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IV.
As may be imagined, the foreigner has little chance to
see the real Russian people in motion in the open air.
All public life, meetings, conferences, unions, are
forbidden — nay, impossible.
Still the traveller who is in Russia at the right season
can get a distinct impression of the character of the masses.
In St. Petersburg, Easter is the gayest season for the
common people. In the largest open place, the Field of
Mars, where the soldiers are drilled at Easter, four or
five large theatres of unpainted wood are erected, side
by side, and in these theatres plays are acted, with short
intervals between, from morning till night. In the
vicinity of the buildings there was a large, permanent market,
and, especially on holidays, a great crush of spectators
and purchasers. The whole goes under the name balagani.
The principal amusement of the poorer people, who
have not the means of paying the cheap admission fee to
the theatres, is this: On the open balcony which
encircles the theatre walks from side to side a youth, dressed
like an old man, with an enormous wig of long white
hair and a long white beard, — who, sitting down, with
his legs hanging from the scaffolding, collects a crowd.
He is called Stárik (the old man). What he says is the
most childish and harmless nonsense, — “If I had plenty
of money I would eat this and that for breakfast, so and
so much for dinner,” etc. [absurd quantities], — and they
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