The Traveller.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 310, 30 March 1878, Page 6

The Traveller.

TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA, f From the Pall Mall Gazette). Russia is the most uncomfortable of countries to travel in. Such railways as there are run mostly in straight lines from terminus to terminus, without taking any account of the towns on their road. If you want to alight at a town half-way down the line yoxx find that the station which bears its name is some twenty miles distant from the town itself. Yoxx climb into a paracladnoi, a three-horse truck without springs, aud ask that your luggage may be put in with you. The station porter-, clad in a kaftan reaching to his feet, smiles kindly, but camiot give you your luggage without the permission of some offick l who is absent. It takes money to find this official. When he has consented to inspect the luggage, he proceeds to examine every article as if it were a new aud curious invention. More money is required to stop him ; then yoxx scramble into the truck again, ancl off it goes like wildfire, the Kalmuck driver yelling all the way, aud thwacking the shafts with the stump of lxis whip to make yoxx fancy that he is dragging the vehicle by himself. The bxxtnping is something to remember ; for the roads are left to mend themselves, and in winter some of the ruts are big enough to hold coffins. Iu some districts a chance of being chevied by a pack of dinnerless wolves adds to the interest of the journey ; but if it be night a lantern with a strong reflector hung at the back of the carriage will be enough to keep them from approaching. At length the town of your destination is reached, and, poxxnding along its uupaved streets with a last flourish of howls, the isvostchik gallops into the coxxrtyard of the place that calls itself an hotel. Out txunbles a flat-nosed ostler, whom the di-iver begins to thump anti swear at, just to showjhiszeal iu your service. Then comes the landlord, generally a German who talks broken French,and whose accommodation for tx-avellers consists in two or three rooms without beds and some hot water. It is expected that a traveller should bi-iug his own provisions; if he have not done so, he mxxst pay for food at famine prices—and what food ! It is no use asking for a chop or steak, for the last gridiron seen in Russia (except in private houses) was the one which Ivan the Terrible used for the broiling of refi-actory coxxrtiers. A chunk of beef stewed in sugar and vinegar and served

with a saxxcei-ful of salted cxxcumbei-s and pickled cherries, will be about the extent of the bill of fare ; though if there happen to be a wedding going on in the town, the landlord will run off to beg some choicer dainties, and return in triumph with the leg of a goose stuffed with cloves, or a piece of pork, braised with nutmegs and marsh-mallows. As to beds, they are quite a modern innovation in Russia, and many well-to-do houses are still unprovided with them. Peasants sleep on the tops of their ovens ; middle-class people and servants cxxi-1 themselves xxp in sheepskins and lie down near stoves ; soldiers rest txpon wooden cots without bedding ; and it is only within the last texx years that the students in State schools have been allowed beds. A traveller mxxst therefore roll himself up in rugs aud furs, and spend his night on the floor of his innroom. Russians see no hardship in this, even if they be rich aixd accustomed to luxxxries. They rather prefer boards to mattresses, and are first-rate travellers, for they make shift to sleep anywhere. A man had better not fall ill while in a Russian country town, for all the doctors outside the lax-ge cities are believers in phlebotomy and violeixt purgatives. They prescribe tea, but drug it without telling yoxx, and the effects are felt for days afterwards. Their fee is anything you like to give ; but whatever yoxx may offer tliey will be sure to ask more, aixd must therefore be dealt with as bluntly as tradesmen. The prices of goods in Russian shops are assessed according to the apparent wealth of the customer. A stranger must fii-st choose the ai-ticle he wants, then offer what he thinks reasonable, and turn on his heel if the tender be declined. Should the tradesman hurry after him into the street, he may be sure that he luxs offered too much ; should he be allowed to go, his bid has really been too low ; and of course, it is liable to happen with persons accustomed to Western prices, for the cost of everything in Russia is exorbitant. A suit of fairly good clothes costs £l4 ; a pair of knee boots, £6 ; an average cigav, a shilling. The only cheap things are tea, vodki, and articles made of leather ; bxxt even these cannot be had at a reasonable price unless bought throxxgh a native. In the large French hotels of St. Petersburg, where Parisian furniture and beds are to be had, the day’s board for a bachelor withoxxt a servant cannot bepxxtdown at less than £2. The px-ice of a single room will range from 1 of. to 20f. ; table d’hote dinner costs 12f. without wine; a bottle of pale ale one i-ouble ; one of champagne live roxxbles, and so on. Amxxsements, such as theatres and concerts, cost aboxxt three times as much as in England. On the Patti nights at the Italian Opera of St. Petersburg the stalls are bought up Jews ; and one can scarely be procxxred under £5. At the French theatre there is a certain agio oix the seats, and the playgoer has to add a reckoning of vails for box-openers and programme vendors, who will leave him no peace until compoxxnded with. The theatres and restaurants of the capital are luxurious, and so are the first-class railway carriages on the line from St. Petersburg to Moscow. If a stranger confined his ti-avels to a journey on this line he would go away with a fine idea of Russian comfort, for all the latest American improvements in the way of sleeping and dining cars, dressi-jg-rooms, aud attendance are available. Nor on this one line are there any vexatious formalities aboxxt luggage aud passports. Everywhere else a passport is iix constant l-equest, and the only way to avoid exhibiting it a dozen times a day is to produce a twenty-kopeck piece in its stead. The traveller who forgets the coin is liable to be iixvited to step into the police-office, where he will have to prove, by showing other paper-s, that the passport is really his and not one that he has stolen. There is one good side to travelling in Russia, and it is this. If a stranger be not faring for commercial purposes, he will be made a welcome guest, at the houses of the authorities in any town where he may wish to spend more than a day. The civil governor will despatch a secretary to his hotel, and be glad to have him to dinner for the sole sake of hearing what news he has to bring. This is pleasant enough, and the hospitality is the more gracious as the passing stranger cannot make any return for it beyond thanks. On the other hand, a stranger who settles for any term exceeding a week in a counti-y town will have to be careful of the company into which lie falls; for Russian friendship soon turns to familiarity, and one of the first manifestations of familiarity is to ask the stranger to take a hand at ecarte. Then it becomes a question of refusing and being deemed a boor, or accepting and being promptly cleaned out. The Russians are fearful gamblers, and a stranger with circular notes in his pockets is a godsend to them. They do not cheat; bxxt play and play until the result is utter impecuniousness to one of the two parties to the game. The women are as bad as the men, and think nothing of winning a few hundred napoleons from a stranger whom they have not known more than a week. It mxxst be borne iu mind that the ladies here alluded to are those of a certain rank, who affect to copy Parisian manners ; for those of the middle class do not show themselves to their husband’s guests. In country houses cardplaying is the ordinary evening’s amusement, counters being used when money is not fortlicoxning; bxxt in these places a stranger will often get two or three days’ excellent shooting in return for the bank-notes he drops on his host’s table at night. Russian game consists of wolves, foxes, hares, partridges, and several varieties of wild fowl ; and a day with the guns leads to a txxi-n oxxt of all the rabble doggery of the coxxnti-y. All the mujicks roxxnd about leave their work to see the sport, and almost everyone brings a dog with him. Happily, the game is not wild, else it would be all scared away by the frantic shouts raised by the peasant evei-y tinxe a bird l-ises on the line of sight or a gi-eyfox slinks away down a furrow. Another favorite country-house amxxsement is dancing, aud a foi’eigner will be delighted by the pretty jigs which Russian ladies dance with scarves or shawls something

after the fashion of tlie ahnecs. I hey "'ill sing too, accompanying themselves with triangular guitars rather like banjoes. It should be mentioned that there is no colloquial valent in Russia to “ Sir” or “ Madaiu, and this puts social relations at once on a very friendly footing. Tschinovniks and. then ■wives are addressed by their inferiors as “ Your High origin” or “High Nobility, as the case may be, but amongst equals the usual formula is to address a person by his Christian name, eonpled to that of his father —-as thus, Paul-Petrowitch, 1.c., Paul, son of Peter the same in regard to women, “ Maria-N icolaievna,” IMary, daughter of Nicholas. It goes without saying that the guest-chamber m a. Russian country-house is as devoid of beds as a country hotel. At most a foreigner will be accommodated with an ottoman spread with catskins ; but even if he have to lie on the floor, lie will ho sure to sleep, for a nightcap” will be given him in the shape of a pint bowl, full of a mixture of tea, egg yolks, and arak punch, enough to make him cry when ho swallows it, and warranted to procure him a grand series of nightmares till morning.