Russia : its history and condition to 1877 . ne. Consequently he(or his agent) enjoys a position and influence butslightly inferior to what it was in the days when hewas literally lord of all he surveyed. The villagebegins at the door of the manor. A broad openspace extends in front of the house, surrounded byrows of small shops — the general store, the spiritmonopoly shop, the shoemaker, tailor, cobbler, establishments are adorned with huge sign-boards (a green and yellow tablet in the case of thespirit shop), for the great majority of the peasantsare illiterate. In the centre numbe
Russia : its history and condition to 1877 . ne. Consequently he(or his agent) enjoys a position and influence butslightly inferior to what it was in the days when hewas literally lord of all he surveyed. The villagebegins at the door of the manor. A broad openspace extends in front of the house, surrounded byrows of small shops — the general store, the spiritmonopoly shop, the shoemaker, tailor, cobbler, establishments are adorned with huge sign-boards (a green and yellow tablet in the case of thespirit shop), for the great majority of the peasantsare illiterate. In the centre numbers of carts arecollected, their horses unharnessed, and there are afew peasants squatting about to look after above all the other buildings rises the greatwhitewashed church with its gilded domes glitteringin the sunlight. A road leads from this square across a little riverinto the village proper. In Russia, town and villagedo not quite correspond to the meaning of thosewords in other countries, for while there are towns 192. -< ?s. A COUNTRY ESTATE of 10,000 inhabitants, there are villages of 20,000or 30,000. This village of R has 10,000 inhabi-tants, and it covers an area such as would sheltertwo or three times that number in Western consists of a few very long, wide, straggling streetsand open spaces flanked by irregular rows of low,one-storied whitewashed cottages built of logs androofed with thatch. They are separated from eachother by spaces of wooden railing enclosing the yardswith which each dwelling is provided. The yardsare entered by broad gateways surmounted bypagoda-like roofs, of a type common throughoutthe East. The wells are also very Oriental-lookingwith their wooden well-heads and wooden lever-polesfor drawing up the buckets. Timber plays a mostimportant part in Russian life, the enormous ma-jority of the houses both in town and countrybeing of that material, whence the French writersdescription of Russia as TEurope en bois. A fewp
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Keywords: ., bookauthorvillaril, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
