Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/201

Rh in that country. When skating, these particular shoes must be warmly lined.

Russians never take much exercise, and they nearly all wear what is known there as the chouba, a kind of pelisse lined very thickly and often with the most valuable furs; but I did not adopt this mode, for the good reason that I could not bear the idea of being always smothered up, and I hated its feather-bed appearance.

In winter, every window is hermetically sealed with the exception of one small casement, which is opened for a few minutes only each day, just sufficient to allow a little fresh air to penetrate—so intense is the cold.

It is usual even to fill with sand the space between the double windows—on account of the cold there are always double-windows—up to the height of the bottom of the first pane of glass.

One takes off and puts on one's heavy furs in a specially arranged place just inside the front door of the houses, as it would not be possible to bear the weight of them in the warm atmosphere indoors and it would be sudden death to venture outside without them. Consequently, with these arrangements for one's comfort and with reasonable precautions, there is no country in the world where one need suffer less from the cold than in Russia; not that dreadful penetrating damp cold one continually experiences in French and English