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Religious forms and dogmas bound the Russians with the Greek population of the Turkish empire in the strongest ties of sympathy and interest, even when that empire was in the height of its power. To get possession of those principalities under Turkish dominion in which the Greek faith was the prevailing religion had been the ambition of all the czars who reigned either at Moscow or at St.
The princess Sophia, their sister, placed herself behind the seat of Ivan, and dictated to him what to say; but this borrowed strength was not able to cope long with the native strength of Peter I. and he soon reigned alone. It is from the period of his reign that the czars have ceased to wear the Asiatic costume.
I ascended to the top of the cathedral steeple, called Ivan Veliki, which commands a view of the whole city; from thence I saw the palace of the czars, who conquered by their arms the crowns of Casan, Astracan, and Siberia.
Thus power remained in the same families, princes, chiefs, and priests, and only the Raatira and the Manahune, the bourgeoisie and the commoners, really suffered. "We copied you in Europe," I interposed. "There the kings, kaisers, and czars took care not to lower the dignity of monarchy, and are virtually all related.
Thus died a man who, impostor though he seems to have been, was perhaps the noblest and best of all the Russian czars, while the story of his rise and fall forms the most dramatic tale in all the annals of the empire over which for one short year he ruled. We have told how the ashes of Dmitri were loaded into a cannon and fired from the gate of Moscow.
The following days were consecrated to the purifying of the palace and the administration, and the seventh day of the revolt they sent their commandant, the prince-boyar, Khovanski, to declare that they would have two czars Ivan at the head, and Peter as coadjutor; and if this were refused, they would again rebel.
His funeral was so elaborate that it was six weeks before the ceremonies were concluded, for he had won a place in the hearts of the Russians that he never lost. He was beyond any doubt the greatest and most famous of the Russian Czars, and he left Russia in a far better position than when he came to the throne.
Strange, indeed, and not calculated to exalt one's impression of royalty, is the fact that, after purchasing a ticket to see all these relics of the great Czars of Russia, a horde of officers, servants, and lackeys, in imperial livery, must be feed at every turn. It is a perfect system of plunder from beginning to end.
A favorite resort of mine during my sojourn in that strange old city of the Czars was in the markets of the Katai Gorod. Those of the Riadi and Gostovini Dvor present the greatest attractions, perhaps, in the way of shops and merchandise; for there, by the aid of time, patience, and money, you can get any thing you want, from saints' armlets and devils down to candlesticks and cucumbers.
In this first court of the palace of the Czars, eight hundred leagues from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, ready and smart; for herein consists the pride of the soldier: here they piqued themselves upon it the more on account of the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because man prides himself on every thing that requires extraordinary effort.
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