As this is a regular national festival, the emperor holds it his duty to honour it with his presence, and brings all his sons and daughters with him. On a bright clear day, such as even a St. Petersburg April sometimes affords, it must be confessed that a walk here among all these significant and insignificant people affords one of the most anmsing spectacles of the season ; it is, as it were, the morn of the night of the great fast.
On Verbnoi Subbota (Palm Saturday) a great procession takes place, in imitation of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, and all stream into the churches, carrying branches and singing. The priests sprinkle branch and branch-bearers with holy water, and add a blessing into the bargain ; the greater number then carry away their palms. W hole groups are to be met with carrying them about till late in the evening, father, mother, and children, with the servants walking behind them ; even the infant in the uiu'se's arms has a palm-twig, sprinkled and blessed, thinist into its tiny fist. As for the boys, the best use they can make of their twigs is to flog each other with them, which they do handsomely. Some of the more pious leave their branches till Sunday in the church, and many suspend them over their beds, ascribing all sorts of healing influences to the leafless twigs. The children also cherish theirs carefully, but for another purpose. It is the custom tlu-oughout Russia to punish those who sleep too late on Palm Sunday to attend early mass, by flogging them with the palmbranches. Girls and boys are all so eager to administer this discipline, that they he awake half the night thinking of it ; and as soon as the day breaks, they are running about in bands in search of the sleepers, whom they punish while singing this verse : —
" Verba biot ! Biot da floss ; Ya ne bin ; Verba biot I"
(The rod strikes — strikes to weeping — I strike thee notthe rod strikes.) This custom prevails throughout Russia, and the imperial children exercise the privilege as eagerly as those of lower rank.
The Easter eggs play a very important part at this time of the year St. Petersburg, lying in a plain little peopled either by man or barn-door fowls, must procure her eggs from a great distance. Moscow in particular supplies large quantities. On a very moderate calculation, there cannot be less than ten millions used at Easter in this capital ; for, as it is always customary at Easter, on greeting an acquaintance, to press an egg into his hand, many an individual may consume his hundreds.
Nothing is more amusing than to visit the markets and stalls where the painted eggs are sold. Some are painted in a variety of patterns ; some have verses inscribed on them, but the more usual inscription is the general Easter greeting " Christohs vosskress" (Christ is risen), or " Eat and think of me," &c. The wealthier do not, of course, content themselves with veritable eggs, dyed with Brazil wood, but profit by the custom, to show their taste and gallantry. Scarcely any material is to be named that is not made into Easter eggs. At the imperial glass-cutting manufactory we saw two halls filled with workmen employed on nothing else but in cutting flowers and figures on eggs of crystal. Part of them were for the emperor and empress to give away as presents to the courtiers. As the latter receive many of these things, they, of course, give them away again to their friends and favourites, who, the next Easter, bestow them in their turn elsewhere ; so that these eggs often travel to amazing distances. I happened to know the history of one which came from the imperial palace, passed through numberless hands of high and low, till its last possessor, having let it fall on a stone, pitched the fragments into the Black Sea.
The wax -fruit makers and confectioners produce some pretty pieces of workmanship, in elegant boxes filled with eggs of all sizes in regular order, from the mighty ostrich-egg down to the nightingale's, and all in wax and sugar. Some are bonbonnieres, and very costly presents are also offered in egg-shells ; some are transparent, and in place of the yolk, contain little fairy bouquets, and some have a magnify ing-glass neatly fitted in, and display houses and trees formed in wax, pictures of saints, and tiny angels couched on roses. A considerable trade is carried on in such commodities at Easter from St. Petersburg, which returns in imitative sugar, the raw produce of the hen-house received from the provinces.