CHAPTER VII. 



REGION OF THE GEEAT LAKES. 

 (Tnghia and Karelia, Novgorod and 8t. Petersburo.) 



HE earliest Russian state known to history had arisen in the Dnieper 

 basin under the fostering influence of Mediterranean civilisation ; 

 another was destined to grow up in the north-western region, facing 

 the Baltic Slavs, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Kiev, rally- 

 ing-i)oint of the southern populations, found its counterpart in 

 iN'ovgorod, the northern centre of trade and culture, and also lying on " the road 

 of the Greeks to the Varangians." The region surrounding it and stretching 

 northwards to the great lakes is not wholly included in Slavdom proper. But 

 although the Narova, Volkhov, and Neva basins form ethnically and historically 

 a land of transition between the Eastern Slavs and the various Finnish groups, 

 this district possesses so much importance geographically that the Russians 

 naturally sought at all times to establish commercial relations with its inhabitants. 

 They have at last even fixed their capital here, selecting for the purpose a site 

 lying almost beyond the mainland, and surrounded by non-Slav populations. Still 

 the great city at the mouth of the Neva has hitherto failed to attract settlers 

 to the neighbouring tracts, and the bleak lands encompassing it have remained 

 almost uninhabited, when compared with more favoured climes. 



Physical Features. — Lakes Peipus amd Ilmen, 



Includixg the whole of Lake Ladoga, of which a portion belongs officially to 

 Finland, the great lacustrine region is covered with water to the extent of 10,000 

 square miles. Unlike certain parts of Sweden and Finland, the land does not here 

 form a labyrinth of winding channels, its waters being concentrated in the very 

 largest lakes in Russia next to the Caspian. The three main bodies of fresh water 

 draining through the Narova and the Neva to the Gulf of Finland are more 

 extensive than all the other basins of the empire taken collectively, and Ladoga 

 alone exceeds in size and volume all the lacustrine reservoirs of Scandinavia or the 

 Alps. This superabundance of still waters is due to the general level of the land, 

 which is such that slightly elevated rocky ledges have sufficed to arrest the course 



