From Paris to Pekin over Siberian Snows. Victor Meignan

Table of Contents

      The Kremlin—Equipage and visits of the Virgin of Inverski—Origin of Christianity in Russia—A few words about Troïtsa—A travelling companion—Purchase of furs—Passage of the Oka in a sledge—Feeling of terror on first travelling in a sledge over a frozen river.

      I cannot better compare the disposition of the streets of Moscow than with that of the series of concentric threads in a cobweb. Straight streets parting from the Kremlin, as a common centre, intersect all the circular arteries, in such a way, that it is impossible to lose one’s self in the city, notwithstanding its immensity.

      Each Russian city has its kremlin. It is an enclosure that contains generally a fortress, a residence for the Emperor, and one or many churches. The Kremlin of Moscow is much celebrated on account of its vastness, its historical souvenirs, and the wealth of its sanctuaries. It is relatively modern, having been rebuilt since the conflagration of 1812. One may still visit a little relic of the old building. It would be difficult to say to what style it belongs; there may be found there a mixture of many of the Asiatic varieties, between the Byzantine and those of the extreme East. Walls of extraordinary thickness; a series of little chambers, vaulted or rising in a point; narrow windows, permitting only the penetration of a mysterious light, sifted through stained glass; low doors surmounted with a Moorish arch; walls, gilt from the ceiling to the floor, on which are drawn figures of saints, having only the head and hands painted or enamelled; here and there Chinese monsters; doors opening occasionally to the height of the first story, and consequently suspended stairs to pass from one floor to another—this is the ancient Kremlin. One wonders, on roving through this intricate labyrinth, whether he is in an oratory or a salon, in a place of amusement or in a torture chamber of the Inquisition. The new dwelling of the emperors is quite different. Although of very doubtful taste, it is at least in harmony, on account of its vastness, with the empire of which it is the seat. Space has not been spared. The hall of the throne is quite a steppe to traverse. Its dimensions are monstrous. What was my astonishment on finding there several statues and portraits of the Great Napoleon! The Russians, far from bearing any enmity towards our military hero, like to render homage to his glory. To admire thus genius, wherever it may be found, even when the admirer has been the victim, is at least the mark of a liberal mind and high sentiments.

      I had finished my first visit to the Kremlin, and, muffled and wrapped in furs, I was being comfortably driven to my hotel, musing carelessly on the way, when my coachman suddenly turned round, and with a silly smile, lifted my fur cap, and at the same time raised his own. Obtaining no intelligible explanation, through my ignorance of the language, I fancied myself the object of some practical joke in which coachmen indulge, and, consequently, being unable to rate him well as he deserved, I subdued my rage and smiled also. I demanded my cap, however, by gestures, to which he responded with three bows, as many signs of the cross, and sanctimoniously smiled again. I was just going to recover my property by force, when I perceived we were under the Spasskoï gateway, and that every one was bareheaded.

      The proceeding was now intelligible: this gate is surmounted with the picture of the Virgin of Inverski, the favourite virgin of the Muscovites, the miraculous virgin whose supernatural power had been equal to arresting the conflagration of the Kremlin—the conflagration lighted by Rostopchine, a personage much less popular in Russia than Bonaparte.

      Nobody, therefore, should pass the Spasskoï gate without lifting his hat. Old men relate that a violent wind forced even the great French conqueror to submit to this law when he intended to pass it unobserved.

      The Virgin of Inverski is invoked by everybody; still she does not make herself so cheap to everybody, for a widely spread custom consists in vicarious visits by representations.

      In order to obtain miraculous cures, they send for the Virgin of the Assumption, and more special favours, for the Virgin of Vladimir; and when one goes on a long journey, he generally prefers a facsimile of the Virgin of Kazan. But extraordinary circumstances must exist to demand a visit from the Virgin of Inverski.

      When the metropolitan considers that a family is worthy of such an honour, four monks and two dignitaries of the Church proceed to the Spasskoï gate in a carriage with six horses. Every spectator bows low and makes the sign of the cross as the picture is lowered from its accustomed place, and prostrates himself completely, in spite of the snow and frost, at the moment it is installed in the bottom of the carriage; the two priests then place themselves on the box in front, the monks act as drivers and footmen, and thus they proceed to the privileged house, whose members do not receive the honour of such a visit without very liberal offerings.

      CARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN OF INVERSKI.

      The individual ritual practices in the streets, on the promenade, and everywhere, and at all hours, constitute certainly some of the special characteristics of Moscow. One meets at every step people kneeling and reciting prayers, though nothing apparently calls for the devotion. The worship of pictorial representations is exaggerated almost to idolatry even by the more enlightened portion of the community. But then the higher class, though almost wholly Nihilistic, condescends to observe these popular forms on the one hand, merely through a servile deference to the authority of the Emperor, and on the other, an unwillingness to reproach by neglect the superstition of the lower class.

      The orthodox religion is well known to be a faithful reproduction of the old Greek worship of Constantinople. About the year 1000, the chief of the horde that was then to become the embryo of the Russian nation—a thorough barbarian in daring and cruelty, in brute force and ungovernable impetuosity—constituted himself the promulgator of the Greek religion in the country subject to his rule.

      This Vladimir—such was his name—hurled defiance at all the neighbouring peoples, and subjected to his will nearly the whole of the actual limits of European Russia. He is alleged to have had—if certain fabulous chronicles may be trusted—five legitimate wives, eight hundred concubines, and a multitude of children, whom he sacrificed to the gods. But just at the moment he was about to sacrifice his first wife, the partner even of his throne, he was seized with remorse.

      Intent on forming into an entire nation all the hordes he had conquered, he nevertheless understood that this could only be accomplished by means of a national religion. With this object in view, he sent ambassadors into different countries, in order to study their respective religions, and these from their reports enabled him to choose which seemed to him the best. Mahomedanism is said to have displeased him, because the Koran forbade the use of wine, a precept that would not have favoured his indulgence in this habit. Romanism was rejected on account of the celibacy of the priesthood, and especially on account of the obedience it would exact towards an authority other than his own. Judaism, a religion without national coherence, was not favourable to his project of becoming the founder of a homogenous and solid empire. The Greek worship, however, imposed on his barbarian mind by the magnificence of its ritual; he therefore adopted it, and Russia became a Christian nation of the Eastern Church.

Though its dogmas differ but little from those of the Romish Church, the Russians have inherited the old hatred of the Greeks towards the Romans. They would willingly put into practice the ancient injunction of the Byzantine bishops at the time of the expedition of Frederick against Jerusalem:—“To obtain the remission of sins, the pilgrims must be massacred and exterminated from the face of the earth.”2

2 Michaud.

      They derive also from the devotees of the ancient Church their idolatry, for the indulgence in which these sacrificed their lives. They are the true disciples of those Byzantines who, at the time of the Latin conquest, overthrew with rage a statue of Minerva, upbraiding her with having called hither the barbarians, because she looked towards the west with outstretched arms.

      During my stay at Moscow, I visited the monastery of Troïtsa, near this city. This monastery was founded by St. Sergius in 1338. It would be more