Worcester morning daily spy. (Worcester, Mass.) 1888-1898, 1898-03-17
PETER THE GREATS MEMORY
(From Black and White.)


Peter has become almost a cult in
Russia. Go to his cottage on the banks
of the Neva on a Russian holiday, and
you will have to fall in queue and
squeeze your way into his little rooms,
ostensibly to kiss a holy picture, but this
holy picture is mixed up in the Rus
slams mind with Peter the Great. The
nloujik looks around on the little home
Peter built for himself on the Neva
, marshes as though he looked on the rel
les of a saint. Peter was essentially
man of action-an artisan of genius,
as his handiwork and the tools he used
prove; yet born commander, restless,
ruthless. When near the site of his
future st. Petersburg, he saw a tree
scored with a mark high above the
ground, he asked of the peasants near:
What is that?''
THE height to which the waters rose
in $780," replied peasant.
you lieP' cried Peter He cut the
tree down. He was not to be deferred
by the fact that floods had swept over
his chosen site, and his masterfulness is
today felt by the Russians until they
have nearly made a god of him 1t is
impossible now to see the exterior of
Peters cottage on the Neva's banks. for
stone house was built by Catherine III
over 1t as she'll to preserve this little
wooden cottage, and so the outward APP
pearance is gone. Inside this stone
building you see the wooden building.
but this has very foolshly lately been
painted to initiate bricks; but inside you
can see in one room the type of place
Peter lived and worked in Here in
this little room-there are but two in
the cottage-are the oak furniture. old
leather chairs, a little cooking service
some of the sails of his boat, and the
worn little wooden bench seat on
which he sat at his door and dreamed
of the future capital, or raved at those
who carried out his orders or failed to
do so. In this room he transacted bust
ness with his ministers of state and re-
ceiyed foreign ambassadors.
The very greatness Of the man forces
itself upon one by this act alone. He,
the car, with all the jewelIed group Of
the Kremlin to enshroud himself with,
sitting on this bench, or in his timber
hut, and creating a power that in less
than two centuries was to rule half the
world. The other room of the cottage is
also greatly transformed; it was Peters
sleeping and dining room; now it is
chapel, and a picture of our savior
which Peter took with him upon all his
travels, and which he bore with him at
the famous battle of Poltava, hangs
here. 1t is in gilt frame with a Jew
towns, quite overshadows the picture
Not long ago / went out to this cot
tage on Russian saints day, and serv-
ice was being performed in the chapel.
A small choir of men in ordinary dress
were squeezed in behind the little altar,
and a priest in robes was chanting the
service. The people were packed fatly
together in the room and outside around
the door and under the passage of the
outer building that protects the cottage.
Some tried to get others to pass in
lighted candles to place before the pic
ture, and others crushed and squeezed
until some moving on gave chance to
get in. All devoutly blessed the picture
and crossed themselves continuously,
and when they got out went with reve-
rental air and looked at Peters room
and the boat he built, this latter placed
between his cottage and the outer build
ing. The heat in the little chapel, with
the lighted candles and the packed little
mass Of not too clean humanity, was
excessive, and the perspira ton stood out
on the faces of priests and choir, who
went about their work in a quiet, bust
ness-llke fashion; but the devotion of
the crowd to a memory, to a something
they themselves perchance could not ex-
PLAIN, was very apparent.
Ostenslbly 1T was the holy picture, but
1t is the link between the picture and
Peter that gives it so much value and
makes it 50 revered.
This Peter who built st. Petersburg
gave Russia a port and a navy and
started her on her mountaineering
career. The fierce, remorseless. indomit-
able restlessness of the man and his
crimes are forgotten; all the bloodshed
he caused in Selling upon the sole rule
and in his ill-planned campaigns-even
the one great terrible crime of the muir
der of his own son Alexis, which rumor
and tradition lay to his charge-alI is
forgotten in the memory of the man
who by that same indomitable will and
force of character started Russia on her
aggrandizing career. Everything that is
associated with him, his clothes, his
trappings, his jewels, the tools with
which he worked, his writings, his
books. everything is treasured up and
looked upon with such reverence by the
Russians that even strangers begin to
| feel they are in the presence of relics of
man of men. The common folk may
well be excused for so crowding to the
little house where he lived and worked
almost as they live and work. and to
passionately generating the holy pic
| ture that receives their worship of the
| fouuder- of Petersburg