'
At the same time, while opening up a window
into Europe, this new position in the north, far
removed from the trammels of old Muscovite in-
fluence, enabled him to enforce those extraordinary
changes in Russian life and government which he
carried out in the teeth of so much obstinate
resistance. There was naturally an intimate con-
nection between the work of creating the first
74
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG 75
European city of Russia and the introduction of
European methods and customs. Foreigners were
amazed at the wonderful and rapid transformation
of old Muscovite dress and manners into the ways
and fashions of Europe which took place in St.
Petersburg under Peter's dictation. He made in-
novations everywhere, and such innovations affected
private life as well as every department of Church
and State. Not only were the long beards and
still longer skirts of his ultra-conservative subjects
clipped short at the word of command, but even in
such a trivial matter as the soles of their boots they
did not escape the interference of this revolutionary
reformer. For some reason or other he objected, it
seems, to the use of hob-nails and iron boot-pro-
tectors. Accordingly, in 1715, a ukase was issued
forbidding the wearing of boots and shoes with
these additions, and threatening all persons dealing
in such articles w r ith hard labour and confiscation
of property. Peter's favourite governor of St.
Petersburg, Prince Menshikoff, even went farther
than his Imperial master. On one occasion, in
order to please the Tsar, he invited a whole batch
of Russians to his palace, and compelled them then
and there to throw off their Asiatic garb and put
on ready-made suits of European clothing They
102
76 ST. PETERSBURG
naturally protested, but this had been provided for
in anticipation ; a number of sledges were drawn
up in front of the street-door, ready to take them
off to Siberia without more ado. In such circum-
stances, of course, they reluctantly submitted to be
turned externally into Europeans.
And not only in externals such as these did
Peter exercise his zeal in reforming his unpro-
gressive subjects. His directions, for instance, for
rooting out official corruption were not to be mis-
understood or evaded like the orders of some of
his more lenient successors. The leading func-
tionary of the Senate, which Peter established to
control the administration, once read a report to the
Tsar on the discovery of a whole series of robberies
by Government officials, and in concluding the
perusal he asked, ' Shall I lop off the branches
only, or lay the axe to the root of the evil ?' Peter's
instantaneous reply was, ' Hack out everything to
the very core/
Peter also introduced a totally new social life
among his people in St. Petersburg, while his own
free and easy manners must have been quite shock-
ing in comparison with the secluded grandeur in
which the old Russian Tsars had been wont to live
and rule. He started theatres ; organized social
MONUMENT OF PETER I.
Ejected by Catherine II. A celebrated work of
Falconet.
MONUMENT OF PKTKR I.
Krected by Catherine II. A celebrated work of Falconet
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG 77
gatherings, which he called ' assemblies,' in French,
because he said there was no suitable word for them
in Russian ; arranged pyrotechnical displays, of which
he was very fond, and even played the role of a
Sherlock Holmes in detecting plots and surprising
conspirators. He also frequented taverns, and often
took his one-rouble dinner like any ordinary customer
at Felton's, the eating-house of a German, who
catered for the officers of the garrison. His other
favourite occupations of ship -building, forging iron
bars, filling fireworks, drinking heavily, and other-
wise enjoying his intervals of relaxation, are they not
recorded in the history of this great Russian Sove-
reign? And a fascinating history it is. When once
taken up it cannot easily be laid aside, and taken up
it must be by anyone who treats of St. Petersburg.
An account of the Russian capital without reference
to the genius who created it and set it going would
be worse than omitting all mention of the ghost in
' Hamlet.' In fact, the ghost of Peter the Great still
follows one down the years into modern Petersburg,
as it followed poor Evjenie on the Neva Quay in
Pooshkin's celebrated description of the great inun-
dation of 1824. Of late years Peter and his exploits
have frequently been the subject of national cele-
brations and new monuments. There are now four
78 ST. PETERSBURG
statues erected to him in the capital, one at Peter-
hoff and another at Cronstadt. Two of those in
St. Petersburg are equestrian, with the great Tsar
attired as a Roman, one of them being the cele-
brated work of Falconet. Another is a standing
figure of Peter in front of the old wooden church
built by him on the Samson Prospect to commemo-
rate the victory of Poltava. The fourth statue,
recently set up on the Admiralty Quay, repre-
sents Peter rescuing drowning sailors at the mouth
of the river in the autumn of 1724. That heroic
deed gave him a severe cold, which helped to bring
about his death in the following January. As he
lay dying in the old Winter Palace, his only re-
corded utterance was the sad remark made to his
weeping Empress, Catherine I. : ' You now see by
me what a poor creature is man.' The fittest
memorial to this extraordinary Russian monarch and
reformer would be a repetition in some conspicuous
part of St. Petersburg of Sir Christopher Wren's
epitaph in St. Paul's Cathedral : Si monumentum
requiris, circumspice ' If you seek his monument,
look around.'
The progress of the infant city of St. Petersburg
under the personal guidance of such a man as Peter
was naturally very rapid. Within eight or ten
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG 79
years of its foundation there were a dozen streets
and about 1,000 houses. The paving of the streets
was begun in 1717, and in 1725 Peter ordered
lamps to be put up. There is not much left intact
to-day of the building work of Peter's time, but
the chief point on each side of the Neva, whence
the city first developed under Peter's initiative, is
still marked by two of the most conspicuous objects
in St. Petersburg. These are the tall needle-like
spires that crown the old Admiralty and the
Cathedral in the fortress. In sunlight and clear
frosty weather these gilded spires shine like shafts
of fire shooting upward to the sky, and they are all
the more striking inasmuch as they bear no re-
semblance to the cupolas and belfries of the Rus-
sian churches around them. The mellow tone of
the old Dutch chimes beneath the one on the
Fortress Cathedral is a pleasant relief from the
discordant style of Russian bell -ringing, and it
reminds one irresistibly of old Holland and
Germany.
After Peter's death, his widowed Empress and
his grandson, Peter II., did nothing for the ad-
vancement of St. Petersburg. On the contrary,
Peter II. transferred his Court to Moscow, and
entertained the idea of divesting Petersburg of its
80 ST. PETERSBURG
rank as the capital of the Empire. The mere
attempt was immediately disastrous. Houses were
deserted, and thousands of persons left this hated
spot. Before the reinstallation of the Imperial
Court on the Neva, under the Empress Anne,
recourse was again had to compulsory measures to
bring back the deserters. In 1729 an Imperial
decree ordered all merchants, artisans, and drivers,
with their families, to be sent back at once, under
pain of severe punishment. Then came an epi-
demic of incendiarism, from which it was evident
that many of those obliged against their will to
remain in this detested city were determined to
revenge themselves by trying to burn it down to
the ground. In one case a number of men were
hanged at the four corners of a block of buildings
to which they had set light only a few hours before.
In 1737 over 1,000 houses were destroyed by fire,
arid many hundred persons perished. Neverthe
less, and in spite of popular aversion, arson, floods,
and disease, the Russian nation was forced by the
ft
iron will of autocracy to conquer its dislike of St.
Petersburg. Finally, from being an object of the
utmost repulsion it gradually became a place of
the greatest attraction, and estates in the provinces
were kept going only for ^ic purpose of providing
.
A DROSHKY-DRIVERS TEA-STALL
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG 81
money to be squandered by their owners in the
dissipations of the new Russian capital.
The real successor to Peter the Great, as far as
concerns the continuation of his work on the Neva,
was Catherine II., during whose reign the city
made great progress. Many handsome buildings
and useful institutions established under that great
Empress are still among its finest embellishments.
Succeeding monarchs also exercised their * in-
flexible wills ' upon it in such a way that no other
country possesses a capital the rise of which has
been to the same extent the result of the wants
and wishes of its Sovereigns and their relatives. If
Vienna is a real Kaiserstadt, as the Austrians were
proudly wont to call it, there is far more reason to
apply the title of ' Imperial City ' to St. Peters-
burg, which in the very nature of things Russian
has been so completely identified with the Em-
perors and Empresses of Russia from its very in-
ception. It never could have attained to anything
like a prominent position had the Imperial Family
not continued to maintain it as the residential city
of the Sovereign and the seat of the Imperial
Government. Without this powerful support it
must have fallen into decay, and in the long run
the waves of the Finnish Gulf would have doubt-
11
82 ST. PETERSBURG
less completed its final ruin. A dozen Imperial
autocrats since Peter have therefore kept its head
above water, and St. Petersburg of to-day is very
much what they have caused it to be made.
An interesting fact in this connection may be
mentioned in order to show how the Grand Dukes
of the Imperial House have contributed towards this
result. The Emperor Paul established an institu-
tion called the Imperial Appanages, for the purpose
of providing for the minor members of the reigning
dynasty. However mad Paul may have been in
some respects, he certainly showed great practical
wisdom in looking after the material interests of his
relatives and descendants. He started the Appanages
Department as a special fund, which has now become
a rich source of revenue derivable from many kinds
of agricultural, industrial, and commercial opera-
tions. From this source the numerous Grand Dukes
and Duchesses draw the means of maintaining their
positions. Only the reigning Emperor and his
heir -apparent do not draw upon this fund, as
they have the Treasury, the State domains, and
other sources of income. About thirteen years
ago it was officially calculated that the Imperial
Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses and it must
be remembered that their number has been con-
tinually on the increase had received from these
X
IMPERIAL ST. PETERSBURG 83
appanages during the course of a century alto-
gether more than 236,000,000 roubles, or about
23,600,000. The greater part of this sum was, of
course, expended in St. Petersburg, including nearly
57,000,000 roubles exclusively laid out in erecting
and keeping up Grand Ducal palaces. There are
now at least twenty palaces in St. Petersburg and the
surrounding districts belonging to different members
of the Imperial Family. Two or three of them
have been converted into museums and other
institutions, while it is a remarkable fact that many
of the fine mansions of Russia's ancient but im-
poverished aristocracy have of late years been
acquired by the Grand Dukes.
We thus see that even the collateral branches of
the Imperial dynasty have been greatly instrumental
in building up St. Petersburg. Their position at
present is naturally very different from what it was
before the State Dooma declared that none of the
Grand Dukes should any longer hold any responsible
posts under the Government. But before that they
were all-powerful. Their convenience and pleasure
were first considered in all cases, and St. Petersburg
owes many of its public improvements to the fact
that they were first introduced for the benefit of
members of the Imperial Family.
112
CHAPTER VII
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED
Russian, English, and other foreign criticism The poet
Pooshkin's description.
No other capital city in the world has ever been
criticized as much as St. Petersburg. Russians
themselves have always complained of its defects,
and not without good reason. Foreigners also
have given it a bad reputation, and its ruin has
often been predicted. Its depreciation by English
and other foreign writers, however, was more in
fashion when Russophobia was rampant. Russian
constitutional reform and popular liberty, although
as yet existing more in principle than in practice,
have taken the political sting out of foreign criticism.
The evil spoken and written of St. Petersburg to-
day is chiefly in reference to its inherent failings,
which it must be admitted are very great. In
spite of all its external splendour, it has come to
be known as the unhealthiest and most expensive
capital in Europe. It stands first among the large
84
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED 85
cities of Europe, and even of Russia, both as
regards the rate of mortality in general and the
high death-rate from infectious diseases. Typhoid
and cholera are the periodical scourges of its popu-
lation. Since the thirties of the last century there
have been seven outbreaks of cholera, and the
epidemic has prevailed altogether no less than
twenty-five years.
The foundations of public health have been too
long neglected in favour of the outside glitter of
modern civilization. Although the subject of
sanitation has been under discussion for the last
quarter of a century at least, there is still no proper
drainage and no pure water-supply. St. Petersburg
is now the fifth in point of size among the great
capitals of Europe, with nearly 2,000,000 inhabi-
tants, and yet this mass of humanity, in addition to
the rigours of the climate and the insalubrity of the
situation, is obliged to put up with primitive arrange-
ments for the disposal of sewage which in these days
constitute nothing less than a national scandal.
These arrangements may be briefly referred to
as a system of filthy cesspools in the back yards
of all houses, with rough wooden carts to carry
away the contents at night and pollute the
atmosphere by the operation. At the same time,
86 ST. PETERSBURG
as though this were not enough, the citizens are
supplied with water which nobody valuing his or
her life dares to drink unboiled, and which is drawn
from a river contaminated by human dirt and
teeming with bacteria and the vibrion of cholera.
This is the Russian scientific opinion of the beauti-
ful, fast- running, and limpid stream of the Neva
during the cholera epidemic of 1909. What a
contrast with the opinion enunciated eighty years
ago by a distinguished English physician (Dr.
Granville), who wrote, after a visit to St. Peters-
burg: 'After all, the best, the purest, the most
grateful, the most healthy, the most delightful and
really national beverage of the inhabitants of St.
Petersburg is the water of the Neva.' This praise
now reads like satire, for, in order to avoid Neva
water altogether, many persons are paying a shilling
a bottle for ordinary spring water, brought from
Duderhoff, twenty miles outside the city.
Russian and foreign criticism of St. Petersburg
has also proceeded from other points of view. It is
curious that formerly the Muscovite Slavophile and
the English Russophobe unconsciously joined hands
in reviling it from very different motives. The one
disliked it because it stood for everything foreign,
and did not represent the real Russia ; the other
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED 87
abused it because it represented Autocratic Russia
and the supposed enemy of British rule in India.
In its early days it was so cordially hated by
Russians themselves, especially by the priesthood,
who regarded Peter the Great as Antichrist, that
they loudly prophesied for it the fate of Babylon,
Nineveh, and Gomorrah. During the terrible
inundation in the reign of Alexander I., several
fanatics of this class, who were undergoing imprison-
ment for their opposition, were drowned in their
cells in the fortress. Even Karamzin, the great
Russian historian, called its foundation 'the im-
mortal mistake of the great reformer.
In order to show what kind of views were held
by English and other foreign authors in the last half
of the nineteenth century, it may be interesting to
quote two or three passages.
About the time of the Crimean War, considerable
importance was attached to a work called * Revela-
tions of Russia,' by an anonymous Englishman, long
resident on the banks of the Neva. This author
wrote that St. Petersburg was ' a city of barracks
and palaces, a vast encampment of lath and plaster,
the stuccoed walls of the buildings always peeling in
the gripe of the keen frost of winter and blistering
sun of summer, a city which each successive genera-
88 ST. PETERSBURG
tion of its inhabitants had to build afresh by instal-
ments of annual repairs, otherwise the marsh would
again take its place, the stucco would become dust,
the walls it covers ruins imbedded in the mud, and
the cold, spongy moss of this northern climate
would again creep over it. The prevalence of west
winds such as, if rare, will probably occur once in a
century or two, would suffice to raise the waters of the
Gulf high enough to sweep away the devoted city.
It will be remembered how nearly this happened in
the reign of the first Alexander. The Marquis
Custrine wrote : ' This city, with its quays of
granite, is a marvel, but the palace of ice in
which the Empress Elizabeth held a banquet was
no less a wonder, and lasted as long as the snow-
flakes those roses of Siberia. The ancients built
with indestructible materials beneath a conservative
sky ; here, where the climate destroys everything,
are raised up palaces of wood, houses of planks, and
temples of stucco. Russian workmen spend their
lives in remaking during the summer what the
winter has undone. ' According to Count Vitzthum,
Saxon Charge d'affaires in Petersburg in 1853,
6 the city, as seen from the majestic Neva, presents
an imposing aspect when the golden domes of the
Isaac Church are glittering brightly through the
/
ON THE ROAD TO EXECUTION IN FORMER DAYS
These public processions to the gallows have been suppressed for many years past
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED 89
morning mist. The first impression, however, soon
vanishes, for St. Petersburg, at all events in
summer, notwithstanding its spacious but desolate
squares, and its interminable, broad, but empty
streets, bears, or then bore, in comparison with
Paris and London, the stamp of a provincial town.
In that sea of houses, raised by the will of a power-
ful ruler out of a bottomless morass, it is evident
that soil and ground, as well as human life, have
not yet the same value as in older capitals of natural
growth.'
Less unfavourable views may, perhaps, be found
in more recent descriptions ; but, as a rule, both
native and foreign critics have been far from com-
plimentary towards the 'Palmyra of the North.'
The best antidote to all adverse criticism of St.
Petersburg has been given by Russia's greatest
poet, Pooshkin. It is to be found in the prologue
to his ' Bronze Cavalier,' and it is here offered to
the reader in the excellent rendering into English
made by the late Mr. Charles Turner, who was for
many years English Lector at the University of
St. Petersburg, and a friend of the author of these
chapters :
' On the waste shore of raving waves
He stood, with high and dread thoughts filled,
12
90 ST. PETERSBURG
And gazed afar. Before him rolled
The river wide, a fragile barque
Its tortuous path slow making.
Upon the moss-grown banks and swamps
Stood far asunder smoky huts,
The homes of Finnish fishers poor ;
Whilst all around, a forest wild,
Unpierced by misty-circled sun,
Murmured loud.
' Gazing far, he thought :
From hence we can the Swede best threat ;
Here must I found a city strong,
That shall our haughty foe bring ill ;
It is by Nature's law decreed,
That here we break a window through,
And boldly into Europe look,
And on the sea with sure foot stand ;
By water path as yet unknown,
Shall ships from distant ports arrive,
And far and wide our reign extend.
* A hundred years have passed, and now,
In place of forests dark and swamps,
A city new, in pomp unmatched,
Of Northern lands the pride and gem.
Where Finnish^fisher once at eve,
Harsh Nature's poor abandoned child,
From low-sunk boat was wont his net
With patient toil to cast, and drag
The stream, now stretch long lines of quays,
Of richest granite formed, and rows
Of buildings huge and lordly domes
ST. PETERSBURG CRITICIZED 91
The river front ; whilst laden ships
From distant quarters of the world
Our hungry wharves fresh spoils supply ;
And needful bridge its span extends,
To join the stream's opposing shores ;
And islets gay, in verdure clad,
Beneath the shade of gardens laugh.
Before the youthful city's charms
Her head proud Moscow jealous bends,
As when the new Tsaritza young
The widowed Empress lowly greets.
4 1 love thee, work of Peter's hand !
I love thy stern symmetric form ;
The Neva's calm and queenly flow
Betwixt her quays of granite stone,
With iron tracings richly wrought ;
Thy nights so soft with pensive thought,
Their moonless glow, in bright obscure,
When I alone, in cosy room,
Or write or read, night's lamp unlit ;
The sleeping piles that clear stand out
In lonely streets, and needle bright
That crowns the Admiralty's spire ;
When, chasing far the shades of night,
In cloudless sky of golden pure,
Dawn quick usurps the pale twilight,
And brings to end her half-hour reign.
I love thy winters, bleak and harsh ;
Thy stirless air fast bound by frosts ;
The flight of sledge o'er Neva wide,
That glows the cheeks of maidens gay.
I love the noise and chat of balls ;
122
92 ST. PETERSBURG
A banquet free from wife's control,
Where goblets foam, and bright blue flame
Darts round the brimming punch-bowl's edge.
I love to watch the martial troops
The spacious Field of Mars fast scour ;
The squadrons spruce of foot and horse ;
The nicely chosen race of steeds,
As gaily housed they stand in line,
Whilst o'er them float the tattered flags ;
The gleaming helmets of the men
That bear the marks of battle-shot.
I love thee when with pomp of war
The cannons roar from fortress -tower ;
When Empress-Queen of all the North
Hath given birth to royal heir ;
Or when the people celebrate
Some conquest fresh on battle-field ;
Or when her bonds of ice once more
The Neva, rushing free, upheaves,
The herald sure of spring's rebirth.
6 Fair city of the hero, hail !
Like Russia, stand unmoved and firm !
And let the elements subdued
Make lasting'peace with thee and thine.
Let angry Finnish waves forget
Their bondage ancient and their feud ;
Nor let them with their idle hate
Disturb great Peter's deathless sleep P
COSSACKS OF THE GUARD AND IMPERIAL
BODYGUARD
COSSACKS OK THE GUARD AM) IMPKRIA1. BODYGUARD
CHAPTER VIII
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY
Peter the Great's bureaucracy Foreign influence Government
departments and official titles Merchants Hospitality
Social and political life Court balls and ceremonies.
THE development of St. Petersburg society has
been so powerfully influenced by the stamp of
officialdom and bureaucracy first set upon it by
Peter the Great, that, in order to understand its
real character, we must again invoke the shade of
the great reformer. His famous ukase compelling
all persons of noble or gentle birth to serve the
State, had very far-reaching effects on Russian life
in general, and particularly on the formation of
society in St. Petersburg. Those members of the
superior classes who were unable to join the army
were called upon to enter the Civil Service, which
Peter organized on the plan suggested to him by
the German philosopher Leibnitz. According to
this system the government of the country was
not carried on by individual ministers, but by
93
94 ST. PETERSBURG
colleges or boards of administrators, and their
transformation into the modern ministries was
fully effected only in 1802. The present home of
the University on the Vasiliefsky Ostroff was the
original head-quarters of this organization, and the
long red front of that building still shows the twelve
architectural distinctions, which corresponded with
the number of the so-called colleges.
Peter employed the most drastic measures against
those who attempted to avoid becoming officers or
tchinovniks* He even went so far as to threaten
them with branding. The consequence was that
all the gentry, who, until quite recent years, repre-
sented the one intelligent element of the population,
were marshalled into the ranks of the Government
service, and taken away from private enterprise.
It is true that, under Peter III. or Catherine II.,
the compulsion in this matter was abolished, but
what had once been a law had now become a
fashion, and any other callings than those of an
officer or an official came to be looked upon as
unbecoming the position of a gentleman. This is
the case, to a great extent, even at the present
day. It is impossible to estimate the evil done by
Peter in thus checking the development of the
* JVAm = rank, grade.
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 95
natural resources of the Empire, for Russia then
had no class of merchants to speak of, and the
peasantry were in a state of serfdom, which
precluded them from following any other career
than that of tilling the land of their masters.
This system determined in an unmistakable
manner the aspect of St. Petersburg society,
developing it on quite different lines from those
followed by the evolution of society in Moscow.
There has always been a striking contrast in this
and other respects between the old and new
capitals. Moscow is Russia's commercial centre,
and the merchant is a characteristic type of its
leading class. St. Petersburg is a city of Govern-
ment servants, civil and military, the great bureau-
cratic chancery of the Empire. There is hardly
a street in it of any size or importance that does
not contain one or more Government buildings or
regimental barracks.
The influence of foreigners, who were the allies
of the great Tsar in recasting Russia, has given
to St. Petersburg the appearance of a foreign
city. Until quite recently the principal com-
mercial firms were foreign, and the real Russian
merchant scarcely penetrated to the banks of the
Neva. Owing to the impetus given by Peter the
96 ST. PETERSBURG
Great, and to the fact that the Empire was ruled
through a great part of the eighteenth century by
sovereigns of foreign birth and extraction, the
upper classes of society became in a great measure
4 foreignized ' in their predilections and outward
habits. Everything was placed on a foreign basis.
Few other cities in the world could vie with St.
Petersburg in the matter of foreign institutions.
The Press and the Drama were also established
under alien influence, which has not even yet dis-
appeared. There is still a French theatre, main-
tained out of the funds of the Imperial Court, and
two foreign daily newspapers supported by the
Imperial Government. The Journal de St. Peters-
bourg, in French, is the semi-official organ of the
Russian Foreign Office, and the St. Petersburger
Zeitung, in German, still bears the Imperial Arms
on its title-page, in token of its official origin.
Both journals have the privilege of drawing
revenue from the publication of judicial notices
and advertisements.
In spite of a repeatedly professed resolve to
introduce measures of decentralization, the Govern-
ment has, nevertheless, become more and more
centralized, and the number of officials has in
consequence been increased. It would probably
r-
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 97
be no exaggeration to say that they now number
very many thousands.
St. Petersburg society is deeply interested in
Government departments and official titles. This
interest is manifested in the existence of a numerous
class of ( attaches ' to different ministries, whose
occupation, if any, may be anything but the
performance of official duties. One seldom meets
a man of moderate education and position who
does not possess some Civil Service rank. If an
Englishman's dream is a title, a Frenchmar's the
red ribbon of the Legion d'Honneur, it m&/ be
said that the ambition of a Petersburgian Russian
is to obtain the rank of Actual State Councillor,
which confers upon him the privileges of hereditary
nobility, and the right of being addressed as
'Excellency.' It has become common to meet
merchants, traders, directors of banks, and industrial
managers with the Civil Service titles of ' college
secretary,' or councillor, and other grades of Peter's
table of ranks. This feature pertains, more or less,
to all classes of Russians, excepting the humble
peasantry, but it pervades St. Petersburg society
to a degree unknown in other parts of the Empire.
The great merchant families of Moscow are repre-
sented, as a rule, by men who remain true to the
13
98 ST. PETERSBURG
original calling of their fathers. In St. Petersburg,
on the contrary, the sons of considerable merchants
are pretty sure to be found abandoning the business
of their sires in order to take to scribbling in some
Government department.
Russian bureaucracy, be it said, is highly demo-
cratic. Among the actual bureaucrats that is to
say, the officials actually employed in the various
departments are to be met Princes and Counts
belonging to the best families of the realm side
by side with the sons of the humblest class of the
community. These latter are the ' sons of cooks,'
whose accession to the privileges of education gave
so much uneasiness to the late M. Katkoff, the
famous editor of the Moscow Gazette.
As already indicated, the type of a St. Petersburg
merchant is a foreigner, or a Russian subject of
alien race. In fact, a great part of the Vasiliefsky
Ostroff Vasili, or Basil Island is populated chiefly
by foreigners engaged in commerce, and foreign
speech, mostly German, may be heard on all sides.
This important district abounds in many other
details of foreign urban life, such as German beer-
houses, and German shops of every description ;
and if it were not for the majestic buildings of the
Academies of Science and Arts, and the histori<
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 99
mansion of Prince Menshikoff, the present location
of the Cadet Corps, on the one hand, and the
labourers and droshky drivers on the other, a man
of vivid imagination might easily fancy that he was
in a German town.
There are not many very wealthy people in
St. Petersburg, judging according to English ideas.
Circumstances and conditions do not favour the
accumulation of riches on any very extensive scale.
The remuneration of a Russian official is not very
high, and life and amusements in the capital are
very expensive. Nevertheless, the Russian will
have his pleasures at any cost, and he strongly
objects to economy and thrift. Many Russian
social usages in general have, of course, been
adopted in St. Petersburg, the most agreeable
of them all being a very generous hospitality. A
Russian is always glad to entertain a guest. Im-
provised visits, therefore, without any previous
invitation, form one of the most characteristic traits
of Russian life. Absence of social ceremony is the
keynote among the middle classes. From this point
of view there is great freedom in St. Petersburg
society, and for that matter in Russian society in
general. Russian social life has hitherto been free
and unconventional inversely to its want of political
132
100 ST. PETERSBURG
liberty. Having been debarred from all political
life, the Russians have devoted their best energies
to really enjoying themselves socially. The author
hesitates to consider the possible changes which
may eventually result from the present transitory
period of dawning political freedom ; but although
Russia has now been placed in a very fair way
towards coming up level with Western nations in
the matter of political institutions, yet one can still
go to a theatre in St. Petersburg in a morning coat
or any other decent attire and present tickets for
boxes or stalls without any risk of being turned
away at the doors. And if you are invited to an
ordinary dinner and omit to put on evening dress,
your host and hostess, as well as any other guests,
will probably be all the more pleased with you
on that very account. This, of course, would not
apply to comparatively small aristocratic circles,
where foreign manners and customs have become
a second nature. The English custom of dressing
for dinner may also be gradually spreading, but to
the ordinary educated Russian evening dress is still
more a civilian's uniform in which to pay official
visits, generally early in the morning, attend great
ceremonies, and make formal calls at Easter and on
New Year's Day.
EASTER DAY
Presenting Easter Eggs.
KASTKR DAY
Presenting Raster t'
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 101
The events of 1905 and the two following years
have had their effect on the life of St. Petersburg
A unanimous outcry for reform has been the result,
and the ' renovation ' of Russia has become the
watchword of a new era. All classes now under-
stand the power and the methods of organization.
New parties and factions are constantly springing
up both inside and outside of the Dooma. If it
were not for the severe restrictions put upon trade
and professional unions, St. Petersburg, as well as
the country at large, would swarm with these and
simila~ combinations. The normal articles of
association allowed by the Government for all
such bodies debar them from touching on politics
in the remotest way. Unfortunately, few of them
are able to avoid altogether this forbidden ground,
and the least thing which can be construed into a
tendency in the wrong direction is immediately
seized upon as a justification for cutting short
their existence. The well-known Literary Fund
of St. Petersburg, for example, was recently
suppressed simply for having given alms or a small
pension to the distressed families of one or two
Socialists.
Public attention, which was formerly almost
entirely engrossed in social scandal and gossip, is
102 ST. PETERSBURG
now kept occupied by politics, political duels,
intrigues, and quarrels. Social life is also enlivened
in a new way during the winter months by parlia-
mentary receptions and political dinners. Even
the droshky driver and the moozhik have begun to
read their daily paper. The newspaper press and
publishers generally have not been slow in taking
advantage of the altered situation to deluge the
city with cheap and sensational literature. There
is now a popular political journal called the
Kopeck, which, as its name implies, is being sold
for the amazingly low price of a kopeck, or one
farthing, per number. Its increasing circulation
has already reached a quarter of a million copies
daily. This probably beats the world's record of
cheap and enterprising journalism.
Another very remarkable change has come over
the scene in regard to the Imperial Grand Dukes,
who have quite lost their former predominance,
and have completely disappeared from public
view. On the other hand, the agrarian disorders
and plundering of provincial mansions have led
to the sale of estates in the interior, and
the settlement of many former landlords in
St. Petersburg.
The prolonged absence of the Imperial Court
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 103
from St. Petersburg has been a great loss to society
and trade. One almost begins to forget the
brilliant Court ceremonies and entertainments
which used to be the chief attraction of the
fashionable season in the Russian capital. These,
however, will soon be resumed on their traditional
scale of magnificence, when the Imperial Family
return to take up residence in town again, instead
of continuing to pass the winters in retirement at
Tsarskoe Selo.
It is the custom of the Tsar to open the season
in January by a grand ball in the great halls of the
Winter Palace. This first ball is generally attended
by some 2,000 persons. All the men present,
with perhaps one or two exceptions, display the
most gorgeous and varied uniforms, which glitter
with a dazzling assortment of orders and decora-
tions, while the ladies wear on their heads the old
Russian kokoshnik, ornamented with pearls. There
is no Court dress for civilians who have no rank,
and a solitary example of black evening dress in
the midst of such a showy multitude is at once a
very conspicuous object. Then follow, during the
period beginning with the New Year and ending
with Lent, a whole series of Court festivities, at
each of which there is a diminished number of
104 ST. PETERSBURG
guests. The selection is made by confining the
invitations each time to officials of higher rank and
position, until only the very highest dignitaries are,
as a rule, asked to the last parties of the season.
On all these occasions, and especially at the great
balls, their Imperial Majesties lead off the dancing
in a stately manner, as shown in one of the
illustrations in this volume. Afterwards, at supper-
time, when the great assembly has been accom-
modated in groups at round tables in the midst of
a profusion of palms and flowers, the Emperor
leaves the table, at which His Majesty sups with
the Empress and other members of his family, and
walks through the immense halls to see that all his
guests are comfortably seated and served. When
the vast company disperses after midnight, many
of the departing guests pluck flowers from the
tables as souvenirs of the evening. These festive
gatherings round the Imperial Family, as well as
the different sorties and military parades inside and
outside the palace, are magnificent spectacles.
One of the most picturesque of such ceremonies
is that of the Blessing of the Waters on January 6,
the Feast of the Epiphany, which takes place in
a temporary pavilion, erected on the edge of the
Neva, right in front of the Winter Palace. Here,
BLESSING THE NEVA
Emperor and Metropolitan at the blessing of the water of the Neva on the
Feast of the Epiphany, January c (old style)
ST. PETERSBURG SOCIETY 105
surrounded by white-robed priests, and soldiers with
all the colours of the regiments in garrison, the
Tsar witnesses the immersion of the Metropolitan's
cross in the river through a hole cut in the thick
ice. His Majesty is then supposed to take a drop
of the water thus consecrated.
Many years ago, when Nicholas II. was heir-
apparent, his English tutor, the late Mr. Charles
Heath, ventured to remonstrate with His Imperial
Highness for wishing to drink raw water on one of
these occasions, in view of the contamination of the
Neva, in the opinion of Russian doctors. But there
is another danger connected with this ceremony, and
that is on account of long exposure, without move-
ment, to the extreme cold, which nearly always
prevails at this time of the winter. Everybody
present, including the Sovereign and the crowds
kept at a distance by the police, have to remain
bareheaded the whole time. The ceremonial is a
long one, and full parade uniform has to be worn,
if possible, without overcoats. For these reasons
the Imperial ladies and foreign diplomatists look
on from behind double windows in the comfortable
warmth of the Winter Palace. Some persons have
been known to wear wigs on this occasion as a
substitute for their caps. It was at one of these
14
106 ST. PETERSBURG
ceremonies that Peter the Great caught the final
cold which brought on his death. The great
reformer had already contracted a severe chill while
rescuing drowning sailors at the mouth of the river,
and yet with his customary determination he in-
sisted upon going out to the Blessing of the Waters.
The consequence was that he immediately after-
wards took to his bed, and never got up again.
Such drawbacks there certainly are to some of
the outdoor functions ; but, to sum up the life
of the Court as a whole, it may be truly said that
Russian Imperial ceremony and hospitality are
provided on a lavish and gigantic scale, and in a
setting of luxury and splendour such as cannot
be surpassed, or perhaps even equalled, by any
other Court in Europe.
CHAPTER IX
ST. PETERSBURG * HURRYING UP '
Its insalubrity Impending sanitation Contaminated water
Increased activity Electric trams Police and traffic
Changes and improvements Shops Sports.
FOR reasons mentioned in the preceding chapter,
many changes have been going on in St. Petersburg
since the beginning of the new century. Russia's
breakdown in the Far East, and her 'liberating
movement ' at home, imparted a stimulus to de-
velopments which were previously held in check,
and the effects of these are now becoming more
and more manifest.
But of all the changes now taking place, or yet
to come, none can compare in vital importance for
St. Petersburg with the proposed work of sanita-
tion, which is the one thing above all others needed
in the interest of public health on the banks of the
Neva. At last the city of Peter the Great is really
destined to be endowed with the advantages of an
up-to-date system of drainage and a good supply
107 142
108 ST. PETERSBURG
of pure water. Since reference was made to this
subject in Chapter VII., and while this book has
been passing through the press, the Russian Cabinet
of Ministers have introduced a Bill into the State
Dooma for obtaining compulsory powers to compel
the adoption of these two indispensable require-
ments of every great modern aggregation of human
beings. The preamble of the measure constitutes
a severe condemnation of the existing state of
things, and an indictment equally severe of the
City Dooma for having so long failed to establish
a remedy. For instance, it is pointed out that in
1908 the mortality (44,311) exceeded the births
(44,133) by 178 cases, and that no less than 19,487
children died under the age of five, or 44 per cent,
of the total number of deaths.
The very complexion of the great bulk of the
inhabitants of St. Petersburg points to unhealthy
conditions of existence. How can a robust look
be expected from a population brought up on a
swampy, often inundated soil, only three or four feet
above sea-level in many places, and which for the
past 200 years has been gradually undergoing
saturation with all kinds of filth. For this reason
the winter is regarded as the healthiest time of the
year, when the surface of land and water is frozen
A RUSSIAN WET NURSE
A RUSSIAN WKT NURSK
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP' 109
hard, and the microbes are rendered less active. The
case is made worse by the fact of the water-supply
being contaminated at its very source. One fails
to understand how it could ever have been sup-
posed that the water would be anything else but
contaminated if taken out, as it is at present, from
a part of the River Neva within the city bounds,
where the dirt and refuse from mills, factories,
villages, cemeteries, and barges are floated down
from up-stream, right over the intake in front
of the waterworks. Besides this, the filters con-
structed in recent years have turned out defective
and inadequate, so that they, too, it seems, are now
polluted even more than the river itself.
Confronted with ugly facts like these, which
have been forced home by the lingering cholera
epidemic of 1908-1909, the new constitutional
Government has been roused to a sense of responsi-
bility for the health of the Imperial Metropolis,
and thanks to the Prime Minister Stolypin the
sanitary reform of St. Petersburg is no longer
* beyond the hills,' as the Russian expression goes ;
it has been raised from the level of merely local
interest to the higher plane of questions of
national importance. The only drawback to the
prospect is the enormous expense which the
110 ST. PETERSBURG
work will entail. To begin with, a small loan of
100,000,000 roubles about three and a quarter
times more than the annual municipal budget-
will be required, which will have to be paid off by
the citizens in the shape of fresh and increased
taxation, and this can only tend to make living in
the Russian capital more expensive than ever.
St. Petersburg is probably the only city in Europe,
or perhaps in the world, where danger-signals in the
form of placards with glaring red letters are posted
up on house-fronts, inside tramcars, and in most
places of public resort, warning all and sundry against
drinking raw water. There must be thousands of
the inhabitants who have never in their lives tasted
ordinary water in a natural state, and never will,
for when they find themselves in localities where
the water is perfectly pure and wholesome, they
still take it only boiled from sheer force of habit
and fear. The samovar and kettle are in request
from morning till night, and many persons are
afraid to wash their faces in water not first boiled.
In cholera times free drinks of boiled water may be
had from huge boilers wheeled about the streets
and from cans, barrels, etc., placed inside and out-
side certain shops, institutions, at railway-stations,
and so forth. In fact, when there is more than
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP' 111
the usual danger from cholera and typhoid, a great
deal of the time and energy of the local authorities
is expended in trying to make the inhabitants drink
boiled water, and keep themselves clean. Never-
theless, the lowest and most ignorant class of the
people, especially those coming from the provinces,
have the greatest contempt for cholera and for all
precautions taken against it. In their humble opinion
the scourge is nothing else but the infernal doings
of the devil, or the diabolical work of the doctors.
A sprinkling of chloride of lime for disinfecting
purposes has been taken by Russians of this sort
for the cholera in its visible and tangible form.
And the author has seen dirty workmen slake
their thirst with water dipped out in their greasy
caps from the foulest canals of the city, while
cautionary notices just described were staring them
full in the face only a few yards off. Only educa-
tion can, of course, gradually change the uncultured
habits of the lower orders, but much can be done
meanwhile to minimize the evils of their present
state of ignorance by the introduction of such
sanitary measures as those now decided upon by
the Central Government.
Down to the time when the Japanese struck the
blow which gave Russia the greatest shock since
ST. PETERSBURG
the onslaught of the Tartars under Chengis Khan,
or the invasion by Napoleon, St. Petersburg con-
tinued to go on as usual, lagging far behind all
its Western contemporaries. Foreign crazes like
bridge, diabolo, and American jig-saw puzzles,
caught on fast enough, but the adoption of serious
improvements and conveniences of civilization has
been a terribly slow process. One had to go to
Berlin to get into touch with the real life of
Western Europe. St. Petersburg has always had
to yield the palm in this respect to the German
capital, which so astonished everybody by its
rapid and marvellous transformation after the
Franco-Prussian War. Unfortunately, Russia, un-
like Germany, has never received any milliards of
money to spend on the needs of her Northern
capital, not even as the result of her most suc-
cessful campaigns ; and the ' City Fathers ' of
St. Petersburg have never been able to cope
successfully with all the difficulties of a rather
difficult situation. It may be advanced on their
behalf that the civic authority lost its nerve,
from the very first, under the overruling influence
of the all-powerful Gradonatchalnik,* the 'head'
or 'chief of the city,' who, according to old
* Gorod, grad*= town, city; natchalnik= chief, principal.
ST. PETERSBURG ' HURRYING UP' 113
autocratic regulations, may exercise the right of
veto and dictation whenever he considers that
circumstances call for his interference. The con-
sequence is that the position of a mayor of St.
Petersburg, when viewed in the light of that of an
English Lord Mayor, or a German Burgomeister,
is a relatively insignificant one, and the prestige of
the municipal body suffers accordingly. Under
the so-called 'temporary' administrative regula-
tions for preserving public order, the Gradonat-
chalnik still possesses very considerable arbitrary
powers, but it is hoped that as soon as the new
state of things introduced theoretically by recent
constitutional reforms is allowed full scope of
action, Russian municipal institutions will be able
to play a more independent and important part in
the life of the nation.
Apart from the energetic steps taken by the
Imperial Government to urge on the City Corpora-
tion in the matter of sanitation, St. Petersburg,
since the beginning of the latest reform period in
1905, has been ' hurrying up ' in many other ways.
Persons who have watched it for many years past
are conscious that its pulse now beats far quicker
than ever it did before. There is no doubt that the
establishment in its midst of a legislative assembly
15
114 ST. PETERSBURG
of representatives from all parts of such a vast and
diversified Empire as that of Russia has greatly
added to the life and animation of the city. Within
the last decade, nay, even within the last five years,
great changes have come over the aspect of things
in the streets. Any observer who remembers what
the Neva capital was like only a very few years
since cannot fail to be struck with the evident
increase of population and activity. Less than ten
years ago it could still be said with a certain amount
of truth that St. Petersburg consisted of only two
main avenues, towards which everybody seemed to
gravitate the Nevsky Prospect and Great Morskaia
Street the Oxford and Regent Streets of the
Russian capital. To-day many other important
thoroughfares, such as the Sadovaya and Gorokho-
vaya Streets, and the Litainy, Soovorofsky and
Voznesensky Prospects, are equally busy and
crowded arteries of traffic. The crowds also have
considerably mended their pace, which was formerly
a crawling one in comparison with the bustling
throngs in other European capitals.
The most remarkable of the new features of
outdoor life in St. Petersburg are those resulting
from the successful operation of the new electric
trams, which, since they began to replace the old
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP 1 115
horse traction at the end of 1907, have accelerated
locomotion to a degree little short of producing
a revolution amongst easy-going pedestrians and
careless droshky drivers. They seem to have stimu-
lated the life of the city in general. They are also
enabling the population to spread out wider afield,
away from the congested and expensive centre, for
the sake of cheaper house accommodation. The city,
which, without its suburbs, covers an area of about
forty square miles of land and water, is now being
supplied in all directions with neatly appointed
electric trams. Only a few of the old horse tram-
cars are still running, while on the lines extending
to the remoter outskirts of the city steam-traction
has long been in use. The public are taking the
fullest advantage of the new method, for it offers
the only expeditious means of locomotion com-
bined with cheapness, with the exception of about
a dozen motor-buses, there being no overhead
metropolitan railway, and, considering the nature
of the ground, it is not likely there will ever be any
twopenny tubes. During the busy hours of the
day the new cars are everywhere overcrowded with
strap-hangers, and it is not unusual to see as many
as fifty or sixty tramcars at one time along the
Nevsky Prospect, a thoroughfare as wide as Portland
152
116 ST. PETERSBURG
Place, running right through the heart of the capital
for over two miles.
It was not, however, without considerable sacri-
fice of life and limb that this improvement in the
means of getting about St. Petersburg was effected,
for people were knocked down and killed or injured
every day for many months until the population
had been drilled into the new system of ' hurrying
up.' The drivers of the new electric cars had also
to be trained not to endanger the lives of the public
by giving too much rein to the national tempera-
ment for indulging in extremes. Finding that
instead of the former exertion of whipping up jaded
horses, the mere touch of a small handle sufficed to
produce the necessary movement, these men began
to send their new electric cars whizzing through the
streets at the speed of express trains, and in trying
to stop short in front of a droshky or lomovoi across
the track the passengers inside the car were generally
thrown all of a heap, or jerked right off their seats.
The casualties and confusion resulting from this
innovation led to another novel arrangement, which
had never before been seen in systematic operation
on Russian streets namely, the regulation of the
traffic by the police. The universal renown of the
London constable's uplifted hand had, of course,
A DISH OF TEA FROM A SAMOVAR
The samovar is used in private houses only, and
never for workmen in the traktirs, or tea-shops of
St. Petersburg.
A DISH OF TKA FROM A SAMOVAR
The samovar is used in private houses only, and never for \vorkm
or teashops of St. Petersburg'
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP 1 117
reached St. Petersburg, and it was resolved to
attempt something of the kind with the Russian
policeman, who, with all his good qualities, was apt
to turn away in disgust from any entanglement
of traffic, leaving the drivers of colliding vehicles to
curse and swear at one another to their hearts'
content. But no respect for the mere hand of a
policeman in Russia could be expected from a
people whose endless struggles against oppressive
officialism have taught them to regard its repre-
sentatives as natural enemies. The passport system
alone is enough to account for this unfortunate
state of feeling. Any police force in the world
having to administer such a system of annoyances,
not to say cruelties, would infallibly incur the odium
of the public upon whom they were inflicted. So
it was decided to give the St. Petersburg policeman
standing at important street crossings another
symbol of authority in addition to the arsenal
of weapons which he already carries on his person.
This is a wooden truncheon painted white, of the
kind used, the author believes, by the French police
in Paris, but first brought out by the old London
police as organized in the days of Sir Robert Peel.
The Russian gorodovoi is now being trained to
overawe reckless drivers and chauffeurs by holding
118 ST. PETERSBURG
this staff up before their astonished gaze instead
of joining them, as was formerly his wont, in
gesticulating and swearing, and occasionally, when
nobody in particular was looking in his direction,
giving a very impertinent izvostchik a 6 dig in the
ribs ' with the hilt of his sword. The latter being
loosely slung from the shoulder, he is able at close
quarters to use it in this way without taking it out
of the scabbard. But the new duty is not yet
congenial to him, and he is performing it in a some-
what perfunctory manner. In most cases, how-
ever, an officer close by has got him under control,
and, with the adaptability of Russian nature, he
will soon get accustomed to the innovation. At
the same time, this is not all that had to be done
to put order into the new evolution of things on
the streets. And here came into operation the
paramount authority of the Gradonatchalnik, who
happened to be the present energetic and capable
holder of that office, General Dratchefsky. In
his name imperious instructions, threats of con-
dign punishment, orders of arrest, and lists of
fines, often amounting in the aggregate to many
thousands of roubles a week, were launched forth
from the Prefecture daily. Only in this way can
proper respect be secured for new regulations in
ST. PETERSBURG HURRYING UP' 119
Russia. A simple police notice with * By order '
written at the bottom would produce no effect
whatever.
Other remarkable changes and improvements
have signalized the first few years of the new politi-
cal era. For one thing, there has been a great
extension of electric lighting and the use of other
bright illuminants, although in the suburbs and on
the edges of the city kerosene is still used in many
of the streets. All the principal thoroughfares are
now brilliantly lighted at night, and, weather per-
mitting, present a very gay and lively appearance.
In winter the effect is heightened by the reflection
from the snow and the frequent flashing of blue
sparks from the overhead conductors as the contact
rods of the tramcars slide along them. On the
other hand, the character of winter locomotion has
been modified in another way not so pleasing. St.
Petersburg has been the last of great European
cities to be invaded on an extensive scale by motor
carriages, taxi-cabs, and other motor vehicles, which,
together with the electric tramways, have simply
transformed it in the cold season from a quiet into
a noisy city. Formerly every kind of conveyance,
with few exceptions, was put upon runners in the
winter, and not a sound was to be heard as the
120 ST. PETERSBURG
sledges glided noiselessly over the hard snow-
covered roads. All this is now being rapidly
changed by the latest application of modern motive
power. Unfortunately it is not possible to make a
motor sledge without wheels, and even if it were,
we should still have the noise of the other appli-
ances of the motor vehicle. In short, the buzzing
and rushing of electric tramcars, the throbbing of
motors and snorting and piping of motor-horns and
whistles, have become almost as great a nuisance in
St. Petersburg as they are in the older cities of the
West.
Another notable development, adding to the
architectural embellishment of the two principal
streets and to the advantage of the community in
other respects, has taken place of late in the in-
surance and banking businesses of St. Petersburg,
the increasing prosperity of which may be inferred
from the construction of many handsome and
palatial buildings for office accommodation, in spite
of revolutionary troubles and " expropriations."
Nevertheless, as the outlying portions of the town
are approached, we may still see large numbers of
wretched old wooden houses of 100 years ago,
jammed in, as it were, between the larger modern
buildings of brick and stucco.
PUBLIC SLEDGE, HALFPENNY FARE
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP'
A variation has also begun to show itself in the
peculiar tendency of St. Petersburg to multiply
indefinitely the enormous number of its small and
badly aired shops, many of them having their floors
much below the level of the pavement. Nothing
gives such a good idea of the addictedness of the
Russians to small trading, and of their lack of the
enterprise necessary to build up large retail busi-
nesses, as the great extent of the petty shopkeeping
still carried on in St. Petersburg. Had it not been
for Imperial prohibitions against trading in some of
the more aristocratic parts of the city in the early
days of its existence, there would probably not be
a single house or street to-day without some kind
of small shop. As it is, there are few houses and
streets without them. One or two big firms, like
Elisayeff Brothers and TcherepenikoiF, have long
been famous as very large dealers in all kinds of
fruit and native and foreign dainties, but the crea-
tion of a Russian Maple, Shoolbred, Waring, or
Peter Robinson, seems at present to be rather a
remote possibility. Still, as already mentioned,
there are signs of a change in this respect. It
would seem that capital is beginning to find its
way into retail trading, as a number of large stylish
establishments, and one or two huge stores, espe-
16
122 ST. PETERSBURG
cially one belonging to the Army and Navy Co-
operative Society, have lately sprung into existence.
A walk in the streets, after an absence of about
five years, discloses also an extraordinary develop-
ment of much-patronized cinematograph shows and
cafe's, the latter being a business in which St.
Petersburg was, until quite recently, very deficient.
There is, furthermore, the introduction of the
English system of pictorial bill-posting, with many
of the posters evidently printed after English
models, which is a novelty for St. Petersburg,
where public advertising is still in its infancy.
St. Petersburg has also only just made acquaint-
ance with the " sandwich-man " and the shoeblack,
the latter plying his craft only during the summer
months, as boots are kept clean in winter by the wear-
ing of goloshes. For some reason or other, before the
revolutionary outbreak, every attempt to establish
these two street occupations ended in failure.
Last, but not least, reference must not be omitted
to the great growth of interest in gymnastics and
outdoor sport, taking into account, of course, the
difficulties of climate and the long northern winters.
St. Petersburg has been inoculated with this in-
terest chiefly by Englishmen and Swedes, and only
persons intimately acquainted with Russian life can
ST. PETERSBURG 'HURRYING UP'
understand what it spells in the way of change of
habits among the younger generation in such
enervating conditions as those prevailing in St.
Petersburg. A certain number of the inhabi-
tants have always been partial to hunting and
shooting in a very comfortable fashion over the
surrounding country, being cordially joined in this
by the numerous German residents. Skating
and snow-shoeing have also increased, but the St.
Petersburg Russian has generally been averse to
unnecessary exertion of any kind. It is not a little
surprising, therefore, to see great excitement over
football matches between the large number of clubs
and school teams organized for this game which
have lately come into existence, and the great
attention given to their doings by the native press.
In fact most British games, except cricket, are
now coming into fashion. This is all the more
remarkable when it is remembered that not many
years since football and cricket matches played by
members of the British colony in St. Petersburg
were regarded with astonishment, and referred to
with derision by Russian parents and schoolboys.
The war with Japan and contact with the prac-
titioners of jiu-jitsu have changed all that. Wrest-
ling matches are now very popular.
162
CHAPTER X
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ST. PETERSBURG
Peasant element Migration into and out of the city Summer
workmen Barracks and Government buildings Working
population Lomovoi Izvostchik Dvornik Policeman.
THE great capitals of Europe have now become so
much alike in all the chief manifestations of city
life and activity that the foreign traveller from one
to the other, once he has noticed the racial differ-
ences between their respective inhabitants, is rarely
struck by any other remarkable peculiarities. He
finds similar fashions in dress, similar vehicles, and
much the same manners and customs in all of
them. St. Petersburg, however, has not yet gone
quite as far as this along the lines of modern
uniformity. It still exhibits characteristics of
another world existing outside, although the imme-
diate aim of its foundation over 200 years ago was
precisely to make it a model European city, and
through its influence to Europeanize Russia. Sur-
vivals of a more remote and ruder state of things
A RUSSIAN SERVANT IN SUMMER DRESS
A RUSSIAN SERVANT IN SUM.MKR DRKSS
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 125
have not all been swept away by the spurt of pro-
gress and improvement during the last few years.
The immense inert mass of peasantry in the far-
reaching provinces, from which the strength of St.
Petersburg is continually recruited, were too much
for the enterprise of a single reformer, although
a man of such commanding genius and energy as
Peter the Great. The drastic measures and expe-
ditious methods which that great sovereign em-
ployed to make his subjects look and act like other
Europeans had no effect upon the conservative
peasant. Peter was only able to cut off the beards
and trailing skirts of his courtiers and officials, and
in general to remodel the manners of the old boyars.
He did this pretty effectually for the upper classes,
because they were too small in number and too
closely interested to offer any effective resistance ;
but he was naturally quite unable to reform the
millions of stolid peasantry, whose descendants
to-day continue to leaven the results of his work in
St. Petersburg by constituting over 60 per cent,
of its total population. The number of inhabitants
of the peasant category in 1900, at the time of the
last census, was 61 per cent. People of this class
visit the city for temporary employment, or they
settle there as traders, petty shopkeepers, salesmen,
126 ST. PETERSBURG
drivers, carters, domestic servants (the latter alone
being computed at about 200,000 persons), porters,
dockers, workmen and labourers of all kinds, and
also beggars.
A great change has come over the predilections
of this class of Russians since the results of their
emancipation began to induce them to desert their
wretched villages in favour of St. Petersburg, where
so many of them find early graves. In the first
years of the capital the severest pains and penalties
had to be enforced to deter them from running
away after they had been brought into the city
under compulsion ; now nothing can keep them
from gravitating towards it in ever increasing
numbers. The rapid growth of the population of
St. Petersburg is mainly due to this influx of the
rural element. According to the municipal census
ten years ago, the inhabitants who had come from
the provinces constituted 69 per cent, of the popu-
lation, so that less than one third of the citizens
were native born.
There is also an annual migratory movement in
connection with St. Petersburg which is peculiar.
It is calculated that some 100,000 workmen of the
peasant class come into the city regularly every
spring, and leave it every autumn. These are the
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 127
bricklayers, masons, carpenters, plasterers, and
other handicraftsmen, mostly in the building
trades, who come to work on new houses and to
repair old ones, which in many cases have suffered
from the severities of the northern winters. They
may be seen any summer evening tramping in
straggling crowds along the main thoroughfares,
going to their short night's rest in holes and corners
which serve them as lodgings in the densely
populated Alexander Nevsky and Rozjdestvensky
wards. Or glimpses of them may be had through
the windows of traktirs, or tea-houses, where these
workmen sip weak tea and listen to the gramo-
phone. As a rule, the police keep them to the
roadways, when they appear in any numbers, on
account of their clothes, which are often mere rags
covered with the dirt of their work, and perhaps
also because of the unpleasant odour from Russians
of this class. It occasionally happens that perfumes
have to be used after them in rooms and palaces,
especially in winter, when it is too cold outside to
air the apartments by opening the windows. And
yet the Russian workman, in one respect, is very
clean. He generally goes once a week to a public
bath, where he scalds himself in the steaming
chamber, and he may also have his body thrashed
v
128 ST. PETERSBURG
with birch twigs until his skin becomes the colour
of a boiled lobster. This is a kind of massage, of
very ancient origin, and peculiar to Russia in
combination with the popular bath. The only
objectionable circumstance is that the peasant or
labourer wears the same clothes until they get too
dirty, and somehow or other he cannot be induced
to keep them the least bit clean.
As the workmen trudge to and from their
occupations many of them may be seen carrying
in their girdles their beloved axes, the favourite
Russian implement, with which a peasant can
make almost anything in wood without any
other tool, from a log hut down to a child's toy.
Being a denizen of a woody country, the Russian
is naturally skilful in all manner of practical
wood-work. The writer has seen a perfectly
going wooden watch made by a Russian peasant,
with the mechanism all of wood excepting the
springs.
The nomadic character of a great many of these
6 hewers of wood and drawers of water ' may be
verified by a visit to any one of the four big rail-
way stations late in the autumn, when large crowds
of rough and grimy peasants day after day besiege
the ticket offices, and sit about for hours on their
OFFICER AND SENTINEL
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 129
dirty bundles, waiting for cheap trains to take them
back to their villages.
An event contributing towards this movement
into and out of the capital is the annual gathering
of recruits at the different military stations. The
conscripts of St. Petersburg city and province are
sorted out every November in the large military
riding-schools, and after having had their backs
chalked like so many cattle, to indicate the
regiments to which they have been allotted, they
are marched off triumphantly through the streets
to their respective barracks, headed by lively
military music.
The large garrison of St. Petersburg, some
20,000 or 30,000 strong, has recently been the
subject of discussion in the native Press with
regard to the advisability of removing the many
barracks, which occupy so much valuable space, to
some suitable locality outside the city. This would
allow of cheap and decent housing accommodation
being provided for the poorer classes, who are very
much in need of it. There are barracks and
military schools in nearly all parts of St. Peters-
burg. Many streets are almost entirely taken up
by them. In one part of the city, where the
Izmailofsky guards are quartered, a whole series of
17
130 ST. PETERSBURG
streets are named roti,* and numbered after the
different companies of that regiment. In order to
give the reader an idea as to how far there is
justification for the view that St. Petersburg is a
6 city of barracks and Government offices/ it will
suffice to quote the following figures, showing the
estimated value of house property on the banks
of the Neva. Government and official buildings
are valued altogether at 876 million roubles,
private buildings at 936 million, and municipal
buildings at 140 million roubles. Therefore the
value of buildings belonging to the Government is
over 45 per cent, of the total.
There is also a migration of factory hands and
other workers into St. Petersburg for winter
employment, and out of it again in spring for field
labour. If these men remained all the time in
their snowed-up villages, they would do little else
but sleep on their brick stoves at home. Of
course, there is likewise a permanent factory
population, for St. Petersburg is now one of the
largest industrial cities in the world. These per-
manent workers in mills and factories are the
men whom the ill-fated priest, Father Gapon,
made use of, and who helped the revolutionists to
* Rota = company, squad of soldiers.
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 131
bring matters to a political crisis in 1905. Their
places of abode are principally along the banks of
the upper stream of the Neva, among the many
large mills and works in the outskirts of the city.
They present a very ugly and forbidding appear-
ance when seen in large crowds, and they continue
to give the authorities no little anxiety in regard to
the future. The total number of factory workers
in St. Petersburg and its surroundings cannot be
far short of 200,000, and with their families there
are probably about 400,000 persons, which is about
one-fifth of the entire population.
The industrial and trading importance of
St. Petersburg being such as it is, one would
expect to find it furnished with the best means
of transport, quite apart from the gradual
6 motorization ' of its traffic in common with other
European cities. As a matter of fact, leaving out
of account a lew commercial motor vans and lorries
recently introduced, the conveyances still widely
used for the carriage of heavy goods are of the
most nondescript and antediluvian kind. Some
of them look as though they might have been
introduced by the Huns, or any other barbarian
invaders of the early centuries. They are all
inseparably associated with one of the four principal
172
132 ST. PETERSBURG
street types of St. Petersburg the lomovoi izvost-
chik, or carter. The other three types, the legkovoi
izvostchik, or droshky driver, the dvornik, or yard
porter, and the gorodovoi, or policeman, will be
referred to subsequently.
The lomovoi izvostchik is not much seen in places
like the Nevsky Prospect, or the Palace Quay, for
in such fashionable quarters he is prohibited as a
nuisance ; but off the central thoroughfares you
may see any number of his class with their small
loads on very strange and dirty wheeled con-
trivances, slowly wending their way in Eastern
caravan fashion, and interfering considerably with
the rest of the traffic, especially with anybody in a
hurry. Their telyegi, or carts, if they may be
dignified with the name, consist of one or two
beams laid across a couple of axletrees fitted with
two small and two larger wheels. Goods are roped
straight on to this primitive conveyance, or it sup-
ports a detached and very rough sort of receptacle
like a trough, or a box, which is simply pushed
over into the road when the contents have to be
unloaded. On sledge roads in winter these super-
structures are simply placed on runners. Like
other Russian vehicles of peasant origin, the shafts
are fastened or lashed to the axles or boxes of the
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 133
wheels, and the other ends of the shafts are made
fast to the inevitable doogd, which arches over the
horse's head. There is no seat for the driver, who
either walks at the side, or else lies down on his
load and often sleeps on it, while his miserable-
looking horse instinctively follows behind its com-
panions. As Russians colonize only in whole
villages, never as isolated individuals, so also the
lomovoi, with his cart, never moves alone if he can
possibly help it. He believes strongly in the virtue
and safety of numbers, and goes through the
streets, as a rule, in one long file of fifty or more
together.
These Russian carters present a typical scene
when they stop in some by-street to get their
half-pint bottles of vodka, or gin, at one of the
Government spirit stores. Not being allowed to
drink it on the premises, they toss off the gin in
the street, and return the empty bottles to the
shopman. Having first removed the sealing-wax
from the cork, the latter is made to fly out by a
smart rap with the flat of the hand on the bottom
of the bottle, and the contents are then poured
down the gullet with the head held back without
once pausing to take breath. Russians of the
educated classes also have a peculiar way of taking
134 ST. PETERSBURG
vodka, which they literally throw down their
throats out of small liqueur glasses, in order to
enjoy the effects of it without having the taste.
The most conspicuous of all the types of street-
life in St. Petersburg is the legkovoi izvostchik*
the Russian cabman, more commonly called simply
izvostchik. He is generally the first to attract the
stranger's attention, for he lies in wait for all new-
comers at every available point, and thrusts the
offer of his services upon them with persevering
insistence. Formerly he and his competitors used
to surround you at railway stations, theatres, etc.,
pull at your coat-sleeves, and argue with you in
the most persuasive manner. This habit of pester-
ing foot passengers at such close quarters is now
seldom indulged in, as the police regulations warn
the izvostchik off the pavements, and compel him to
keep to his seat. The droshky, on which he sits
and waits in every street (there being no regular
cab-ranks), is a small barouche, or victoria, with
more of a pony than a horse in the shafts. In its
present form, with rubber tyres and lifting hood
for rainy weather, it presents a great improvement
on what it was twenty-five years ago, when George
Augustus Sala described it as a perambulator on
* Lyogki = light, easy. Vozeet = to convey, carry.
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 135
four wheels, built for one and a half, and licensed
for two, with a moojick on the box driving like a
London costermonger. But although the droshky
is thus being gradually modernized, thanks to con-
tinual presssure from the police authorities, its
driver, the izvostchik, still remains a peasant from
the country, utterly indifferent to all progress.
More change has taken place in his droshky in the
course of a few years than in the whole race of
izvostchiks for the past century or more. The
political reforms which have bestirred other classes
have left him unmoved, and he seems to be resign-
ing himself to the prospect of being superseded by
electric trams, taxi-cabs, and other self-propelling
vehicles. At the worst, however, he will simply
go back to his fields, for, like most other members
of the working-classes in St. Petersburg, he keeps
up his connection with the land, and probably
sends a part of his earnings to his family in the
village. As regards outward appearance, he con-
tinues to wrap himself from head to foot, over and
above his other clothes, in the same kind ofarmyak*
of dark blue cloth that was worn by his predecessors
in the earliest years of the Russian capital, with a red
* Armyak = \exy long, wide-skirted, and collarless peasant's
overcoat.
136 ST. PETERSBURG
or green band round the waist, and his legs and
feet are so completely swathed in the ample folds
of this strange garment that he is quite incapable
of exercising any agility in case of danger. He
is in a still more difficult position if his horse
runs away while he is sitting with one or both of
his legs in the well of his sledge, which takes the
place of the droshky in winter. But this applies
more to the private coachman, whose splendid
high- mettled trotter is far more likely to bolt than
the weakly, jaded horse of the public izvostchik.
And then, the coachman of a rich master, by
reason of the traditional ideal, according to which
he is generally selected and to which he endeavours
to conform, is much too bulky to be capable of any
great exertion on an emergency. This ideal requires
that the perfect Russian coachman should be very
stout and massive, with a fine full beard, and a
very broad back to shelter the persons sitting
behind him in the sledge from wind and snow.
He is also swaddled in the armyak, and when
wearing fur beneath it in winter his portly form
assumes enormous proportions.
The only change in the original costume of both
coachman and izvostchik in modern times has been
in their headgear, their present summer hat resem-
COACHMEN OF NEVSKY PROSPECT
Izvostchiks soliciting fares on the Nevsky Prospect
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 137
bling that of the Yeomen of the Guard, or Beefeaters,
minus the trimmings, and with the brims very much
curled up at the sides. In the case of the ordinary
izvostchik this hat is generally somewhat battered,
and, like the rest of his dress, rather dirty. The
only wonder is that his whole turn-out is not in a
worse state, considering the horribly squalid condi-
tion in which he lives. He is a careless and some-
times reckless driver, and occasionally slashes the
passenger behind him across the face with the
ends of his reins or the thong of his short whip, in
throwing the one or the other back over his
shoulder so as to take a better aim at his horse.
He is also an inveterate bargainer, and feels
offended if you refuse to go beyond the tax fixed
by the police. The Emperor Paul once had all
droshky drivers expelled from St. Petersburg on
account of some important person having been run
over. On the whole, however, the izvostchik, with
all his failings, is a good-humoured, unsophisticated
Russian, and one who is exposed to more rigours
of climate and weather, probably, than any other
member of his calling in the world.
A still more curious factor of Russian life on the
banks of the Neva has now to be described. You
may stay in any of the half-dozen cosmopolitan
18
138 ST. PETERSBURG
hotels of St. Petersburg, and hardly be aware that
you are living in Russia, but if you lodge in a
private house or hired apartment, the dvornik is
pretty sure to remind you sooner or later of the
country in which you are residing. You cannot
get away from the dvornik, who is a type quite
unique, not as a man, or a Russian, for he belongs to
the same great peasant class as the izvostchik and
the carter, but he is altogether peculiar with regard
to the strange combination of duties which he
undertakes to perform.
Every house must have its dvornik, and every
head dvornik has, at least, one or two assistants.
As the word implies, the dvornik* is keeper of the
house-yard; in reality he looks after the entire
house as well, and is, in fact, a sort of house police-
man. There is no house without one or more of
these court-yards, where the contents of cesspools
(as long as there is no drainage) are periodically
removed in carts, and logs of firewood are daily
chopped up to be delivered to the occupants of the
different flats. The dvornik attends to all this, and
much more besides. He not only does the dirty work
of the house, being paid therefor by a monthly wage
exacted from each of the tenants, but he does the
* .Dz>0r = yard, court.
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 139
dirty work also of the police, who are his immediate
and absolute masters. All passports of the inmates
of the house must pass through his hands to the
police, and he is constantly * writing you in ' and
* writing you out ' at the police-station, and claiming
various small gratuities for the trouble and annoyance
that he gives. Early every morning he is bound to
report personally to the chief police officer of his
district, and woe betide him if he fails to disclose
anything suspicious or unlawful about the behaviour
or doings of the lodgers which subsequently turns
out to be serious. Of course, a dvornik, we may
suppose, can hardly be blamed if the head of the
Russian detective force gets blown to pieces in a
private lodging by a man whom he deliberately
visits, knowing that his host is connected with the
revolutionists, and with the purpose of trying to
use him as a cat's-paw to catch other conspirators.
In addition to all this, the dvornik is an under-
study of the policeman in the street. A Russian
constable never takes anyone whom he arrests to
the police-station if he can possibly help it ; he
always calls up a dvornik to do that unpleasant
duty for him, so as not to be absent from his post.
The dvornik and his assistants have also to take
turns in standing or sitting at the gateway of the
182
140 ST. PETERSBURG
yard and in front of the house day and night,
especially at night, with brass badges and numbers
on their breasts, and watching everybody who goes
in and out. On all occasions of crowds in the
streets the dvorniks have to render assistance to
the police, and obey the latter 's orders. They have,
further, to keep the roadway clean in front of their
domicile, and make themselves generally useful.
The dens for they can be called nothing else
in which they live in the yards are mostly half,
or quite, underground. It is calculated that,
with more than 30,000 houses in St. Petersburg,
besides mills, factories, etc., there is an army of
about 90,000 of these uncouth peasants, who, with-
out any training whatever, virtually control the
indoor organization of the Russian capital.
The dvornik's immediate superior, the gorodovoi,*
or policeman, deserves honourable mention on
account of the great dangers which he braved
during the extraordinary outbreak of 'expropria-
tion,' indiscriminate murder, and hooliganism three
years ago. Hundreds, if not thousands, of police-
men all over Russia were then killed and injured,
and those of St. Petersburg came in for their full
share of suffering. One of the surviving effects of
* From gorod = town.
THE FROZEN-MEAT MARKET
THK FROZEN-MEAT MARKET
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 141
that period of jacquerie may still be seen when
money is being conveyed from the State Bank or
the Mint. A troop of cavalry with drawn swords
and armed policemen on bicycles surround the
waggons carrying the coins or notes, and no one
is allowed to come within reach of the sabres of
the escort, which are swung about in a menacing
manner if any attempt is made to approach too
near to the treasure thus being carted through the
streets. And yet the St. Petersburg constable has
not been more brutalized, as might be expected,
by all that he has had to go through since 1904.
On the contrary, he is much less rough, and far
more attentive to the general public. He now
hesitates to provoke retaliation by too much rude-
ness towards the lower orders, who are beginning
to show signs of a nascent self-respect. It must
be admitted in this connection that the police have
been severely taught to be civil to the public by
the present Gradonatchalnik.
With all this training into civil ways and habits,
however, the gorodovoi still remains more a soldier
than a policemen. His appearance is now more
than ever that of a corporal or sergeant in full
marching order, with sword, revolver, truncheon,
whistle, and, in the case of the police at Tsarskoe
ST. PETERSBURG
Selo, also with a telephone apparatus in a metal
case slung over one shoulder for communicating
with headquarters over the telephone-wires in the
streets.
Some years ago an attempt was made to make
the St. Petersburg policeman more like a civilian
guardian of the peace by abolishing the obligation
to give the military salute to passing officers, who
appear on the streets at almost every step. So much
of his attention was taken up by paying this respect
to rank and uniform that his proper duties were
liable to be neglected at the most critical moments.
The inbred instinct was so powerful that, although
an imminent danger to himself or some other
person might be averted by promptness of action,
the St. Petersburg policeman would nevertheless
stand to attention and salute before attending to
anything else, as soon as he caught sight of an
officer. It is impossible to turn him into a servant
of the public, especially as long as the latter enter-
tain so little respect for the law and the system
which he represents : that would be a complete
perversion of the Russian idea of a policeman.
His functions have been much narrowed down
since the great development of the detective force
and the secret police, combined with the gendarmes
TYPES AND CHARACTERISTICS 143
small army in themselves, and a much-dreaded
body of men who are the executive police in
political matters. At present the work of the
ordinary police appears to consist entirely in
worrying people about passports, regulating the
street-traffic in the daytime, and ' running in '
drunkards and dissolute females at night.
The St. Petersburg policeman has no beat, and
you never see him prying into shop - windows
looking after burglars, or trying door-locks at
night. He keeps to the roadway as much as
possible, as though he felt out of place on the
pavement. He is posted at certain points, and
only moves about to keep himself warm or from
falling asleep. When the thermometer sinks
ten degrees below freezing - point log-fires are
lighted up in the streets by the ever - useful
dvorniks, and around these cluster the policemen
and izvostchiks to keep themselves from being
frozen to death.
CHAPTER XI
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS
Summer flitting Winter gaiety Students Mixture of races
British Colony Antiquated survivals.
ST. PETERSBURG completely changes its appearance
with the turn of the principal seasons of the year.
During the short summer everybody who can, and
many who cannot, afford it go to their country
villas or estates, and the city is left chiefly to
workmen, especially builders and repairers, and to
merchants and others connected with shipping.
For business people in any way interested in the
import and export trades the period of open water
and navigation is naturally the busiest time of the
year, and this keeps the men in town, but their wives
and families are sure all the same to go away like
the rest. The exodus of women and children in
the summer is so general as to be quite peculiar to
St. Petersburg. Other great cities are theoretically
'empty' when society leaves for the country or
abroad, but there is no perceptible falling off in the
144
THE OUTSIDE PORTER
The dvornik, or yard-porter, asleep
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS 145
crowds on all the main thoroughfares to indicate
the fact. In St. Petersburg, on the contrary, the
effects of the summer flitting at once become
apparent in the streets, which are all but empty at
hours of the day and evening when in winter they
are always most crowded. If there be any large
number of people on the street in the height of
summer they constitute quite a different kind of
public.
As soon as the last snows of winter disappear,
and the increasing power of the sun begins to
release the Neva from its bonds of ice, a feverish
restlessness takes possession of families of all classes,
quite like that observable in migratory birds at the
change of seasons when confined in cages. All the
talk is of the datcha, the country house, or of
journeys farther afield. The people who most
enjoy living in St. Petersburg in winter hate it
most in summer. The unhealthy indoor life
in winter, with hermetically puttied-up double
windows, overheated rooms, and no ventilation
worth speaking of this makes them intolerant
of residence there in summer. They long to get
away from their winter wrappings and the stifling
atmosphere of houses, and to be free to roam
about in rural retirement without hats or coats
19
146 ST. PETERSBURG
And nowhere is the return of summer hailed with
more delight than in St. Petersburg. It is even
officially celebrated by the annual ceremony of
opening the navigation of the Neva. As soon as
the ice has moved away seaward the first vessel
to be launched on the stream is always that of the
Commandant of the fortress, who is rowed across
the river in his state barge to the Palace under
a salute from the guns on the ramparts.
The winter is the gay and festive season, when
both the city and its inhabitants undergo a complete
transformation in outward appearances, owing to
the mantle of snow covering everything, the change
from wheeled conveyances to sledges, and the wear-
ing of fur coats and caps. The frozen canals support
throngs of merry skaters, gliding over the ice to the
strains of military music ; some twenty theatres and
other places of entertainment are in full swing,
headed by the finest Imperial opera and ballet
representations in Europe, and night is turned into
day. The streets are quite lively at three or four
o'clock in the morning, for nowhere else are such late
hours so generally indulged in. All goes on beauti-
fully as long as it keeps cold and frosty. A thaw
soon spoils everything. The conditions for making
winter enjoyable, for instance, in London have to
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS 147
be entirely reversed for a successful winter in St.
Petersburg. Instead of a fall of snow interfering
with traffic, it only facilitates it. The more snow
the better for getting about in sledges, although
a very heavy fall of it involves the authorities
and private householders in considerable expense
for removing it from roofs and yards. Here,
again, the useful man-of-all-work, the dvornik, is
brought into requisition, and it must be admitted
that St. Petersburg knows how to deal with its
snow. There is one exception, however, which is
particularly noticeable when conditions of weather
require the roadways to be cleared of caked snow
and accumulated filth, and that is their dirty and
sometimes almost impassable state in front of many
Government buildings and barracks.
St. Petersburg is the educational and intellectual
focus of the Russian Empire, and its large number
of educational institutions regulate to a very great
extent the movements and habits of a vast propor-
tion of the population. When all these institutions
close their doors at the beginning of summer, every-
body leaves town ; when they open again in Sep-
tember, everybody comes back to work and pleasure.
Then the city perfectly swarms with students in
uniform, including young men from all parts
192
148 ST. PETERSBURG
from Poland, the Caucasus, Siberia, and Central
Asia. The students of the University alone
number 10,000 or more. The variety of races
amongst them, the want of European culture
of many, in spite of much learning, their unkempt
appearance, and the nightly dissipations of city life
in which they very freely indulge, are prominent
features of winter in the Russian capital.
As regards the different races, it may be said
in general that the population of St. Petersburg
exhibits no one common type. There is an extra-
ordinary mixture of racial and physical charac-
teristics, which point to the fact that no single
one distinct type of race has yet been evolved out
of the mass. One finds nothing strange in being
told that a single person is descended within a few
generations from Russian, Tartar, Swedish, Finnish,
Lithuanian, and sometimes also even English,
ancestors.
The British colony in St. Petersburg in its
time has numbered many thousands, but since the
Crimean War its strength has gradually waned,
while the German colony has proportionately in-
creased in wealth and numbers. There are now
probably about 2,000 British subjects in St.
Petersburg, engaged principally in business mills,
THE PALACE QUAY OF THE NEVA
Showing the river frontage of the Winter Palace.
'
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS 149
factories, farming, and teaching and they support
charitable institutions, libraries, a well -endowed
church, and two Nonconformist chapels. There is
also the New English Club, of which the British
Ambassador, the Right Hon. Sir Arthur Nicolson,
Bart, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., etc., is President, and
Arthur W. W. Woodhouse, Esq., His Majesty's
Consul, is a Vice-President. These able representa-
tives of British interests, worthily seconded by
their respective assistants, Councillor of Embassy
H. J. O'Beirne, Esq., C.V.O., C.B., and Vice-Consul
Cecil Mackie, Esq., take an active part in all that
concerns the welfare of the British community, and
are doing much to promote the development of
British business in Russia.
As already pointed out, St. Petersburg has been
losing some of its old characteristics. Never-
theless, there are still many strange survivals side
by side with modern innovations. For example,
at many places not far from the centre one may
see streets which are not a bit better than those
of the most out-of-the-way provincial towns, and
in some of the outlying parts of the city the
commonest kerosene lamps still light the streets
at night. Only the principal thoroughfares are
decently paved, hexangular blocks of wood being
150 ST. PETERSBURG
chiefly used, whilst the other streets are covered
with cobble-stones, which used to shake one up
horribly when driving over them before the general
use of rubber tyres. Fires, too, are still watched for
from the tops of wooden towers, and signals are
hoisted above them to show the position of a con-
flagration, although the latest electrical signalling
posts have been introduced for communicating
with the fire brigade. The firemen also drive with
barrels of water to a fire, together with the latest
kind of steam fire-engine. Again, alongside the
modern public conveyances we have wretched
primitive vehicles for passengers which ought to
be all destroyed, except one specimen to be kept
in the Imperial Carriage Museum as an historical
curiosity. A similar contrast of old and new
is presented in the matter of bridges. Two
handsome bridges have been built across the
Neva within the last twenty years, and a third is
now under construction ; but an old wooden bridge
of planks laid on anchored barges still stretches
across the river right in front of the Winter
Palace, and leads to such important points as the
Exchange and the Customs House. This bridge, the
planking of which has to be continually renewed,
is often raised so high above the level of the banks
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS 151
in stormy weather that no traffic can pass over it.
A number of other wooden bridges unite the
different islands of the city.
Another characteristic, which is gradually passing
away, probably in proportion to the decrease in
the illiterate portion of the population, now about
40 per cent., is the custom of painting pictures of
articles sold in shops on their signboards outside.
This kind of picture-writing, which was formerly
so common on all shop-fronts, is disappearing from
the more fashionable streets where articles on sale
are now so much better displayed in the shop-
windows.
Nothing has been said in this book on the
Ermitage and other picture-galleries, museums,
exhibitions, and academies, for which St. Peters-
burg is justly famous, as these have been so fully
dealt with by other English writers in various
handbooks and guides.
CHAPTER XII
ENVIRONS OF ST. PETERSBURG
Tsarskoe Selo Pavlovsk Krasnoe Selo Peterhoff Gatchino
Oranienbaum Sestroretsk The islands .
WHAT are usually called the environs of St.
Petersburg are, properly speaking, not environs
at all. The term is inaccurately applied to a very
large area of country, and made to include many
villa-settlements, summer resorts, villages, and even
separate towns, such as Tsarskoe Selo arid Peter-
hoff, situated at considerable distances away from
the capital. More or less historical interest attaches
to many of these places in connection with St.
Petersburg, but at the present day only the two
towns just mentioned are of any real importance.
Tsarskoe Selo, where the Emperor and Empress
have resided in winter since the beginning of the
revolutionary movement in 1905, is a town of some
25,000 inhabitants, fifteen miles off from St. Peters-
burg. The railway running to it in a southern
direction was the first line of rails laid down in the
152
STUDENTS
ENVIRONS OF ST. PETERSBURG 153
Russian Empire, the next having been the line to
Moscow. It was the work of English engineers,
and the Emperor Nicholas I. made his first journey
over it in 1837, sitting with the Empress in an
open carriage, which was placed on an ordinary
platform truck. Parallel with this line there is now
a second railway to Tsarskoe Selo, which is reserved
exclusively for the Imperial Family and Court.
The town stands on elevated ground as com-
pared with St. Petersburg, and is regarded as a
very healthy spot relatively to the latter city. It
was begun on the site of an old Finnish village
called Saari Muis, or Elevated Farm, the word
Saar having been gradually Russianized into Saar ski,
and then into Tsarskoe Selo, without any original
intention, it seems, of calling it the Tsar's Village,
as at present. The village was presented to
Catherine I. by Peter the Great in 1708, and
that Empress had a palace built there, and adopted
it as a summer residence. It is celebrated in
medical annals as the only locality in the district
of the Russian capital that has never been attacked
by cholera. Every year there is a religious proces-
sion through its streets to commemorate the
immunity of Tsarskoe Selo during the terrible
outbreak of the epidemic in the middle of the last
20
154 ST. PETERSBURG
century. It has the further advantages of being
supplied with good and pure water, and a drainage-
system, which makes it the healthiest settlement,
probably, in all the province of St. Petersburg.
The town itself is in no way remarkable, being
laid out in wide streets and boulevards, with a
number of fine summer mansions of the nobility
and gentry, and of persons attached to the Imperial
Court. The interest and importance of the place
centres entirely in its Imperial palaces and the
large parks, with lakes and gardens, which surround
them. For the most part these parks are more
like woods, owing to the large number of old trees
which cast a gloom over most of the avenues
and pathways. The Empresses Elizabeth and
Catherine II. erected here many handsome and
fantastic buildings, enriched the palaces with
valuable treasures, and ornamented the parks with
monuments, Chinese pagodas, artificial ruins, and
statuary. There are two principal palaces, in one
of which the Emperor and Empress reside, while
the other is now used only for State receptions and
ceremonies. This latter, the old palace, is cele-
brated for the splendour of its apartments. The
walls of one of its rooms are faced entirely with
amber in various designs, and the walls of another
ENVIRONS OF ST. PETERSBURG 155
are covered with incrustations of lapis-lazuli. The
latter room also has ebony flooring beautifully
inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
About three miles from Tsarskoe Selo there is
a smaller town of about 5,000 inhabitants, called
Pavlovsk, which, like all these adjuncts of St.
Petersburg, owes its origin to the Imperial Family.
The locality was given as a present to the Emperor
Paul, while he was yet heir-apparent, by Catherine II.
Here are more beautiful palaces, with fine wooded
parks and lakes, but the place is best known and
appreciated for its excellent orchestra of music,
which performs here in the summer evenings, and
attracts thousands of visitors from St. Petersburg
to the concert-house attached to the railway-station.
Some eight miles west from Tsarskoe Selo, and
about half-way between the latter place and Peter-
hoff, is Krasnoe Selo, the location of the great
summer camp of the garrison of St. Petersburg.
Peterhoff, which in summer shares the honour of
being one of the two residential towns of the present
Sovereign, is situated on the shore of the Finnish
Gulf, opposite to the island of Cronstadt. It owes
its existence to the Empress Catherine I., who
suggested to her husband, Peter the Great, the
advisability of his having some near retreat in
202
156 ST. PETERSBURG
which to take rest and shelter in stormy weather
while engaged in superintending the construction
of the fortifications of Cronstadt Harbour. His
first building here was the small pavilion on the
shore, which he called < Monplaisir.' He afterwards
constructed a magnificent palace and grounds on
the plan of the French Versailles. The glory of
Peterhoff scenery is the fountains, which con-
stitute an entire avenue of spouting jets from the
palace to the sea. At the head of them all,
in front of the terrace leading up to the palace,
is the principal fountain, a gilded figure of Samson
forcing open the jaws of a lion, whence a column
of water rises 70 feet into the air.
Another Imperial seat is Gatchino, now the
summer retreat of the Empress Dowager, twenty-
seven miles from St. Petersburg, with some
15,000 summer residents, and a palace containing
600 rooms. Then comes Ropsha, where Peter III.
met with his mysterious death, Oranienbaum,
Strelna, and other smaller places, all creations of
Peter the Great or his Imperial successors. All
these towns and settlements are situated on the
south side of the River Neva. On the north, or
Finnish side, there are a few summer settlements
of the inhabitants of the capital, such as Ozerki,
PETERHOFF
The fountains in front of the palace at Peterhoff.
PETERHOFF
The fountains in front of the palace at PeterhotT
ENVIRONS OF ST. PETERSBURG 157
Shouvaiovo, p aigolo, and Sestroretsk, the latter
having been also a creation of Peter the Great.
Only the islands of the Neva remain to be
mentioned as part of the more immediate suburbs
of St. Petersburg. On these, which are joined by
several wooden bridges across different branches of
the river, the inhabitants who are obliged to stay in
town during the summer take the fresh air. It is
often remarked in hot sultry weather that without
these islands St. Petersburg would be quite unin-
habitable. They are well provided with restaurants,
public gardens, theatres, and cafe chantants, and
a fashionable pleasure in spring is to drive to a
place on one of them called the ' Point,' to admire
the glowing splendour of the setting sun.
When Professor Oscar Browning, of Cambridge,
was in St. Petersburg in 1909, entertaining Russian
society with his lectures on English literature, he
addressed to one of the Russian journals the follow-
ing sonnet, which may be fitly reproduced here in
concluding this volume :
ST. PETERSBURG.
Fair child, engendered by a despot's thought,
Queen of the North, enthroned on confluent streams,
Goal of his strivings, pagod of his dreams,
From churlish nature by persistence wrought.
158 ST. PETERSBURG
Prove worthy of thy mission, slowly taught
By triumph and disaster, wear thy crown ;
Clutch not at hasty issues, be thine own,
Too oft by misdirected good distraught.
Then the bright spirit of the Slavic mind,
Condemned too long to an unworthy part.
Led by thy gentle governance, shall find
New worlds in letters, music, life, and art.
Awake, proud city of the golded domes !
Thy winter past, the joy of harvest comes.
' \ v ' : '
AND ITS
ENVIRONS.
INDEX
(The black type references indicate illustrations.}
ABO, 39
Peace of, 38
Abolition of compulsory State
service, 94
Activity in the capital, 114
Admiralty, the, 6, 79
yards, building of the, 66
Aksakoff, 19
Alexander I., 87, 88
Alexander II., reforms of, 19
assassination of, 21
Alexander III., suppression and
reaction under, 20, 21
anti-German proclivities of,
22,23
Alexander Nevsky monastery, the,
6,42
Alexander Yaroslavovitch, the
Grand Duke, 40, 41, 42
Alexis Michailovitch, father of
Peter the Great, 47
Amsterdam, trade of, on the Neva,
50
Andre, Prince, 43
Anglo- Eussian trade, Polish and
Swedish opposition to, 30, 31
Anne, the Empress, compulsorily
re-instals the Court at St.
Petersburg, 80
Annual ceremony of opening the
navigation of the Neva, 146
Antiquities of the City, 79
Appolof, Swedish Commandant of
Nyenskantz, 55
Appanages Department, the, 82
Approach to the city, 11
Apraxin, 74
Archangel, 8, 30, 52
Army recruits, 129
Army and Navy Co-operative
Society's Stores, 122
Armyak, the, 135, 136
Aspects of the capital, 15
Attraction of the capital at the
present day compared with
repulsion of former times, 80
Autocracy, the, 23
Axe, favourite Russian tool, 128
Balakirieff, 9
Baltic, the, 30, 31
Provinces, the, 38
Barracks in the capital, 129, 130
Basil Island, 98
Bath, the Russian, 127
Beaulieu, A. L., L'Empire des
Tsars, 15
Belinsky, 19
Big Prospect, 4
Bill-posting, 122
Birch Island, 44, 47, 60
Birger, Jarl, 39, 40, 41
' Black gangs ' of the Union of the
Russian People, 24, 25
' Blessing of the waters,' the, 104,
105, 106
* Boyars,' the Barons of Russia,
27,28
159
160
INDEX
Bozjerianoff, 67
Bridges over the Neva, 51, 150, 151
British business in Russia, de-
velopment of, 149
colony, 148
embassy, the, 51
games in the capital, 123
Browning, Professor Oscar, sonnet
on St. Petersburg, 157, 158
Bruce, Jacob, 66
Building of the capital, com-
mencement of, 60
Buildings, handsome appearance
of principal, 2
Bureaucracy, the, 23, 98
Business developments, 120
Cabman, see Droshky-driver
Cafes, 122
Canals, 4
Carter, the (lomovoi izvostchify,
132, 133
Carts (telyegi), 132
Cathedral, old Dutch chimes of
the, 79-
spires of the, 79
Catherine I., 78, 79
Catherine II., progress of city
under, 81
proposed reforms by, 17
Caucasus, the, 13, 21
Chambers, General, action against
the Swedes, 63
Chancellor, Richard, 30
Characteristics of the capital, 124,
149
Charles IX. of Sweden, 45
Charles XII. of Sweden, 50, 58
opinion of, 64
Cholera, 85, 86
precautions against, 111
immunity of Tsarskoe Selo
from, 153
Church, the Russian, 47
Church, the Swedish, 47, 49
Cinematograph shows, 122
Civil Service, the, 93, 94, 97
Civilization, national progress in,
20
Coachman, the private, 136
Conscripts, 129
Cossacks of the Guard and
Imperial Bodyguard, 92
Courier, launch of the frigate, 54
Court ball, a, 97
Crimea, the, 13
Criticism of the city, Russian and
foreign, 84, 86, 89
Cronstadt, 11, 64, 65
Canal, 12
Peter the Great's house, 62
Peter the Great's plans re-
garding, 72
Custrine, the Marquis, on the
capital, 88
Danes, the, 38
Datcha, the, 145
Decembrist Movement of 1825,
the, 18
Decline of the capital after Peter's
death, 79
De la Gardie, General, 48
Demetrius, the false, 45
Diderot, 17
Discontent, 20
Discovery of Russia by English-
men in 1553, 30
Dolgorooky, Prince Gregory, 70
Dooma, the State, 16, 24, 25, 26,
27, 49, 83, 101, 114
the members leaving the, 28
' Doomas,' municipal, 27
Drainage, 85
the proposed new, 107
Drama, the, 96
Dratchefsky, General, 118
Droshky, the, 134, 135
Droshky - driver, the (legkovoi
izvostchity, 132, 134, 135, 136,
137, 143
Droshky-drivers' tea-stall, a, 81
Duderhoff, supply of spring water
from, 86
INDEX
161
Dvina River, the, 34
Dvornik, see Porter
Easter Day, 100
Eve, 9
Educational institutions of the
capital, 147
Egyptian sphinxes, the, 5
Electric trams, the new, 114, 115,
116
Elisayeff Brothers, 121
Elizabeth's, Queen, envoys to the
Tsar, 31
Elk, the, 51, 73
Emancipation of Serfs, 19
England and Muscovy, 30
English merchant adventurers, 31
Environs of the city, 9, 152-157
Erick, King of Sweden, 39
Esthonia, 38
European culture, the capital the
inlet for, 21
Europeanization of Russia, the, 25
Execution in former days, on
the road to, 88
Eydtkuhnen, 13
Father John of Cronstadt (the
late) in his garden, 12
Factory workers, 130, 131
Feast of the Epiphany, the, 104
Fine Arts, the Imperial Academy
of, 5
Finland, 32, 35, 36
Gulf of, 10, 30, 31, 34, 36, 39,
59, 81
Finnish Constitutionalists,Russia's
struggle with, 35
Finns, the, 32-37, 47
Fire, Russian method of dealing
with outbreaks of, 150
First impressions of the city, 1
Foreign appearance of the city, 95
Foreign influence of the capital in
Russia, 25
Foreign merchant vessel, arrival
of the first, 66
Forests and swamps, 9
Fortress of St. Petersburg, 61-64,
65
Frelius, 50
Frozen-meat market, the, 140
Funds, municipal shortness of,
112
Gapon, the Priest, 130
Garrison, the, 129
Gatchino, 156
Geographical situation, 2, 72
German colony in the capital, the,
148
nomenclature used by Peter
the Great, 22, 23
German militant Christians'
crusade against early Russians,
38
Gezelius, Bishop of Narva, 49
Golovin, 66
Gootooefsky, Island of, 55, 57
Gorky, Maxim, Creatures that
once were Men, 10
Gorodovoi, see Policeman
Government, decentralization of,
96
methods of carrying on the,
93
offices, 130
' Gradonatchalnik,' the, 112, 113,
118, 141
Grand Ducal Palaces, 83
Grand Dukes of the Imperial
House, and their influence
on the capital, 82, 83, 102
past and present position of,
83
Granofsky, 18
Granville, Dr., opinion on the
water of the Neva, 86
Great Morskaia Street, 114
Gringmuth, M., of the Moscow
Gazette, 24
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden,
47, 48
Gymnastics, see Sports
21
162
INDEX
Hanseatic League, the, 36, 40
Hare Island, 60, 63
Helsingfors, 8
Herzenstein, murder of, 25
Holy Spirit, launch of the frigate,
53
Housing accommodation for the
poorer classes, the question of,
129
Ice-cutting on the Neva, 36
Ideas propagated by the capital, 25
Imperial appanages, the, 82
Court ceremonies and festivi-
ties, 103, 104, 106
Court, effect on the capital of
the absence of the, 102
family, value to the capital
of the support of the, 81
family, sources of revenue of,
82,83
palaces, 83
Important thoroughfares, 114
Improvements, slow adoption of
serious, 112
Incendiarism in time of the
Empress Anne owing to general
hatred of the capital, 80
Influence of the capital on re-
forms, 20, 24, 26
Ingermanland, the Swedish pro-
vince of, 46, 47, 49
Ingria, see Ingermanland
Inundations of the capital, 69
Islands of the Neva, 157
Ivan the Terrible, 8, 28
Izjora, Finnish tribe of, 34
Eiver, the, 40, 41, 46
Izvdstchik, see Droshky- driver
Jani-saari Island, see Hare Island
Journal de St. Petersburg, the, 96
Kantz, 56
Karamzin, 87
Katkoff, M., of the Moscow
Gazette, 22, 98
Kazan Cathedral, 49
Keith, James (the famous Prussian
Marshal), on Peter the Great,
63
Khomiakoff, 19
Kokoshnik, the, 103
Kopeck, The, 102
Koreldi, Finnish tribe of, 34
Korelia, 34, 47
Korporye, destruction of fortress
at, 43
Kotlin, the island of Cronstadt,
64
Krasnoe Selo, 155
Kronhjort, General, 63
Kronslot, 64
Labour, conditions of, during
building of the capital, 68, 70
Ladoga, 40, 44, 53, 54, 55
Battle of, 37
Lake of, 34, 35, 36, 45, 53, 54
' Land of the thousand lakes,' 32
Land route to the capital, 12
Landskron, Swedish settlement
on the Neva, 48
Late hours of inhabitants, 146
Liberal ideas, campaign against,
21
Liebnitz, 93
Lighting of the city, 79, 119,
149
Lines (name given to streets), 4
Literary Fund of St. Petersburg,
suppression of the, 101
Literature, 102
Little Prospect, 4
Locomotion in the capital, 120
Lubeck, Swedish trade with, 50
Liitzen, Battle of, 48
Magnus, King of Sweden, 44
Masons, Peter the Great's treat-
ment of, 70
Mayor of the capital, insignificant
position compared with that of
other cities, 113
INDEX
163
Mecklenburg peasants, Gustavus
Adolphus's suggestions regard-
ing, 47, 48
Menshikoff, Prince, 65, 67, 75
Merchants of the capital, 98
Middle Prospect, 4
Migration of population, 126-130
Modern tendencies of Russia, in-
fluence of the city on, 17, 21, 25
Mortality in the capital, 85, 108
Moscow, 8, 29, 45, 52, 53, 55
direct routes to, 6
opposition of, to new capital,
17
Queen Elizabeth's envoys at,
31
the old palace, 62
transfer of Government in-
stitutions from, 73
Tsars, the, 46
Moscow Gazette, 22, 24
Motor-buses, 115
Municipal institutions, probable
future developments of, 113
Muscovite system, transforming
and modernizing the old, 16
Narova, the River, 38
Narva, 8
Battle of, the first, 64
capture of, 58
Peter's unsuccessful attack
on, 52
seizure of English vessels
near, 31, 38
Naryshkin, 7, 66
Near East, the capital's influence
on the, 20
Nestor, 35
Neva, the, 11, 35, 36, 50, 51, 52,
55, 56, 58, 66
ancient trade route of, 33
antecedents of, 32
blessing the, 104
bridges over, 51, 150, 151
ceremony of opening naviga-
tion of, 146
Neva, contaminated state of the,
86, 109
islands of the, 59, 60, 157
Quay, the, 77
Russian settlers retire from,
46
struggle for command of, 37,
39, 44, 45
Swedish settlers on, 48
Nevsky Prospect, 4, 42, 113, 114,
115
coachmen of, 136
New English Club, the, 149
Newness of the city, 4
Newspapers, 102
Nicholas I., first use of the rail-
way to Tsarskoe Selo, 153
Nicholas II. reviewing his
troops, 32
Nicholas II. and the Empress
in ancient dress, 4
' Nicholas Bog,' 9
Nicholas Quay, the, 4
Nicholson, Right Hon. Sir A.
(British Ambassador), 149
Nihilism, 20
Noteburg, 44, 52, 53, 54, 55
Novgorod, 8, 32-37, 40, 45, 46, 50-
54
' Novgorodian ' Russians, the, 33,
35
Nummers, the Swedish Admiral,
54, 56, 63
Nyenschantz, or Nyenskantz, 48-
56, 59, 61, 71
Officer and sentinel, 129
Official corruption, Peter the
Great's suppression of, 76
Official titles, 97
Okhta, 8, 48, 50
Big and Little, 49
River, 43
Onega, Bay of, 53
Lake, 53
Oranienbaum, 11, 156
Oryekhoff, 54, 55
212
164
INDEX
Oryekhoff, establishment of for-
tress at, 44
' Osteria ' tavern, the, 72
Outdoor functions, drawbacks to,
106
life, new features of, 114
Ozerki, 156
Palace Grenadiers, one of the, 20
Quay, the, 51, 148
Palaces, 83
Pargolo, 157
Passport system, the, 117
Paul, the Emperor, 82
and droshky-drivers, 137
Paving of the city, 79, 149
Pavlovsk, 155
Peasantry, attempts to reform the,
125
and the capital, 125-129
Finnish and Russian, 47
Peasants, 9
Pelagoosy, 40
Persia, the capital's influence on,
21
Peter and Paul, the fortress of,
60, 64, 65
Peter the Great, 2, 5, 8, 16, 22,
29, 30, 31, 33, 42, 44, 59,
63,74
and the eagle, 60
brutal treatment of labourers
during the building of St.
Petersburg, 67, 68
causes of his death, 78
check on the development of
Russia's natural resources,
95
cuts the first turf of St. Peters-
burg, 60
death of, 78
death of his son Alexis, 6
defeat at Narva, 52
efforts to attract foreign trade
to his city, 67
efforts to Europeanize Russia,
125
Peter the Great, energy of, 64
favourite occupations and
amusements, 77
final decision to make St.
Petersburg his capital, 73
first palaces of, 61, 62
founds fortress of St. Peters-
burg, 60
German bureaucracy of, 23
handwriting of, 56
liking for animals, 61
love of sea-power, 6, 7, 63
mania for German names, 56
measures against those avoid-
ing service to the State, 94
method of populating his
capital, 71
modern appreciation of, 78
monument of, 76
'most imperious of crowned
revolutionists,' 15
movements against the
Swedes, 52-58
operations on Lake Ladoga
and the Neva, 57
opinion of English Parlia-
ment, 17
punishment of army delin-
quents, 66, 70
reform of the ancient style
of dress, 75
the priesthood's views on,
87
ukase compelling upper classes
to serve the State, 93
Peter II. transfers the Court to
Moscow, 79
Peterhoff, 152, 155, 156
Peter the Great's connection
with, 156
reason for its foundation, 155
the Monplaisir pavilion, 62,
156
Picture signboards, 151
Plan of the city, 3, 5
Poles, the, 30, 31, 38, 45
Police, the Secret, 143
INDEX
165
Policeman, the (gorodovoi), and
his duties, 117, 118, 132, 139-143
Political ideas, the city the cradle
of new, 18, 20
Political triumph of new capital, 24
Politics and the Press in the city,
101-102
Poltava, commemoration of Battle
of, 16
threatened demonstration at
jubilee of, 24
victory of, 58, 62, 73, 74
Pooshkin's Bronze Cavalier,
Charles Turner's English
translation of, 89
description of the great in-
undation of 1824, 77
Pope Gregory IX., holy crusade
against Kussia, 39, 41
Pope Innocent III., 38
Population, 85
increase of, 114
migration of, 126-130
Porter, the outside, 145
the yard (dvornik), and his
duties, 132, 138-143, 147
Potemkin, General Prince, 49
Press, the, 96
Progress of the capital under
Peter the Great, 78
Proselytism of Swedes on the
Neva, 43
Pskoff, 8, 43
Public gardens, 3
conveyances, 150
Eaces, mixture of, in the capital,
148
Reactionaries' opposition to the
capital, 24
Reason for the establishment of
the capital, 17
Reform, outcry for, 101
Reforms, Muscovite resistance to
Peter the Great's, 74
Remoteness and inconvenience of
city, 6-8
Representative government, estab-
lishment of Russian, 20, 23, 24
Restrictions upon trade and pro-
fessional unions, 101
Revel, 34
Revelations of Russia, 87
Revolutionary activity, 20
Roman Catholicism, efforts to
convert Russia to, 41, 43, 47
Romanoff Dynasty, the, 45
Ropsha, 156
Round Bog,' 9
Ruriks, dynasty of the, 7
Russia and Germany, glaring
difference between, 12
Russian intellectual life, 18
Russian modern tendencies, influ-
ence of the capital upon, 17, 21,
25
Russophobe, the English, his
criticism of the city, 86
St. Alexander Nevsky, 42, 43
St. Boris, 41
St. Gleb, 41
St. Isaac Cathedral, 3, 12
St. Peter and St. Paul, the
fortress of, 60
St. Petersburg, the (a Dutch
vessel), 67
St. Petersburger Zeitung, The,
96
St. Sophia, Cathedral of, 40
Sarnarin, 19
* Sandwich man,' the, 122
Sanitation, the proposed new, 107-
113
the subject of, 85
Schlippenberg, Commandant, 54
Schlotburg, 56
Schliisselburg, 55, 56
Schuyler, Eugene, on Peter the
Great, 64
Sea canal, 11
Trade, 30
Serfs, emancipation of, 19
Sestra, River, 34, 63
166
INDEX
Sestroretsk, 34, 157
Sheremetieff, Field- Marshal, 54,
55, 57
Shipbuilding yards, commence-
ment of the, 66
Shoeblack, the, 122
Shopkeeping in the capital, 121
Shouvalovo, 157
Sigismund, King of Poland, 31
Signboards outside shops, 151
Site of the capital, 51
history of, 29-45
of first settlement, 72
Peter the Great's choice of a,
61-62
Situation of the capital, 6, 7
Slavophiles, 18, 21-24
the Muscovite, criticism of
the city, 86
Slavs and Scandinavians, strife
between, 37
Sledge, public, halfpenny fare,
120
Sledging with the ' pristyazhka,'
or side horse, Frontispiece
Slums, absence of, 5
Smolny, 49, 50
Social life in the city, 102
Peter the Great's introduc-
tion of a new, 76
Society, development of, in the
capital, 93, 95
in Moscow compared with
that of the capital, 95,
98
freedom of Eussian, 99, 100
Soltykoff, Princess, 51
Spaciousness of the city, 2, 5
Sports and pastimes in the capital,
122, 123
Statues to Peter the Great, 78
Stockholm, 11, 47, 50, 63
Stolbovo, Treaty of, 45, 46
Stolypin (Prime Minister), 109
Street nomenclature, 3
Strelna, 156
Students, 147, 148, 152
Sufferings of the first builders of
the capital, 69
Summer dress, a Eussian ser-
vant in, 124
Summer exodus, the, 144, 145
Suomenmaa, 32
Survivals of the city of Peter the
Great's day, 79
Svir Biver, the, 53
Swamps and forests, 9
Sweden, Bussia's war with, in
1384, 44
Swedes, the, 30-57, 63
proselytism of, on the Neva, 43
Swedish criticism of the site of
the capital, 63
rule on the Neva, 48-51
Squadron, defeat of the, 54
Taurid Palace, the, 49
Tcherepenikoff, 121
Tea, from a samovar, a dish of,
116
Teutonic Knights and Brothers of
the Sword, struggle with, 38, 43
Thirty Years' War, the, 48
Tirtoff, Colonel, 54
Tolstoy, Count, Power of Dark-
ness, 10
Trade under Swedes on the Neva,
50
Trade and professional unions,
restrictions upon, 101
Traffic, regulation by the police,
116-118
Tramways, electric, 114-116
Transport in the capital, means
of, 131
Troika, a, 16
Troubetskoy, 66
Tsarskoe Selo, 152-154
its immunity from cholera,
153
its imperial palaces, 154
the railway to, 152, 153
Turkey, the capital's influence on,
21
INDEX
167
Tver, 8
Types in the capital, 124-151
Unhealthy conditions of life in
the capital, 108
'Union of the Kussian People,'
the, 24
University, the, 94
Varangians, 35
Varangian Sea, the, 35
Variags, the, 35
Vasili Ostroff, the, 3, 98
Peter's plans regarding, 73
Verjbolovo, 13
Viborg, 54, 55, 56
establishment of the Castle
of, 43
Vicissitudes of the capital, early,
69
Vikings, the, 7
Vilna, 8, 13
Viti-saari, island of, 55
Vitzhum, Count, on the capital, 88
Vod, a Finnish tribe, 34
Vodka, 133
1 Vodsky Fifth,' the, 33, 34
Voldemar II. of Denmark, 38
Volga Eiver, the, 34
Volkhoff River, 35, 36, 50
Water-supply, the, 85
the contaminated, 109. 110,
111
the proposed new, 108
Wealthy people in the capital, 99
Westerns, the, 18
Wet-nurse, a Russian, 108
White Sea, the, 30
Winter locomotion, 119
season, the, 146, 147
Wisby, 36, 37
Sea Code, the, or Waterrecht.
37
Wood used for early buildings, 61
Wooden houses, 120
Woodhouse, Arthur W. W. (His
Majesty's Consul), 149
Woodwork, Russian skill in, 128
Workman, the Russian, and his
habits, 126-130
Wybes, Auke, 67
Yourieff (Dorpat), 22
Zotoff, 66
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