These Russian gypsy singers lived luxurious lives and frequently married Russian gentry or even the nobility. It was only the successes, however, who achieved such distinction, and there were “a great number of low, vulgar, and profligate females who sing in taverns, or at the various gardens in the neighbourhood, and whose husbands and male connections subsist by horse-jobbing and such kinds of low traffic.” { 144b}
One fine evening Borrow hired a calash and drove out to Marina Rotze, “a kind of sylvan garden,” about one and a half miles out of Moscow, where this particular class of Romanys resorted. “Upon my arriving there,” he writes, “the Gypsies swarmed out of their tents and from the little _tracteer_ or tavern, and surrounded me. Standing on the seat of the calash, I addressed them in a loud voice in the dialect of the English Gypsies, with which I have some slight acquaintance. A scream of wonder instantly arose, and welcomes and greetings were poured forth in torrents of musical Romany, amongst which, however, the most pronounced cry was: _ah kak mi toute karmuma_ { 145a}—‘Oh how we love you’; for at first they supposed me to be one of their brothers, who, they said, were wandering about in Turkey, China, and other parts, and that I had come over the great _pawnee_, or water, to visit them.” { 145b}
On several other occasions during his stay at Moscow, Borrow went out to Marina Rotze, to hold converse with the gypsies. He “spoke to them upon their sinful manner of living,” about Christianity and the advent of Christ, to which the gypsies listened with attention, but apparently not much profit. The promise that they would soon be able to obtain the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in their own tongue interested them far more on account of the pleasurable strangeness of the idea, than from any anticipation that they might derive spiritual comfort from such writings.
Returning to St Petersburg from Moscow, after four-days’ absence, Borrow completed his work, settled up his affairs, bade his friends good-bye, and on 28th August/9th September left for Cronstadt to take the packet for Lübeck. The authorities seem to have raised no objection to his departure. His passport bore the date 28th August O/S (the actual day he left) and described him as “of stature, tall—hair, grey—face, oval—forehead, medium—eyebrows, blonde—eyes, brown—nose and mouth, medium—chin, round.”