MOSCOW. 101 



packed in skins, which are seen in the tea-shops, in 

 parcels ahout a yard square. It is consequently more 

 expensive than our tea, its price varying from 8s. to 

 upwards of 20s. the pound. But a much smaller quantity 

 is required to make a cup, or rather a tumbler, as it is 

 only in such that tea is served in Russia. It is the 

 universal and most refreshing beverage, and costs to the 

 drinker, as far as I remember, about 6d. a glass. In 

 some of the " Tractirs '" or restaurants of Moscow, such 

 as the famous one near the Exchange, about forty pounds' 

 weight of tea are consumed daily. 



The food supplied at the principal railway stations had 

 nothing which I could discover very peculiar about it, 

 except its general excellence. The Russian dishes, par 

 excellence, must be demanded by the traveller before they 

 can be obtained. 



In the best restaurants of Moscow, where one sees two 

 friends eating with their spoons out of one tureen, he 

 naturally assumes that this is a national rather than an 

 individual custom ; and, when dining out, he may pro- 

 bably be startled by his iced soup with cold salmon in it. 

 But along the railway he is not reminded by the cooking 

 of his distance from France or England, except by the 

 high charges for wine above the former, and by the 

 abundance of time granted at every station for meals, as 

 compared with the latter. 



Next to tea, the common drink is excellent beer, or 

 "piva," and a sour but not unpleasant acid decoction? 

 void of alcohol, called quota. 



