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Here the traveller would think he was on the highway
into Asia. Strange sights are to be seen: a Tatar
wedding-party in modern carriages; dark countenances, under
turbans, in elegant European landaus. That was the
sight which first met me in Moscow. Everything is to
be seen here which we are accustomed to imagine as gay
in the streets of a city: Persians with their tall
sheepskin caps, Turks with their fezes, and pagan Kalmucks;
it is perhaps as unusual a variety as the sight of Turks
and Persians in the streets of Venice.
The stranger’s first visit is to the Kremlin. Here he
stands on the navel of Russia. This is a holy place for
Russian patriotism. Here is the central point of the
empire; here the Tsar is crowned. Ascending the
highest tower, Iván Veliky, you can see an immense city on
every side, with gilded and green cupolas and roofs.
Here stood Napoleon with his marshals in 1812 and saw
the commencement of the conflagration of the city. Here
stood Madame de Staël and uttered the well-known words,
“Rome of the Tatars!” which depicts in a masterly
manner the impression made by the fountain-head of the
church of a barbaric race. But the old French proverb,
“Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar,” contains
a truth, though with so many limitations that it will be
wrong nine times in ten. The harsh rule of the
Mongolian for two hundred and sixty years (1220–1480) in fact
put Russia far back and had its baneful influence on the
Russian character; but it did not succeed in changing the
race, even if it made the blood less pure. The Russian
flesh and blood is concealed under many Tatarean
princely titles; under many customs originating with
the Mongolians, the Slavic temperament has held its own
incorrupted. That appeared when Peter the Great
undertook to scratch the Asiatic and found a European
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