Russian Rambles

wherever he pleases.'

Nowadays, it is advisable to be vulgar and know the geography of Moscow, if one is really enjoying it independently. It is a trifle less complicated than the geography of the Balkan Principalities, and, unlike that of the Balkan Principalities, it has its humorous side, which affords alleviation. The Moscow cabby has now, as in the time of Mrs. Booby, the reputation of being a very hard customer to deal with. He is not often so ingenuous, even in appearance, as the man who drove close to the sidewalk and entreated our custom by warbling, sweetly: 'We must have work or we can't have bread.' He is only to be dreaded, however, if one be genteelly ignorant, after Mrs. Booby's plan. I cannot say that I ever had any difficulty in finding any place I wanted, either with the aid (or hindrance) of an izvostchik, or on foot, in Moscow or other Russian towns. But for this and other similar reasons I acquired a nickname among the natives,-molodyetz, that is to say, a dashing, enterprising young fellow, the feminine form of the word being nonexistent. A Russian view of the matter is amusing, however.

'I never saw such a town in which to hunt up any one,' said a St. Petersburg man in Moscow to me. 'They give you an address: 'Such and such a street, such a house.' For instance, ' Green Street, house of Mr. Black.' You go. First you get hold of the street in general, and discover that the special name applies only to one block or so, two or three versts away from the part where you chance to have landed. Moscow is even more a city of magnificent distances, you know, than St. Petersburg. Next you discover that there is no 'house of Mr. Black.' Mr. Black died, respected and beloved, God be with him! a hundred years ago or less, and the house has changed owners three times since. So far, it is tolerably plain sailing. Then it appears that the house you are in search of is not in the street at all, but tucked in behind it, on a parallel lane, round several corners and elbows.' (I will explain, in parenthesis, that the old system of designating a house by the name of the owner, which prevailed before the introduction of numbers, still survives extensively, even in Petersburg.)

'The next time you set out on a search expedition,' continued my informant, after a cup of tea and a cigarette to subdue his emotions, 'you insist on having the number of the house. Do you get it? Oh yes! and with a safeguard added, 'Inquire of the laundress.' [This was a parody on, 'Inquire of the Swiss,' or 'of the yard-porter.'] You start off in high feather; number and guide are provided, only a fool could fail to find it, and you know that you are a person who is considered rather above the average in cleverness. But that is in Petersburg, and I may as well tell you at once that clever Petersburgers are fools compared to the Moscow men, in a good many points, such as driving a hard bargain. Well, suppose that the house you want is No. 29. You find No. 27 or No. 28, and begin to crow over your cleverness. But the next house on one side is No. 319, and the house on the other side is No. 15; the one opposite is No. 211, or No. 7, or something idiotic like that, and all because the city authorities permit people to retain the old district number of the house, to affix the new street number, or to post up both at their own sweet will! As you cannot find the laundress to question, under the circumstances, you interview every Swiss [hall-porter], yard-porter, policeman, and peasant for a verst round about; and all the satisfaction you get is, 'In whose house? That is Mr. Green's and this is Mr. Bareboaster's, and yonder are Count Thingumbob's and Prince Whatyoumaycall's.' So you retreat once more, baffled.' Fortifying himself with more tea and cigarettes, the victim of Moscow went on:-

'But there is still another plan. [A groan.] The favorite way to give an address is, 'In the parish of Saint So- and-So.' It does n't pin you down to any special house, street, or number, which is, of course, a decided advantage when you are hunting for a needle in a haystack. And the Moscow saints and parishes have such names!' Here the narrator's feelings overcame him, and when I asked for some of the parochial titles he was too limp to reply. I had already noticed the peculiar designations of many churches, and had begun to suspect myself of stupidity or my cabman and other informants of malicious jesting. Now, however, I investigated the subject, and made a collection of specimens. These extraordinary names are all derived-with one or two exceptions for which I can find no explanation-from the peculiarities of the soil in the parish, the former use to which the site of the church was put, or the avocations of the inhabitants of its neighborhood in the olden times, when most of the space outside of the Kremlin and China Town was devoted to the purveyors and servants of the Tzars of Muscovy.

St. Nicholas, a very popular saint, heads the list, as usual. 'St. Nicholas on Chips' occupies the spot where a woodyard stood. 'St. Nicholas on the Well,' 'St. Nicholas Fine Chime,' are easily understood. 'St. Nicholas White- Collar' is in the ancient district of the court laundresses. 'St. Nicholas in the Bell-Ringers' is comprehensible; but 'St. Nicholas the Blockhead' is so called because in this quarter dwelt the imperial hatmakers, who prepared 'blockheads' for shaping their wares. 'St. Nicholas Louse's Misery' is, probably, a corruption of two somewhat similar words meaning Muddy Hill. 'St. Nicholas on Chickens' Legs' belonged to the poulterers, and was so named because it was raised from the ground on supports resembling stilts. 'St. Nicholas of the Interpreters' is in the quarter where the Court interpreters lived, and where the Tatar mosque now stands. Then we have: 'The Life-Giving Trinity in the Mud,' 'St. John the Warrior' and 'St. John the Theologian in the Armory,' 'The Birth of Christ on Broadswords,' 'St. George the Martyr in the Old Jails,' 'The Nine Holy Martyrs on Cabbage-Stalks,' on the site of a former market garden, and the inexplicable 'Church of the Resurrection on the Marmot,' besides many others, some of which, I was told, bear quite unrepeatable names, probably perverted, like the last and like 'St. Nicholas Louse's Misery,' from words having originally some slight resemblance in sound, but which are now unrecognizable.

Great stress is laid, in hasty books of travel, on the contrasts presented by the Moscow streets, the 'palace of a prince standing by the side of the squalid log hut of a peasant,' and so forth. That may, perhaps, have been true of the Moscow of twenty or thirty years ago. In very few quarters is there even a semblance of truth in that description at the present day. The clusters of Irish hovels in upper New York among the towering new buildings are much more picturesque and noticeable. The most characteristic part of the town, as to domestic architecture, the part to which the old statements are most applicable, lies between the two lines of boulevards, which are, in themselves, good places to study some Russian tastes. For example, a line of open horse-cars is run all winter on the outer boulevard, and appreciated. Another line has the centre of its cars inclosed, and uninclosed seats at the ends. The latter are the most popular, at the same price, and as for heating a street-car, the idea could never be got into a Russian brain. A certain section of the inner boulevard, which forms a sort of slightly elevated garden, is not only a favorite resort in summer, but is thronged every winter afternoon with people promenading or sitting under the snow-powdered trees in an arctic fairyland, while the mercury in the thermometer is at a very low ebb indeed. It is fashionable in Russia to grumble at the cold, but unfashionable to convert the grumbling into action. On the contrary, they really enjoy sitting for five hours at a stretch, in a temperature of 25 degrees below zero, to watch the fascinating horse races on the ice.

In the districts between the boulevards, one can get an idea of the town as it used to be. In this ' Earth Town ' typical streets are still to be found, but the chances are greatly against a traveler finding them. They are alleys in width and irregularity, paved with cobblestones which seem to have been selected for their angles, and with intermittent sidewalks consisting of narrow, carelessly joined flagstones. The front steps of the more pretentious houses must be skirted or mounted, the street must be crossed when the family carriage stands at the door, like the most characteristic streets in Nantucket. Some of the doorplates-which are large squares of tin fastened over the porte cochere, or on the gate of the courtyard-bear titles. Next door, perhaps, stands a log house, flush with the sidewalk, its moss calking plainly visible between the huge ribs, its steeply sloping roof rising, almost within reach, above a single story; and its serpent-mouthed eave-spouts ingeniously arranged to pour a stream of water over the vulgar pedestrian. The windows, on a level with the eyes of the passer-by, are draped with cheap lace curtains. The broad expanse of cotton wadding between the double windows is decorated, in middle-class taste, with tufts of dyed grasses, colored paper, and other execrable ornaments. Here, as everywhere else in Moscow, one can never get out of eye-shot of several churches; white with brilliant external frescoes, or the favorite mixture of crushed strawberry and white, all with green roofs and surmounted with domes of ever-varying and original forms and colors, crowned with golden crosses of elaborate and beautiful designs. Ask a resident, whether prince or peasant, 'How many churches are there in 'Holy Moscow town'?' The answer invariably is, 'Who knows? A forty of forties,' which is the old equivalent, in the Epic Songs, of incalculable numbers. After a while one really begins to feel that sixteen hundred is not an exaggerated estimate.

Very few of the streets in any part of the town are broad; all of them seem like lanes to a Petersburger, and 'they are forever going up and down,' as a Petersburg cabman described the Moscow hills to me, in serious disapproval. He had found the ground too excitingly uneven and the inhabitants too evenly dull to live with for more than a fortnight, he confessed to me. Many of the old mansions in the centre of the town have been converted into shops, offices, and lodgings; and huge, modern business buildings have taken the places formerly occupied, I presume, by the picturesque 'hovels' of the travelers' tales.