The population of St. Petersburg, from the highest to the lowest, is constantly changing. The stationary portion is by far the least numerous, the majority look upon the city only as a temporary residence. The nobles are ever coming and going ; foreigners hope to enrich themselves that they may return to their native countries ; the garrison, and all attached to it, must always be prepared to change their quarters ; the civil servants of the government seldom remain long at one post, but are liable at a few days' notice to be ordered off to the most remote provinces ; and the lower classes, such as servants, mechanics, and labourers, are, for the most part, serfs, who have received only a temporary leave of absence, at the expiration of which they are expected to return to the estates to which they belong. Even the isvoshtshiks in the streets are a nomadic race, plying for custom this year in St. Petersburg, the next in Moscow, and the succeeding one perhaps in Odessa or Astrakhan. St. Petersburg, in fact, like most Russian cities, is a place of rendezvous, where men congregate for a time ; but not like our German cities, a home in which families attach themselves like ivy to the stone walls, and vegetate away for centuries. The mass of the population of St. Petersburg undergoes a complete change in less than ten years ; and to this constant fluctuation I attribute the vast extent of the rag-fair, and the astonishing quantity of old furniture and old clothes, which are sold at a low price by those who take their departure, and disposed of again at a handsome profit to the newly arrived.
Thousands enter the city daily, without knowing whether on the morrow they shall become cooks or carpenters, masons or musicians, or whether, on stripping off their village dress, they shall assume the livery of a lackey, or the caftan of a mercliant. For all their wants, the Apraxin Ruinok and the Tshukin Dvor are prepared. Nay, should a Samoyede from Siberia, or a Huron from America, come naked into these ruinoks, he may leave them again in a few minutes, provided with every imaginable article necessary to equip him as a civilised Russian ; for ill as sounds the name of voshevoi ruinok^ which in St. Petersburg is generally given to these markets, and which I will not here translate to my readers, lest they should conceive an unfair prejudice against the place, still it v/ould be a great mistake to suppose that nothing but what was old and ragged was here exposed for sale.
These two markets occupy a piece of ground about 1500 feet square, containing, therefore, a surface of rather more than two millions of square feet. The whole is so closely covered with stalls and booths, that nothing but narrow lanes are left between ; and supposing each booth, including the portion of lane in front of it, to occupy 500 square feet, which is certainly making a very liberal allowance, it would follow that there must be within the two bazaars nearly 5000 booths, tents, and stalls. These form a city of themselves. The tops of the booths frequently project and meet those that are opposite to them, making the little lanes between as dark as the alleys of the Jews' quarters in some of our old German towns, or like the streets of many an oriental city at the present day. Through narrow gates you pass from the busy Garden-street into this gloomy throng, where a well-dressed human being might be looked for in vain ; where all are ' black people;" all bearded, furred, and thoroughly un-European.
Under the gateways are suspended large lamps and gaudy pictures of saints, and these present themselves anew at every corner as you proceed throu2^h the lanes of the market. Here and there you come to an open space in v/hu- a little chapel has been erected, and so gaily fitted up, you would fancy a Chinese pagoda had served for the model. All this, however, \9 insufficient to content the piety of the Russians, who often build a wooden biidge between two opposite booths, for the convenience of suspending a few additional lamps and saints. By the side of the chapel there is seldom wanting that other building which, next to the chapel, is the most indispensable to a Russian, namely, the kaback or brandyshop, which is often very gaily decorated, and where spirits, beer, and quass, may constantly be had.