t the same price, and as for heating a
street-car, the idea could never be got into a Russian brain. A certain
section of the inner boulevard, which forms a sort of slightly elevated
garden, is not only a favorite resort in summer, but is thronged every
winter afternoon with people promenading or sitting under the
snow-powdered trees in an arctic fairyland, while the mercury in the
thermometer is at a very low ebb indeed. It is fashionable in Russia to
grumble at the cold, but unfashionable to convert the grumbling into
action. On the contrary, they really enjoy sitting for five hours at a
stretch, in a temperature of 25 degrees below zero, to watch the
fascinating horse races on the ice.

In the districts between the boulevards, one can get an idea of the town
as it used to be. In this "Earth Town" typical streets are still to be
found, but the chances are greatly against a traveler finding them. They
are alleys in width and irregularity, paved with cobblestones which seem
to have been selected for their angles, and with intermittent sidewalks
consisting of narrow, carelessly joined flagstones. The front steps of
the more pretentious houses must be skirted or mounted, the street must
be crossed when the family carriage stands at the door, like the most
characteristic streets in Nantucket. Some of the doorplates--which are
large squares of tin fastened over the _porte cochere_, or on the gate
of the courtyard--bear titles. Next door, perhaps, stands a log house,
flush with the sidewalk, its moss calking plainly visible between the
huge ribs, its steeply sloping roof rising, almost within reach, above a
single story; and its serpent-mouthed eave-spouts ingeniously arranged
to pour a stream of water over the vulgar pedestrian. The windows, on a
level with the eyes of the passer-by, are draped with cheap lace
curtains. The broad expanse of cotton wadding between the double windows
is decorated, in middle-class taste, with tufts of dyed grasses, colored
paper, and other execrable ornaments. Here, as everywhere else in
Moscow, one can never get out of eye-shot of several churches; white
with brilliant external frescoes, or the favorite mixture of crushed
strawberry and white, all with green roofs and surmounted with domes of
ever-varying and original forms and colors, crowned with golden crosses
of elaborate and beautiful designs. Ask a resident, whether prince or
peasant, "How many churches are there in 'Holy Moscow town'?"