Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-11-21
IN THE CARS COMMONS.
WHAT COUNTRY LIFE IN RUss1a
REALLY IS.

visit to n NObieman's Residence-The
e. Mansions SurrOundings-EOW the
Peasants on the Estate Live.
The remark that che knows only st.
Petersburg and Moscow has not seen
Russia, was accentuated in my exper-
fence, when, on my way to Central Asia,
accepted an invitation to nobleman's
seat in the Russian interior, writes cor
respondent of the London Times. Pre-
vious journeys to the extremities of the
empire has brought me in contact with
diverse races along the high roads, but
l was anxious to see what the peasant
was like, not when shouting "Long life
to the Car under the walls of the
Kremlin, but when buried at home, out
of reach of steamer and railway whistle,
and miles away from post road, tele
graph station or post office. With in
terest, therefore, after driving over dusty
roads the whole of summer night, |
found myself in the early morning APP
preaching my destination. "You must
not expect to find anything peculiarly
Russian about the house." my friends
had said ''for it is a new structure, of
Elizabethan architecture" And so from
the outside it was. One might have fam
Cied it Kentish mansion, purchased for
$50, 200 and set down IN the middle of a
Russian estate.
The interior of the house was some
what more adapted to Muscovite ideas in
that the rooms opened one into the oth=
er, and the sleeping apartments of the
family could be cut off from the rest.
The materials of the house had been OBJ
tanned for the most part on the spot.
The bricks were burnt on the estate, and
the handsome carving and wainscoting
of the hall were of indigenous timber.
Some of the ornamentation, however, was
from abroad. The panels on the draw
ing-room walls were filled with immense
Italian paintings, and the room of my
hostess was hung with large photographs
of the masterpieces of Raphael.
In keeping with this was the intel
lectual culture of the family. English
was spoken by parents and children all
day long, and French, German and Rus
sian when required. In the morning we
read, wrote and took horse exercise, and
in the evening were enlivened with
classical music, after which it was but a
step out of the drawing-room doors on to
the spacious terrace to look in the gloam-
ing over one of those vast Russian plains,
which can hardly be called beautiful, but
which are striking to an Englishman by
reason of their vastness and unlikeness
to anything he sees at home. The
mansion was built on a hill at the foot of
which river meandered, containing
trout and perch; and intervening were
terraced lawns and grounds, covered in
their seasons with homely buttercups
and daisies as well as forget-me-nots,
wild roses and lilies of the valley. The
grounds were planted, not indeed, with
Conifers Gor there are none on the
estate), but with tall poplars and sturdy
oaks up to two feet in diameter, clusters
of plant willows and graceful birch, to-
gether with lime, beech and elm. These
trees are a refuge for the cuckoo, thrush
and nightingale, while little further off
in the forests are to be found, among
birds, rocks and crows, ravens, hawks
and eagles, and among animals, hares,
foxes and wolves.
But it was not the mansion that inter-
ested me so much as its surroundings.
The estate consisted of about 25, 900
acres, of which Gne-fifth is forest and
one-twentieth pasture, the soil varying
between good black earth, loan, sand,
loan and sand with clay beneath, and in
some parts of all clay. 1t furnishes no
building stone but plenty of alabasteI,
which remains, however, unworked.
Growing wild were to be found horse
radish, raspberries, strawberries, black
currants and fruit called rebina; while
on the cultivated lands wheat was
said to thrive (but not barley, and buck
wheat, rye, oats, peas, flax and hemp
Beans too are grown in gardens, and TO-
bacCo. inquired, of course, the cost Of
this produce, and found that on the spot,
for the pood of thirty-six English
pounds, wheat and buckwheat sold for
2s., rye, Is 3d.; oats, Is. 3D., potatoes,
I'd. bushel, and hay from 25d. to i'd.
the pood, this last being of tolerable
quality, but not comparable to English
fodder. Ordinary land yields from
twenty-five to thirty-fve pools of hay
an acre, and the better sort from fifty to
seventy pools, with sometimes a second
crop.
The estate was inhabited by about
1000 families, living in wooden, matched
houses, usually of two rooms only, built
often of willow, of which log thirty
feet long and ten inches in diameter
costs a couple of shillings, the outer bark
of the tree used for roofing and the inner
bark for mating and ropes. The houses
were furnished only scantily. Twenty
in the home village might each perhaps
possess bed, but not one of them bed
and bedstead, too. 1t was common,
however, for family to possess a COW,
one or more horses, and three or four
sheep; a good specimen of the last
weighing forty to fifty pounds, and its
wool selling from Al to sd. per pound.
The food of the peasants was extremely
simple, consisting of rye bread and
stchee, or soup of cabbage and fat i;
soaked and boiled buckwheat eaten with
hempseed oil; mushrooms, curds and
onions. For drink they consumed kvas
(small beer made from rye bread) and
here and there tea, though this latter has
not become general among them. Beef
was delicacy and cost I'd, per pound
mutton I'D, and pork Old. Chickens
sold from 24d. to 4d. each, ducks from
Sd, geese for 20d., while extravaganza
persons Toasted on turkeys at Is. each.
The clothing of the peasantry was in
keeping with their food. A mans sum
mer suit consists of cotton shirt, a
pair of linen trousers and shoes of lime.
tree bark, the last costing cd. per pair.
If peasant aspircs to high boots they
cost him from 12s to 14s, and he pays
about the same price for his homespun