The Story of Moscow

n-Pre-Musco

his nomadibus ej

s and spires topped with Cross-and-Crescent; outside the wall that encircles this hill, groups of buildings, large and small; open fields, trees-singly, in rows, clumps and thickets-separate group from group; ever and anon above the many hued roofs reach belfries, spires, ste

r and brilliance, for seen in the clear sunlight of a summer day Moscow has beauty and brightness no other city possesses. Long lines of ivory whiteness capped with vivid green or flushed with carmine and ruby; great globes of deepest blue, patches

gets no bird's-eye view of the town; but on his way from the station in the suburbs towards the central town sees the painted roofs, coloured walls, pretentious pillars, cupolas with golden stars, strange tow

imagine all the states of Europe and Asia had sent a building by way of representation to Moscow," and in a certain sense this is still true. But it would be incorrect to assume, therefore, that cosmopolitanism is a dominant trait. The very reverse is the fact. Moscow is essentially Russian, and though there is abundant evidence of borrowing from Greece, Italy and Byzantium; from Moor, Goth and Mongol; of appropriation

uld be very learned or foolhardy who, acting on the rule that to see the house is to kno

ce, experience and effort. No town of like importance owes so little to nature, so much to man. And the dominant tone is religious; religious feeling has inspired the

nship, Moscow in its entirety demonstrates the development of a people. Even the opposing principles of diffusion and cohesion, and the parts they have served in the history of this race, are so unmistakably expresse

ly history of the empire subsequently evolved, and consequently much that may be considered foreign to the city itself mus

nd unimportant. Lakes are plentiful, and great rivers with many ramifications flow slowly by tortuous channels-mostly towards the north-west or the so

rmined resistance of aboriginal races checked their progress in some directions. The Scythian branch of the Slav race settled on the Don about 400 B.C. but was gradually driven from the shores of the Black Sea by the Greek colonists of Miletus. These colonies were taken by the Romans later, and about 300 A.D. the Slavs again asserted their dominion there for a period. Other branches of the Slav race and wilder races from Asia pressed westward, laying th

une and conquest further south. These became masters of Kief, pressed on to Constantinople in 200 ships, embraced Christianity and returned to Kief, intending there to found a separate kingdom and dynasty. After the death of Rurik, his son Igor, a minor, succeeded; his uncle, Oleg, as regent, went to Kief; there he treacherously killed the two usurping leaders, took possession of the city and, appointing Igor to the throne, determined that Kief should be the "mother of Russian towns." The people were then pagans, and the Northmen kept to the practices of their ancestors until about 955, when Olga was regent; she visited Constantinople and was there baptised into the Christian faith. Some thirty years later, Vladimir, the seventh in descent

same era occupying western Europe and the British Isles. The most ancient of the relics (Rooms I., II.) were found with bones of the mammoth in the district of Murom in Vladimir, and at Kostenki near Voronesh. Some ear-rings and a bracelet of twi

e, enable one to picture some part of the rude life of the people. Particularly deserving notice are the models of the dwellings of different races found in Russia:

were placed in a boat on a pile of wood; horses, cattle, slaves, were slain and added; the wife, or a maid offering herself a sacrifice, was fêted fo

similar one is to be seen at Kuntsevo, near Moscow, but both the "babas," as they are calle

hroniclers have recorded. The Russians lived together in communities governed by elected or hereditary elde

d Poland; his son, Yaroslaf, both on account of his warlike achievements and the splendour in which he lived, was respected throughout Europe. His daughters married into the reigning houses of France, Hungary and Norway; a daughter of Vsevolod married Henry IV. of Germany; Vladimir, the grandson of Yaroslaf, married Gyda, the daughter of Harold II. King of England; their son, Mstislaf, married Christina, daughter of the King of Sweden. Such a close connection between the S

y. Again, the "Russkaia Pravda" of the tenth century is contemporary with and akin to "Knut's Code," which the English usually, but wrongly, attribute to King Alfred. One other point tells in favour of Scandinavian dominion: the freedom accorded to women and

tenth and succeeding centuries is a story of strife and disaster. Wars, with varying success, against Poles, Swedes, Lithuanians, and the predatory tribes on the south and east; fires, famine, pestilence, succeeded each other and re-occurred. In 1124 Kief, the opulent and sacred city, was destroyed by fire; some years later Novgorod was depopulated by famine; robbers exacted blackmail from voyagers on the great waterways; trade decayed. In 1224 the Russians made common cause with their enemy the Polovtsi to repel an invasion of Tartars; they were beaten

Moscow, subject to the Tartar yoke, the people became patient and resigned; born to endure bad fortune, they could profit by good. The princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue, by corruption, by the purchase of con