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| Anonymous Russian artist View of Moscow from Trinity Gates of the Kremlin ca. 1800-1810 watercolor Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"He put the mouth piece back on its solid brass hook and began to patrol the house, silent except for the distant rising and falling of voices from the kitchen which, in spite of what sounded like a burst of sobs, had the familiar sound of a successful party. Ramshackle, by Frank's standards, and roomy, the house consisted of a stone storey and on top of that a wooden one. That vast stove, glazed with white tiles from the Presnya, kept the whole ground floor warm. Outside, towards the bend in the Moscow river, a curious streak of bright lemon-yellow ran across the slate-coloured sky."
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| Anonymous photographer Transportation of the Regalia from Moscow to Saint Petersburg 1883 Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Anonymous photographer Red Square, Moscow ca. 1850-76 Rijksmuseum |
"Among the crowds, the pedlars of pussy-willow, up from the country, traversed every street, or stood at every street-corner. By tradition they said nothing to their customers, and, as they held out the red-stalked willows, named no price. These were grave confrontations. Frank thought it unlikely that Volodya had any money, and bought willows for both of them. There was no question of their going any farther without them."
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| Anonymous photographer Moscow Square 19th century |
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| Anonymous photographer Sysoev House, Pechatnikov Lane, Moscow plasterwork from 1896 |
"Once into the lane, the ground floors of the houses became shops, with windows half below the pavement level. There was no way of telling what they dealt in. Very likely they were repair shops, there was nothing you couldn't get repaired in Moscow, a city which in its sluggish, maternal way cared, as well as for the rich, for the poorest of the poor. Bring me your broken shoes, your worn-out mattresses, your legless chairs, your headless beds, and in some basement workshop or hole in the wall, I will make them serviceable, at least for a few months or so. They will be fit to use, or at least fit to take to the pawnbroker's."
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| Anonymous photographer Russian Railroad passengers early 20th century |
"Frank walked past the coal tips and the lock-up depositories through the cavernous back entrance of the station. Inside the domes of glass a grey light filtered from a great height. Not many people here, and some of them quite clearly the lost souls who haunt stations and hospitals in the hope of acquiring some purpose of their own in the presence of so much urgent business, other people's partings, reunions, sickness and death. A few of them were sitting in the corners of the station restaurant watching, without curiosity or resentment, those who could afford to order something at the gleaming rail or the buffet."
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| N.A. Naidenov Views of Moscow : Tverskoy Boulevard 1891 albumen print |
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| Porcelain Tray View of Moscow from Vorobyovy Hills 1825 overglaze painting Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"Everyone took short cuts in Moscow. The tram numbers, except for the line round the boulevards, were frequently changed, and unless you felt like paying for a sledge or a cab you were bound to spend a good deal of time on foot. But once you were off the main streets you had to know (since it could scarcely be explained) the way. Street names soon ran out. You were faced by towering heaps of bricks and drainpipes, or a lean-to which encroached on the pavement, or a steaming cowshed whose rotten planks seemed to breathe in and out under their own volition. All these things, which had no legal right to be there and were unknown to any map, had to be imagined away if you wanted to steer a true course."
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| Marius Bauer Kremlin, Moscow 1896 drawing Rijksmuseum |
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| Anonymous photographer Driver and carriage, Moscow ca. 1880-90 Rijskmuseum |
"Long before his death last year Tolstoy had fallen hopelessly out of fashion with thinking Russia, but not with his foreign disciples, and certainly not with Selwyn. What Tolstoy had thought of Selwyn, Frank was not too sure. Selwyn had been welcome at his Moscow house in Dolgo-Khamovnicheski Street, and Frank believed that he had first met Tolstoy at the Korsakov private lunatic asylum which adjoined the property. Tolstoy had forbidden any repairs to the fence, so that the patients could put their hands through gaps and pick the flowers if they felt like it. There were regular concerts at Korsakov's got up by the innumerable charities of Moscow. Selwyn had a fine tenor voice, a reasonable tenor voice anyway, which was what passed for a fine one in Russia, the land of basses, and – never having been known to refuse an appeal to his kindness – he had given a recital one evening. What he had sung Frank didn't know, but some of the patients in the audience had become restless, and others had fallen asleep. Selwyn, who told the story without a hint of vanity or resentment, had sung on, but afterwards, since there was no applause, he had taken the opportunity to apologize to Tolstoy, who was sitting in one of the back rows. At the time Tolstoy made no reply, but a few days later he had said: "I find you have done well. To be bored is the ordinary sensation of most of us at a concert of this kind. But to these unfortunates it is a luxury to have an ordinary sensation."
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| Anonymous photographer Hotel National, Moscow 1905 |
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| Anonymous photographer Hotel National, Moscow 1905 |
"Tolstoy's Moscow estate was only a mile or so away from Lipka Street. In his will it had been bequeathed to the peasants, who, ever since, had been cutting down the trees to make ready money. They worked even at night, felling the trees by the light of paraffin flares."
– quoted passages are by Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) from her Moscow novel set in the winter of 1913/14, The Beginning of Spring (1988)