blue heavens, golden cupolas, green towers, red houses, pealing bells above, sleigh-bells on the streets, praying muzhiks before images of the saints, beautiful women in costly furs—when i wish to reconstruct from my recollections the picture of moscow, these are the elements which at first mingle, charming, chaotic, like the colors in caucasian gold-enamel. how beautiful a city this! how often have i stood upon the tower of the ivan veliky and looked down on this endless sea of shining cupolas and gay roofs crowded upon gently rising hills far into the blue haze of the distance! never was the russian love of home so intelligible to me as there in the heart of russia, upon the battlements of the kremlin, high above the bank of the moskva! and involuntarily i wondered, as, indeed, would any one not a subject of the imperator, who has looked down from such battlements upon all the subject masses of russians, whether he has really subjugated them or whether they have only been brought to a death-bringing hibernation. ?sthetic, ethnological, historical, and political suggestions swarm to the mind[pg 258] of the thoughtful observer in this place. what wonder if the russian feels himself here on holy ground and would prefer to put off his shoes when he treads it?
the tongue of the people has a kindly word for st. petersburg and a pet name for moscow—"little mother moscow," it is called, the real capital of russiandom. and even the stranger must remark this difference of treatment. st. petersburg astonishes, awes, frightens. moscow ingratiates herself at first sight and wins each day a firmer hold on our hearts. one thinks with a certain tenderness of one's stay in moscow, and in spite of unbelief predicts to himself another visit. but not with faith. for unless business calls him there he is not likely to make a second visit to moscow in a lifetime. but one longs to pass many a pleasant day in this city, so curious and yet so homely, with her kindly inhabitants. why? it would be hard to say in a few words. the city is in too strong a contrast to the forced founding of st. petersburg. there the hand of man is all in evidence; nothing is refreshing. a great prison fortress of granite blocks surrounded by huts and barracks. moscow is a product of nature, founded with enthusiasm by its dwellers in response to the open invitation of nature, and adored even with devotion. even the stranger feels this, even though there is nothing to which he is unaccustomed except the devotion and tenderness of a people to whom he is bound by not a single tie of common association. with what[pg 259] shudders one wanders through rome, from mont pincio to the vatican! how one is carried on by the ocean of world history upon the capitoline, among the excavations of the forum, among the palace walls of the palatine! what is to us, in contrast, the kremlin, this sanctuary of half-asiatic barbarians? yes, an exoteric delicacy, nothing else! one cannot free one's self from the charm of these places. here a good-natured folk has created a jewel-box, gay and dazzlingly ornamented, careless of what the culture of the west has declared beautiful and holy; hither gravitate all the national feelings of a hundred million people; and, finally, all this is created to the harm of no one, to frighten no one, to oppress no one. here the czar is not the general-in-chief of so many million bayonets, but "little father czar," who yields the countless holy images and chapels just the same devotion as his lowest muzhik. and here is the past—not alone the brazen, threatening present—the past of a strange people, but a people of lovable individuals, who, besides, are brought nearer to us than many of our nearest neighbors by a literature of unparalleled fidelity to life. one must grow to love this childlike, slow-blooded, and yet care-free people, with their irresistible heartiness. and he who has learned to love the russians must love their little mother moscow, in spite of, or just on account of, her quietness.
from st. petersburg an express train brings us[pg 260] to moscow in thirteen hours. it is always a night train that disposes of this traffic, for the russian likes to sleep in his comfortable berth. and so we arrive in moscow in the morning, ready at once to assimilate the first impressions of the enormous city. our expectancy is great, of course. moscow, the object of all most russian! it must differ, at first sight, from all we have as yet seen. but while the hotel omnibus rattles through the streets from the depot but little that is peculiar is to be seen. an affable fellow-passenger explains to us that that is only the foreign business quarter. but now one after another the church cupolas appear, one after another in increasing brightness and variety. at our "ah!" in expression of our satisfaction, we are instructed that we had better be more sparing of that vowel sound or we might soon become hoarse. moscow has no less than four hundred and fifty such churches and twenty cloisters in addition. so let us be sparing. but the resolution is hard to keep. a long and mighty wall suddenly rises before us with countless angles, towers, and turrets. the wall is white, the towers are green, and through the gate we see long streets and buildings in all possible colors, dark included. it is kitay-gorod, the inner city, with the bazars. bokhara cannot appear more asiatic. now we feel already all that we are about to see. a giant modern hotel almost destroys for us the ensemble. look quickly to your lodgings and then out again!
[pg 261]
we are nicely located. from our windows we see the towers of the kremlin, which rise above the nearest roofs. let him who will endure remaining behind double windows! after washing and having some tea we are at the door again, and quickly make a bargain with the "izwozchik" who is to drive us over the outlined tour of the city. horse and sleigh are a bit smaller than in st. petersburg, but still very good. and so we are out in the sunshine, off into the snowy landscape, to gain a hurried general conception of the endless city.
for two hours our good little horse draws us, gliding over bridges and pikes, up and down hill, and when we return half frozen to the hotel we have seen scarce a fraction of the periphery, but a thousand teams, with shaggy muzhiks in wicker sleighs, and, still more, little country-houses of wood, which might serve in the west for summer cottages, but which offer an inviting shelter even here in the icy winter. the whole of moscow is a complex of official municipal buildings which are crowded together into the narrowest space, of churches and palaces narrowly crowded about the kremlin, and of immense suburbs which lie in rings about the inner town. but these suburbs have a half-country character—broad, uneven streets and low, villa-like houses, with little gardens. little mother moscow gives her children room. they do not have to crowd together in usuriously paying tenements, and houses of more than one story are quite the[pg 262] exception. even in the shadow of the kremlin a parterre for the stores and a single story above it are sufficient. really, only the hotels stretch with three or four stories heavenward. the impression is ever recurring that moscow has no desire to be a city, and only quite unwillingly yields to the necessity of a crowded existence.
the kremlin, which we did not lose sight of once on our whole trip, entices us strongly. it lies before us; so let us enter.
yes, if it were as easily done as said! we cross a broad square, across which lean little horses draw a horse-car high as the first story of a house, and then we stand before buildings which allow us to go no farther. it is the duma, the city hall, on the left, and the historical museum on the right, both dark-red in color; on the latter the fa?ade is built entirely of darkened stone, so that it gives the impression of the whole being incrusted. the style is to be met with frequently. it belongs to the sixteenth century and is now being revived. the idea of using a coating of russian enamel as an element of architectural style is a brilliant one. we reach a gate of the high wall surrounding the inner city kitay-gorod. but before we pass the gate let us cast a glance at the peculiar doings in the little chapel, scarcely bigger than a room, which is built on its left side. it is the iberian chapel, with the famed image of the virgin to which the czar pays his devotions before he enters the kremlin.[pg 263] the original, with its genuine precious stones, is now in the city, where for a fee it is brought to sick people. in the mean time a copy takes its place. at the time of the daily excursions of the virgin the governor-general, prince sergius, does not allow the jews to remain on the streets. the blessed virgin may not see upon her way the traces of jewish feet. every one crosses himself before her. but most climb the few steps to her and cross themselves again, with deep bendings of the upper body; but some, men as well as women, throw themselves full length upon the ground and touch the earth with their foreheads. the candle trade flourishes; scarcely a soul enters who does not buy a candle and light it before some image. no difference of station can be recognized. the great lady, the high official, the dirty muzhik, all are the same in their worship. their caps are continually removed, and the rather time-consuming russian ceremony of making the sign of the cross is performed. but the really pious ones do not content themselves with worshipping before the gate. they do the same thing again when inside.
we reach, finally, the "red square," so called because of the red kremlin wall and the red group of houses at the entrance. we notice again that astonishment does not exactly make one brilliant. an "ah!" in unison is all that escapes our lips. i believe that then i cried out with enthusiasm, and i should have liked to take by the coat-lapels the[pg 264] people who, used to the scene, were indifferently going their ways, and to say to them: "look, you barbarians! do you not know what you have here?" vasili blazhenny (the basilius cathedral)! many times as one may have seen the curious bit of architecture depicted and dissected, yet when one finally stands before it and allows the gay towers, with their green, red, blue, and yellow cupolas to make their impression, he seems to have entered quite another world, which no longer has a single thing in common with our western one. a sovereign, glorying fantasy has here been formed and created, apparently without rule, led only by the law of variety; has made wings, doors, and windings, and in the narrowest space unfolded a richness which strikes us dumb, much as our feeling for style struggles against the reversal of all our national laws. one's whole architectural sense leans towards clear relationship of parts, towards rhythm and proportion; the artist of the basilius cathedral leans towards intricacy, lack of rhythm, disproportion. he is a colorist, and but a colorist, in contrast to our renaissance artists, to whom the color seems almost an injury to the delicate line. and yet in all this gay confusion he has held fast to a fundamental feeling which in all the variations keeps returning, as in a joint—yes, just as in the wildest dream some guiding idea like a red thread follows through it all. this motive—i could not help always calling it to myself the tschibuk motive,[pg 265] after the winding, pearl-set tubes of a turkish pipe—is carried out with every possible indian, persian, and roman ingredient, and still retains the characteristic byzantine style. a person would show great partiality to call this building a mad-house, as many an artist has done. one must only be able to free himself for an hour from the dictator of the old taste in order to be able to comprehend the delight of ivan the terrible at sight of this architectural orgy. (he gave expression to this delight by having the eyes of the architect put out in order that he might build no second masterpiece like it.) and then again it must be confessed that the task of uniting in narrow space thirteen chapels with thirteen towers could not well have been solved in any other way than in this apparently most untrammelled, fantastic one. if this proposition be accepted, the master of vasili blazhenny can only be the object of wonder.
now vasili blazhenny is typical of all moscow, the kremlin included. it is the spirit of curious variety, of rich fantasy, the spirit of the south and the east which rules here. the snow one feels to be almost out of place, so southern is the character of the city. the kremlin, too, before which we now stand, is a "free-act" work of art, a piece something like the san marco quarter in venice, if one thinks of the sea as removed. for the kremlin must not be thought of as a palace is; it is a whole part of a city, surrounded by a wall twenty[pg 266] metres high, two kilometres long, enclosing an irregular pentagon. it lies on a rather steeply rising hill on the bank of the moskva, and commands the whole region round about. its beauty is not to be enjoyed in the interior of the many churches, palaces, and barracks, although there is enough worth seeing there, too. it only opens up from the balcony of the ivan veliky tower, or from the bastion where the colossal monument of alexander stands. but the most beautiful view of the whole complex is from the far bank of the moskva, where the high wall, with its countless towers and cupolas, seems like the birth of an oriental dream-fantasy. it shines and lightens in all colors, looks into the air, and speaks kindly greetings to all below; one could simply sit and clap one's hands for joy. but to the russian this little jewel-box is by no means a plaything. on the contrary, he very respectfully bares his head and ceases not to cross himself. for "above moscow is only the kremlin, and above the kremlin is only heaven." within, however, the muzhik regains his childlikeness, and when he stands before the enormous cannon—"the czar of cannon," an old bronze gun—he invariably climbs upon the pyramid of giant balls which stands before it, climbs aloft and gapes into the yard-wide mouth of the gun. and under no circumstances does he neglect to creep into the hole of the "queen of the bells," which is in front of the ivan veliky, in which there is room for two hundred people.
[pg 267]
we who are not childlike muzhiks may not allow ourselves such diversions; we must conscientiously see all the wonders of this greatest of all rarities, a thing which will consume at least a day. we spare the reader our experiences. even the treasure-chamber with the coronation insignia and jewels big as one's fist cannot inveigle us into a description—all that could be seen in berlin or vienna.
finally, the wonderful beauty of the colossal church of the deliverer must here be spoken of. the work is too unique in its nature to allow of being passed over in silence. the church is built apart, is visible afar, and forms the glorious completion of the kremlin picture seen from the moskva. in its mighty height, with its colossal, gilded domes, of which the middle one measures thirty metres in diameter, it lightens like a promise of the light the gay, romantic air of the kremlin. fifty-eight high reliefs in marble ornament the fa?ade, sixty windows give bright light to the interior, colored still more golden by the light of countless candles. the magnificence of the central nave, entirely of gold and marble, is simply overpowering, and the golden and silver garments of the patriarchs would be quite unnecessary in giving us the strongest impression of the enormous riches of the russian church. together with the cathedral of isaac, in st. petersburg, this church is well calculated to compete with st. peter's, in rome. but i believe[pg 268] that one should refrain from the comparison. the expression "roma tatae!" comes from madame de sta?l, and was, within certain bounds, approved by moltke, who would call moscow a russian rome. but i must, with all due modesty, demur. too many undertones vibrate in our souls at the word "rome" to allow us to consider any sort of comparison. but for a russian? who knows where the awe of eternity touches him deeper, before st. peter's or before this church of the deliverer?
but no, such a question may not be put. muzhik and kupetz, farmer and small merchant, have absolutely no understanding of rome—no beauty impresses them, only the barbaric pomp with the costliness of the materials. but the cultured russian feels just as we do, and will not seek the elements which make mighty the word "rome" anywhere else on earth. and those that i spoke to in moscow itself would have given a good deal of the peculiarity of their country for a breath of european atmosphere. continuity between the time of ivan the terrible and the present does not exist for these nobles, lawyers, and journalists of moscow. they endure with polite but painful resignation our delight in the fantasticness of their kremlin, their churches and cloisters. it does not flatter them in the least that they are curiosities for western people, like the baschkirs and tatars, for instance; and they will not hear of their being condemned to continue a life in russian style, apart[pg 269] from europe. this extreme enthusiasm for the autochthonous, which is often enough only an antiquated product of chance, is, after all, a romantic reaction and nothing else. it has long been proved that the gothic which awakened such exclusive enthusiasm in the days of the germanic romance is not gothic at all, but french. and so russia has no reason at all for considering her style, which is really byzantine, all-sufficient. byzantine, however, is the contrast to europe, whose past has led by way of rome and wittenberg to the paris of 1789. and so progressive moscow seeks freedom from byzantium. while i was pretty deeply imbued with things russian, it was suggested to me to see a play in the "artists' theatre," and then to say whether moscow was really quite russian and asiatic. i followed this advice and had no reason to regret it.
