Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/271

Rh "Though not so quaint as the churches we have seen, it is certainly the finest in the city. It is in the form of a Greek cross, and the central cupola, eighty-four feet in diameter, rises three hundred and forty-three feet above the ground. In front of the church there are statues of the Russian generals of the early part of the century; the outside is adorned with bronze reliefs, which are strangely divided between Scriptural subjects and the war of 1812. The interior of the building is finished with highly polished porphyry, lapis-lazuli, and other costly stones, and there is a profusion of paintings ornamenting the walls. We spent half an hour or more at the church, and were loath to leave it.

"In addition to its many churches of the Greek faith, Moscow is like St. Petersburg in containing churches representing all the religions of a Christian city, together with synagogues for the Jews and mosques for the Tartars. Some Chinese who once lived in Moscow had a pagoda, where they worshipped idols as in their own country, but our guide says there are no Chinese here at present. Of course we had not sufficient time for visiting all the churches of Moscow, and told the guide to take us only to those which were really remarkable. We saw perhaps a dozen in addition to those I have named. They were interesting to us who saw them, but I omit a description lest it might prove tedious.

"We went to the Museum, which has a library of one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, a collection of minerals, and a great number of paintings, engravings, and similar things. It did not impress us as much as did the Museum of St. Petersburg, but perhaps this is due to the fact that we were a good deal wearied after our long hours of sight-seeing, and were more desirous of a rest than anything else.

"One of the curiosities of the place was a skinned and stuffed man in a glass case. It reminded us of the cases in which the dress-makers exhibit the latest styles of feminine apparel; and the figure, though dead, was more 'life-like' than the wax models to which we are accustomed. It is the real skin of a man who once lived and moved and was of goodly stature.

"From the Museum we went to the Manège, or riding-school, which is claimed to be the largest building in the world without any supporting pillars. Look at the figures of its measurement: length, 560 feet; width, 158 feet; height, 42 feet.

"Perhaps some of the great railway -stations of Europe or America can surpass these measurements, but we certainly don't know of one that can. The space is large enough for two regiments of cavalry to perform their evolutions; and in the winter season, when the weather is too severe