CHAPTER XII.
FROM the railway-station the party went to a hotel which had been recommended as centrally situated and fairly well kept, but Frank and Fred said they should be cautious about praising it for fear that those who came after them might be disappointed. The hotels of Moscow are hardly equal to those of St. Petersburg. As the latter is the capital of the Empire, it naturally has a greater demand for hostelries of the highest class than does the more venerable but less fashionable city.
The first thing that impressed the youths was the undulating character of the ground on which Moscow is built, in pleasing contrast to the dead level of St. Petersburg. The streets are rarely straight for any great distance and were it not for the inequalities one would not be able to see very far ahead of him at any time. But every few minutes a pretty view is afforded from the crest of one ridge to another; the depressions between the ridges are filled with buildings scattered somewhat irregularly, and there is a goodly number of shade-trees in the yards and gardens or lining the streets.
St. Petersburg has an air of great regularity both in the arrangement of its streets and the uniformity of the buildings. Moscow forms a marked contrast to the younger capital, as there is little attempt at uniformity and regularity. You see the hut of a peasant side by side with the palace of a nobleman; a stable rises close against a church and there is a carpenter's shop, with its half-dozen workmen, abutting close against an immense factory where hundreds of hands are employed. Moscow is a city of contrasts; princes and beggars almost jostle each other in the streets; the houses of rich and poor are in juxtapostion, and it is only a few short steps from the palace of the Kremlin, with its treasures of gold and jewels, to the abodes of most abject poverty.
