Russian Rambles

In the days of the early princes of Kieff, the heights now occupied by the Lavra were covered with a dense growth of birch forest, and entirely uninhabited. Later on, one of the hills was occupied by the village of Berostovo, and a palace was built adjoining the tiny ancient 'Church of the Saviour in the Birch Forest,' which I have already mentioned. It was the favorite residence of Prince-Saint Vladimir, and of his son, Prince Yaroslaff, after him. During the reign of the latter, early in the eleventh century, the priest of this little church, named Ilarion, excavated for himself a tiny cave, and there passed his time in devout meditation and solitary prayer. He abandoned his cave to become Metropolitan of Kieff. In the year 1051, the monk Antony, a native of the neighboring government of Tchernigoff, came to Kieff from Mount Athos, being dissatisfied with the life led in the then existing monasteries. After long wanderings over the hills of Kieff, he took possession of Ilarion's cave, and spent his days and nights in pious exercises. The fame of his devout life soon spread abroad, and attracted to him, for his blessing, not only the common people, but persons of distinction. Monks and worldlings flocked thither to join him in his life of prayer. Among the first of these to arrive was a youth of the neighborhood, named Fedosy. Antony hesitated, but at last accepted the enthusiastic recruit.

The dimensions of holy Antony 's cave were gradually enlarged; new cells, and even a tiny church, were constructed near it. Then Antony, who disliked communal life, retreated to the height opposite, separated from his first residence by a deep ravine, and dug himself another cave, where no one interfered with him. This was the origin of the caves of Fedosy, known at the present day as the 'far catacombs,' and of the caves of Antony, called the 'near catacombs.' The number of the monks continued to increase, and they soon erected a small wooden church aboveground, in the name of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, as well as cells for those who could not be contained in the caverns. At the request of holy Antony, the prince gave the whole of the heights where the catacombs are situated to the brethren, and in 1062 a large new monastery, surrounded by a stockade, was erected on the spot where the Cathedral of the Assumption now stands. Thus was monastic life introduced into Russia.

The venerated monastery shared all the vicissitudes of the 'Mother of all Russian Cities' in the wars of the Grand Princes and the incursions of external enemies, such as Poles and Tatars. But after each disaster it waxed greater and more flourishing. Restored, after a disastrous fire in 1718, by the zeal of Peter the Great and his successors, enriched by the gifts of all classes, the Lavra now consists of six monasteries,-like a university of colleges,-four situated within the inclosure, while two are at a distance of several versts, and serve as retreats and as places of burial for the brethren. The catacombs, abandoned as residences on the construction of the cells above ground, have not escaped disasters by caving in. Drains to carry off the percolating water, and stone arches to support the soil, have been constructed, and a flourishing orchard has been planted above them to aid in holding the soil together. Earthquakes in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries permanently closed many of them, and when the Tatars attacked the town, in the thirteenth century, the monks boarded up all the niches and filled in the entrances with earth. Some of these boards were removed about a hundred years ago; some are still in place. The original extent of the caves cannot now be determined.

The entrance to the near catacombs of St. Antony is through a long wooden gallery supported on stone posts, at a sharp slope, as they are situated twenty-four fathoms below the level of the cathedral, and twenty-two fathoms above the level of the Dnyepr.

A fat merchant, with glowing black eyes and flowing, crisp, black beard, his tall, wrinkled boots barely visible beneath his long, full-skirted coat of dark blue cloth, hooked closely across his breast, descended the gallery with us. Roused to curiosity, probably, by our foreign tongue, he inquired, on the chance of our understanding Russian, whence we came.

I had already arrived at the conclusion that the people at Kieff, especially the monks and any one who breathed the atmosphere within their walls, were of an enterprising, inquisitive disposition. My last encounter had been with the brother detailed, for his good looks and fascinating manners, to preside over the chief image shop of the monastery.

'Where do you come from?' he had opened fire, with his most bewitching glance.

'From the best country on earth.'

'Is it Germany?'

The general idea among the untraveled classes in Russia is, that all of the earth which does not belong to their own Emperor belongs to Germany, just as nyemetzky means 'German' or 'foreign,' indifferently.

'No; guess again,' I said.

' France?'

'No; further away.'

' England, then?'

'No.'

' Hungary?'

Evidently that man's geography was somewhat mixed, so I told him.

' America!' he exclaimed, with great vivacity. 'Yes, indeed, it is the best land of all. It is the richest!'

So that is the monastic as well as the secular standard of worth! This experience, repeated frequently and nearly word for word, had begun to weary me. Consequently I led the fat merchant a verbal chase, and baffled him until he capitulated with, 'Excuse me. Take no offense, I beg, sudarynya. I only asked so by chance.' Then I told him with the same result.

This was not the last time, by many, that I was put through my national catechism in Kieff. Every Kievlyanin to whom I spoke quizzed me. Of course I was on a grand quizzing tour myself, but that was different, in some way.

Over the entrance to these catacombs stands a church. The walls of the vestibule where my mother, the merchant, and I waited for a sufficient party to assemble, were covered with frescoes representing the passage of the soul through the various stages of purgatory. Beginning with the death scene (which greatly resembled the ikona of the Assumption in the cathedral) in the lower left-hand corner, the white-robed soul, escorted by two angels, passed through all the halting-places for the various sins, each represented by the appointed devil, duly labeled. But the artist's fancy had not been very fruitful on this fascinating theme. The devils were so exactly alike that the only moral one could draw was, that he might as well commit the biggest and most profitable sin on the list, and make something out of it in this life, as to confine himself to the petty peccadilloes which profit not here, and get well punished hereafter. The series ended with the presentation of the soul before the judgment seat, on the fortieth day after death. Round the corner, Lazarus reclining in Abraham's bosom and the rich man in the flames were conversing, their remarks crossing each other in mid-air, in a novel fashion.

When the guide was ready, each of us bought a taper, and the procession set out through the iron grating, down a narrow, winding stair, from which low, dark passages opened out at various angles. On each side of these narrow passages, along which we were led, reposed the 'incorruptible' bodies of St. Antony and his comrades, in open coffins lacquered or covered with sheets of silver. The bodies seemed very small, and all of one size, and they were wrapped in hideous prints or plaid silks. At the head of each saint flickered a tiny shrine-lamp, before a holy picture (ikona) of the occupant of the coffin. It was a surprise to find the giant Ilya of Murom, who figures as the chief of the bogatyri (heroes) in the Russian epic songs, ensconced here among the saints, and no larger than they. Next to the silk-enveloped head of St. John the Great Sufferer, which still projects as in life, when he buried himself to the neck in the earth,-as though he were not sufficiently underground already,-in order to preserve his purity, the most gruesome sight which we beheld in those dim catacombs was a group of chrism-exuding skulls of unknown saints, under glass bells.

On emerging from this gloomy retreat, we postponed meditating upon the special pleasure which the Lord was supposed to have taken in seeing beings made to live aboveground turning into troglodytes, and set out for the Fedosy, or far catacombs, in the hope that they might assist us in solving that problem.

We chose the most difficult way, descending into the intervening ravine by innumerable steps to view the two sacred wells, only to have our raging thirst and our curiosity effectually quenched by the sight of a pilgrim thrusting his head, covered with long, matted hair, into one of them. The ascent of more innumerable steps brought us to the cradle of the monastery, Ilarion's caverns.

In the antechamber we found a phenomenally stupid monk presiding over the sale of the indispensable tapers, and the offerings which the devout are expected to deposit, on emerging, as a memento of their visit. These offerings lay like mountains of copper before him. The guide had taken himself off somewhere, and the monk