Russia | Page 3

were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

RUSSIA
by
Donald Mackenzie Wallace
Copyright 1905

Contents
Preface


CHAPTER I
TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA
Railways--State Interference--River Communications--Russian "Grand Tour"--The Volga--Kazan--Zhigulinskiya Gori--Finns and Tartars--The Don--Difficulties of Navigation--Discomforts--Rats--Hotels and Their Peculiar Customs--Roads--Hibernian Phraseology Explained-- Bridges--Posting--A Tarantass--Requisites for Travelling-- Travelling in Winter--Frostbitten--Disagreeable Episodes--Scene at a Post-Station.


CHAPTER II
IN THE NORTHERN FORESTS
Bird's-eye View of Russia--The Northern Forests--Purpose of my Journey--Negotiations--The Road--A Village--A Peasant's House-- Vapour-Baths--Curious Custom--Arrival.


CHAPTER III
VOLUNTARY EXILE
Ivanofka--History of the Place--The Steward of the Estate--Slav and Teutonic Natures--A German's View of the Emancipation--Justices of the Peace--New School of Morals--The Russian Language--Linguistic Talent of the Russians--My Teacher--A Big Dose of Current History.


CHAPTER IV
THE VILLAGE PRIEST
Priests' Names--Clerical Marriages--The White and the Black Clergy-- Why the People do not Respect the Parish Priests--History of the White Clergy--The Parish Priest and the Protestant Pastor--In What Sense the Russian People are Religious--Icons--The Clergy and Popular Education--Ecclesiastical Reform--Premonitory Symptoms of Change--Two Typical Specimens of the Parochial Clergy of the Present Day.


CHAPTER V
A MEDICAL CONSULTATION
Unexpected Illness--A Village Doctor--Siberian Plague--My Studies-- Russian Historians--A Russian Imitator of Dickens--A ci-devant Domestic Serf--Medicine and Witchcraft--A Remnant of Paganism-- Credulity of the Peasantry--Absurd Rumours--A Mysterious Visit from St. Barbara--Cholera on Board a Steamer--Hospitals--Lunatic Asylums--Amongst Maniacs.


CHAPTER VI
A PEASANT FAMILY OF THE OLD TYPE
Ivan Petroff--His Past Life--Co-operative Associations-- Constitution of a Peasant's Household--Predominance of Economic Conceptions over those of Blood-relationship--Peasant Marriages-- Advantages of Living in Large Families--Its Defects--Family Disruptions and their Consequences.


CHAPTER VII
THE PEASANTRY OF THE NORTH
Communal Land--System of Agriculture--Parish Fetes--Fasting-- Winter Occupations--Yearly Migrations--Domestic Industries-- Influence of Capital and Wholesale Enterprise--The State Peasants-- Serf-dues--Buckle's "History of Civilisation"--A precocious Yamstchik--"People Who Play Pranks"--A Midnight Alarm--The Far North.


CHAPTER VIII
THE MIR, OR VILLAGE COMMUNITY
Social and Political Importance of the Mir--The Mir and the Family Compared--Theory of the Communal System--Practical Deviations from the Theory--The Mir a Good Specimen of Constitutional Government of the Extreme Democratic Type--The Village Assembly--Female Members-- The Elections--Distribution of the Communal Land.


CHAPTER IX
HOW THE COMMUNE HAS BEEN PRESERVED, AND WHAT IT IS TO EFFECT IN THE FUTURE
Sweeping Reforms after the Crimean War--Protest Against the Laissez Faire Principle--Fear of the Proletariat--English and Russian Methods of Legislation Contrasted--Sanguine Expectations--Evil Consequences of the Communal System--The Commune of the Future-- Proletariat of the Towns--The Present State of Things Merely Temporary.


CHAPTER X
FINNISH AND TARTAR VILLAGES
A Finnish Tribe--Finnish Villages--Various Stages of Russification-- Finnish Women--Finnish Religions--Method of "Laying" Ghosts-- Curious Mixture of Christianity and Paganism--Conversion of the Finns--A Tartar Village--A Russian Peasant's Conception of Mahometanism--A Mahometan's View of Christianity--Propaganda--The Russian Colonist--Migrations of Peoples During the Dark Ages.


CHAPTER XI
LORD NOVGOROD THE GREAT
Departure from Ivanofka and Arrival at Novgorod--The Eastern Half of the Town--The Kremlin--An Old Legend--The Armed Men of Rus--The Northmen--Popular Liberty in Novgorod--The Prince and the Popular Assembly--Civil Dissensions and Faction-fights-- The Commercial Republic Conquered by the Muscovite Tsars--Ivan the Terrible-- Present Condition of the Town--Provincial Society--Card-playing-- Periodicals--"Eternal Stillness."


CHAPTER XII
THE TOWNS AND THE MERCANTILE CLASSES
General Character of Russian Towns--Scarcity of Towns in Russia-- Why the Urban Element in the Population is so Small--History of Russian Municipal Institutions--Unsuccessful Efforts to Create a Tiers-etat--Merchants, Burghers, and Artisans--Town Council--A Rich Merchant--His House--His Love of Ostentation--His Conception of Aristocracy--Official Decorations--Ignorance and Dishonesty of the Commercial Classes--Symptoms of Change.


CHAPTER XIII
THE PASTORAL TRIBES OF THE STEPPE
A Journey to the Steppe Region of the Southeast--The Volga--Town and Province of Samara--Farther Eastward--Appearance of the Villages--Characteristic Incident--Peasant Mendacity--Explanation of the Phenomenon--I Awake in Asia--A Bashkir Aoul--Diner la Tartare--Kumyss--A Bashkir Troubadour--Honest Mehemet Zian--Actual Economic Condition of the Bashkirs Throws Light on a Well-known Philosophical Theory--Why a Pastoral Race Adopts Agriculture--The Genuine Steppe--The Kirghiz--Letter from Genghis Khan--The Kalmyks-- Nogai Tartars--Struggle between Nomadic Hordes and Agricultural Colonists.


CHAPTER XIV
THE MONGOL DOMINATION
The Conquest--Genghis Khan and his People--Creation and Rapid Disintegration of the Mongol Empire--The Golden Horde--The Real Character of the Mongol Domination--Religious Toleration--Mongol System of Government--Grand Princes--The Princes of Moscow-- Influence of the Mongol Domination--Practical Importance of the Subject.


CHAPTER XV
THE COSSACKS
Lawlessness on the Steppe--Slave-markets of the Crimea--The Military Cordon and the Free Cossacks--The Zaporovian Commonwealth Compared with Sparta and with the Mediaeval Military Orders--The Cossacks of the Don, of the Volga, and of the Ural--Border Warfare-- The Modern Cossacks--Land Tenure among the Cossacks of the Don-- The Transition from Pastoral to Agriculture Life--"Universal Law" of Social Development--Communal versus Private Property--Flogging as a Means of Land-registration.


CHAPTER XVI
FOREIGN COLONISTS ON THE STEPPE
The Steppe--Variety of Races, Languages, and Religions--The German Colonists--In What Sense the Russians are an Imitative People--The Mennonites--Climate and Arboriculture--Bulgarian Colonists--Tartar- Speaking Greeks--Jewish Agriculturists--Russification--A Circassian Scotchman--Numerical Strength of the Foreign Element.


CHAPTER XVII
AMONG THE HERETICS
The Molokanye--My Method of Investigation--Alexandrof-Hai--An Unexpected Theological Discussion--Doctrines and Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Molokanye--Moral Supervision and Mutual Assistance--History of