Though Moscow has been three times nearly destroyed,--first, by the Tartars in the fourteenth century; second, by the Poles in the seventeenth century; and again, at the time of the French invasion under Napoleon, in 1812,--still it has sprung from its ashes each time as if by magic power, and has never lost its original character, being a more splendid and prosperous capital than ever before since its foundation, and is to-day rapidly increasing in the number of its population. The romantic character of its history, so mingled with protracted wars, civil conflicts, sieges, and conflagrations, makes it seem like a fabulous city. The aggregate of the population is not much if any less than that of St. Petersburg, while the territory which it covers will measure over twenty miles in circumference. "In spite of all the ravages and vicissitudes through which Moscow has passed in the thousand years of its existence," said a resident to us, "probably no city in the world is less changed from its earliest years." Descriptions of the place written by travellers nearly three centuries since might pass for a correct exhibit of the ancient capital to-day. The impress of the long Tartar occupation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries still remains both in the architecture and the manners and customs of the people, while much of its original barbaric splendor permeates everything. At St. Petersburg the overpowering influence of European civilization is keenly felt; here, that of Oriental mysticism still prevails.
The city is unique taken as a whole. One seems to breathe in a semi-Asiatic barbarism while strolling through its quaint streets and antiquated quarters. There are no avenues long enough to form a perspective, the streets winding like a river through a broad meadow, but undulating so as occasionally to give one a bird's-eye view of the neighborhood. Still there are modern sections which might be taken out of Vienna, London, Dresden, or Paris, for one finds characteristics of them all combined mingled with the gilded domes of an Indian city, and the graceful minarets of Egypt. A certain modern varnish is now and then observable. Gas has been introduced, and tramways are laid in some of the principal thoroughfares. Like the Manzanares at Madrid or the Arno at Florence, the Moskva is not a deep river, though its channel conveys ten times the amount of water that flows in those just named. It winds ribbon-like in and about the city, adding greatly to its picturesqueness as seen from an elevation. True, this city is in a central position as regards the length and breadth of Russia, but that is about all one can say in favor of the location. St. Petersburg reclaimed from the Finland swamps has the commerce of the world at its door, and therein presents a _raison d'être_, which almost excuses the labor and loss of life and treasure which it cost.