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Another day we set off by railway to Tzarskoe Selo, a very extensive royal residence, and favourite resort of the Imperial family. At the entrance to the grounds of the palace are two small towers, covered with Egyptian figures. The façade of the palace is 1,200 feet in length.
Tzarskoe Selo, "Imperial Village:" well as the name fits the place, it is thought to have been corrupted from saari, the Finnish word for "farm," as a farm occupied the site when Peter the Great pitched upon it for one of his numerous summer resorts.
Whistling, howling, stamping, and kindred muscular exercises begin just over the Western frontier, and increase in violence as one proceeds westward, until Japan is reached, or possibly the Sandwich Islands, by which time, I am told, one enters the Orient and the realm of peace once more. What noise we heard in Tzarskoe came from quite another quarter.
Like almost all other royal buildings in Russia, Tzarskoe owes its origin to Peter the Great. He erected the first house here, and planted the avenues of plane trees with his own hand. We had a great desire to drive about the grounds, and made several attempts with the droshky drivers, but could not make ourselves understood either with regard to the terms or the route we should take.
Unless one goes as far as Gatschina, or into the part of Finland adjacent to the city, Tzarskoe Selo presents the only dry locality. In the Finnish summer colonies, one must, perforce, keep house, for lack of hotels. In Tzarskoe, as in Peterhoff, villa life is the only variety recognized by polite society; but there we had or seemed to have the choice between that and hotels.
Tzarskoe is surrounded by market gardens, where vegetables and fruits are raised in highly manured and excessively hilled-up beds. It sends tons of its products to the capital as well as to the local market. Everything was cheap and delicious. Eggs were dear when they reached a cent and a half apiece.
I had another illustrative experience with closed streets. In February come the two grand reviews of the Guards, stationed in Petersburg, Peterhoff, and Tzarskoe Selo, on the Palace Place. They are fine spectacles, but only for those who have access to a window overlooking the scene, as all the streets leading to the Place are blockaded by the gendarmerie, to obviate the disturbance of traffic.
Why, for example, did it enter his brain to warn me that the Finnish women of the neighboring villages, all the country round about is the old Finnish Ingermannland, in company with the women of his own village, were in the habit of buying stale eggs at the Tzarskoe Selo shops to mix with their fresh eggs, which they sold in the market, the same with intent to deceive?
If I were to undertake to chronicle the inner life of Tzarskoe, the characteristics of the inhabitants from whom I received favors and kind deeds without number, information, and whatever else they could think of to bestow or I could ask, I should never have done.
We decided in favor of Tzarskoe, as it is called in familiar conversation. As one approaches the imperial village, it rises like a green oasis from the plain. It is hedged in, like a true Russian village, but with trees and bushes well trained instead of with a wattled fence.
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