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

150RUSSIAN HOSPITALITY.

preparation. Russian hospitality is so edged round with formalities as to render life unpleasant to the most favoured strangers. It is a civil pretext for restraining the movements of the traveller, and for limiting the freedom of his observations. Owing to the fastidious politeness exercised in doing the honours of the land, the observer can inspect nothing without a guide: never being alone, he has the greater difficulty informing his judgment upon his own spontaneous impressions; and this is what is desired. To enter Russia you must, with your passport, deposit also your right of opinion on the frontier. Would you see the curiosities of a palace, they give you a chamberlain, with whom you are obliged to view every thing, and, indiscriminately, to admire all that he admires. Would you survey a camp — an officer, sometimes a general officer, accompanies you: if it be an hospital, the head surgeon escorts you; a fortress, the governor, in person, shows it, or rather politely conceals it from you ; a school, or any other public institution, the director or the inspector must be previously apprised of your visit, and you find him, under arms, prepared to brave your examination; if an edifice, the architect himself leads you over the whole building, and explains to you all that you do not care to know, in order to avoid informing you on points which you would take interest in knowing.

All this oriental ceremony leads people to renounce seeing many things were it only to avoid the trouble of soliciting admissions : this is the first advantage gained ! But if curiosity is hardy enough to persist in importuning official personages, it is at least so carefully watched in its perquisitions, that they end