The Hiding-Place of the Czar.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 791, 6 April 1905, Page 4

The Hiding-Place of the Czar.

| The palace of the Czars at Tsars- - ikoe has occupied a prominent plate in popular notice during the last i few days. It is the Versailles of th« ■ Russian capital, and thither "The pan- I io-strickcn »uler fled when he left his people to the mercy of his uncle on the fateful 22nd of J amiary. I examined tiie Palace of Tsarskoe 6«<o inside aud out not long fiince. It tooU me about half an hour to do the thirteen miles' from St. Petersburg. (Why docs everyone outside Russia canonise the great Peter ?). The railway runs through a vast plain stretching as far as thie eye can reach'. The farthest hoiiizom is darkened by the smoke of the I factories on the Neva, but in every other direction is the plain and always Iho plain, a solitude haunted ■by an irrepressible sadness and an

overwhelming sense of infinity. As ono looks from the train window one is struck by the curious amount of lumlier scattered far and .wide, with here ami there a delapidatcd hovel,, or less frequently, a more welHo-do cottage in the inidslt of a vegetable garden. Anonv at an interval of five or six versts from ono another on summit of small risings, appear the hiedous outlines of some Greek churches, whose intolerable and barbarous architecture, neither European not Asiatic, combines the worst feature of the two. Naprfleon's remark on viewing Moscow for tho first time describes them accurately. " What/' ho asked, " are those overgrown cabbages with' an onion at each corner coped by a broomstick ? " On arrival at Tsarskoe we found a collection of droschkis with their izvoscltichkis fast asleep on their seats as though fares were of 110 consequence. Getting into on# ol these, wo. speedily made our way to the Imperial park. The palace is magnificent, and stands just as it was built by Catherine 11. In summer time the place is somewhat crowded, but at tlie time of my visit there was no one about, and it was possible to wander alone about the beautiful walks and avenues .surrounding- the lake with its islands, waterfalls, and fountains. The northern end is , surrounded by mangificent trees and decked with an extrabrass. Within .the limits are iquitc ordinary number otf classical statues, , mostly nude, and largely made of brass. Withing the limits are "quite a number of churches, an arsenal, large barracks for all -three arms, and a theatra In fact, the pi'.ace is entirely self-contained. Our eyes were delighted with the beautiful little streams and waterways, daintily bridged in many places, sunlit lawns and shadowy groves, supplemented by every imaginable effort of the landscape gardener's genius. Money will do anything in Russia, and in our case it induced an- attendant to show us the whole of the interior of the palace, with all the private apartments of the Imperial family. The very doors and windows of the place must have cost fortunes by themselves, hut, for all the costliness of tlie material, an air of real- comfort seems to have been quite beyond the art of the designers, and coldness and cheerlessncss liroods over all. As is usual in Russia, all the .rooms are without carpets on the , panquelry floors. There arc rooms of alabaster of lapis lazuli and gold, of white porcelain and violet ; the silver hall gleams with a moon-like

I radiance, the Chinese looms in black ( aiwl gold. Here you may see marble side tables set in heavy gold, and chairs of costly woods inlaid .with amber, their doors exquisitely constructed with glass and silver, and, above, the ceiling radiant with lovely paintings of scenes from Russian history of classic myt-Iv. We went into the private study of Alenandcr 1., his table being left just as it was when he last sat there. It is of the most costly construction, and must have cost an immense sum< TKe Imperial sea'fc|, the inkstands, and all the accessories are of solid gold, and upon a golden pedestal is a magnificent vase picturecf with the entrance of the allied Sovereigns into Paris in 1814. But tho wealth and magnificence of this summer palace of the Czars, in which there is little doubt that Nicholas 11. has taken refuse after his flight from the Winter Palace in Petersburg, .tfuitc beggars actual description. It is a rare jewel, and the remark of a French Ambassador aptly tiescriftes one's feelings. When asked by Cathrine 11. if he thought there was anything lacking which sne had not bestowed U p„n it, he replied : v A glass caste." But amidst all this spfaitfour ono Could not resist an all-prcviaditig sense of melancholy. Even our attendant seemed under its influence, as he summed up our sensations with the remark, " Empresses and Emperors are helpless as common mortals. Splendour does not change their nature, and cannot alter the miserable end common to all." How .wide the chasm between the autocrat" a-ird his people is evidenced by .the picture surrounding all this splendour. Outside In the wretched hoTels of the p o orer classes poverty and -chronic, bankruptcy are only too manifest, where beds arc unknown ™ sexes sleep indiscriminately ajrout the floors, never removing their garments except for a monthly -th ; the only special notice they reccive, os Tsarskoe Selo isi a fashionable resort, being from the sani|tary inspector, whose duty it is to see that they do not come between tlie wind of their lord's* nobility.— §t. James' Budget.