Historical and Statistical Sketch of Bessarabia — Concluding Note on Sevastopol

Total of the customs and other duties realised in 1838, in the five localities above-named, 360,332 rubles, and in 1839, 319,134 rubles.

From some scattered details we have already given, the reader may conjecture that the population of Bessarabia is exceedingly mixed. The Boudjiak numbers among its inhabitants, Great Russians, Cossacks, Germans, Bulgarians, Swiss vine-dressers, gipsies, and Greek and Armenian merchants. The northern part of the province, on the contrary, is occupied almost exclusively by the Moldavian race, whose villages extend even along the Dniestr to the vicinity of Ackerman. Jews abound in the northern part; there are very few in the towns of the Boudjiak; leaving them out of the account the Bessarabian population may be divided into four great classes: the nobles, the free peasants who possess lands, the newly emancipated peasants, and the gipsies. The nobles consist of the ancient Moldavian aristocracy, the public functionaries, retired officers, and a great number of Russians, who have become landowners in the province. To this class we must join the Mazils, who are descendants of the ancient boyars, but whom war and the numerous revolutions that have desolated the land have reduced to penury. They form at present an intermediate class between the new nobles and the peasantry, and differ from the aristocracy only in not taking part in the elections of the judges and marshals of the nobles. The free peasants are those, who, having been emancipated in times more or less remote, possess lands, and depend neither on the great landlords nor on the crown, though subject to ordinary imposts and corvees. The newly liberated peasants consist of those who are settled, by virtue of a contract or agreement, on lands belonging to individuals or to the crown; they form the majority of the population. The Bohemians are still subjected to the laws of slavery. Some of them, to the number of 900 families, belong to the crown, and the rest to Moldavian landowners, who usually employ them as servants, workmen, and musicians.

In Bessarabia, as throughout Russia and the principalities of the Danube, the new generation of nobles have completely renounced the habits of former days. They have of course adopted the straight coat, trousers, cravat, and all the rest of our Western costume; there is nothing striking in their outward appearance. The old boyars alone adhere to their ancestral customs; a broad divan, pipes, coffee, dolces, and the kieff after dinner, are indispensable for them; and to some of them shampooing is a delicious necessity. I know a certain nobleman who cannot fall asleep without having his feet rubbed by his Bohemian. But what above all strikes and delights every stranger, especially a Frenchman, is the eager and cordial hospitality and kindness he encounters in every Moldavian house. One is sure of meeting everywhere with men who sympathise heartily with every thing great and useful to mankind which our civilisation and our efforts have produced in these latter times. It is only to be regretted that these brilliant qualities are often tarnished by the corruption which administrative venality and rapacity, supervening upon long military occupations, have insensibly diffused through all classes of the population.