St. Petersburg is an act of violence. I have never received in any city such an impression of the forced and the unnatural as in this colossal prison or fortress of the Russia\'s mighty rule. The Neva, around whose islands the city is clustered, is really not a stream. It comes from nowhere and leads nowhere. It is the efflux of the Heaven-forsaken Ladoga Lake, where no one has occasion to search for anything; and it leads into the Bay of Finland, which is frozen throughout half of the year. No commercial considerations, not even strategical reasons, can justify the establishment of this capital at the mouth of the Neva. The fact that St. Petersburg has none the less become a city of millions of inhabitants is due entirely to the barbaric energy of its founder, Peter the Great, an energy which still works in the plastic medium of Russian national character. On the bank of the Neva stands the equestrian statue of Peter, raised on a mighty block of granite, a notable work of the Frenchman Falconet. The face of the Emperor as he ascends the rock is turned to the northwest, where[Pg 34] his most dangerous rival, the Swedish Charles, lived. And just as his whole attitude expresses defiance and self-conscious power, so his city, St. Petersburg, is only a monument of the defiance and the iron will of its founder. The historians relate that Peter intended, by removing his residence to St. Petersburg, to facilitate the access of European civilization to the Russian people. If this be true, Peter utterly failed in his purpose. The old commercial city, Riga, would have answered the purpose much better. To be sure, Riga did not come into Russian possession until eighteen years after the founding of St. Petersburg. Yet what was there to prevent the despot from abandoning the work that he had begun? But no, St. Petersburg was to bid defiance to the contemporary might of Sweden, and so forty thousand men had to work for years in the swamps of the Neva to build the mighty tyrant\'s castles, the Peter-and-Paul fortress, an immense stone block on the banks of the icy stream. Malarial fevers carried off most of them; but the Russian people supplied more men, for such was the will of the Czar. The drinking-water of St. Petersburg to-day is still a yellow, filthy fluid, consumption of which is sure to bring on typhoid fever; but the will of Peter still works, and St. Petersburg remains the capital.
Peter, with his peculiar blending of political supremacy and democratic fancifulness, built for himself a little house on the fortress island, where the furniture made by himself is still preserved by the[Pg 35] side of the miracle-working image of the Redeemer which the despot always carried with him. His spirit soars over this city and this land. What he did not entirely trust to his unscrupulous fist he left in honest bigotry to the bones of the holy Alexander Nevski, which he had brought to his capital soon after its establishment. Autocracy and popocracy still reign in the Russian empire. The Peter-and-Paul fortress, in the subterranean vaults of which many of the noblest hearts and heads of Russia have found their grave, the Isaac cathedral, with its barbarian pomp of gold and precious stones, and the mighty monoliths—these are the symbols of the city of St. Petersburg and of its régime. If there is in Russia, even among the enlightened minds, something like a fanatical hatred of civilization and of the West, it is due to the manner in which the half-barbarian Peter imposed Western ideas and civilization on a harmless and good-natured people.
What brutal power of will may do in defiance of unfriendly nature has been done on the banks of the Neva. Indeed, its green waters are now hidden by an ice-crust three feet thick, over which the sleighs run a race with the little cars of the electrical railway. Yet even without the restless shimmer of the water the view of the river-bank is still very impressive. The golden glitter of the great cupolas of the Isaac cathedral, the long red front of the Winter Palace, the pale yellow columns of the admiralty,[Pg 36] between Renaissance structures, stand out from among the rest.
Palaces and palaces stretch along the stream right up to the Field of Mars. The gilded spire of the Peter-and-Paul cathedral pierces the white-blue sky and greets, with its angel balanced on the extreme spire, the equally grotesque high spire of the admiralty. Great stone and iron bridges span the broad stream, its opposite shore almost faded in the light mist of the wintry day. Walking towards the middle of the bridge, whence a splendid view may be obtained, one sees the long row of buildings on the farther islands standing out of the mist. One row of columns is followed by another—the Academy of Arts, the Academy of Sciences, the house of Menschikov, which Catherine built for her favorite, come into view. Towards the west the hulls of vessels stand out from among the docks. Still farther out the mist hides the shoals of the Neva, together with those of the Gulf of Finland, in an impenetrable gray. Towards the north stretch the endless lanes with their bare branches which lead to the islands. This is the Bois de Boulogne of St. Petersburg, where the gilded youth race in brightly decorated "troikas," and hasten to squander in champagne, at cards, and in gypsy entertainments, the wages of the starved muzhik. It is a magnificent picture of power, of self-conscious riches, the better part of which is furnished by the mighty stream itself.
[Pg 37]
It is easy now to realize that St. Petersburg was originally planned for a seaport, and that it therefore presents its glittering front to the sea. The railroads which conduct the traffic to-day could no longer penetrate with their stations into the city proper; hence the visitors must first pass through the broad, melancholy suburban girdle which gives one the impression of a giant village. When access to the city was still by boat from the Gulf of Finland, the landing at the "English quay," with its view of all these colossal structures, golden domes and spires, must have created a powerful impression. Nothing less was contemplated by this massing of palaces. The capital and residence city was not intended to facilitate the access of the West but rather to inspire it with awe.
The splendor of the city naturally becomes gradually diminished from the banks of the Neva towards the vast periphery. The main artery of traffic in St. Petersburg, the "Nevski Prospect," and its continuation, the "Bolshaya Morskaya," remain stately and impressive to their very end. A peculiar feature of St. Petersburg is the numerous canals which begin and end at the Neva, and which once served to drain the swampy soil of the city. They are now to be filled, for they do not answer the purpose. Nevertheless, they offer meanwhile an opportunity for pretty bridge structures, as, for instance, the one leading over the Fontanka, ornamented with the four groups of the horse-tamers by[Pg 38] Baron Klodt. A comparison with the lagoon city, Venice, would really be a flattering hyperbole, for one does not get the impression here of being on the sea, as in the case of the "Canal-Grande." The city rather reminds one of the models that were nearer to its founder, the canal-furrowed cities of Holland. Still, these canals are a pleasant diversion in the otherwise monotonous pictures of the city streets.
Should it be mentioned here that St. Petersburg has its "millionnaya" (millionaire\'s street)? It is well known that hither and towards Moscow flow the treasures of a country squeezed dry. The great wealth of the one almost presupposes the nameless misery of the other. The indifference with which the shocking famine conditions of entire provinces and the threatening economic collapse of the whole empire are regarded here finds its explanation only in the bearing of these boyar-millionaires, who consider themselves Europeans because their valets are shaved in the English fashion.
The eye of the stranger who wishes to understand, and not merely to gaze, will rather turn to other phenomena more characteristic than splendid buildings of the country and its people.
There is, in the first place, the pope (priest), and then the policeman.
The priests and the policemen are the handsomest persons in St. Petersburg. Although the flowing hair of the bearded priest, reaching to his shoulders, is not to be regarded as a characteristic peculiarity,[Pg 39] since every third man in Russia displays long hair or profuse locks that would undoubtedly draw to their fortunate possessor in our land the attention of the street boys, still they are carefully chosen human material, tall, graceful men with handsome heads and proud mien. Notwithstanding this they are accorded but little reverence even among the bigoted Russians, for no matter how often and copiously these may cross themselves before every sacred image, they quite often experience, behind the priest, a sort of salvation which compels them suddenly to empty their mouths in a very demonstrative manner. This may be due to various kinds of superstition, which regard the meeting with a priest as very undesirable, but it finds its explanation also in the not always exemplary life of this servant of the Lord. He is especially accredited with a decided predilection for various distilled liquors that at times exert a doubtful influence on a man\'s behavior. One may see in St. Petersburg men wrapped in costly sable furs make the acquaintance of the street pavements, especially during the "butter-week," yet for spiritual garments the gutter is even less a place of legitimate rest, and, at any rate, it is difficult to acknowledge as the appointed interpreter of God\'s will a man whose mouth savors of an entirely different spirit than the "spiritus sanctus."
For all this, however, the Russian is filled, outwardly at least, and during divine services, with a[Pg 40] devotion which, to us, is scarcely comprehensible. With fanatical fervor he kisses in church the hand of the same priest behind whose back he spat at the church door. His body never rests. As with the orthodox Jew and the howling dervish, his praying consists in an almost unceasing bowing, and a not at all inconsiderable application of gymnastics. He is perpetually crossing himself. Particularly fervent suppliants, of the female gender especially, can hardly satisfy themselves by kissing again and again the stone flags of the floor, the hem of the priest\'s coat, the sacred images, and the numberless relics. But how effective and mind-ensnaring is the orthodox church service. The glimmer of the innumerable small and large wax candles brought by most of the congregants fills the golden mist of the place with an unearthly light. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds shine from the silver and gold crowns on the sacred images. The gigantic priest in his gold-embroidered vestments lets sound his deep, powerful, bass voice, and wonderful choirs answer him from both sides of the "ikonostas." Clouds of incense float through the high nave. The faithful, ranged one after another, intoxicate and carry one another by their devotion—a huge general hypnosis in which education and priestly art are equally concerned. The orthodox cult is not to be compared, at least in my opinion, with that of the Roman Catholics in the depth and nobility of the music and in the artistic arrangement of the service. But in its archaic[Pg 41] monotony, in its use of the coarsest material stimuli, it is perhaps even more suggestive for the Eastern masses than is the other for the civilized peoples of the West. The quantity of gold, silver, and precious stones offered up, especially in the Isaac cathedral and in the Kazan cathedral—fashioned after that of St. Peter\'s in Rome—to give the faithful a conception of the just claims of Heaven on treasure and reverence, is beyond the belief of Europeans. The artistically excellent silver ornaments of the Isaac cathedral weigh not less than eleven thousand kilograms. A single copy of the New Testament is bound in twenty kilograms of gold. The sacred image made in commemoration of the catastrophe of Borki is almost entirely covered with diamonds. These endowments came, for the most part, from members of the imperial house. The union of church and state is more intimate here than elsewhere, and, apparently, even more profitable for the guardians of the altar. Among all the sacred relics and trophies of the St. Petersburg church, one impresses the foreigner above the others. It is a collection of silver gifts from the French, ranged along the wall of the Peter-and-Paul cathedral. By the side of the coffins of the Russian emperors and empresses, from Peter the Great to Alexander III., which one cannot pass without a peculiar feeling of historical respect, under innumerable flags and war trophies, there stand, as the greatest triumph that the despotic barbarian state has won[Pg 42] from civilized Europe, the silver crowns and the shields of honor which Félix Faure, Casimir-Périer, the senate, the chamber, and the Parisian press presented to the Russian ally of France.
"You see here the greatest misfortune that has befallen us in this century," said my companion, an orthodox Russian of nothing less than radical views. "Until then, until this alliance, with all our boastfulness we still felt some shame before Europe for our barbarous and shameful rule. But since the most distinguished men and corporations of the most enlightened republic have begun prostrating themselves before us, the knout despotism has received the consecration of Europe and has thrown all shame to the winds."
"But the French have lent you eight milliards for it," I replied.
"A part of which has gone into Heaven knows whose pockets; the other supports our police against us, and the remainder was sunk in a worthless railroad, while we, in order to provide the interest, must take the horse from our peasant\'s plough and the cow from its stable, until even that shall come to an end, for nothing else will be left for the executor."
"A Jesuit trick," I said. "You owe the alliance to the diplomacy of Rampolla."
"The sword and the holy-water sprinkler," answered the Russian, as he pointed his hand in a circle from the war trophies to the "ikonostas," "they[Pg 43] go everywhere hand-in-hand and enslave and plunder the nations."
The leaden, snowy skies looked down on us oppressively as with a deep shudder at the prison gratings of the Peter-and-Paul fortress we hastened back to the city. I heard in my mind the notes of the "Marseillaise," and before my eyes there stood the gifts of honor from the French nation brought to the despot of the fortress. They are very near each other, cathedral and prison. In the still of the night the watchman of the French offerings may often hear the groans and the despairing cries of the poor souls who had dreamed of freedom and brotherhood and had paid for their dreams behind the heavy iron bars, deep under the mirror-like surface of the Neva, in the dungeons of the Peter-and-Paul fortress.