The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-10-09
THG WINTER | A

An immense square before the pal.
ace gives it the proper dignity of set
ting. Within, it is said, 1900 people
a dance under the blazing light crys-
tails at one time, while 1000 people can
be seated at the great dinner gather
ings. The palace is a ~reasure house
of relics, jewels and paintings. One
of the finest collections of pictures in
Russia is hung on tho palace walls,
among them numerous excellent war
pictures. Among the jewels stored
here there is a scepter with one of
the largest diamonds in Europe, 1914
carats, the great Orloff diamond. which
was originally the eye of q lion that
crouched before the throne of the
Great Mogul.
When the czar is in the vicinity of
his capital, the imperial standard
floats from the winter palace flagstaff.
Petrograd, the city made to the or
der of Peter the Great to serve as
Russia's political capital, now prob
ably at higher tension than any other
city on earth, performing, as ever, the
work necessary to the administration
of church and state over vast dis
tances, from the Gulf of Finland to the
Black sea and the far Pacific, and, be-
sides, taking car of a great war bust
ness, which. includes planning for the
defense Of more than 10000 miles of
frontier. This 10000 miles of from
tier, of course. does not take into &C
count the vaguely known northern
boundary of the empire.
~Petrograd's High Tension.
Petrograd has always been a high
tensioned city. 1t was constructed
upon islands and swamps at the be-
hest of a h~igh-tension ruler; built with
wide, straight streets upon a perfect
ly fiat country, with no s~oftening nat
ural beauty except that of its dividing
Neva, a river that has often been com.
pared to the English Thames. Even
the architecture of the city is repres-
sive, almost wholly of sternly chaste
classic Roman and Greek. And in
this city the primary business has
been that of caring for a vast empire,
embracing in its far-reaching sweep
many peoples, numerous religions, d.
verse traditions, a confusion of
tongues, and widely varying ideals.
The responsibilities of government
have held the city as tense as when
its founder, with 10000 workmen,
drained the Neva swamps and builded
overnight his capital hard upon the
lands of the Firms.
Petrograd is the greatest importing
center of the empire. A great part
of the products of Europe which find
their way to the bleak northern plain
are entered at the mouth of the Neva,
and this despite the fact that the
port is icebound five months of the
year. 1t has, too, some industry. though
it's surrounding region is not rich in
any of the raw materials of industry,
Some 100000 of its men and women
normally are employed in manufac.
ture, in the machine and iron works
in the ship yards. in the cloth fac
tories, shoe factories, and cigarette
factories, that stand on the outskirts
of the city, around the Finland sta
ton.
There is a certain stern beauty In
the capital. The broad, arrowlike
Nevsky Prospect is fully as interest
ing as any of the worlds famous thor
oughfares. 1t is a business street
some three miles long. lined with
shops of average appearance, churches
representing Greek, Protestant and
Catholic religions, bank buildings. the
public library, the Imperial theater, 9
garden, and some dark red palaces
The remarkably diversified life OF the
remarkable empire flows in a never
ending stream along this avenue.
What Did She Care?
Cleopatra dissolved the pearl.