Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/232

226. The doors leading into the Chapel of the Nativity are said to have been stolen from a church in Sweden by pirates. Several men from Novgorod belonged to the freebooting band, and brought these doors home to enrich the cathedral of their native place. The doors are of oak, covered with metal plates half an inch thick; the plates bear several devices and scrolls which we could not understand, but our guide said they were the armorial bearings of Swedish noblemen. There is another door, which is also said to have been stolen from a church, but its exact origin is unknown.

"In the sacristy they showed us an ancient copy of the four gospels on vellum, and a printed copy which is said to have come from the first printing-press ever set up in Russia. There were several flags and standards which once belonged to the princes of Novgorod, one of them a present from Peter the Great in 1693. There was once an extensive library connected with the cathedral, but it was taken to St. Petersburg in 1859. They showed us a collection of letters from Peter the Great to Catherine I. and his son Alexis, but of course we could not read them.

"There is a kremlin, or fortress, in the centre of the city, but it is not of great consequence. Near it is a tower which bears the name of Yaroslav; in this tower hung the Vechie bell, which summoned the vechie, or assemblage of citizens, when any public circumstance required their attention. We tried to picture the gathering of the people on such occasions. In the day of its greatness Novgorod had four hundred thousand inhabitants, and its assemblages must have been well worth seeing. The vechie bell was carried off to Moscow by Ivan III., and many thousands of the inhabitants were compelled to move to other places. For a long time it hung in a tower of the Kremlin of Moscow, but its present whereabouts is unknown.

"I fear that a further account of our sight-seeing in Novgorod, so far as the churches and monasteries are concerned, might be wearisome as it would be in some degree a repetition of the description of the cathedral; so we will drop these venerable buildings and come down to modern times and things. The most interesting of modern things in this old city is the Millennial Monument, which has been mentioned before.

"The monument is one of the finest in the Empire, and some of the Russians say it surpasses anything else of the kind in their country. We could not measure it, but judged it to be not less than fifty feet from the ground to the top of the cross which surmounts the dome, forming the upper part of the monument. There are a great many figures, statues, and high-reliefs, which represent periods of Russian history. The great