ABSTRACT
THE remark has often been made, that no proper and correct idea of Russia can be obtained by a residence in St. Petersburg. This city has been called a window which Peter I. opened to look out upon Europe, and through which to breathe West-European air. St. Petersburg is entirely a European city, with less national character than London and Paris, with rather more Russian than other churches, and inhabited by Russian soldiers and officials, some Russian citizens, and a great many Russian peasants, but beside these by Germans, Fins, French, and English. It does not even stand on national Russian ground, but upon Finnish. The Russians are only colonists, and have been here scarcely a hundred and forty years.
