The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-01 00:00:00

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[PRIOR 4D. STAMPED 5m

CORONATION OF THE EMPEROR OF
RUSSIA.

(Prom ti,,e Special Correspondent of the Morning Post.)
MOSCOW, AUG. 21.
We are not quite reduced to pitch tents iu the
stroets yet, although the throng is becoming stu-
pendous in Moscow. The Emperor is to be in
Moscow in five days, the 14th of the mouth, old
style—the 26. h by ours. Four days later—that
is, the 10;li (31st) instant—lie makes his solemn
entry into this truly wondrous old city. Then, on
the 7th of September, as you know, he is to be
crowned. The entry will be as great a celebration
as the crownieg.
I had not been an hour in Moscow before I was,
on the top of the famous bell-tower in the Kremlin.
Such a spectacle as unrols itself from that spot
exists nowhere else in the world. As I was return-
ing I met Lord Granville driving towards the
Kremlin. _ _

Yesterday (Wednesday) the great crown of the
Russian Empire was borne is state from the rail-
way station, through the heart of Moscow, to the
Kremlin. A mob of some twenty or thirty persons
had assembled to witness its arrival. Detachments
of the Chevalierklarde, of which corps her Ma-
jeity the reigning Empress is colonel, escorted the
carriages. In myletter of to-morrow I .will try to
place before your readers the many Strange aspects
which this place presents.

AUGUST 19.

Yesterday morning, at -11 a.m., Earl Granville
and the British Embassy left St. Petersburg by the
sole -tr.1,1 Jut h;i2,11 runs direct to Moscow. Both
the minus
`itelt it gt. Peteisburg and that at
Moscow are very large, commodious, and showy
buildings, with every requirement. There was
what appeared to me (for I came by the same
train) as large a crowd as an excursion-day would
have collected at the most frequented station in
London ; but I was assured that the passengers were
fewer than on almost any day for the last twenty.
AS this is Russia's only long railway, and as (their
rolling stock being new) they had actually on one
occasion not been able to put on carriages enough
for the number of travellers who presented theme
selves in the course of the morning, I went more
than an hour before the train started to make sure
of my place. I found many before me ; and pre-
sently the crush became frightful, and the apparent
confusion hopeless. It was aggravated by the mul-
titude of foreigners, who could not explain them-
selves in Russ, and some of whom went about
swearing in a great variety of languages. No pub-
lic establishment in Russia is wanting in polyglot
officials, and certainly these poor interpreters were
severely worked while I was present. The rest of
the functionaries who speak only Russ are active
in unceasingly and patiently unravelling the tangle
of such crowds. They listen, for instance, to Smith,
who harangues them in what he considers French,
until Smith has pronounced some leading word,
like " baggage," which happens to resemble its
Russian equivalent. They then know Smith's dif-
ficulty, and hurry him forthwith to the luggage
counter, where by dint of pantomime—in *hich
Smith enacts his share with furious energy, and
the officials with persistent clearness of signs—the
number of parcels constituting the travellers
effects is ascertained. Tickets are then given to
Smith, and he is impressively urged by an imitative
gesture to put them in safety ; nay, they are some-
times thrust into his pocket. Before these tickets
are consigned to him, he is made to understand by
a holding up of fingers, and a reiteration of the
word " rouble," that he must pay as many units
of this coin as he has parcels, that is 3s. 2d. for
each parcel. He has five. He has paid his five
roubles, and he is wild with distraction, for now
his luggage has suddenly and utterly vanished. He
becomes black in the face with his exertions as a
linguist ; and it being impossible to pacify him by
any words in the whole Russian language, he is at
last bodily dragged, with every look of politeness,
across the crowded booking-office to a counter where
four clerks are writing, and one is looking over the
counter. Smith was there before ;it was there he
paid the 16 roubles for his passage ticket to Moscow.
All languages are the same to the clerk who is not
writing, and who, gently ignoring Smith's French
grievances, tranquilises him in Englfish, and ex-
plains that all his effects are safe, and that when he
reaches his destination he will receive them at once,
provided he does not lese._his countermarks in the
meantime. However, it is not even here that the
passenger may be said to transact his first business
at the station, for when he takes out his purse, and
puts down his fare, he is asked for his passport.
If he has imagined that any of the several previous
permits which have been granted to him in St.
Petersburg will serve (for each change of hotel a new
one), over and above the regular visas of his origi-
nal passport by his ambassador or consul, and then
by the police ; if he has supposed that this is suffi-
cient, he is quite mistaken. Hs is sent back for
another day. It is the inconceivable complications
of the Russian passport system, and its accessory
obligations, which more than any other unpleasant-
nesses, make travellers who have once been in the
country dread a returnto it ; and as there is nothing
which the new reign is said to be more anxious to
encourage than the influx of foreigners into Russia,
it would really and seriously be worth the while of
Government in Russia to modify the vexatious re-
quiremen ts now imposed upon the traveller. No other
country except China has, or ever had, in force forms
so numerous, so onerous, so useless, so absurd, or, in
some respects, so discreditable. But, as the sub-
ject well deserves a little chapter to itself, and
as the passport and police tribulations undergone at
St. Petersburg by a traveller bound for Moscow are
only the preliminaries of those he will undergo in
this last place, and as these are but corollaries of
the others, I reserve the whole subject till I can
give you my practical experience of it in its com-
pleteness. This I will do ere quitting Russia.
Meantime, I return to Smith. Smith has complied
with every portion of the intricate regulations ;
and, knowing this, he has not felt any of the
anxiety which made me proceed so superfluously
early (as it might seem) to the railway station.
When, therefore, in return for the production of
his money ho is asked for his Moscow passport, he
confidently draws it forth ; but the bell is ringing,
and, heavens 1 he is told that it isjgt vised. He
points to the visa of his consul, to the next visa of
the secret police, to Count Orloff s visa, to
the visa of the ps lice of his Ilkst quartier, to
that of Mie police of the quartier to which he then
removed, to that of the police in the district from
which he has last and only just come, and he de-
mands indignantly, "Do they call that not
vi.sed " The English speaking clerk has, un-
luckily, his attention engaged elsewhere for the
moment ; and it is with German that poor Smith
is being pelted now. Still he has one chance. The
clerk addresses a few words in Russ to the porter ;
the latter jabbers vehemently to Smith, and points
across the office; "Pas/mast," he cries, and
beckons Smith to follow. Ah lif our tormented
countryman's good. angel would only inspire him
to do so. The Russian porter will not despair,
and, in reply to Smith's "You be --, it is vised,
I tell you ; don't you see it is vised in 50
places." In reply to this he ventures to lay a
hand on Smith's collar gently to draw him through
the seething and fast-thickening crowd. The
spirit of a Briton is immediately roused by this
last atrocity; he has not rightly read the benevo-
lent anxiety in ithe face of the poor Mujik ; for
Smith is athletic, but not a physiognomist, any
more than a linguist. Just as he has sent his in-
solent adversary reeling against the fat Russian
merchant who is hurrying out to the platform at
the sound of the second bell, the clerk, who speaks
all languages, happens to be again disengaged, and
calls out that the visa now required is merely that
of the officer at the other side of the booking-office.
Smith rushes thither, presents his passport, has it
stamped, receives it back, struggles once more
through the crowd, and arrives at the counter
where lie should receive his passenger ticket only
to find that the time is past for its delivery. Mean-
while his luggage is in the train, which, nearly a
quarter of a mile long, is now beginning slowly to
move past the tall windows and windowed doors.
There will be no more trains that day, except a
special one for his Imperial Highness the Prince
Romanovsky and his suite.
Having been more fortunate or more careful, I
was safe in that train. Besides Earl and Countess
Granville and their suite, and the young family of
the Prince of Oldenburg, it contains the fifth or
sixth and final instalment of the Emperor s
"golden coaches." As I saw them afterwards at
the Moscow station—a part of their splendour pur-
posely and coquettishly revealed to the admiring
and wonder-stricken gaze of the loyal Muscovites
—they again impressed me as surely the most gor-
geous equipages in which a Sovereign ever rode.
But I described them minutely in my letter of the
sth instant. They are marvellously hung, and
'
each huge and ponderous mass, while rolling out
of the terminus, trembled on its delicate springs as
sensitively as the leaf of the aspen.
The Russian railway carriages are immeasurably
more comfortable than ours. Instead of so many
partitions, eacb.l9oked flo that the pasongerfi eau lot

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