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 CHAPTER XII OF SOME FOREIGN PEASANTS (continued) Russia the convention of dress may not serve as an index to the mind of the country, for the peasant is allowed to share with the prince a fancy for gold, coloured embroidery, and silk and jewels, and it has not yet become necessary for the Duma to include an advocate in the cause of costume.

The history of Russia is inscribed upon the dress of its people. Travelling from north to south and from east to west, the costumes of the peasantry everywhere bear the impress of the political vicissitudes through which the particular locality has passed. This, coupled with the fact that no empire in the world is made up of such an agglomeration of vastly different races, accounts for the immense diversity of styles.

To gain some idea of the ingredients which go to make up the sartorial pot-pourri, one has but to pay a visit to the great annual fair at Nijni Novgorod. There Cossack rubs shoulders with Finn, Jew with Laplander, Tartar with Slav, Persian, Siberian, Bulgarian, and Circassian adding to the interest of the scene and the Babel of tongues. As everything Russian leads up to the one forbidden, and therefore burning, question, politics, it is impossible even to 130