If all these places are filled with free people, it may be easily supposed that the maintenance of such a household is no trifle in a city where wages are extravagantly high. The servants of the first-class, such as the maitre d'hotel, valets de chambre, and the furniture -keeper, generally have as much as 1000 rubles a year ; the head-cook, if a Frenchman, 2000, and sometimes more ; the coachman and footmen 30 to 50 rubles monthly ; the foreign waiting women 60 to 80 monthly ; and even the lowest of the house servants from 20 to 30, also monthly. Many of these posts are to be filled on each of the twenty estates that the family may possess under every mendian and parallel ; besides the army of stewards, gardeners, Saxon shepherds, miners, commissaries, pensioned servants, &c., who are aU to be overlooked and paid from St. Petersburg, the principal residence of the family. For the receipt and payment of money, and the management of the correspondence connected with it. some of the Russian grandees have almost as much counting-house business as a merchant in a considerable way of business. From these counting-houses the servants receive their wages, the pensioners of the family their allowance, and the heads of the house themselves the money for their personal expenses. The head of the financial department — often an intimate friend, or near relation of the family — lays at times an account before the chief, of the hundreds of thousands which he has received from the gold and platina mines of the Ural mountains, from the corn-fields of Moscow, the vineyards of the Crimea and Caucasus, for the wool and tallow from the herds and flocks on the Steppes, or from the salt-inines of Biarmia ; and of the hundreds of thousands he has paid for sturgeons and pine-apples, bonnes, lackeys, and chambermaids.
The dvorezki, who is considered as the head of the whole tribe of servdngmeu, and who generally possesses the full confidence of his lord and lady, is usually a Russian, has entered the house a boy, and risen by degrees to his important post. Of course he is a great man in the eyes of the other servants, most of whom he retains or dismisses at his pleasm-e ; and as keeper of the keys to all the stores of the house, all pay their court to him, and even the foreign waiting-maids dare not refuse him at Easter the " Christohs woskress" and the attendant salute.
Of valets and footmen there are often from twelve to twenty in one house, and as they are paraded more than any other before the eyes of the pubHc, the youngest and best-looking men are always picked out. They are dressed ith great elegance, and have one livery for the house and another for the promenade — a state livery for balls and visits at court, where they are glorious in velvet and silk, and a mourning suit for the deaths that in families so extensively connected are of frequent occurrence. All these gentry are the supplest, most adroit fellows in the world — born Figaros — and in their manner, and in their very courteous and dancing-master-like demeanour, leave the lackeys of other countries far behind. They are generally great diaughts and chess players, and, with the little capital amassed from their wages, often carry on small money speculations within the house itself, where from time to time ready money is at a premium.
There are no hussars and jagers in a Russian household, but Cossacks and Circassians in their national costume are numerous ; and Albanians, Servians, and Armenians are also sometimes seen in their rich native dresses ; nor are even negroes wanting in this rendezvous of nations. The datka, or overseer of the little boys of the family, is an attendant rarely wanting in a Russian house. Very often he is some veteran soldier, who takes upon himself to meddle a little with education. As this branch of service is very well paid, better qualified persons sometimes pursue it. He is to the boys what the bonnes are to the girls. He carries them about, takes them out to walk, tends them in sickness ; and it is really admirable to see the patience of these old child-losing veterans with their spoiled charges.