Northern Lands - Young America in Russia and Prussia by Oliver Optic

Author:Oliver Optic [Optic, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-01-26T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X.

BILLY BOBSTAY AND FRIENDS.

The omnibuses had been dismissed for the day, for the afternoon was to be used in visiting two of the principal churches, which were within walking distance of the hotel, and on the way to the English Quay, where the party were to embark at six o'clock for Cronstadt. The students separated into small squads, the more studious and thoughtful ones clinging to the guides and others who knew something about the city, in order to obtain proper explanations of what they saw. All of them walked through the bazaar, and most of them looked into the little chapel near it, and studied the signals on the watch-tower above the Town Hall. Some amused themselves by trying to read the signs; but they could make nothing of them, though there was occasionally one in French. All the educated Russians speak French fluently, and in the larger stores there is generally one or more who converse in this language. A short walk on the Nevski Prospect brought the tourists to the Kazan Cathedral.

This church was founded in 1802, and consecrated in 1811, and cost about three million dollars. The cross above the dome is two hundred and thirty feet from the ground. In the semicircle formed by the colonnade in front are statues of Kutuzoff and Barclay de Tolly, two generals who distinguished themselves in the Moscow campaign against Napoleon. The interior of the church contains fifty-six columns of Finland granite, each being a single stone, thirty-five feet high, which support the dome and roof. The screen, or partition,—in Russian, ikonostas,—that separates the altar from the body of the church, is of silver, the material for which was captured from friend and foe by the Cossacks in the Moscow campaign, and became an offering to the Madonna of this church. In the centre of the middle doors of the screen is inscribed, in precious stones, the name of God. In a conspicuous place in the partition is placed the miraculous picture of the Virgin, found unharmed in the ashes of the convent in which it was kept, after the burning of Kazan carried to Moscow by Ivan the Terrible, and removed to St. Petersburg in 1821. It is loaded with gold and precious stones to the value of seventy-five thousand dollars, enough to build half a dozen churches in the country in America. This is the church of the imperial family, which the emperor attends on special occasions. After his escape from the assassin at the gate of the Summer Garden, he came twice to give thanks; and when the Princess Dagmar was escorted through the streets, as the betrothed of the present Grand Duke Alexander, the procession paused in the street while the royal party entered the church to return thanks for her safe arrival. Opposite the ikonostas is a chair for the Czar, who is the head of the church and the only one to whom the privilege of being seated is allowed. The walls and columns of the interior are hung with flags, banners, keys, and other military trophies.

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