Mr. Lukhmannoff told me that he had laid the foundation of his fortmie in the time of Catherine. Sixty yeare ago all his property consisted of a few old clothes and boots. A good price paid for some enabled him to extend his dealings, and the first step made in the path of gain rendered every succeeding one easier. In those times of profusion, when favourites made their fortunes so easily in Catherine's splendid court, and when the proverb, " Lightly come, lightly go," was so admirably exemphfied, he " brought his sheep to dry land." He told me that the fickleness of his customers was often so excessive that many bought from him under the promise of sending for the articles the next morning, but that before that time they had lost all desire of possessing then toys, and paid considerable fines to be rid of their bargains. Some of the articles would thus return to his hands two or three times, by which he often gained more than the tilings were worth ; in this way he became a capitalist, and his revenue is now estimated at four hundred thousand nibles.
The Christian religion and church architecture were brought from Constantinople to Russia at about the same time. Both became modified on a foreign soil and among so different a people ; and hence arose the Russian Greek church, and the Byzantine Russian architecture. No country in the world has so few old churches as Russia, because formerly all were built of wood, and therefore soon fell into decay, or became the prey of the flames. A few stone churches were built towards the latter end of the middle ages, and are still to be seen in Kieff, Moscow, and a few other cities. Although the most renowned and honoured temples in Russia, they are excessively small, and incredibly dark. The roofs rise in five paltry cupolas, which sit on them like the breasts on the statue of Diana at Ephesus. Every cupola is surmounted by a tall gold cross resting on a crescent, and hung about with all sorts of chains that fasten it to the cupola. Without, these cupolas are painted of the gaudiest colours the palette can afford, and are often gilded or silvered into the bargain. From their interior a gigantic picture looks down, whose enormous ugliness is much better calculated to scare than to assist devotion. It is generally the figin-e of the Redeemer, the Virgin, or of John, and in the centre cupola is the pictured form of an old grayheaded man, meant to represent the Father. The walls are usually painted from top to bottom with grotesque-looking saints and angels, all pretty much in the style of the fifteen-ell-long Mary in the church of Maricnberg in Russia, and the Roland of Bremen. Fortunately, they are pretty well faded, and it will hardly occur to any in the coniing century to restore them. The centre cupola is supported by four j)illars so immoderately thick that they diminish the space of the church very considerably.
If there are few old churches in Rucsia, there is at least no scarcity of new ones. Tlie essential part in the new style is naturally copied from the old, and reduces itself to a square fonn with a large cupola in the centre, and four smaller ones at the sides. The principal innovation is a lavish use of columns, generally the ornamented Corinthian, with an enlargement of space and an increased number of windows. In the new cimrches, the chains with which the cupolas in the old ones are loaded, Hke filigreework, are left out, but otherwise all are alike be-cupola'd, be -crossed, bepillared in white, green and gold, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and thence to the Pacific Ocean. The cupolas and towers of these churches are mere ornaments, and serve no other purpose, as our steeples do. The custom of placing clocks in them is wholly unknown in Russia.