In one corner of the Summer Garden stands the palace in which dwelt Peter the Great. It is a little, low, white house, with a few tasteless basreUefs painted yellow. On the roof between the chimneys, St. George, mounted on a tin horse, is in the act of piercing the.dragon. In tho interior, a few articles of furniture formerly used by Peter, are still preserved. The house seems to have grown ashamed of its littleness, for it hides itself completely among the tall linden-trees of the garden, as though fearful of intruding into the company of the stately palaces that have grown up around. Still it twinkles every now and then with its oldfiishioned windows through the foliage as if it took a pleasure in the proud children to which it has given birth. How differently it must have looked when it was yet sole lord of the wilderness, when it stood there, the only elegant among a mob of fishers' huts ! The 500,000 square ells of ground which the garden occupies here in the centre of the town, would be worth at least twenty millions of rubles, if sold for building on. The city may, therefore, be said to sacrifice a yearly revenue of a million of rubles, by allowing the garden to remain ; yet the city acts wisely, in submitting to the loss, from which it derives more than the value of a million of rubles in cheerfulness and health.
It is particularly in the Summer Garden that the rising generation of St. Petersburg may be said to take their diversion. Hither it is that the little ladies repair with their governesses, the tutors with their little embryo generals and senators, the nurses with their tender charges. It is impossible to imagine a prettier spectacle than all the handsome little Cossacks, Circassians, and Mushnicks, that romp about the Summer Garden on a fine day. The Russians of all ranks are fond of dressing their children, till they are seven or eight years old, d la moujik, as it is called. The hair is cut short, as it is usually worn by the peasantry, and the little fellows are then arrayed in pretty caftans neatly fastened with girdles, nearly of the same fashion as those worn by the Gostinnoi Dvor merchants, with high Tartar caps like those Vvorn by the Russian coachmen. Lately the Circassian costume has been in favour for children, and becomes them admirably, with its silver embroidery and edgings of fur. Only when children come to be nine or ten years old do they begin to dress like Europeans. This, however, applies only to the boys, for little girls, as soon as they can walk, are decked out in the fashions of Paris. The same remarks apply to the children of the imperial family, as to those of the nobility generally.
As it is from among these young frequenters of the Summer Garden, that the future admirals, generals, and statesmen of the empire are probably to be chosen, it is impossible not to observe them with some degree of interest. Next to their costume, their language is the most remarkable thing about them. As they have Russian servants and nurses, English and French nursery-maids, and German teachers, they usually learn all the four languages at the same time, and as it is not easy for them at first to keep the several dialects distinct, they mix them up into an idiomatic ragout, highly amusing to a stranger, but which to the children themselves must often cause a great confusion of ideas. It is nothing uncommon, for instance, to hear a chiM express itself in this fashion : " Papa, I have been in the letnoi sad ; Feodor s'nami buil ; est ce que vous n'irez pas." (Papa, I have been in the Summer Garden ; Feodor was with us ; will you not go.)
The adult Russians generally speak a yet greater number of languages, though, of course, more correctly ; but it is remarkable that, linguists as they are, they seldom borrow a term of endearment from any language but that of their land. The Russian is indeed singularly rich in pretty, coaxing, insinuating diminutives ; such as, lubesnoi, my dear ; miliiikoi^ my little dear ; dddushka, my little grandpapa ; matiushka, my little mamma ; drushka^ my little friend : goluhtshik, my little dove ; dushinka. my little soul. Nor are these expressions confined to the Russians. Few strangers are long in the country, without acquiring the habit of ingrafting upon their own languages the Russian terms of endearment.