KOUMISS 



3278 



KRONSTADT 



KOUMISS, or KUMISS, koo' mis, a fer- 

 mented beverage made in Russia from mare's 

 milk. Near Petrograd there is a sanitarium 

 where mares are kept for the special purpose 

 of furnishing milk for this beverage. It is 

 usually made by placing old or sun-dried kou- 

 miss deposit in a vessel and adding to it 

 freshly-secured mare's milk. During the proc- 

 ess of fermentation, which requires from thirty 

 to forty-eight hours, the vessel is violently 

 shaken at intervals, which churns the butter 

 fat. This fat is then removed. Elsewhere in 

 Europe and in America koumiss is made by 

 adding sugar of milk to cow's milk, allowing 

 the mixture to ferment in open tanks, remov- 

 ing the casein and butter fat and putting the 

 liquid in bottles during fermentation. Koumiss 

 is highly nutritive, is easily digested, and is 

 regarded as a valuable portion of the diet for 

 dyspeptics, tubercular patients, and those who 

 are recovering from acute fevers. One quart 

 of koumiss contains four ounces of solid food; 

 the alcohol content is from one to three per 

 cent. It tastes something like buttermilk. 



KOVNO, kawv'no, a town of Russia, situated 

 near the Polish border in the government of 

 Kovno, of which it is the capital. It is 506 

 miles southwest of Petrograd. Founded in 

 the eleventh century, it became Russian in 

 1795, after the third partition of Poland. Many 

 of its buildings are of great antiquity, and 

 across from the town hall there is an iron 

 pyramid celebrating the departure of the army 

 of Napoleon in 1812. Kovno is a manufactur- 

 ing town, the chief articles of commerce being 

 wire and nails. Formerly there was a large 

 grain trade, but this is steadily decreasing. 

 The population is about 88,000, of whom nearly 

 one-half are Jews. Kovno is remarkably well 

 fortified, but on August 19, 1915, it surrendered 

 to the German forces, commanded by Field 

 Marshall Von Mackensen (see WAR OF THE 

 NATIONS). 



KREFELD, or CREFELD, /era' felt, a manu- 

 facturing town of Western Germany, thirty- 

 four miles northwest of Cologne. It is the 

 center of the silk and velvet industry in Ger- 

 many, the principal products being silk for 

 umbrellas and ribbon velvet. There are, too, 

 large engineering and machine shops, soap, 

 chemical, candle and paper factories, cotton, 

 woolen and hosiery mills and distilleries. 



Krefeld is one of the few open towns of 

 Germany; instead of the usual walls and 

 fortresses about the town, four broad boule- 

 vards make a rectangle of the inner town. Un- 



til the sixteenth century it was an insignificant 

 town; it was given municipal rights in 1373 

 by Charles IV, but remained a property of 

 the counts of Mors, and went with that coun- 

 try to the princes of Orange and then to 

 Prussia. In the sixteenth century, however, 

 the religious persecutions throughout the 

 country drove many Calvinists and Separatists 

 to Krefeld, where they started the manufac- 

 ture of linen. The silk industry was intro- 

 duced in the eighteenth century, and since 

 then the town has grown rapidly. Population, 

 1910, 129,406. 



KREM'LIN, from the Russian word kremli, 

 meaning fortress, is a name descriptive of the 

 citadel of a Russian city. The best known is 

 that of Moscow, which consists of a triangu- 

 lar enclosure about one and one-half miles in 



THE FAMOUS KREMLIN 



circuit and fortified by walls which are sur- 

 mounted by cylindrical and square towers. 

 The present walls have existed since 1492. The 

 Kremlin contains the old imperial palace, sev- 

 eral imposing cathedrals, a monastery, convent, 

 arsenal and the Great Bell of Moscow, which 

 was cast in 1733, measures sixty feet in cir- 

 cumference and weighs 200 tons (see BELL). 

 The larger part of the great palace dates only 

 from the middle of the nineteenth century, 

 the edifices which preceded it having been 

 burned, the last one by order of Napoleon, on 

 the occasion of his invasion of Russia in 1812. 

 The red staircase, one of the noteworthy fea- 

 tures of the palace, is used only for state 

 functions, and is associated with many historic 

 scenes during the reigns of Ivan the Terrible 

 and Peter the Great. The treasury is famous 

 for its collection of ancient jewels and plate. 



KRONSTADT, or CRONSTADT, krohn' 

 shtaht, Russia's most important naval station 

 in its northern waters, situated twenty-one 

 miles west of Petrograd, on the eastern ex- 

 tremity of the Gulf of Finland. In its three 

 harbors 1,000 vessels can be accommodated, 

 but these are closed by ice throughout five 



