It would be difficult, nevertheless, to find a market of a more cheerful character than the Moscow Ryildi, not that it can be said the Russian merchants are more indifferent to gain than others, but they have, notwithstanding their lust of gain, a cheerfulness of temperament wholly wanting to the German and English merchant. The Russians carry on their business in the midst of praying, tea-drinking, ball and draughts, playing, laughing, and gossipping. Their appetite is always ready, and nearly as many sellers of edibles are to be met with here as customers, wth every thing necessary for breakfast ready prepared, including plates and knives and forks. They play at ball in the narrow passages between their shops, making use of a great leathern ball filled with air, which is struck by the foot. But the favoiu-ite game is draughts, which they play before their doors, in the shops, and sometimes in the middle of the street ; however, they neither play for money, nor bet ; they love their kopeks too well to expose them to such danger.
The whole range of shops are plentifully adorned with pictures of saints nailed to the beams with lamps burning before them, singing birds in cages, and whole flights of pigeons, which nestle under the eaves of the shops, and are cherished and fed by the owners as a kind of sacred bird.
The merchandise is arranged here as elsewhere in masses, not promiscuously ; here a range of thirty shops for paper, another range for spices, a third for ornamental articles, a fourth for pictm^es of saints. In this last article, as might be expected in Moscow the holy, a very large trade is driven. Here are to be found pictures for every place and occasion ; for halls, bedchambers, churches, private chapels, coffee-houses, and ships ; big ones for the merchant who likes a large foundation for his faith ; small ones for the palaces of the grea,t, where they are half hidden behind the curtains. I was surprised to find among these, some copies of Roman catholic saints ; gloriously caricatured, it is true, by Russian artists, but honoured by the Prussian traders as the Greek pictures are. Besides the pictures, all sorts of sacred utensils are here exposed to sale, great silver candlesticks, lamps of all sizes, crosses, and amulets. The most striking objects to foreigners are the nuptial crowns that are placed on the heads of the enamoured pair when they are betrothed in the church. These crowns are the strangest looking things that were ever seen, consisting of a multitude of silver leaves, flowers, ears of corn, &c., which are hung with every thing that can be thought of that glitters at little cost — stars of gilt foil, cut glass, false stones, and a thousand other things.
There are now thirty booksellers'-shops in Moscow. Among them arc some that have a stock of not less than 100,000 volumes. Those of Glasunoff and Shireinoff are the principal ones. The latter is said to have 200,000 volumes in his shop. In 1806 there were only three booksellei-s of any consequence in the city, in 1808 four, and in 1810 six. After
1812, however, whose flames appear to have exercised a woiiflerfully stimulatuio; effect on the minds of the Russians, the number of the venders of literature increased rapidly to ten, then to twenty, and at last to thirty. Before 1812 the annual average of spelling-books consumed in Moscow was 10,000. Immediately after that memorable year, the number increased to 30,000, and in 1837, no less than 200,000 civil and ecclesiastical primers found customers. The Viedomosti, the celebrated newspaper of Moscow, that has now been pubUshed since 1761, had only 2000 subscribers before 1812. Immediately after that year the number rose to 6000, and the regular sale is now 12,000 copies. The taste for reading is greatly on the increase among the trading and lower classes. I often observed a group of merchants' servants sitting together, listening to one who read aloud ; nor were the books selected bad ones. Karamsin's History of Russia was one I often saw in their hands.
The stranger will not look without interest at the shops of the money changers in these Ryadi. I do not beheve that such quantites of gold and silver, as are seen on the insignificant tables of these changers, could be so safely exposed anywhere else. But in every country there are certain things that seem to be sacred and unapproachable — here, they ai'e the money tables. It is asserted that nothing is ever lost from them, although the owners are by no means particularly watchful of their tempting wares. The shops are often left to take care of themselves, and the changer, when a customer presents himself, has perhaps to be called in from a gossip with his neighbour.