334 RUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



Nevertheless the exterminator of Novgorod was still anxious to continue its 

 direct relations with Europe. But, by depopulating the old cities and wasting the 

 land, the Muscovites deprived themselves of the elements necessary to keep up a 

 direct intercourse with the West. Hence they gladly welcomed the English 

 adventurers who had come to trade with them round the Frozen Ocean. Later on 

 Gustavus Adolphus could declare that " Russia had been finally cut off from the 

 Baltic." In the seventeenth century Novgorod still showed a restive spirit, which, 

 however, was soon quelled, and nothing now survives of the old national life 

 except some popular proverbs directed against the Muscovite. It no longer 

 stands on the great highway of nations, lying far to the west of the main route 

 between Moscow and St. Petersburg, beyond the general commercial movement 

 of modern Russia. Those of its traders and artisans still surviving in the seven- 

 teenth century were amongst the first elements of population in the new northern 

 capital.' Once peopled by 50,000 or 60,000, or traditionally by 400,000, it is now 

 so reduced that convents formerly within the walls are surrounded by fields. 

 But the trading quarter, and that of St. Sophia, or the Kreml, still occupy the old 

 sites above the river. The fortifications of the Kreml, formerly enclosing 18 

 churches, 150 houses, 40 factories, contains the cathedral of St. Sophia, in which 

 are still preserved some tombs of old saints and heroes, curious frescoes of the 

 twelfth century breathing a bolder artistic spirit than that of East Russia, and 

 images whose symbolic attitudes harmonize with the observances of the sect of the 

 " Old Believers." On the square facing the cathedral stands the monument 

 commemorating the legend of Rurik, a lofty granite pile adorned with statues, and 

 covered with bronze bas-reliefs representing various figures associated with theorigin 

 of the Russian Empire. It was erected in 1862, the millenium of the old state. 



On the Upper Msta, east of Novgorod, lies the town of Borovichi, from the 

 earliest times the natural centre of the river traffic between the Volkhov and Yolsra 

 basins. The rapids of the Msta turn the wheels of several factories, and in the 

 neighbourhood are quarries, coal-fields, and especially pyrites mines, which during 

 the Crimean war replaced the Sicilian sulphur in the manufacture of sulphuric 

 acid. Tikhvin, north of Borovichi, and on the Tikhvinka, has, since 1811, formed 

 the terminus of a navigable canal connecting the Volga and Ladoga water systems, 

 and supplying St. Petersburg Avith about 20,000 tons of cereals and timber yearly. 

 Its convent contains one of the most venerated miraculous images of the Virgin in 

 all Russia, and formerly owned 4,500 '' souls" (serfs), presented to it by devout 

 czars and nobles. 



In the upper basin drained by the Svir and Neva the only important place is 

 Petrozavochk, on a western inlet of Lake Onega, and in a mining district containing 

 gold mines (now abandoned), copper lodes, and veins of magnetic iron with as 

 much as 96 per cent, of pure metal. Founded in 1704 by Peter the Great, it 

 takes its name of " Peter's Mill " from a gun foundry and small-arms factory 

 established here for the purpose of utilising the neighbouring mineral treasures. 

 Petrozavodsk has also become the capital of the government of Olonetz, and is 

 now the central trading station between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea. 



