I visited Mr. Popugayeff, a well-known Rashtshik, to examine his stock and workshop. Mr. Popugayeff was a long-bearded old Russian, who wore his caftan exactly as his forefathers learnt of the Monguls to wear it 500 years ago. When he saw that I was a German, he recommended me to his son, a young man of twenty, who undertook to explain every thing to me. The young gentleman wore a frock-coat, and his hair a la jeune France, and spoke French and German. As both the antique father and the modern son were ahke interesting to me, I requested them both to remain, which they wilhngly did. The father stroked his long beard, and related how he had come a poor " mushik" to St. Petersburg, and had risen from the humblest beginnings ; the son settled his silken
Reimer gave 65, in 1810, and has enumerated thcni by name ; but he has included in this number, all the chapels in the imperial i)alaecs, barracks, hospitals, &c. The newest " Guide to St. Petersburg," by De Schellenburg, reckons 147 chiu-ches and chapels. This great difference in numbers arises from the cireumstanec that almost every public institution and school in St. Tetersburg has its own chapel, and these arc here all reckoned as churches.
t The word Rashtshik comes from riisaty, to cut, and means literally a cutter. The Russians vmh-rstdnd wood, as we do cloth or clothes, when we say cutter — cloth or clothes cutter— (Tuch or Ivlcidcr Sdmeidcr).
cravat, and Informed me that they had forty workmen in their pay, and tlieir estabhshment was the first in St. Petersburg. Tlie ftither showed me the vine and flower wreaths that he was carving in wood for the decoration of a church ; the son interi'upted him to show me a Venus and a Hercules, bespoken by some ambassador or other ; the father pointed to a pair of gigantic " podsvetshniks" (church lamps), for the new Smohioi church, and the son to a couple of elegant candelabras after Italian models, and some garlands for Rococo sofas, now in fashion in St. Petersburg. Both were equally zealous in their assurances that their "institution" was the first of its kind in the city, that it was known to the emperor, and that he had conferred on them a medal of honour some years before.
The drawings which the carvers made use of were very fair ones, and their dexterity in forming the whole figure, from such flat pictures, really wonderful. Each of the workmen had a drawing before him and worked upon the block of wood with chisel, knife, and hammer. Among the pieces of work executed by the workmen in their leisure hours, were some extremely beautiful ; for example, a bouquet of flow^ers of the most delicate kind, and ears of corn, with the beard most minutely fine ; on one leaf a caterpillar was crawling, on another was perched a fly and a butterfly ; all, even to the thread-like legs and feelers, cut in wood. The wood used is that of the lime-tree exclusively. Their gilding is altogether as bad as their carving is good. The rococo, which has been newly resuscitated from the archives of the cabinet-makers of the last century, has had, thanks to these Riishtsbiks, a wonderful success in Russia, where all the world were giving orders for rococo furniture.
From Mr. Popugayeff (paiTot's son), I went to Mr. Sakharieff (sugarbaker), and then to Mr. Pustunin (empty head), all Rashtshiks, and found every where the same arrangements ; bearded fathers and Frenchified sons, gilded flower-wreaths and wooden statues. They all asserted their superiority in this branch of art to the Germans ; but added there was one German, who could work as they did with the chisel and knife, and that was a Mr. K — . I visited Mr. K— , who admitted that the matter stood as the Russians had said, but that German gilding was much better, and there were many other " huts" besides. The chief demand for wood carving, he said, came from the Russian churches, where the natives had a double advantage ; in the first place from their better acquaintance with the priests, and secondly from the thoughtlessness with which they undertook commissions, generally off'ered to him who imdertook them on the lowest estimate. A German who meant to do his work as well as possible, and w^ho, in case of having made too low an estimate, could not help himself by means of connexion and intrigue, could never undertake a commission so cheaply as the Russian, and consequently rarely obtained one.