Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

ARCHITECTS OF PETERSBURG. 301

lancholy people, or they could never have found the means of giving an original and picturesque aspect to cities built by men entirely destitute of imagination: and this in the most flat, dull, naked and monotonous region in the earth. Nevertheless, if I eoiúd describe Petersburg as I see it, I should draw a picture in every line ; so strikingly has the genius of the Slavonian race reacted against the sterile mania of its government. This anti-national government advances only by military evolutions : it reminds one of Prussia under its first king.

I have been describing a city without character, rather pompous than imposing, more vast than beautiful, and full of edifices without style, taste, or historic interest. But to make the picture complete, that is, faithful, I should have inserted the figures of men naturally graceful, and who, with their oriental genius, have adapted themselves to a city built by a people which exist no where, for Petersburg has been constructed by wealthy men, whose minds were formed by comparing, without deep study, the different countries of Europe. This legion of travellers, more or less refined, and rather skilful than learned, formed an artificial nation, a community of intelligent and clever characters, recruited from among all the nations of the world. They did not constitute the Russian people. These are roguish as the slave, who consoles himself by privately ridiculing his master ; superstitious, boastful, brave and idle as the soldier; poetical, musical, and contemplative as the shepherd; for the habits of a nomade people for a long time prevailed among the Slavonians. All this is in keeping neither with the style of the architecture nor