Excerpt from The Land of the Nihilist, Russia: Its People, Its Palaces, Its Politics, a Narrative of Travel, in the Czar's Dominions
How it may be Entered. - A Journey with a Prince. - How Kings Greet Each Other. - A Glimpse of the Czar and the Imperial Family. - The Russian Railways. - The Sleeping Car and its Porter. - Where Amber Comes From.
Travel has its fashions like everything else, and the last season or two everybody has been going to the North Cape and the Land of the Midnight Sun, leaving Switzerland and the German baths to those who have not been to Europe before or are under the doctor's orders. Last year a few of the North Capers spread over into Russia - they were so near that they couldn't help it; but until then the visitors to the Czar's dominions had been so few that Herr Baedeker, the faithful friend of the travelling public, had not considered it worth his while to issue a Russian guide-book, although he has covered nearly every other country on the globe. Those who intend to make the journey a part of a general European tour, should save Russia till the last, and go straight home from there. After one has seen the gilded palaces of the Czars and the treasures of the Kremlin, every other place but Paris will seem very tame to him, and he will lose much of his pleasure.
When Peter the Great was reproached for the folly of locating the capital of Russia in a swamp where nature never intended a city should stand, he remarked: "I want a window to look out upon Europe," for Russia had no seaport then.
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