Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/51

 CHAPTER IV

HE first great important ceremony which I attended was the funeral of General Obroutcheff, a great dignitary of the Empire.

The ceremony took place at La Laure, which is the ecclesiastical quarter of Petrograd and is an enormous monastery surrounded by walls and ditches full of water, a kind of fortified place—in fact, a town.

It contains a large cemetery, beautiful gardens and no less than seven churches. The monks, of whom there are a great number, wear long and very wide black cassocks with a sort of high hat widening toward the top. All of them let their hair and often their beards grow long; with some the hair reaches to the waist and is an object of great care. At night, the monks stand one behind the other plaiting each other's hair, which is generally curled and waved.

The popes are the secular and parish priests, and are married. Popes are in a certain degree a race of people apart; their children intermarry, the sons often become popes themselves. They are not generally much esteemed and the common saying is: "Pope, son of a dog!" As I have said, a pope can enter the married state, but only once in a life-time. 2em