TO WORONETZ. 
249 
the town of Boghoroditz. On an eminence above chap. 
this place, Bobrinsky, son of the late Empress, by <— v — > 
Orlof, has a magnificent seat, with an estate of 
the finest corn land in Russia, covering an extent 
of sixteen square miles, and containing, as it is 
reported, seventy thousand peasants. Here, 
over an extensive tract of land, nothing is seen 
but corn. It is the richest country in the em- 
pire. The roads are so excellent, that the 
waggons of the peasants, although laden with 
stones, pass and repass upon wooden wheels 
without any iron tires. 
It is uncertain when the little town of Bogho- 
roditz was built. The inhabitants began to hold 
their archives under the Tsar Feodor Alexo- a.d. issn 
vitz. The shopkeepers, the Streltzi, and the 
Pmchari, with about one hundred invalid sol- 
diers, have composed, since that time, its inha- 
bitants. The culture of the land is their sole 
resource, and the fertility of the soil has rendered 
it remarkably productive. It is said, that the 
peasants here have even a small superfluity of 
the produce for sale, which they carry to Kaluga 
and to Tula. This place also affords plenty of 
honey to those towns. 
From Boghoroditz we crossed boundless plains, c e io Ni- 
. ® kitzkoy. 
without a single inclosure, until we came to 
