Who [in Russia] hasn't heard of Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev's "Journey from Petersburg to Moscow"? Who hasn't heard the sad fate of this first Russian revolutionary? It would be hard to find someone who hasn't. But who has read this book from beginning to end, read it so that he could actually tell you what it is about?

Our school books noted that Radishchev came up with the idea for his book during Catherine the Great's famous joumey from Petersburg to the south of Russia in 1787, although certain chapters had been written a few years earlier. The empress's journey was accompanied with extraordinary pomp and grandeur, colossal sums were spent on it, and it was then that the famous sham villages were built along Catherine's route, the ones that were later called "Potemkin villages." As is customary in these situations, court scribes - in contemporary language, official journalists - described in ecstatic terms the prosperity of the people of Russia under "the maternal scepter of the enlightened Empress." It was to this bold-faced deceit that Radishchev decided to contrast his own "journey," which coincided to a large degree with the empress's route.

He began to publish his book in January, and finished in May 1790, in a small print shop located in his own home on Griaznaia St (now Marat St.) in Petersburg. There were 640-650 copies printed altogether. Radishchev gave the first 25 copies to the book dealer Zotov, whom he knew, and a few days later - at the beginning of May - it began to be sold at Gostiny Dvor, in shops No. 15 and 16 of Cloth Row. Radishchev also sent several books to friends and acquaintances, including the poet Derzhavin. By the end of the month the first lot had been sold. A rumor spread that in Gostiny Dvor a composition was being sold that threatened the tsars with the block. The book soon ended up on Catherine's desk. She was provoked to great fury; she called the author a "rebel, worse than Pugachev" and commanded that he be immediately found and arrested. Catherine is said to have made as many as 90 comments in the margins of Radishchev's "Journey" and one of them says: "...He has no love for the tsars and where possible to kill all love and respect for them, he fastens on eagerly with rare boldness," and "places his hopes on an uprising from the muzhiks."

On the morning of June 30, Radishchev was arrested- He was interrogated in the Peter Paul fortress by the famous "whip cracker" Sheshkovsky, who had interrogated Pugachev 15 years earlier. On July 24, Radishchev was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to ten years of exile in Siberia.

This is the short tale of "Journey from Petersburg to Moscow." But the subsequent history of the book is itself worthy of a separate publication. The book is without a doubt useful and interesting, however, it was forced on the population and placed on such a pedestal by the general educational canon for so long that no one felt anything but indifference toward it. Needless to say, this was hardly the fault of courageous Alexander Nikolaevich, although his words might have been kinder toward his ungrateful and superficial heirs. At any rate I don't know how many of them were moved to good deeds by Radishchev, but at one time many became revolutionaries thanks to him. Many fewer became travelers. Indeed, it seems that only one person repeated this journey literally, and for that matter he set off in the opposite direction and only made it to Vyshnyi Volochek, not even going halfway. But then what a traveler this was! Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin himself.

Pushkin's "journey" is, compared to Radishchev's, a mere sketch, written between December 1833 and April 1834. The chapter "Moscow" was written in January 1835. The poet's "Journey" appeared in print a few years after his death, in 1841. Even then, it was published with substantial cuts and corrections by the censor.

In October of 1833, on the eve of his journey to St. Petersburg. Alexander Sergeevich, noting that "in prison and on a journey all books are a gift of God," dropped into to see an old acquaintance, "whose library he was accustomed to using" and asked for a "book that is dull, but curious in some sense." (How pleasant to deal with Pushkin! This lightness is seductive). The friend proposed a book that was rather rare at the time, "A Journey from Petersburg to Moscow", published in 1790, and asked him to take care of it, as Pushkin thought, "in a secretive voice."

"The book, at one time causing a furor of temptation (A.S. was also seduced!) bringing down on the author the wrath of Catherine, a death sentence and exile in Siberia is now a print rarity which has lost is allure, is found by chance on the dusty shelf of a bibliophile or in the sack of a bearded peddler" - was how Alexander Sergeevich characterized Radishchev's book, which he accepted with gratitude and took with him

Although Alexander Sergeevich also noted that "the book's content is well known" nonetheless in his own article he thought is necessary to remind the reader of what it was: "Radishchev wrote several sketches, gave each of them the name of a station on the road from Petersburg to Moscow in the table of contents. In each he poured out his thoughts without connection or order."

Pushkin began reading Radishchev's book in Chernaia Griaz, a small village near Moscow: Since he was traveling in the opposite direction, he began reading the book from the last chapter and thus forced Radishchev to travel wuh him from Moscow to Petersburg.

When I approached Valdai it was already evening. Anyone who has ever traveled this highway will agree that nature here is splendid and that driving is a real pleasure. The road heads straight as an arrow in front of you. But at the same rime, it follows the undulations of the landscape and thus kilometers of highway can be seen ahead, while the forested plateaus seem to hang like horizontal theater props. When the sun shines and a light mist hangs in the air, your head spins from the revealed expanses: ahead of you lies not one, but a multitude of horizons.

None of this, however, can be seen in the dark, and all the pleasure of driving is supplanted by the opposite feeling: you have to keep both eyes glued to the road because the section of highway just before Valdai is extremely dangerous. Our roads were not meant for driving at night and one of their most obvious drawbacks is that you can't see the highway dividing line or the stripe indicating the edge of the road. There's a serious risk of running off into a ditch at full speed, or of crossing the line and smashing into the oncoming traffic, whose headlights are blinding. It's best to avoid travel at night, and fortunately there are places to stop without worrying about your car. The hotels in Torzhok, Valdai and Novgorod have special garages.

Having avoided the perils of the road, I turned right, off the highway, crossed the railroad tracks and soon found myself in the old Russian town of Valdai, whose contours were impossible to determine at night time. I decided to put off touring the town until morning and to devote the evening to rest in my hotel room. There are always rooms available here, by the way, with hot and cold water, a bath or shower, a domestically manufactured television, and, if you need it, a phone. A room like that usually costs no more than twenty or twenty-five dollars, use of the garage included. At least, that's the way things are in Valdai. In addition, there is a bar cafe in the hotel, and if you're not too picky, it will do just fine.

On the road from Moscow to Saint Petersburg one comes across a variety of different cafes, snack bars and pubs. But of all the ones I've visited, I can vouch only for the cafe at the tourist resort Sputnik not far from Tver, and for the cafe-motel "Kolomno" twenty kilometers out of Vyshny Volochok. Pushkin like the fried meat patties in Torzhok, and at the cafe "Kolomno" the local chef does everything well, especially fried liver. I hope that other travelers will find these recommendations useful.

So, having filled out two questionnaires "in block letters" - the local authorities require this of the hotel administration - and having received my keys, I crossed the threshold of my room. A medium-size cockroach entered with me. Unlike me, however, it entered with a degree of certainty: no wonder, he was at home, after all, while I was here only for one night.

Having washed off the road with a hot shower, an amenity for which I would have forgiven the presence of wolves in my hotel room, I headed for the snack bar. It needs no description, since everyone knows what these cafes are like, with their aluminum spoons and forks, faceted glasses, oilcloths and salt cellars on the tables, noisy serving women and similarly noisy groups of men happily drinking vodka. That evening, the menu offered sausages with buckwheat kasha, which I gulped down silently. There is something alluring in these provincial hotel snack bars, in these simple roadside cafes. A kind of peaceful, unchanging atmosphere outside of time. A large woman saunters through, wiping tables with a rag; nearby there's an equally huge serving girl leaning her elbows on the counter; people sit, looking just as big, spearing meat patties or sausages on their forks, dipping the food in mustard or salt and chewing. And while they chew - they don't bother anyone, they do nothing untoward, they just stare at one spot and think about something. About what? Probably about the meat patties.

We're mentioning these perhaps not very vivid moments of our journey so that the reader doesn't over-romanticize it: yes, dear reader, we couldn't avoid hotels with cockroaches, meat patties and cafe waitresses, and everything else that is inseparable from a long trip.

Returning to my room, I decided to call home and tell everyone that I was alive and well. For this simple procedure, however, one must acquire a special chil from the porter, and then place an order for the call. The porter turned out to be a young woman about thirty. In keeping with me goals and purpose of our journey, I thought, it wouldn't be bad to talk to her, to find out if in truth "....Brazen, Valdai wenches, who have cast aside all shame stop every traveler and try to enflame lechery in me voyager..." So I grabbed my copy of Radishchev's book and, when the simple procedure of acquiring the chit came to a close, I asked the porter - let's call her Vera - what she thought about the following innocent musing of Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev about her home town.:

"The bath houses were and still remain the place of amorous celebrations. The voyager, agreeing on his stay with a helpful old woman or young man, comes to their abode, where he intends to make a sacrifice to his adored Beloved. Night has fallen. The bath already awaits him. The voyager undresses, goes into the bath house, where he is met either by the mistress of the place, if she is young, or her daughter, or her in-law, or her neighborwoman. They rub down his exhausted limbs; wash the dirt away from him. This the women accomplish with their clothes removed, and then enflame in him a lecherous fire, and he passes the night there, losing money, health, and valuable rime from his voyage. At one time, so they say, these lustful monsters would murder the erring voyager, who was exhausted by wine and amorous feats, in order to make use of his name. I know not whether this is true, but it is true that the brazenness of the Valdai girls has diminished. And although even now they won't refuse to satisfy the desires of a voyager," here I looked judgmentally at Vera, finishing the quotation, "but the former brazenness is not to be seen."

"So how do things stand nowadays in this department? Was Alexander Nikolaevich right or wrong?" I asked

"What, wanting a taste of Valdai pretzels and wenches, are you?" Vera asked loudly, and I realized that she had read Radishchev attentively and that this wasn't the first time she'd answered this question. "Our brazenness might've diminished, but yours..."

"Now, now. No call for that. I read that quote with nothing but research in mind..."

"You men have only one thing in mind. For all occasions."

"That not true, Vera," I said very sternly, gazing honestly into her cunning eyes. "It's just that knowing what Radishchev wrote about Valdai, I want to raise the question, on the spot, so to speak. It's important to me and the readers I represent to know whether or not this is really true. If you can help us set the record straight, then that's all I need from you, and my readers will remember you with gratitude."

And then I told Vera how in the course of my trip along Radishchev's and Pushkin's route, I had become convinced more than once that the life of small towns and villages depended entirely on women, that practically all the people I'd spoken with were women who, in this difficult time, apparently out of a purely instinctive desire to save the nation, had been obliged to take on leading roles. I recalled Gorodnia, and Mednoe, and Vydropuzhsk and Vyshny Volochok.

"And this is why I'm interested in Valdai," I said. "If it hadn't been you, I would have asked another person..."

"Not some other 'person,' some other 'woman,' " Vera corrected me abrupdy. "My other shift, Irina, will be here in the morning, you can ask her."

"'Tomorrow morning' I will be long gone," said, almost complaining about my strict dependence on stem circumstance. I have to visit a lot of other places... They're already expecting me in Yazhelbitsy."

After this, Vera grew more serious and agreed to answer my questions. Apparently the fact that I knew of nearby places like Yazhelbitsy inspired a certain trust.

"Women cling to life mainly because they have children," Vera began. "What's it to a man? He comes home, lies down on the sofa and that's it He doesn't care whether there's bread in the house or not. If a kid asks for something to eat - he asks his mother. Here, in the hotel, almost all our women live alone, without husbands. In Valdai, and probably everywhere, it's easier to live alone. Because women have higher salaries, and a stable profession, and a more defined position. Women are more reliable workers: they don't jump around, they work more. For the most part men do temp work. Here they're usually drivers at the car repair factory. They haven't paid money there for a long time. And it's the same in other factories. So everything in our life falls on women's shoulders. You can't tell a child that they didn't give you your salary. Kids have to eat, wear clothes... A child goes to school - does he need breakfast? He does. And lunch and dinner. A mother will do anything to take care of her child. But only for her child. Not for a man. All the vegetable gardens here, the dachas - women do it all. Men are only interested in the botde."

"But not all of them are like that," I objected, thinking of myself.

"Maybe not all of them, but you walk down the street and it's not like there's anyone you want to stop and look at, to check out, no one you really notice - nothing like that. To be honest, they are all dirty, sloppy... Now when a woman goes to work, she tries to dress up pretty, she does her hair and tries to be attractive, even though maybe it takes all the strength she's got. Men could care less about their looks. Just as long as there's booze. So all of us here are happy we live alone, without any of these "presents". But it's a loss for the kids, of course."

"But Vera, be honest now, it's bad without a man, isn't it? After all, there are some purely physiological requirements, aren't there?" I asked timidly, turning the theme straight to Radishchev, and turning off the tape recorder, so as not to inhibit my interviewee.

"You don' i have to turn it off," said Vera, unembarrassed, "Who told you that I get along without men? Here I am, I work in a hotel and if I need a man in my life - I'll go and find one for myself. What do men do? They come around, like you did, strike up some kind of conversation, even if it's about Radishchev, then they invite you to their room, then there's the champagne... It's all the same and totally predictable. You guys think that you are the ones who are renting us, and in fact - we're renting you. I do the choosing and not the other way around, I can sit and talk, like I'm doing with you, and drink champagne, and then I'm the one who decides whether to go to bed or not. If I don't like a man, then no kind of champagne will tempt me. I'm not a child after all. But what's important for me? I'll go to a man like that for a day, an hour or two, and no one will tell me that I'm a bitch, or anything like that, the way men in families call their wives all sons of names. He'll feed me and coo at me, and tell me how wonderful and beautiful I am. Even if it's just for two hours, even if it's not sincere, at least afterwards I can live on the memories for a month or two. tf I need to - I'll find some one else. You, for instance, you're talking to me about literature, history, so you must think I'm worthy of that kind of conversation. But do you talk to your wife about stuff like this?

"Not often," I lied.

"Well, there you go. But you're talking to me. I know you're just giving me a line, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're talking to me about serious things and I'm interested. There's this man I know who I go out with. Not often, of course, because he has a family. But I get together with him and then I can live peacefully, no one gets on my nerves at night. When I get home from work I go to bed and can rest easy.

"Would you marry a guy like that, a good one?" I asked.

"I've had the opportunity to get married, more than once, I have a great apartment, it's all fixed up, everything is beautifully done, by a man I used to go out with, by the way. But I wouldn't agree to live with him. I don't want to bring unhappiness on a person I won't fall in love with anyway. I don't want to deceive anyone. So it's easier for me to live alone."

"What is there to do around here anyway?

"There used to be movie theaters and people went to the movies. Now everyone watches videos. There's no point in going to the movies anymore. We had a Culture Center, but it burned down..."

"When was that?" I asked swiftly, in response to the "fire" theme of our journey.

"Right around New Year's of 1995," Vera replied.

"How about that."

"They don' t know whether it was blown up or it burned down all by itself. Tomorrow you can go and take a look. There's a theater here, but I'm embarrassed to say I've never been in it, though I always mean to go. There's a discotheque for teenagers. And that's it... There used to be at least something. Most of the young kids just drink."

"And the girls, what are they into? Prostitution?" I said, returning to the initial Radishchevian theme.

"You answer me this, " Vera suddenly asked with some irritation. "What is the difference between a sl[ut] and a prostitute? Is there a difference? Can you answer that one?"

I began speaking in a serious tone about how prostitution is a profession, after all, that in fact I'd seen genuine prostitutes in Saint Denis in Paris and in the Ripperbahn in Hamburg, that they are enormous, that you can see them a mile away, and the way they dress, if you have the urge - you can't make a mistake. But that here, girls stand around on the streets and sometimes you can't really tell if they are sl[uts] or prostitutes.

"There's nothing else they can do," Vera began to explain. 'Their mothers don't have any money. Their fathers drink. And they want to dress nice. You can go right now and take a look, they're standing around the kiosks on "Drunk's Square," If they're young and pretty, a car will drive up, ask one to take a drive, they'll give her some money for makeup or something else, and that's it. And for that matter, these days the girls even like it. They have their own circle of friends, their own interests, employment, romanticism. You could die of boredom at home."

"You take their side?"

"I just don't judge them. It's you men who have brought things to the point that these girls are forced to sell themselves in order to live normally. And it's you guys who buy them. So you shouldn't go around accusing people of selling their bodies, their conscience or whatever. No one sells themselves the way you do. I can't stand politicians and all these journalists. They sell their souls, their conscience in front of everyone and nothing happens. They don't have anything else to sell. No one needs their bodies. And then you go and talk about morals a lot. A prostitute only sells her body. She keeps her soul. It's you men, when you buy her body, you give her your soul: you guys like to talk "soul to soul" and even have a little cry. What's more valuable in Christianity anyway: the soul or the body? Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, you know, and she was the first one to recognize Christ's resurrection, before any of you men did."

"But she was repentant!" I said, showing off my knowledge in this field as well.

"These girls would repent too, if they met up with Christ. But who do they get instead of him? Who can they repent to?" said Vera, and made it understood that she had to go clean up a room now.

"Go on," she said to me, switching to the familiar form. "I don't go to bed with people I talk to about stuff like this."

The village has its freedoms

It's ways and happy laws,

Like Moscow, proud and haughty.

I sat silently next to Vera for another minute (to be polite), then went and called home to tell everyone that I was just fine. As you, dear reader, can fully confirm.

* * *

Valdai is a small town located at the highest point of the famous Valdai Plateau, on the banks of a large lake, also called Valdai. On one of the islands of this lake is the Iversky Monastery, founded by Patriarch Nikon in the 17^th century. Our encyclopedia tells us that Valdai was once a village called Bogoroditskoe, which belonged to the monastery, and that it was only in the mid 18^th century that it became a town of the Novgorod gubeniya. Since the town stood on a important road, the main trades here were coach services, transportation, and the upkeep of lodgers. Everyone knows about Valdai's famous carriage bells, which sounded on all the roads of Russia and were celebrated in many literary works and popular songs.

A daring troika races on

Along the highway road

Valdai's famed bells on harness hung

Despondently ring out their song

The casting of church and sleigh bells here was begun at the end of the 18^th century, at the bell foundry of the Usachov brothers. The town was also famed for its artistic stitching and pretzels - the very same "pretzels" that Radishchev mentions. But the encyclopedia has nothing to say on the subject of frivolous local wenches and bath houses. Apparently Valdai girls were well known just the same.

Nowadays Valdai has a population of no more than twenty thousand, and is not known for anything in particular. In recent years it has been mentioned only in connection with the curious (most likely mythical) trip of the president of Russia, who, as the press claimed, flew in to inspect the Valdai region wilh a view to possibly taking his vacation there. But, given all the other 'curiosities' of our life, this was soon forgotten.

1 don't know what others might think, but I found this town terribly depressing. Perhaps in summer or early autumn the real picture is hidden behind the leafy cover of the trees, and the extraordinary beauty of the region's nature embellishes the existing decay. But my impressions turned out to be much worse than my expectations. Having driven around the center several times, I ended up on "Freedom Square," where all of Valdai's "shuttle merchants" gather. They were setting up tents, laying out their goods - mostly brought in from Moscow - and preparing to spend the whole day on the square. There's no point in describing what they sell - it's the same everywhere, just as the "shuttlers" themselves are the same. Moreover, my eye fell immediately on the ruins that surrounded me. I was struck by the former Culture Center that Vera had told me about the previous night I began to photograph the ruins and one of the "shuttlers" trading nearby approached. He took me for a journalist and began to tell me breathlessly what had happened.

"You see that, right? It was blown up right at New Years". You see? There was a horrible explosion, it was terrible! The place was full of people. There was a discotheque for young people. And then everyone panicked. Everyone ran for the windows. Some people started grabbing things from the cloak room and throwing them out the windows. There was a lot of screaming... Some people were saving coats and things, others took advantage of the panic, grabbed them and ran off. Strangely enough, only one person died. Everyone was drunk. The policemen were drunk, and the fire fighters were drunk, and the people in the fire were drunk and the people putting it out were drunk... I mean, it was New Years Eve, night time. If you walk all the way around the building you'll see what a terrible explosion it was."

"What about the town's leaders? Two years have gone by."

"What about them? Valdai bosses are like Valdai sleigh bells: they ring and ring, and nothing else. You know, they covered up the whole thing. They said that it was just a fire, and that there wasn't any explosion. That's the way everything goes here."

"And what was the building, before it became a Culture Center?" I asked. "It was a church," the 'shuttler' answered.

So there it was. Here, too, it's appropriate to recall the old man in Khotilovo. Here, too, nothing was clear. I asked what you might think were obvious questions, but no one could tell me exactly what happened, although almost everyone who lived nearby ran out on the square during the catastrophe. Some told me that there wasn't any explosion at all; others - that what exploded were barrels of gasoline a local musician supposedly kept in the basement of the building; others simply said it was the work of the devil; and yet others could have cared less. In a word, I didn't find out anything conclusive. On the main square stand the ruins of a building that was once central to life in Valdai and no one cares about it. And these were not the only ruins. Right nearby there was another semi-destroyed church, which seemed fairly large and rather beautiful. On its peeling walls hung a plaque with strange words about this architectural monument being protected by some government... Set between this church and the exploded Cultural Center, an "eternal flame" burns in memory of Valdai inhabitants who fell in the Great Patriotic War. On the other side of the burned out Cultural Center is another abandoned and dilapidated two-story building. It once housed the Valdai Pioneers' House. The square is crowned by a typical, contemporary, brown rectangular building with a restaurant.

The ruin of Freedom Square is supplemented by half-destroyed buildings on Soviet Prospect. Against this miserable, doomed background the only thing that looks fundamentally sound and prosperous is the building of the local administration, which the current Valdai leaders inherited from their predecessors.

Two shabby looking guys were selling a spinning wheel on the side of the road as I drove into Kresttsy. I had not seen such unusual and unexpected goods since leaving Moscow. Who knows what a spinning wheel is nowadays? Who has even seen one? Perhaps in a museum of local history - and even then not in every one. A spinning wheel - is a large wooden wheel attached at its axis to a frame that moves when you pump evenly on a special foot pedal. The big wheel is connected by a string to another, much smaller wheel; from this second wheel a thread is spun and goes through something else, and in the end, from sheep or another kind of wool you get a skein which is knitted into something wonderful and warm. That's the way it works, right? But the added value of a spinning wheel is that you can just spin the wheel with your foot. Had I seen a contraption like that as a child, it would have made much more of an impression on me than a sewing machine or a bicycle turned upside down.

According to the sellers, the spinning wheel standing on the roadside was over seventy years old. It looked brand new. Encouraged by their approving comments, I spun the wheel enthusiastically for a few minutes. It became clear that I couldn't live without this spinning wheel. The question of price arose.

"Fifty dollars." said one.

'Three hundred and fifty thousand rubles," said the other.

"There is a difference, by the way, about twenty odd dollars," I said, and asked whether there had been much interest.

"A few people have stopped. They come over, turn it for awhile and drive on," the men answered.

Being a subtle psychologist, I noted that they were blue from the cold and yet were entirely sober. So I offered them 250,000 and not a ruble more. They began to discuss my offer.

"What are you talking about? For 250,000 Zhinka will kill me," said the one who had asked for $50. Make it at least three hundred."

"No," I said. "I'll get killed for 300. I'm not even sure this thing will fit in our place. Two hundred fifty and that's final," said I, letting them know I was ready to leave.

After that, the other guy, who seemed to be thinking logically, said to the first one;

"If you don't sell the spinning wheel and don't bring any money home, you're dead anyway."

"That's true," answered the first one. He waved his hand in agreement. So the antique spinning wheel ended up on ihe back seat of my car and traveled on with me.

Taking advantage of this chaace encounter, I asked the men whether there was anything interesting in Kresttsy.

"Everything in Kresttsy is interesting," said one of them.

"How could there be anything interesting here," said the other. "Things are 'interesting' in Moscow, in Peter..."

"Maybe there's something interesting that happened, some story?" I clarified. "Perhaps there are some unusual people? Who would you recommend I talk to?"

"Who should you talk to? Hmmm... 'Who to talk to?' Who's there to talk to here? There's no one to talk to here," me second guy answered, as well as he could.

Then the first guy, turning to the second, laughed and said "Maybe he [that is me] should meet your doctor lady?"

Then a strange, joking exchange took place between the two men, with a lot of egging on and allusions that I didn't understand and therefore can't put down on paper. I understood only that one of the guys, it seems, had worked for a while in a hospital, and that the head doctor - that very same "doctor lady" - had kicked him oui. Apparently there was some kind of hullabaloo when she kicked him out because it made the second laugh so hard he cried. In short, I realized that no other 'interesting' people were on my itinerary in Krestisy and so I asked how to find this 'doctor lady.'

"You just go to the center of town and ask, and anyone will tell you where the clinic is. And at the clinic you ask for Marina Andreevna," the men explained, while one of them continued to laugh so hard there were tears in his eyes and he was coughing horribly.

Valery Pisigin Excerpt from: Voyage from Moscow to St. Petersburg