The women of Little Russia, accustomed to field labour from their childhood, and usually marrying at the age of fifteen or sixteen, are old before they have reached their thirtieth year; indeed, one can hardly say when they cease to be young, since they never exhibit the bloom of youth. Whether a Russian woman's age be fifteen, twenty, or thirty, it is all one in the end. Immediately after childhood, her limbs are as masculine, her features as hard, her skin as tanned, and her voice as rough as at a more advanced age. So much has been written about the relaxed morals and the drunkenness of the Russian peasants, that we need not dwell on the subject. We shall only say that their deplorable passion for strong liquors, is continually on the increase, and that most of the young women are as much addicted to them as the old. It frequently happens that a peasant and his wife go on Sunday to a kabak, drench themselves with brandy, and on their way back fall dead drunk into some gully, where they pass the whole night without being aware of their change of domicile.
A fondness for dancing is another distinguishing characteristic of this people. You often see a party of both sexes assemble after work, and continue dancing all the evening. The Ruthenians are remarkable for their gaiety and extreme indifference to worldly cares. Leaving to their masters the whole trouble of providing for their lodging and maintenance, they never concern themselves about the future. Their tasks once ended, they think only of repose, and seldom entertain any idea of working for themselves. When you pass through their villages, you never see the peasants busy in repairing their hedges, cultivating their gardens, mending their implements, or doing any thing else that bespeaks any regard for domestic comforts. No--the Russian works only because he is forced to do so; when he returns from his labour, he stretches himself out to sleep on his stove, or goes and gets drunk at the next kabak. A curious custom I have noticed in Southern Russia, and which is common to all classes, is that of chewing the seeds of the melon or the sunflower, from morning till night. In order to indulge this taste, every one dries in the sun the seeds of all the melons he eats during the summer, and puts by his stock for the winter. I have seen many wives of pometchiks (landowners) pass their whole day in indulging this queer appetite.
In Russia, as in all imperfectly civilised countries, religious ceremonies still retain all their ancient influence. They afford the peasant a season of pleasure and emancipation, that makes him for a moment forget his thraldom, to revel in intoxication. Full of superstition, and indolent to an extreme degree, he longs impatiently for the interval of relaxation that allows him to indulge his favourite propensities. For him the whole sum and substance of every religious festival consists in cessation from toil, and in outward practices of devotion that bear a strong impress of gross idolatry. The Russian thinks he perfectly understands and fulfils his religion, if he makes innumerable signs of the cross and genuflections before the smoky picture that adorns his isbas, and scrupulously observes those two commandments of the Church, to fast and make lenten fare. His conscience is then quite at ease, even though it should be burdened with the most atrocious crimes. Theft, drunkenness, and even murder, excite in him much less horror than the mere idea of breaking fast or eating animal food on Friday.