The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-06-14
4 Russian Hallway Station.

The following description of a rail-
way station in the Ural Mountains is
taken from George kennan' s illustrated
account of his trip across the Russian
frontier, in the Century. 1t will be
read with surprise and peculiar inter-
est by many in America, the railway
country: We We're greatly sur
prised to find in this wild mining
region of the Ural. and on the very re-
motest frontier of European Russia,
railroad so well built, perfectly
equipped, and luXuriously appointed,
as the road over which we were travel
ing from Perm to Ekaterineburg. The
stations were the very best we had
seen in Russia; the road-bed was solid
and well baliasted; the rolling stock
would not have suffered in comparison
with that of the best lines in the empire:
and the whole railroad property seemed
to be in the most perfect possible
order. Unusual attention evidently
had been paid to the ornamentation of
the grounds lying adjacent to the
stations and the track. Even the
yerst-pOsts We're set in neatly fitted
mosaics three or four feet in diameter
of colored Ural stones The station of
NiZhni Tagli, on the Asiatic slope of
the mountains, where we stopped half
an hour for dinner, would have been
in the highest degree creditable to the
best railroad in the United States. The
substantial station building which was
hundred feet or more in length, with
a covered platform twenty feet wide
extending along the whole front, was
H., u. 4
and had red sheet-iron roof. Itstood
in the middle of a large, artistically
planned park or garden, whose smooth,
yelvety greensward was broken by
beds of blossoming flowers and shaded
by the feathery foliage Of graceful
Whitc-stemmcd birches; whose wind
ing walks were bordered by neatly
trimmed hedges; and whose air was
filled with the perfume of wild roses
and the murmuring splash of falling
water from the slender Jet of a sparkling
fountain. The dining-room of the
station had floor of polished oak in
laid in geometrical patterns, high
dado Of dark carved wood, walls COW
cred with Oak-grazn paper, anda stucco
cornice in relief. Down the center of
the room ran long dining-table,
beautifully set with tasteful china
snowy napkins, high glass epergnes,
and crystal candelabla. and ornament
ed with pOtted plants, little cedar
trees in green tubs, bouquets of cut
tloWers. artistic pyramids of posshed
wine-bottles, druggists jars of c6lored
water, and an aquarium full of fish,
plants, and artificial rock-Work. The
chairs around the table were of dark
hard wood claborately turned and
carved; at one end of the room was a
costly clock rs large as an American
jewelers. ''rc@ulator," and at the other
end stood a huge bronzed oven by
which the apartment was warmed in
winter. The walters were all in eve
ming dress, with low-cut waist
coats, spOtless shirt-fronts, and white
ties and the cooks, who filled the
walters orders as in an English grill
room, were dressed from head to foot
in white linen and wore square white
caps. 1t is not an eXaggcration to say
that this was one of the neatest, most
tastcfully furnished, and most attrac-
tive public dinin@-rooms that | ever
saw in any part OF the world; and as |
sat there eatinga Wcll-cooked and we'll
served dinner Of four courses, | found
it utterly impossible to realize that |
was in the unheard-of mining settle
ment of Mimi Tagil, on the Asatic
side of the mountains of the Ural.
This, however, was our last glimpse of
civilized luxury for many long, weary,
months, and after that day we did not
see railway station for nearlya year.