. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. red if he could suggestany means whereby the solvency of the London and WestminsterBank could be made manifest in Samara. He thought that ifhe telegraphed to Moscow, and Moscow telegraphed to , and St. Petersburg telegraphed to London, the deedmight ultimately be done. How long would this take? Per-haps a week. I left, with the intention of seeking the nearestpawnshop, when the firm of Koenitzer & Co. arose like a star 166 ALL THE RUSSIAS in my financial night,
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. red if he could suggestany means whereby the solvency of the London and WestminsterBank could be made manifest in Samara. He thought that ifhe telegraphed to Moscow, and Moscow telegraphed to , and St. Petersburg telegraphed to London, the deedmight ultimately be done. How long would this take? Per-haps a week. I left, with the intention of seeking the nearestpawnshop, when the firm of Koenitzer & Co. arose like a star 166 ALL THE RUSSIAS in my financial night, and, having the usual knowledge of themethods of credit and exchange common to civilised countries,was kind enough to give me in two minutes all the money Iwanted. Let this be the record of my thanks, and a warningto other travellers in provincial Russian towns where the con-stellation of Koenitzer may not be in the ascendant, to carrytheir cash in a belt, as one does in Korea, for instance. At the foot of a steep hill, at the end of a broad street, thegreat grey Volga flows past Samara. A paddle-steamer, look-. The Volga. ing like a row of two-storey houses, lay at a wharf piled highwith goods—sacks of corn and flour, thousands of wooden cases,cart-wheels, the kind of dug-out canoes in which linen is washedin Russia, in fact, a miscellaneous mountain of merchandise, allasking urgently to be taken south before the frost blocked thelong waterway. And a shouting, pushing, perspiring mass ofpeasant humanity, with its belongings, personal and professional,in innumerable great bundles. We were ofT before the hourstruck, and an excellent meal and a large and verminous cabin LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA 167 awaited me upon the bosom of what geographers know as thebiggest river in Europe, and what Russians affectionately call little Mother Volga. This gigantic waterway, 2,300 miles long, over eleven mileswide in the spring at Nijni Novgorod, draining a country threetimes the size of France,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
