VISIT TO THE NORTH-EAST OF EUROPE, 
277 
somewhat, with circumstances the knowledge of which is attained 
without difficulty by any one who has advantages of society here. 
If the horses of the Steppe be an entertaining topic, as indeed 
they are, the tamer horses which, in the more popular provinces 
of this huge country, subserve its material interests, afford details 
equally interesting, and a study equally profitable. The immense 
number of these animals, and their unheard-of cheapness — for in 
some places you may buy a shaggy-looking but hardy and ser- 
viceable nag for a few shillings — not only enable Russia, with its 
far-separated provinces, to await more conveniently than would 
otherwise be possible the increase of its railways, but to equip 
well, and at small cost, a countless and mighty cavalry. 
The English reader will be curious to know whether the Im- 
perial Government leave this element of wealth and strength to the 
wild chances of Nature for improvement or deterioration; or, if not, 
what means are taken to meliorate the breed and condition of Rus- 
sian horses. I have some facts to give you on this head ; and they 
will be not inaptly introduced by a little event of the other day, 
related in the Gazette of the Academy ( Russe ). 
This event was a race, but not such a race as we can see in 
England. To see such a contest, even in books, we must recur to 
the Greek poets, and the accounts of the Olympic games, and the 
kindred festivals of antiquity. It is not that the race of which 1 
am now speaking bore the slightest proportion, in magnitude of 
scale or excellence of performance, to those wonderful examples of 
magnificence and skill; but at least it was of a similar character. 
It was a chariot-race. The chariot used for the purpose is national 
to Russia, a peculiarly light and airy vehicle, built for a certain 
number of horses, generally three. When made in this manner, it 
is called the “ troika.” 
The races of February, says the Gazette of the Academy, had 
excited the curiosity of the public to the highest pitch, so that they 
attracted to the ground almost the whole of the population of the 
capital (Moscow) Four equipages of the troika kind were to con- 
tend for the palm They belonged to MM. Smaguine KozakofF. 
and Lanskoi, and to Prince Tcherkassky. The high-road had been 
appointed for the course, and the distance was to be thirty versts*. 
The race was to be against time, without second trial. 
The struggle began between the troika of M. Smaguine and that 
of M. KozakofF. The former reached the goal in fifty-nine minutes 
thirty seconds, a rate of speed unheard of till then for teams of 
that nature. The rival chariot had given up one of its horses after 
two-thirds of the run, and reached the winning-post five minutes 
later. 
* A Russian verst is two-thirds of a mile : three versts being two miles. 
