Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-01-02
MOSCOW AS IT IS TODAY
Scene of Many Bloody Clashes In
Russia is Full of sharp
Contrasts.

With Moscow now the center of unrest In
Russia, the following description of the
ancient capital, written by tourist who
mas recently returned from that country
is of great interest.
MOSCOW stands on the edge of the most
monotonous and unovey portion of the
vast central plain Of Europe that stretches
from Holland to the Trails. In the Sill miles
of railway from Warsaw there is not sim
gle tunnel and scarcely low cutting.
The entrance to the city from the strag-
Cling western suburbs is not impressive:
but just now the snow is over the noisy
cobbe stones of the street and square, and
the roofs, green, red and blue show up in
bright patches of color, the dominant note
of this strange mixture of cast and west,
of the modern with the ancient world,
which is in reality only vast Tartar VIII
lage grown into an irregular metropolis OF
Slav and Asatic, rich and poor, palaces and
booths, and bewildering eccentricities Of
every form of architecture, the whole with
diameter of nine miles circumference
OF nearly thirty and a population of more
than a million and a half of whom no less
than 5000 have to be lodged underground.
Full is Moscow of sharp contrasts.
both in color and in form, of a strange
plEdITtIlt VI pItNtuNlOus tNNldNdbdHSd
cheek by jowl with stumbling novels, OF
fantastic palaces and weirdly grotesque
churches, it reminds you of some vast I'M
iversal exposition to which every city OF
the world has sent it's own characteristic
building. This doesn't mean that Moscow
is Cosmopolitan" Far from it; for II is
the very essence and center of ancient Rus
sia but it shows how many types have
gone to the making of 1t. and how versa
tile and adaptable have been its artists in
borrowing from Greece Italy and Byzan-
tium, from Mongol, Goth and Moor.
So multitudinous have been these borrow
ings that nature has had less to say of
Moscow than of any other town. The per-
petually varying results of human intclli-
gence are visible everywhere; and above it
the deep chord that sounds through all. as
the Kremlin bells sound through the city.
is the strong-seated, ineradicable feeling Of
religion.
OF the first Moscow that Yuri Dolgo-
roki founded on the hill that was to bear
the Kremlin, nothing is left save the
churches lin the wood" which recall the
forests round the little town of 1856 A
Tartar invasion wiped It out, and again
they destroyed the Cathedral of the Arch
angel which Michael of Novgorod built
tenth century. those famous slopes were
first surrounded with a wall of oak, and
when Dmitri Donskoi died in 1888 Moscow
was the largest and most thriving of the
states In the northeast of Russia. and stone
replaced oak in the great Kremlin walls.
1t was by Ivan III who succeeded in
1862, that the great two-headed eagle was
taken as the arms OF his country. and its
early form may still be seen on the wall of
Granovitaia palace. in the Kremlin. The
st. George and Dragon-which was the de-
vice of it's founder, Yuri-became the city
arms.
Ivan the Terrible came to power in his
| eighth year, I'm 1888, and ten years after
ward he took the name OF car. II was
an ill-omened association for the begin
| ming of that historic title, for never. since
Carcalla, had lived a man who deserved
/ so thoroughly the title OF THE scourge OF
the world" BY him was formed the body
guard of the dread "opritchniki. the picked
brayoes who carried bludgeons carved with
dogs head and did their masters will
| and their own throughout the city.
| The insensate cruelty, the more than
barbaric tortures, the fiendish delight in
/ pain which characterized Ivan the Terrible
| need not be here detailed.
In the Vasli Blajenni St. Basil the
/ Martyr. the amazing church in the Grand
! palace, or Red square, the visitor TO mod
ern Moscow may see his most appropriate
| monument. mixture OF Gothic Moorish,
: Indian. Byzantine art--a senseless conglorn-
: Grafton Of conflicting styles that loses it-
beauty IN its reckless effort to be original
Each Of the roofs Of its nine chapels are
different.
The towers and cupolas are in bewilder-
ing disorder. some cut with large facets,
others bristling Ike hedgehog's back,
! third like pineapple, a fourth copied
from a melon. fifth IN spiral folds, a
I sixth in followed channels-all crowned
by a "Russo-Gothic" spire entirely unlike
Z the rest.-Philadelphia Press.
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