SHAVING BEARDS 



193 



stood still and looked to his front for the small sum of five 

 pence (2e kopecks) while I " took " him on a bitterly cold 

 day. We may see that he and his horse (a Government 

 stud-bred) are well protected from the weather. His neck 

 and ears are wrapped in a bashilik, which is a specially 

 made camel's hair or woollen "comforter." Peter the Great 

 never brought in a more stupid reform than that of forcing 

 his subjects, entirely against the will of their priests, to have 

 their beards shaved off. Captain John Perry, who was in 



Photo by\ 



FIG. 45. Footpath across the Neva in Winter. 



[M. H. H. 



Peter's service and who published in 1716 his book, The 

 State of Russia, tells us, "that the Russes had a kind of 

 religious Respect and Veneration for their Beards ; and so 

 much the more, because they differed herein from Strangers, 

 which was back'd by the Priests, alledging that the holy Men 

 of old had worn their Beards according to the Model of 

 the Picture of their Saints, and which nothing but the absolute 

 Authority of the Czar, and the Terror of having them (in a 

 merry Humour) pull'd out by the Roots, or sometimes taken 

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