Peter, with his peculiar blending of political supremacy and democratic fancifulness, built for himself a little house on the fortress island, where the furniture made by himself is still preserved by the side of the miracle-working image of the Redeemer which the despot always carried with him. His spirit soars over this city and this land. What he did not entirely trust to his unscrupulous fist he left in honest bigotry to the bones of the holy Alexander Nevski, which he had brought to his capital soon after its establishment. Autocracy and popocracy still reign in the Russian empire. The Peter-and-Paul fortress, in the subterranean vaults of which many of the noblest hearts and heads of Russia have found their grave, the Isaac cathedral, with its barbarian pomp of gold and precious stones, and the mighty monoliths--these are the symbols of the city of St. Petersburg and of its régime. If there is in Russia, even among the enlightened minds, something like a fanatical hatred of civilization and of the West, it is due to the manner in which the half-barbarian Peter imposed Western ideas and civilization on a harmless and good-natured people.
What brutal power of will may do in defiance of unfriendly nature has been done on the banks of the Neva. Indeed, its green waters are now hidden by an ice-crust three feet thick, over which the sleighs run a race with the little cars of the electrical railway. Yet even without the restless shimmer of the water the view of the river-bank is still very impressive. The golden glitter of the great cupolas of the Isaac cathedral, the long red front of the Winter Palace, the pale yellow columns of the admiralty, between Renaissance structures, stand out from among the rest.
Palaces and palaces stretch along the stream right up to the Field of Mars. The gilded spire of the Peter-and-Paul cathedral pierces the white-blue sky and greets, with its angel balanced on the extreme spire, the equally grotesque high spire of the admiralty. Great stone and iron bridges span the broad stream, its opposite shore almost faded in the light mist of the wintry day. Walking towards the middle of the bridge, whence a splendid view may be obtained, one sees the long row of buildings on the farther islands standing out of the mist. One row of columns is followed by another--the Academy of Arts, the Academy of Sciences, the house of Menschikov, which Catherine built for her favorite, come into view. Towards the west the hulls of vessels stand out from among the docks. Still farther out the mist hides the shoals of the Neva, together with those of the Gulf of Finland, in an impenetrable gray. Towards the north stretch the endless lanes with their bare branches which lead to the islands. This is the Bois de Boulogne of St. Petersburg, where the gilded youth race in brightly decorated "troikas," and hasten to squander in champagne, at cards, and in gypsy entertainments, the wages of the starved muzhik. It is a magnificent picture of power, of self-conscious riches, the better part of which is furnished by the mighty stream itself.