# The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries/Volume 10/Letters and Historical Writings of Moltke/Description of Moscow

DESCRIPTION OF MOSCOW (1856)
TRANSLATED BY GRACE BIGELOW.
Thursday, August 28th
HE City of Moscow takes it for granted that the Emperor has not yet arrived. A few assert that he has been since yesterday at the Castle Petrofskoy, an hour's ride from here, where he is holding court and reviewing a hundred thousand Guards; but that is his incognito; officially, he is not yet here.
The Holy City is preparing for the reception that is to take place tomorrow. They are hammering and pounding in all the streets and on all the squares. Most of the houses here stand alone, in the centre of a garden or court. Large tribunes for spectators have been erected in these spaces. In several of these I counted three thousand numbered seats. Before the houses themselves, moreover, small platforms with chairs have been erected, protected by linen awnings, decorated with tapestries, carpets and flowers. There must be at least several hundred thousand seats, so that there can be no crowd. Only those who cannot pay the few kopecks, the Tschornoi Narod, or "the black brood of the people," will form the movable mass, and the police will have to restrain them.
All palaces and churches have laths nailed on their architectonic lines, upon which the lamps for the festive illuminations are to be fastened. The Giant Ivan, which will speak from the mouths of twenty-five large bells, bears upon its golden dome a crown formed of lamps, surmounted by the great glittering cross, which the French pulled down with immense toil and danger, and which the Russians ​victoriously reinstated. As an atonement for the offense, they laid one thousand guns of the godless enemy at the feet of Ivan, where Count Morny can see them to this day.
Half of the population of the city are in the streets, looking about, and they are allowed to go everywhere, even in the Kremlin.
Every day six- and eight-horse teams, mostly dark gray and black, which are going to convey the state coaches of the Empress and the Grand-Duchesses, are going to and fro from the Kremlin to Petrofskoy. Strangely enough, the outriders sit on the right front horses. An equerry of the Guards walks by each horse and leads it by the bridle. Yesterday their Excellencies carried a fearfully heavy canopy, supported by thick gold posts, through the salons and. over the stairs of the palace. The aides-de-camp walk by the side of it, and balance it by golden cords.
The state coaches, most wonderful products of former centuries, have been drawn out of their semi-obscurity in the Arsenal, where they have rested twenty-eight years. The oldest are entirely without springs, are suspended by leather straps six feet long over a tongue twenty feet long and correspondingly thick, which is so bent that the coach almost reaches the ground. Those of the Empresses are ornamented with diamonds and jewels. It will hardly be possible to use the oldest. There is, further, a kind of house on wheels, made of gold, velvet, and crystal, which Peter the Great received as a present from England, and compared to which a thirty-six pounder is but a child's toy. In short, everything is life and activity here, in expectation of the volleys of cannon which will announce tomorrow from the old gate towers of the Kremlin the solemn entrance of the Czar.
Yesterday the Emperor wished to ride through the camp of the Guards, whom he has not seen since he ascended the throne, because, in consequence of the war, they had been removed to Lithuania and Poland, and are now encamped at an hour's distance on a vast plain. A solemn mass, at ​which the Empress was also present, preceded this. We drove out in complete gala dress through thick clouds of dust. The Emperor rode with his suite. He looked very well on horseback. At this moment it began to rain, and poured uninterruptedly. Fortunately we found shelter under the open tent in which the altar was, and in which the mass was said, or, rather, sung. All further inspection was countermanded, and we returned home.
In the evening I drove to Petrofskoy. It lies in the midst of a wood, and has a very odd appearance. The castle proper is a three-storied quadrangle with a green cupola. The entrances are supported by the most singular bottle- shaped bulging columns, and the whole is surrounded by a turreted wall, with battlements and loopholes. This red- and white-painted fortress, the light of which radiates from the high windows through the dark forest, recalls a fable of the Arabian Nights. All monasteries and castles here are fortified. They were the only points capable of holding out when the Golden Tribe rushed upon them with twenty or thirty thousand horses, and devastated all that flat country. Long after their yoke was broken, the Khans of Tartary in the Crimea were formidable enemies. The watchmen from the highest battlements of the Kremlin were continually observing the wide expanse toward the south; and when the dust-clouds rose thence, and the great bell (kolokol) of Ivan Welicki rang the alarm, every one fled behind the walls of the Czar's palace or to the monasteries, upon whose walls the infuriated horsemen struck and dashed in vain. The Christianity, science, and culture of the Russian nation sought shelter in the cloisters, and from them started afterward Russia's deliverance from the domination of the Mongolians and Poles.
Today there was again mass in the open air, and five battalions received new flags, which in addition were blessed by the priests; then the Metropolitan Archbishop walked the length of the front and sprinkled the troops thoroughly with holy water; some of the men were practically soaked to the ​skin. The Emperor and both Empresses not only kissed the cross, but the archbishop's hand. Then the Emperor passed the front of every battalion, and, with a true military attitude, spoke a few words to the men, which were received with endless applause. He was an excellent rider, and rode a well-trained horse. Then he inspected the front of the whole camp—one and a half German miles. There were seventy-four battalions, with eight hundred men apiece—about sixty thousand men in all. They stood unarmed and in caps, all of them old, bearded, and dark-faced.
I care nothing for the deafening hurrahs that lasted two hours; but these old, mustached men show how glad they are to see their Czar.
The Emperor spoke to some of them. They answered their Batuschka (little father) without embarrassment. In Russia the family is the microcosm of the State. All power rests with the father. All theories of representative government in Russia are pure nonsense. "How can human statutes circumscribe the divine right of a father?" asks the Russian. So that the unlimited power in the hands of the Emperor is necessary and beneficial in a land where nothing is done that is not ordered from above.
Whoever should gaze, as I have done, on a warm, sunny day, upon the city of Moscow for the first time from the height of the Kremlin would certainly not think that he was in the same latitude in which the reindeer graze in Siberia, and the dogs drag the sleighs over the ice in Kamtchatka. Moscow reminds one of the South, but of something strange never seen before. One seems to be transported to Ispahan, Bagdad, or some other place—to the scene of the story of the Sultaness Scheherezade.
Although Moscow does not count more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, it covers two square miles with its houses, gardens, churches, and monasteries. In this flat region one can hardly see beyond the extreme suburbs, and houses and trees extend to the horizon.
No city in the world, with the exception of Rome, has so many churches as the holy Stolitza of Russia. It is affirmed ​that Moscow boasts of forty times forty churches. Each one has at least five, and several even sixteen, cupolas that are brilliantly painted, and covered with colored glazed bricks, or richly silvered and gilded, glittering in the blue atmosphere like the sun when it is half above the horizon. Even the graceful towers, rising sometimes to considerable heights from the immense mass of houses and gardens, are similarly ornamented, and neither do the larger ones among the palaces lack the addition of a cupola.
The dwelling houses are almost always in gardens, and are distinctly outlined against the dark background of trees by their white walls and flat iron roofs painted light green or red. The oldest part alone, close to the Kremlin—the Kitai-Gorod, or the Chinese quarter—forms a city according to our notions, where the houses touch each other, and are carefully enclosed by a beautiful turreted wall, here, of course, painted white. All the rest seems to be a large collection of country houses, between which the Moskwa winds its way.
The Kremlin contains (besides the palaces of the Czars and the Patriarchs) the Arsenal and the treasures of the church. Here are concentrated the highest civil and religious powers. The cloisters, mostly at the extremities of the city, are fortresses in themselves.
It was in the Kitai-Gorod that the commercial guild established itself, needing for its wares, imported from China, Bucharia, Byzantium, and Novgorod, the protection of walls. The rest, and by far the larger part of Moscow, was built by the nobility for themselves; and long after the first Emperor had raised a new capital upon the enemy's ground it was looked upon with contempt by the grandees of the Empire, still faithfully clinging to the customs of their fathers.
The venerable city of Moscow, with its ancient, sacred relics and historical reminiscences, still remains an object of veneration and love to every Russian; and, often coming from a distance of hundreds of miles, when getting a glimpse of the golden cross on the Church of Ivan Welicki, ​he falls on his knees in reverence and patriotic fervor. St. Petersburg is his pride, but Moscow is nearer to his heart. And, in truth, Moscow has no resemblance to St. Petersburg. There is no Neva here, no sea, no steamers; nowhere a straight street, a large square, or a wooded island. But Moscow has as little resemblance to any other city. The cupolas, the flat roofs and the trees remind one of the East; but there the cupolas are more curved, covered with gray lead, and surmounted by delicate minarets; the houses show no. windows toward the street; and the gardens are enclosed by high, dead, monotonous walls. Moscow has a character of its own; and if one wishes to compare it with anything, it must be called Byzantine-Moresque. Russia received her Christianity and first civilization from Byzantium. Until of late years she remained completely shut off from the East, and what culture she once adopted became rapidly nationalized. The heavy scourge of the Mongolian and Tartar domination, which burdened this country for nearly three centuries, prevented for a long time any further progress. All culture was confined to the monasteries, and to these they afterward owed their deliverance. The Khans of Tartary never required their submission to Islam; they satisfied themselves with the tribute. In order to raise this, they had recourse to native authority. They supported the power of the Grand Dukes and of the priesthood; and the despotism of the Golden Tribe, much as it circumscribed further improvement, strengthened the oppressed in their faith in their religion, fidelity to their rulers, and love to their mutual fatherland.
These are still the characteristics of the people; and when one reflects that the embryo of this nation, the Great Russians—thirty-six million people of one root, one faith, and one language—forms the greatest homogeneous mass of people in the world, no one will doubt that Russia has a great future before her.
It has been said that with an increase of population this boundless empire must fall to pieces. But no part of it can exist without the other—the woody North without the fertile ​South, the industrial centre without both, the interior without the coast, nor without the common joint stream, navigable for four hundred miles — the Volga. But, more than all this, the national spirit unites the most distant portions.
Moscow is now the national centre not only of the European Empire, but of the ancient and holy kingdom of the Czars, from which the historical reminiscences of the people spring, which, perhaps, is big with the destinies of the future empire in spite of a deviation of two centuries.
The foreign civilization which was forced upon them has never penetrated the mass of the people. The national peculiarity has remained complete in language, manners, and customs, in a highly remarkable municipal constitution, the freest and most independent existing anywhere; and, finally, in their architecture. The last can, of course, only be applied to the churches. In Russia nearly everything is new. What is older than a hundred years is looked upon as an antiquity. The Russian dwelling-house is of wood, and therefore never reaches that age, unless, like the one of Peter the Great, it be encased by a stone one. Even the palaces of the Emperor are new, and only here in Moscow can be found a ruin of the old Dworez of the Czars. There are churches in existence of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (a great age for Russia), and the strictly conservative spirit of the priesthood has been instrumental in retaining the same style of architecture in the later buildings.
The St. Sophia, in Constantinople, is the model upon which all Russian churches are built. It was imitated everywhere, but never equalled, not even by St. Mark's in Venice. There was lack both of material and skill to build an arch with a span of one hundred and twenty-six feet. What could not be accomplished in width was attempted in height. The domes became narrow and tall, like towers. The rough stone, handled without art, rendered clumsy pillars and thick walls necessary, in which the windows, like embrasures, are cut narrow and deep. The brightest light falls through the windows in the thinner wall which supports ​the cupolas. Nearly all churches are higher than they are long and wide. The clumsy tetragonal pillars contract the already narrow space. One has nowhere a free view, and a mystic twilight reigns everywhere. The most famous Russian churches can only accommodate as many hundreds as a Gothic cathedral can thousands. It is true most of them were built by Italian masters; but the latter were obliged to conform to the rules and forms already in use.
Since the architectonic conditions were unfavorable to the creation of a magnificent whole, an attempt was made to ornament the individual parts with brilliancy and magnificence. Not contented to gild the churches inside and out, the floors were paved with half-precious stones, and the pictures (of no artistic value) were covered with jewels, diamonds, and pearls. Only the faces and hands are painted; the garments, crown, and all else are plated with silver, gold, and jewels.
Sculpture is entirely prohibited, as far as representing the human form is concerned; but they do not hesitate to represent God himself on canvas. The gilt background is of itself disadvantageous for the carnation of the pictures, and added to this are the long-drawn outlines of the Byzantine and old German schools, without the genuine feeling of the latter. Gigantic scarecrows gaze down from the cupolas, meant to represent the Virgin Mary, Christ, St. John, or God the Father. A Russian buys no holy picture that is not quite black or faded out. A lovely Madonna of Raphael, or a fine Sebastian of Correggio, does not seem to him expressive. His creed needs the obscurity of his church—the clouds of incense which at every mass veil the mysterious movements of the priests.
The Byzantine element in the Russian architecture is then historically easy to explain. The Moresque originated with the necessity of decorating the individual parts, and relates only to these.
The railings of the Ikonostase are interlaced with vines, garlands, and animal forms. The flat walls, principally where they are not gilt, are decorated with leafwork, ​rosettes, and twining vines. Where this could not be cut in stone it was painted, and the deficiency in drawing was supplied by a variety of the most glaring colors. Of course, they remained far behind the tasteful, artistic arabesques of the Alhambra and the Alcazar.
The craziest thing in the way of architecture is the Church of Ivan Blajennoj, on the Red Square before the Kremlin. It cannot be described. This building stands on uneven ground, although the fine level Place is before it. It crouches on the edge of the hill, and leaves one leg hanging down. There is no trace of any symmetry. It has no central point, and no one part is like another. One cupola looks like an onion, another like a pineapple, an artichoke, a melon, or a Turkish turban. It contains nine different churches, each having its own altar, Ikonostase, and sanctuary. You enter several of these on the ground floor. To reach others, you ascend a few steps. Between these is a labyrinth of passages so narrow that two people can with difficulty pass each other. Of course, all these churches are very narrow. The one in the main tower can scarcely contain more than twenty or thirty persons, and yet its vaulted roof reaches into the tower at a height of over a hundred feet. This church is painted with all the colors of the rainbow, inside and out, and plated with silver and gold. The cupolas shine with red, green, and blue glazed bricks, and even the masonry has been colored by the artist.
This monstrosity emanated from the brain of Ivan Hrosnoj, "the Terrible John." When he saw the architect's work complete he was delighted, loaded him with praise, embraced him, and then ordered his eyes to be put out, that no such second masterpiece should be attributed to him.
But, with all its singularity, this church does not produce a disagreeable impression. It cannot be denied that it is at least original.
Everything, on the contrary, left from the old Dworez (palace) is really beautiful. There is a strange four-story building narrowing toward the top. There is a balcony ​formed by each receding story, from which there is a fine view. The second story contains, besides the rich but small chapel, a banquet-hall, like the Kanter's, in Marienburg, only that there the entire vaulted roof is borne by a slender column, and here by a thick pillar. The entrance is in one corner; the throne stands diagonally opposite in the other. At present, the walls are covered with splendid tapestries, and the great throne draped with drap d'or, lined with real ermine. This drapery cost forty thousand rubles. The small but exquisite rooms in the third story are charming. The fourth story is only one large room. It was the Terima, or dwelling of the women—the room in which Peter I. grew up.
At the parole delivery all the regiments were represented, the cavalry mounted. It was beautiful to see specimens of all these dazzling uniforms: the Cuirassiers, with the Byzantine double eagle upon their helmets, something like our Garde du Corps, but with lances; the Uhlans, almost exactly like ours; the Hussars, in white dolmans with golden cords; the line Cossacks, with fur caps and red caftans; the Tschernamorskish Cossacks, in dark blue coats with red jackets over them; and the Ural ones with light blue—all with lances, on little horses and high saddles. The Tartars are nearly all heathen or Moslem. The Circassians appeared in scaly coats of mail and helmets. They showed off their equestrian accomplishments, fired from the horse with their long guns, shielded themselves from their pursuers by their kantschu, concealed themselves by throwing their bodies on one side so that they touched the ground with their hands; others stood upright in the saddle—all done at full gallop and amidst fearful noise.
A regiment of Drushins, an Imperial militia levied on the Imperial apanage estates, pleased me well. They wore ​a cap with the cross of St. Andrew, bare neck; the native caftan, only shorter and without a button; very wide trousers, the shirt over them (as with all common Russians), and the end of their trousers tucked into their high boots. Such is the uniformed Mujik (peasant). This dress is national, becoming and useful. The men can wear their furs (which are here indispensable) underneath; and I will venture to say that the entire Russian infantry will adopt a similar costume. "Les proverbes sont l'esprit des peuples," and the national dress is the result of the experience of centuries in regard to what is becoming and appropriate.
The Austrian uniform is white in Moravia and brown in the Banat, because the sheep there are of that color. The Spaniard wears the tabarra, as he receives the material from the goat. The Arabian is white from head to foot, because the heat of his climate requires it; and the Mujik does not wear his caftan from caprice, but because it suits him best.
The Emperor's cortège is truly imposing—about five hundred horses.
If I only had a better memory for persons and names! I have made the acquaintance of a number of interesting men; that is, I have been presented to them: Prince Gortschakoff, Lueders, Berg, and Osten-Sacken, who commanded in the last war; Orloff, Mentschikoff, Alderberg, Liewen, the Governor of Siberia, and the commandant of the Caucasus; then a lot of aides-de-camp, the foreign princes, and their suites.
One can be truly thankful if one rides a strange horse without causing or experiencing some disaster. A bad rider comes up from behind; a horse sets himself in your way; here a mare kicks up behind; there a stallion kicks up in front. It is but a small affair to ride alone, but in the confusion of such a train, in a short trot on a lively beast, one must keep one's eyes open. Suddenly the Emperor stops, and there is a general halt; or he turns to one side, and then there is great confusion; he gallops forward, and all plunge after him, while the head of the column has again taken a ​short movement. With all this the flags are flying, the trumpets are blowing, the drums are beating, and there are endless hurrahs. But one must also see something. I rode a little black horse that I would like to possess; he goes like an East Prussian, but is very spirited, and I constantly found myself in the front among the grand dukes. But I shall get on well with him when we know each other better. He needs a quiet rider with a firm seat, and a light hand on the reins.
This evening at sunset, I again ascended the Kremlin. "Diem perdidi" I should say of the day of my sojourn there in which I did not visit this wonderful structure.
I descended to the Moskwa, and, from under the fine quay, examined the massive white walls, the towers and the gate forts which surround the Czar's palace, and a whole town of churches of the strangest structure. Tonight the city gives a grand entertainment, from which I shall absent myself to write. One receives so many impressions that it is impossible to digest them all and collect one's thoughts.
I am trying to understand this architecture. In Culm, in West Prussia, I saw last year in the marketplace such a curious City Hall that I could not reconcile it in my mind; now I understand that it is Moscovite architecture. The Knights of the Sword of Liefland were in intimate connection with the German Knights in Prussia, and one of their architects may have repeated on the Vistula what he had seen on the Moskwa.
The fountains here remind one of the East; little, round covered houses on the principal squares, which are constantly surrounded by men and beasts supplying themselves with water. At first they seem rude and awkward when compared with the fine style, the rich sculpture, the golden railings, and the perforated marble walls of the Tschesmas of Constantinople. There are here, as in the mosques, swarms of doves that are so bold that they scarcely leave room for carriages and foot-passengers. They are often chased out of the shops like a brood of ​chickens, and they go everywhere for food. No one does them any harm, and the Russians think it a sin to eat them. The Gostinoy Dwor (the merchants' court) is especially a repetition of the Oriental Tschurchi. One booth is next to the other, and the narrow passages that separate them are covered; therefore the same dim light and the same smell of leather and spices exist as at the Missir, or Egyptian market, in Constantinople. The wares here, however, are mostly European, and cheaper at home, so that we are not much tempted to buy.
If I had my choice, I would rather live in Moscow than in St. Petersburg.
Peter the Great found an island without any seacoast. He could look upon the Black Sea or the Baltic as a communication with the civilized world; but one or the other must first be conquered. The hot-headed King of Sweden pressed him to a Northern war, and, besides, the Southern Sea was inhabited by barbarians. His original intention, it is said, was to build his new capital on the Pontus, and that he even had selected the spot. The one coast, indeed, is not much farther from the centre of the empire than the other.
How would it have been had he built his St. Petersburg on the beautiful harbor of Sebastopol, close to the paradisiac heights of the Tschadyr Dagh, where the grape grows wild and everything flourishes in the open air that is forced through a greenhouse on the Neva; where no floods threaten destruction; where the navy is not frozen fast during seven months of the year; and where steam power makes an easier communication with the most beautiful countries of Europe than the Gulf of Finland does?
What a city would St. Petersburg have been, did her wide streets extend to Balaklava and did the Winter Palace face the deep blue mirror of the Black Sea; if the Isaac Church stood at the height of Malakoff; if Aluschta and Orianda were the Peterhof and Gatschina of the Imperial family!
* ↑ From Count Moltke's Letters from Russia, permission Harper & Brothers, New York.
* ↑ Kopecks are equal to about one cent each.
* ↑ A part of the castle in Marienburg, Prussia, containing the hall where the knights of the German order, "Deutsche Ritter," held their conclaves; also the hall itself, one of the showplaces of Eastern Prussia.—Translator.
* ↑ A whip with short handle and long thong.—Translator.
* ↑ Militia of the Emperor, but differently constituted from the American militia or Prussian Landwehr.—Translator.
* ↑ One of the summer palaces of the Emperor.