230 FORESTRY IN LITHUANIA. 



rendezvous of the famous rebel Mazeppa, by whose over- 

 throw it suffered greatly, until, with the surrounding 

 villages, containing, with the town, a population of 20,000 

 souls, it was given by the Empress Elizabeth to the last 

 pet ward of the Ukraine, Count Cyril Razumoffsky, who 

 rebuilt it, and in whose family it still continues. 



Of Kiev Mr Dixon writes : ' The first towns of Russia 

 are Kiev and Novgorod the Great ; her capitals and holy 

 places long before she built herself a Kremlin on the 

 Moskva, and a Winter Palace on the Neva. Kiev and 

 Novgorod are still her pious and poetic cities : one the 

 tower of her religious faith, the other, of her Imperial 

 power. From Vichgorod at Kiev springs the dome which 

 celebrates her conversion to the Church of Christ. In the 

 Kremlin stands the bronze group which typifies her 

 empire of a thousand years. Kiev, the oldest of Russian 

 sees, is not in Russia proper, and many historians treat it 

 as a Polish town. The people are Ruthenians, and for 

 hundreds of years the city belonged to the Polish crown. 

 The plain in front of it is the Ukraine steppe ; the lands 

 of Hetman and Zaparogue; of stirring legends and 

 nations song. The manners are Polish, and the people 

 Poles. Yet here lies the cradle of that church which has 

 shaped into its own likeness every quality of Russian 

 political and domestic life. 



'The city consists of three parts, of three several towns 

 Podd, Vichgorod, Pechersk ; a business town, an imperial 

 town, and a sacred town. All these quarters are crowded 

 with offices, shops, and convents ; yet Podd is the 

 merchant quarter, Vichgorod the government quarter, and 

 Pechersk the pilgrim quarter. These towns overhang the 

 Dnieper, on a range of broken cliffs ; contain about 70,000 

 souls; and hold, in the several places of interment, all 

 that was mortal of the Pagan Duke, who became her 

 foremost saint. 



' Kiev is a city of legends and events ; the preaching of 

 St. Andrew, the piety of St. Olga, the conversion of St. 



