394 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



nearly 10 miles altogether. Beyond this circular boulevard stretch the suburbs, 

 which are again surrounded by an enclosure with abrupt projections and pyra- 

 midal towers, and intersected here "and there by wide streets, which will one day be 

 probably connected in a continuous outer boulevard. Moscow covers an area of 

 over 40 square miles, which, though equal to that of Paris, contains a population 

 three or four times inferior to that of the French capital. Many quarters resemble 

 straggling villages, with their little painted houses grouped irregularly round 

 some central church or palace. In the last century the Prince de Ligne described 

 Moscow as a collection of baronial residences surrounded by their parks and the 

 hovels of their serfs. It even still retains some traces of this peculiar develop- 

 ment, gardens, groves, fields, waste spaces dotted with ponds penetrating between 

 the suburbs towards the more densely peopled quarters, while, on the other hand, 

 outlying villages line the highways for more than G miles from the heart of 

 the city. There is no lack of space to introduce pure air into all the dwellings ; 

 but many of the so-called " half-storied " houses have their basements below the 

 street level, and these are kept always damp by the rains and bad drainage. 

 Hence the mortality is normally higher than the birth rate, and the city would 

 soon be reduced to a mere village, if the population were not recruited by a 

 constant flow of immigration. But from a distance this hidden squalor is veiled, 

 and the great city appears only in its beauty, nothing being visible except trees, 

 hundreds of towers, over a thousand " bulb-shaped " domes surmounting some 360 

 churches — " forty times forty," says the proverb. Seen from the " Sparrow Hills " 

 ( Vorohi/od Gori), running west of the capital, Moscow, with its frowning Kremlin, 

 presents a superb panorama when tinged by the rays of the setting sun. 



The Kremlin, at once a fortress and an aggregate of cathedrals, convents, 

 palaces, and barracks, is pre-eminently the monument of the Russian Empire. 

 Thence emanated the mandates of the Muscovite Czar, and here were promulgated 

 the decrees of the Church. On entering its hallowed precincts through the 

 " Saviour's Gate " {Spaskii/e Vorota), all must devoutly uncover, and a sort of 

 worship is also paid to the Ivan Velikiy belfry, built in 1600 by Boris Godunov, 

 and rising 266 feet from the centre of the Kremlin. On a pedestal at the foot of 

 this tower rests the cracked "queen of bells," weighing 200 tons, and in a neigh- 

 bouring church the Czars are crowned and the Muscovite Metropolitans buried. 

 Another cathedral, no less resplendent in frescoes, mosaics, marbles, and precious 

 stones, contains the tombs of the first Czars, and in the middle of the palace court- 

 yard is a very ancient little church dedicated to the " Saviour in the Forest," and 

 recalling a time when the land was still densely wooded. Some of the buildings 

 attached to the imperial residence are also very remarkable, suggesting in their 

 style the palaces both of Venice and India. One of them contains some valuable 

 collections, and all present a strange assemblage of domes, turrets, clock towers, 

 colonnades, glittering in gold, yellow, green, and red. The Synodal Palace, near 

 the imperial monasteries, contains a library with some unique documents and 

 priceless manuscripts. The Arsenal also possesses a special museum, besides arms 

 for 100,000 men, and an enormous but useless cannon, whence Herzen's remark 



