. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. s during the summer—al-most intolerable in the flat, canal-intersected city of Peter—andwhither he betakes himself either daily or at each week-end. The northeastern part of St. Petersburg is called the Viborgquarter, and the Finland station is just on the other side of theNeva. The frontier is at Terijoki, thirty-three miles away, butthere are no frontier formalities, as a perfunctory glance is given 66 ALL THE RUSSIAS at your baggage in the station before the train starts
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. s during the summer—al-most intolerable in the flat, canal-intersected city of Peter—andwhither he betakes himself either daily or at each week-end. The northeastern part of St. Petersburg is called the Viborgquarter, and the Finland station is just on the other side of theNeva. The frontier is at Terijoki, thirty-three miles away, butthere are no frontier formalities, as a perfunctory glance is given 66 ALL THE RUSSIAS at your baggage in the station before the train starts. Thereis no fear of much smuggling from a high-tariff country to a low-tariff one. Smuggling between the two countries, as I shallpoint out later, plays an important political part, but it is all theother way. Almost the only thing you may not take freely inyour baggage into Finland is spirituous liquor. Even from thetrain you soon remark a difference betv\^een the two is a land of plains, broken by occasional great rivers. Fin-land is a land of rocks and rills, covered with masses of granite,.. A Country House in Finland. an astonishing proportion of its surface water, and the train runsfor hours past two unbroken lines of pine-woods. And manshandiwork shows as much difference as natures. The woodenhouses of the peasants, as well as of the better classes, are neatand pretty, mostly painted red; they are always in good repair,the fences in order, the gates sound and closed. The whole coun-try, in fact, looks well cared for—the home of hard-workingpeople, prospering thriftily. And one curious and characteristicdetail strikes the traveller before he alights. In Russia official FINLAND 67 notices of every kind appear in Russian only. The Russian of-ficially ignores the existence of foreign languages even whereforeigners mostly congregate. If you do not know Russian thereis but one thing to do—learn it. Finland, on the other hand, iscosmopolitan, for, to b
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
