TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5304, 26 March 1878, Page 3

TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA.

(O’rom the Pall MaH 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 you find that the station which bears its name is .some twenty miles distant from the town itself. You climb into a paracladuoi, a three-horse truck without springs, and ask that your luggage may be put in with you. The station porter, clad in a kaftan reaching to his feet, smiles’ kindly, but cannot give you your Wgage without the permission of some official 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 and curious invention. More money is required to stop him • then you scramble into the truck again, and ’off it goes like wildfire, the Kalmuck driver yelling all the way, and thwacking the shafts with the stump of his whip to make you fancy that he is dragging the vehicle by himself. The bumping 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. In some districts a chance of being chevied by a pack of dinnerless wolves adds to the interest of the journey ; but if it be ni (r ht 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, pounding along its unpaved streets with a last flourish of howls, the isvostohik gallops into the courtyard of the place that calls itself an hotel. Out tumbles a flat-nosed ostler, whom the driver begins to thump and swear at, just to showjhiszsal in your service. Then comes the landlord, generally a German who talks broken French,and whose accommodation for travellers consists in two" or three rooms without beds and some hot water. It is expected that a traveller should bring his own provisions; if he have not done so, he must 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 .refractory courtiers. A chunk of beef stewed in sugar and vinegar and served with a saucerful of salted cucumbers and pickled cherries, will be about the extent of the bill of fare ; though if there happen to be aiweffdihg 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-rrallows. 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 curl themselves up in sheepskins and lie down near stoves; soldiers rest upon wooden cots without bedding; and it is only within the last ten years that the students in State schools have been allowed beds. A traveller must therefore roll himself up in rugs and furs, and spend his night on the floor of his innroom. Russians see no hardship in, this, even if- they be rich and accustomed to luxuries. 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 large cities are believers in phlebotomy and violent purgatives. They prescribe tea, but drug it without telling you, and the effects are felt for days afterwards. Their fee is anything you like to give ; but whatever you may offer they will be sure tq ask more, and 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 first choose the article 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 has 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 cigar, a shilling. The only cheap things are tea, vodki, and articles made of leather; but even these cannot be had at a reasonable price unless bought through 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 without a servant cannot be put down at less than £2. The price of a single room will range from 15f. to 20f. ; table d’hote dinner costs 12f. without wine; a bottle of pale ale one rouble ; one of champagne five roubles, and so on. Amusements, such as theatres and concerts, coat about 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 procured under £5. At the French theatre there Is a certain agio on 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 compounded with. The theatres and restaurants of the capital are luxurious, and so are the first-class railway carriages on jfthe line from St. Petersburg to Moscow. If a stranger confined his travels 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, dressing-rooms, and attendance are available. Nor on this one line are there any vexatious formalities about luggage and passports. Everywhere else a passport is in constant request, 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 invited to step into the police-office, where he will have to prove, by showing other papers, 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 country town will have to be careful of the company into which he falls; for Russian friendship soon turns to familiarity, and one of the first manifestations of familiarity is to ask the stranger to take a rand at ecarte. Then it becomes a question f refusing and being deemed a boor, or ccepting and being promptly cleaned out. Oxs Russians are fearful gamblers, and a B>anger with circular notes in his pockets is arodsend to them. They do not cheat; but ply and play until the result is utter impejniousness to one of the two parties to the gale. The women are as bad as the me and think nothing of winning a few hutrod napoleons from a stranger whom thejiave not known more than a week. It mus be borne in mind that the ladies here allucj to are those of a certain rank, who affect

to- copy Parisiarr'ffiaffriers ;“"fof 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 forthcoming; but 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 turn out of all the rabble doggery of the country. All the mujicks round 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 tbe frantic shouts raised by the peasant every time a bird rises on the line of sight or a grey fox slinks away down a furrow. . Another favorite country-house amusement is dancing, and a foreigner will be delighted by the pretty jigs which Russian ladies dance with scarves or shawls something after the fashion of the almtes. They will sing too, accompanying themselves: with triangular guitars rather like banjoes. It should be mentioned that there is no colloquial equivalent in Russia to ” Six*” or t( Madam,’ and this puts social relations at once on a very friendly footing. Tschinovniks and their wives are addressed by their, inferiors as “ Your High origin” or “ High Nobility,” as the case may be, hut amongst equals the usual formula is to address a person by his Christian name, coupled to that of his father—as thus, Paul-Petrowiteh, i.e., Paul, son of Peter ; and tbe same in regard to women, “ Maria-Nioo-laievna,” Mary, daughter of Nicholas. It goes without saying that the guest-chamber in 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, he will be 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 he swallows it, and warranted to procure him a grand series of nightmares till morning.