Page:The tourist's Russia by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/19



position so far to the east of the main highways of European travel explains only in part the tourist's hitherto almost total disregard of her attractions. It has long been considered a nation apart, more to be shunned than visited. The temper of Russia, which is Oriental rather than European, has, until recent years, sustained her in an enigmatic, self-sufficient attitude toward the West. To the Russian, Russia was the world. The vague empires beyond her borders had little significance for her.

When Peter the First succeeded Alexis, and elaborated into a westernising campaign his father's tentative efforts to introduce foreign crafts, the Muscovites fought him with sullen obstinacy. They regarded his ambition as treason. The Russians under the Romanovs were scarcely more modernised than the subjects of Rurik and Igor. Their resistance to the dogmatic Peter counted little, at least in externals. Reforms were rigorously put in force to satisfy his passion for things European. St. Petersburg struggled into being on its marshy foundation, despite