Brandy is now with all the Slavonian nations so powerful a deity, that in the sense in which it is said, " gold rules the world," it may be added, and " brandy rules the Russians." The usual reward, the usual bribe, for the ordinary Russian, is not money but brandy. The common people do not care half so much for money ; no festival, no Easter, no Christmas without brandy ; brandy must urge the labom-er to work, and the warrior to battle. It is amazing how greedy they are of this fiery poison. Brandy is with the Russian a foreign innovation ; but they have found a national name for it, and call it " Vodka," the little water ; there is a fine poetical play of fancy implied in this loving diminutive. Thousands, through its consumption, are daily rendered rich, and thousands poor. A paper, which should gi\e the true statistics and history of its consumption, would not be the least remarkable page in the history of the world.
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The number of acid dinnks in use in Russia is very j^eat ; it is remark- ^^ able that much as the Russians love sweets, no kitchen deals so largely in acids as theirs. Perhaps their constitutions require those violent contrasts; perhaps, as extremes meet, the quantity of oil and thick fat substances they eat, awaken the appetite for both the sweet and the sour.
Of all fruits, the produce of the highest north, the " mamurami" affords the pleasantest beverage ; it is of the size and form of a mulberry, with the flavour of a pineapple; mixed with champagne and wine it makes the finest punch in the world — a drink worthy of a poet's song.
Unfavourable as the climate of Russia seems to be to such enjoyments, there is no country where dining in the open air is so customary. A large quantity of food is constantly carried about the streets of the cities by peripatetic restaurateurs: in winter, hot tea and soups, potatoes, and hot cakes; in summer, ices, cool sherbets, kwas, &c. &c. The number of places for the sale of ready-dressed food in Russian towns is immense ; often a large hall or open booth, or some other spacious locality, is prepared as a dining-place for the lower classes, where the artist and the observer may find as rich a harvest for the pencil and the pen, as the workman may of pirogas, kwas, and shtshee. The great number of unmarried persons who live at St. Petersburg and other cities, without being at home there, render such establishments necessary.
In the consumption of meat St. Petersburg surpasses any other city in Europe, and, if we exclude the badly-fed army of 60,000 men from our reckoning, may perhaps be esteemed the best-fed city in the world. It consumes nearly 4,000,000 poods of corn yearly: that is, children, old people, and sick included, 200 pounds a-liead ; 100,000 oxen ; viz., a whole ox to every 4^ men, without reckoning cows and calves. Of swine and sheep rather less are consumed than in Paris ; but the destruction of fish is enormous. Of herrings, for example, in 1832, 53,000 tons were brought to St. Petersburg : that is, one ton to every eight persons. According to the statement of the minister of the interior, in the same year, 500,000 poods of salt, or 36 pounds a-head (about 1|- oz. a-day), was the consumption of St. Petersburg. It would be interesting to compare this statement with similar ones relative to London, Paris, and Vienna. Data enough are given in the journals of Russia, though it must be confessed that such grossly absurd contradictions appear in the statements, on the most superficial examination, that no one can attempt to reconcile the inconsistencies, or to calculate an average.
The environs of St. Petersburg are more steril and unproductive than those of any capital in Europe, Madrid excepted ; on which account it has been aptly enough called the New Palmyra — a magnificent and luxurious city in the midst of a desert. The merest trifles only are supplied by the neighb«')urhood. The daily bread ripens on the shores of the Volga, and has many a river and canal to pass before it reaches the ovens of St. Petersburg. Even the hay is brought from a great distance. Eggs, and such like articles of immediate consumption, come from the thickly-peopled envu'ons of Moscow; hence trade in such articles is conducted on a much larger scale than elsewhere. Baskets full of eggs are brought into oui towns, but Avhole caravans of them are brought to St. Petersburg.