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

34ORIENTAL ASPECT OP MOSCOW.

CHAP. XXVIII.

ORIENTAL ASPECT OF MOSCOW.HORACE VERNET.WANT OF

SUPERIOR WORKS OF ART.RUSSIAN FICKLENESS.SILK MANU

FACTORIES. APPEARANCES OF LIBERTY.RAILROADS. ENG

LISH CLUBRUSSIAN PIETY.CHURCH AND STATE IN ENGLAND.

—DEVOTEES AND STATESMEN. ERROR OF THE LIBERALS IN

REJECTING CATHOLICISM. FRENCH POLICY. NEWSPAPER GO

VERNMENT. THE GRECO-RUSSIAN CHURCH. ITS SECTS, AND

THEIR ORIGIN. POLYGAMY. — MERCHANTS OF MOSCOW. A

RUSSIAN FAIR. RURAL SCENERY IN MOSCOW.DRUNKENNESS

AMONG THE RUSSIANS. HIDDEN POETRYSONG OF THE DON

COSSACKS.THE MUSIC OF NORTHERN NATIONS.THE COSSACKS.

THEIR CHARACTER.INFLUENCE UNDER WHICH THEY FIGHT.

—POLITICAL SUBTERFUGES. A POLISH FABLE.

Moscow is about the only mountainous district in the centre of Russia. Not that this word is to sug-gest the idea of Switzerland or Italy : the soil is full of inequalities, and that is all. But the contrast presented by these hills, rising in the middle of an expanse, where both the eye and the thoughts lose themselves as on the savannahs of America or the steppes of Asia, produces an effect that is very strik-in<>`. Moscow is the city of panoramas. With its commanding sites and its grotesque edifices, which might serve as models for the fantastic compositions of Martin, it recalls the idea which we form, without knowing why, of Perscpolis, Bagdad, Babylon, or Palmyra,—romantic capitals of fabulous lands, whose history is a poem, and whose architecture is a dream.