The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-09-08
Landing in St. Petersburg.
(From Chambers JournaL)

But let US suppose that you are arriving,
| stranger and friendless. at the station IN
ST petersburg; your best course Is now 70
| look out for the comul;ssiona.re of one OF
| the hotels, give him your iuggage-ticket,
| and engage an isvischick to take you TO
the hotel you have chosen This may be
either the Hotel Angleterre. which IS a
! good one and not so expensive as the De-
| mouth. or the Grand or the Europe or the
France, though all these are also excel
| lent. You Will find strange group of men
congregated without the station door.
| dressed in long, shabby kaftans. which are
| cross between dressing-gown and an
ulster. but favor.ng the dressing gown;
| these are the isvosch;cks. and the clamor-
| ing with which they assail your ears you
| stand aghast and listen 10 their excited
ordinations, is the expression of their de-
! sire to convey you to your destination
| Stand not, now, upon the order Of your
going, but go at once; do not pause, but Sc
lect one, or you viii be torn in pieces by
the rest, or your clothes will, so great Is
the longing of each TO receive your Gus
som; jump into the nearest droshky and
say Hotel Angleterre." or hotel anything
else, and then-weIl, then sit tight and
hold on. If you can, There is not much
TO hold on to, certainly: but grip what you
offers, or you are lost man. If you sur
vive that first drive and reach the hotel in
safety you may be quite sure that you
have passed through the most disturbing
experience, physically speaking, which you
are likely TO be called on to endure upon
this planet.
1t is part Of the game to visit each hole
in the street in succession: and as for the
driver skirt.ng them, he Is not in posi-
ton to do anything of the sort. for he is
fast asleep, and the little animal between
the shafts has your interests IN hand from
the first moment of your departure until
that Of your arrival al your destination.
The isvoschick is on the box. certainly, but
IL he Is not asleep. he Is sitting round in
his place conversing affably with his fare.
In your case he will sleep. of course, be
cause he knows you are a newly arrived
Englishman and cannot entertain him with
conversation. In any case, his share OF
the duty Of driving you to the hotel begins
and ends in his holding of the re:ns; the
horse does all the rest, and you may trust
him to do it fairly well on the whole; only
you must leave to his judgment the matter
of selecting the holes he prefers to drop
you into on the way, and also how far he
desires to run in order 10 reach your ulti
nate destination. AS rule, he VIII visit
all the holes he can see. for he dearly en-
joys the fun of himself avoiding an abyss,
but deftly steering the right or left wheel
of the droshky into it; and after all this Is
the poor creatures only relaxation from
his really arduous and responsible duties.
AS to the distance to any particular point,
that depends a good deal upon chance for
your horse will follow the droshky next IN
front of him. and if that happens to be
-. - H..
posite to your own, you are likely to be
taken a good bit out of your way. But this |
need not discourage or discomfort you
there's no hurry in Russia; our word ''in- I,
stantly' is translated by them into this !
hour" which reflects with great accuracy |
the usual happy1go-lucky condition of the |,
Russian mind. Nothing need be done I'M |
der an hour, not even drive of a couple |
of hundred yards.
Your driver will wake up presently and |
look about him; then he will see that he |
has gone a little astray, and will scratch |
his head and pull the pony round and grunt |
and fall asleep again, and the |
horse will have another shot at reaching |
the desired destination by following Sec |
ond droshky, and so on. You need not |
worry about it; keep an even mind, and |
you will eventually arrive at the hotel, I'M
less you are ShOl out INTO the road and 1
run over by a lihatch before you have |
time TO get out of his way. A lihatch Is |
also an isvoschick, but of very different |
class; he is paid about five times as much |
and goes more than five times as fast; he |
knows where ne wants 10 get TO, and
never falls asleep. neither does he drive
you in and out of the holes in the road;
ne is fairly clean and smart for a Rus
sian, and his droshky is an infinitely supe-
rior article, for 1t is provided with springs !
which are not tied up with cords and with
4 cushion which does not necessarily cause |
is occupier to revile that destiny which
brought him into a planet wherein the
cushions are stuffed with jagged bits OF
paving -stone and old iron. Well, well: d la
yuerre, CONNIE a 10 guerre; If we go 10
Russia We must not be too particular as to
being bumped about in droshkies; il Is
painful, no doubt, TO be shot up skywarH
md TO aEght on the low bulwark of tho
lroshky seat, but those who object 10 the
irving had better walk-and there's an
nd Of the matter. My advice 10 the tour
ST is to walk whenever he can. Our En-
fish bones are not adapted to Russian
irving; they will not do at all; they are
'seful 10 US at home, and we risk TOO
many OF them in gaining an experience |
f the Russian droshky; therefore let US
e content TO wear out our boots and at |
he same time 10 preserve our bones for
sc when We return to England.