54 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



dream, this picture will stand out clear while life 

 and memory endure. 



From Moscow to Bogoroditsk (English: "The 

 Mother of God") in the Government of Tula, 

 the centre of one of the distressed districts, is a 

 journey of a night and half a day. It had been 

 arranged with young Count Paul Bobrinskoy, cou- 

 sin of Count Andre Bobrinskoy of St. Petersburg, 

 that he should take this journey with me, follow- 

 ing it up with a more extended tour in the famine 

 districts of Tula and Riazan. At Bogoroditsk, 

 I was kindly entertained under the roof of the old 

 manor house, formerly called the Palace of Cath- 

 arine the Second. Here, belonging to the Bobrin- 

 skoys, who are descendants of one of Empress 

 Catharine's principal advisers, is an estate cover- 

 ing ten thousand acres, embracing several villages, 

 and, until the distribution of land was made 

 under the act of emancipation of Emperor Alex- 

 ander II., the grandfather of the present Emperor, 

 Nicholas II., lawful ownership in thirty thousand 

 serfs, now regarded as wards by the owners of the 

 estate. 



Catharine II., known as " Catharine the Great, ' 

 was born in 1729; she was Empress of Russia from 



