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

two arches ; it separates the Avails of the Kremlin, properly so called, from their continuation, which serves as a girdle to Kitaigorod, the city of the merchants, another quarter of old Moscow, founded by the mother of the Czar, John Vassilieviteh, in 1534. This date appears to us recent, but it is ancient for Russia, the youngest of the European realms.

The Kitaigorod, a species of suburb to the Kremlin, is an immense bazaar, a town intersected with dark and vaulted alleys, which resemble so many sub-terranes. These catacombs of the merchants foi`m no cenietries, but a permanent fair. They are a labyrinth of galleries, that rather resemble the arcades of Paris, although less elegant, less light, and more solid. This mode of building is essential to the wants of commerce under the climate: in the north, covered street* remedy, as far as it is possible, the inconveniences and severity of the open air. Sellers and buyers are there sheltered from the storm, the snow, and the frost; whereas light colonnades, open to the day, and airy porticoes have an aspect that is ridiculous. Russian architects ought to take the moles and the ants for their models.

At every step that you take in Moscow you find some chapel highly venerated by the people, and saluted by each passenger. These chapels, or niches, generally contain some image of the Virgin kept under glass, and honoured with a lamp that burns unceasingly. Such shrines arc guarded by some old soldier. These veterans are to be met with in the antechambers of the rich, and in the churches, which they keep in order. The life of an old Russian soldier, if he could not obtain an asylum among the