Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/82

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NSTEAD of returning to the hotel for dinner, our friends went to a traktir, or Russian restaurant, in a little street running out of Admiralty Square. The youths were anxious to try the national dishes of the country, and consequently they accepted with pleasure Doctor Bronson's suggestion relative to their dining-place.

"The finest and most characteristic restaurants of Russia are in Moscow rather than in St. Petersburg," said the Doctor, as he led the way to the establishment they had decided to patronize." St. Petersburg has a great many French and German features that you do not find in Moscow, and when we get to the latter city we must not fail to go to the 'Moskovski Traktir,' which is one of the most celebrated feeding-places of the old capital. There the waiters are clad in silk shirts, or frocks, extending nearly to the knee, over loose trousers of the same material. At the establishment where we are now going the dress is that of the ordinary French restaurant, and we shall have no difficulty in finding some one who speaks either French or German."

They found the lower room of the restaurant filled with men solacing themselves with tea, which they drank from glasses filled and refilled from pots standing before them. On each table was a steaming samovar to supply boiling water to the teapots as fast as they were emptied. The boys had seen the samovar at railway-stations and other places since their entrance into the Empire, but had not thus far enjoyed the opportunity of examining it.

"We will have a samovar to ourselves," said the Doctor, as they mounted the stairs to an upper room, "and then you can study it as closely as you like."

The Russian bill of fare was too much for the reading abilities of any one of the trio. The Doctor could spell out some of the words, but found