Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/123

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The following article is an extract from Count Shulenburg's speech, delivered before the Alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on January 29, 1916.—Ed.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but my impression is that a great many Americans think of Russia as an enormous, limitless field covered with eternal snow and ice, deserted, almost uninhabited, where severe Winter reigns all the time and where people can live only when dressed in heavy overcoats made of bear fur.

But the real picture is not so gloomy as it might seem to some. It is true that a part of Russia's territory overlaps the Arctic Circle, and that the Winter there is cold and, no doubt, not very pleasant. Yet even there, Summer comes regularly. And then snow disappears, and it becomes possible to raise certain vegetables and grains, for the sun never sets for weeks and even months. But then, another part of Russia's territory extends far south. Our Crimea has mild, wonderfully pleasant climate, where snow is almost unknown and in which grapes and other warm-climate vegetation thrive. The city of Tiflis in the Caucasus lies almost on the same latitude with New York, and Russian mid-Asiatic provinces lie as far south as the state of Virginia. Even our famous Siberia in its central and southern parts has a good, healthy, dry climate, with cold Winters, but with warm and dry Summers. The raising of crops there, presents no difficulties. If any Americans do not put faith in my words, let them ask their own countrymen who have visited Russia, or, better still, let them visit the country themselves. And even those who do believe me should come to Russia to study the country, and, as a result, become Russia's friends. I make this last assertion without hesitation, because I know that the majority of Russians who have spent some time in America inevitably became her friends, and this happens because, as it seems to me, there are many traits that both Americans and Russians have in common.

The more the people of America will become acquainted with that of Russia and with the conditions of life there, the easier