Peter Kropotkin and John Thomas Bealby

“ MOSCOW, (Russian Moskva) , the second capital of the Russian empire, and chief town of the government of the same name, in 55° 45′ N. and 37° 37′ E., on both banks of the river Moskva, a tributary of the Oka. It is by rail 400 m. from St Petersburg, 1017 from Odessa, and 814 from Warsaw. It lies to the north of the most densely peopled parts of Russia (the “black-earth region”) , whilst the country to the north of it is rather thinly peopled as far as the Volga, and very sparsely beyond that. ”

“ Piles of salt line the salt wharves on the Oka; farther down are the extensive storehouses and heaps of grain of the corn wharves; then comes the steamboat quay on the Volga, opposite the Kremlin, and still farther east the timber wharves. The fair is held on the flat sandy tongue of land between the Oka and the Volga, connected with the town by only a bridge of boats, 1500 yds. long, which is taken to pieces in winter. The shops of the fair, 4000 in number, built of stone in regular rows, are surrounded by a canal, and cover half a square mile. ”

“ An interesting feature of the Russian capital is the very high proportion of people living on their own earnings or income (“independent”) as compared with those who live on the earnings or income of someone else (“dependent”) . Only a few industrial establishments employ more than twenty workmen, the average being less than ten and the figure seldom falling below five. The large factories are beyond the limits of St Petersburg. Although 36% of the population above six years old are unable to read, the workmen are amongst the most intelligent classes in Russia. ”

“ Trade is principally in the goods enumerated above, but the city is also a centre for trade in corn, leather and coal, and its two fairs (wool and hops) have a great reputation throughout western Russia. The wholesale deportations of Warsaw artisans after the Polish insurrections of 1794, 1831 and 1863 considerably checked, but by no means stopped, the industrial progress of the town. The barrier of custom-houses all round Poland, and the Russian rule, which militates against the progress of Polish science, technology and art, are so many obstacles to the development of its natural resources. ”

“ Moscow thus became the centre for nearly the entire trade of Russia, and the tsar himself engaged in large commercial operations. Situated at the intersection of six important highways, Moscow was the storehouse and exchange-mart for the merchandise of Europe and Asia. The opening of the port at St Petersburg affected its commercial interest unfavourably at first; but the Asiatic trade and internal trade of Moscow have since then enormously increased. ”

“ From the 15th century onwards the villages around Moscow were renowned for the variety of small industries which they carried on; the first large manufactures in cottons, woollen fabrics, silk, china and glass in Great-Russia were established at Moscow in the 17th and 18th centuries. After 1830, in consequence of protection tariffs, the manufactories in the government of Moscow rapidly increased in number; but two-thirds of them are now concentrated in the capital. Moscow is in fact the principal manufacturing city in the empire, employing about 100,000 operatives in her mills and factories. ”

“ In 1591 the Tatars of the Crimea were again in Moscow and avenged their repulse from the Kremlin on the inhabitants of the unfortified town. Meanwhile the political influence of the boyars had gradually increased. The peasants, who settled on their lands, or on the estates which the prince bestowed upon his boyars, had become serfs; and the political tendency of the boyars, supported by the wealthier middle classes (which had also a rapid development in the same century) , was to become rulers of Russia, like the noblesse of Poland. ”

“ The theatre for Polish drama and the ballet is a fine building, which includes two theatres under the same roof; but the pride of Warsaw is its theatre in the Lazienki gardens, which were laid out (1767–1788) in an old bed of the Vistula by King Stanislaus Poniatowski, and have beautiful shady alleys, artificial ponds, an elegant little palace with ceilings painted by Bacciarelli, several imperial villas and a monument (1788) to John Sobieski, king of Poland, who delivered Vienna from the Turks in 1683. Here an artificial ruin on an island makes an open-air theatre. ”

“ Bulgarian empire, at the confluence of the Volga with the Kama, was so powerful that for some time it was an open question whether Islam or Christianity would gain the upper hand among the Slav idolaters. But, while the Russians were driven from the Black Sea by the Khazars, and later on by a tide of Ugrian migration from the north-east, a stream of Slavs moved slowly towards the north-east, down the upper Oka, into the borderland between the Finnish and Turkish regions. After two centuries of struggle the Russians succeeded in colonizing the fertile valleys of the Oka basin ”

“ The summits and slopes of the mountains are strewn with débris and boulders, and thickly carpeted with lichens and mosses; but there are patches of meadowland brightened with flowers, most of which are known in Europe. ”

“ In 1547 two conflagrations destroyed nearly the whole of the city, and a few days later the Tatar khan of the Crimea advanced against it with 100,000 men. He was compelled to retire from the banks of the Oka, but in 1571, taking advantage of the state into which Russia was brought by the extravagances of Ivan, he took Moscow and burned all the city outside the Kremlin. The gates of the Kremlin having been shut, thousands of people perished in the flames, and the annals record that of the 200,000 who then formed the population of Moscow, only 30,000 remained. ”

“ Climatic, Geo-Botanical and Geo-Zoological Importance.—The importance of the Urals as a climatic and geo-botanical boundary can no longer be regarded as very great. Most European species of plants freely cross the Urals into Siberia, and several Siberian species travel across them into northern Russia. But, being a zone of hilly tracts extending from north to south, the Ural Mountains necessarily exercise a powerful influence in pushing a colder northern climate, as well as a northern flora and fauna, farther south along their axis. ”

“ Old Christian and old Russian arts are well represented in the museums of the Academy of Arts. The New Michael Palace was in 1895–1898 converted into a museum of Russian art—the Russian museum; it is one of the handsomest buildings in the city.
In the development of the Russian drama St Petersburg has played a far less important part than Moscow, and the stage there has never reached the same standard of excellence as that of the older capital. On the other hand, St Petersburg is the cradle of Russian opera and Russian music. ”

“ Owing to its great fertility, Samara usually has a surplus of grain for export, varying from 11/2 to 4 million quarters (exclusive of oats) annually. Notwithstanding this production, the government is periodically liable to famine to such an extent that men die by thousands of hunger-typhus, or are forced to go by thousands in search of employment on the Volga. The population have no store of corn, or reserve capital for years of scarcity, and some 210,000 males have each an average of only four acres of arable and pasture land. ”

“ The Southern Urals introduce into the Cis-Caspian steppes the flora and fauna of middle Russia.
In the distribution of the races of mankind the Urals have played an important part. To the present day the Northern Urals are inhabited by Finnish races (Samoyedes, Syryenians, Voguls and Permians) who have been driven from their former homes by Slav colonization, while the steppes on the slopes of the Southern Urals have continued to be inhabited by the Turkish Bashkirs. ”

“ Higher instruction for women is provided by a medical academy, a free university, four other institutions for higher education, and a school of agriculture. The scientific institutions include an academy of sciences, opened in 1726, which has rendered immense service in the exploration of Russia. The oft-repeated reproach that it keeps its doors shut to Russian savants, while opening them too widely to German ones, is not without foundation. ”

“ The industries are insignificant (chiefly tanning, distilling and tallow-melting) ; ironworks and cloth mills are still in their infancy. The export of cattle, hides, tallow, corn, flour, fish and furs to Russia, both from Tobolsk and from the Kirghiz steppe, is of some importance. Spirits are sent farther east to Tomsk; while all kinds of manufactured wares are imported from Russia. The fairs of Irbit and Ishim are the chief centres for trade. ”

“ In the centre of the Old Town stands the cathedral of St Sophia, the oldest cathedral in the Russian empire. Its external walls are of a pale green and white colour, and it has ten cupolas, four spangled with stars and six surmounted each with a cross. The golden cupola of the four-storeyed campanile is visible for many miles across the steppes. The statement frequently made that the church was a copy of St Sophia’s in Constantinople has been shown to be a mistake. The building measures in length 177 ft., while its breadth is 118 ft. ”

“ The main source of wealth in Poltava always has been, and still is, its live-stock breeding—horses, cattle, sheep, pigs. Some of the wealthier landowners and many peasants rear finer breeds of horses. The land is chiefly owned by the peasants, who possess 52% of the cultivable area; 42% belongs to private persons, and the remainder to the Crown, the clergy, and the municipalities.
Among the manufactures distilleries hold the leading place, after which come flour-mills, tobacco factories, machine-making, tanneries, saw-mills, sugar-works and woollen manufactures. ”

“ But while Novgorod constantly showed a tendency to become an oligarchy of the wealthier merchants, Pskov figured as a republic in which the influence of the poorer classes prevailed. Its trading associations, supported by those of the working classes, checked the influence of the wealthier merchants. ”

“ The south-western railway connects it with Lodz, the Manchester of Poland, and with the productive mineral region of Piotrkow and Kielce, which supply its steadily growing manufactures with coal and iron, so that Warsaw and its neighbourhood have become a centre for all kinds of manufactures. The iron and steel industry has greatly developed, and produces large quantities of rails. The machinery works have suffered to some extent from competition with those of southern Russia, and find the high price of land a great obstacle in the way of extension. ”

“ Agriculture is carried on to a limited extent by the Buryats and in all the Russian settlements; but it 'prospers only in the valleys of West Transbaikalia, and partly in the Nerchinsk region, while in the steppes of the Argun and Onon even the Russians resort to pastoral pursuits and trade, or to hunting. Livestock rearing is extensively carried on, especially by the Buryats, but their herds and flocks are often destroyed in great numbers by the snowstorms of spring. ”

“ The first place among the manufacturing industries is taken by flour-mills. The cutting of precious stones is extensively carried on throughout the villages on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, the chief market for them being at Ekaterinburg. An active trade, greatly favoured by the easy communication of the chief centres of the mining industry with the market of Nizhniy Novgorod on the one side and with the network of Siberian rivers on the other, is carried on in metals and metal wares, minerals, timber and wooden wares, tallow, skins, cattle, furs, corn and linseed. ”

“ From time to time the emigration takes the shape of a mass movement, which the government stops by forcible measures. The average size of the landed estates is 9500 to 11,000 acres, far above the general average for Russia. Agriculture has reached a high degree of perfection on the estates of the landlords. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley, flax and potatoes, with some wheat, hemp and buckwheat. Dairy-farming and gardening are on the increase. Fishing in Lake Peipus gives occupation to nearly 100,000 persons, and is also carried on in the Gulf of Riga and in the rivers. ”