The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

334 Bl SSIA IN EUEOPE.Nevertheless the exterminator of Novgorod was still anxious to continue itsdirect relations with Europe.But, by depopulating the old cities and wasting theland, the Muscovites deprived themselves of the elements necessary to keep up adirect intercourse with the "West. Hence they gladly welcomed the Englishadventurers who had come to trade with them round the Frozen Ocean.Later onGustavus Adolphus could declare that " Eussia had been finally cut off from theBaltic."In the seventeenth century Novgorod still showed a restive spirit, which,however, was soon quelled, and nothing now survives of the old national lifeexcept some popular proverbs directed against the Muscovite. It no longerstands on the great highway of nations, lying far to the west of the main routebetween Moscow and St. Petersburg, beyond the general commercial movementof modern Russia. Those of its traders and artisans still surviving in the seventeenthcentury were amongst the first elements of population in the new northerncapital. Once peopled by 50,000 or 60,000, or traditionally by 400,000, it is nowso reduced that convents formerly within the walls are surrounded by fields.But the trading quarter, and that of St. Sophia, or the Kreml, still occupy the oldsites above the river. The fortifications of the Erernl, formerly enclosing 18churches, 150 houses, 40 factories, contains the cathedral of St. Sophia, in whichare still preserved some tombs of old saints and heroes, curious frescoes of thetwelfth century breathing a bolder artistic spirit than that of East Russia, andimages whose symbolic attitudes harmonize with the observances of the sect of the"Old Believers." On the square facing the cathedral stands the monumentcommemorating the legend of Rurik, a lofty granite pile adorned with statues, andcovered with bronze bas-reliefs representing various figures associated with the originof the Russian Empire. It was erected in 1862, the millennium of the old state.On the Upper Msta, east of Novgorod, lies the town of Bororichi, from theearliest times the natural centre of the river traffic between the Volkhov and Volgabasins. The rapids of the Msta turn the wheels of several factories, and in theneighbourhood are quarries, coal-fields, and especially pyrites mines, which duringthe Crimean war replaced the Sicilian sulphur in the manufacture of sulphuricacid.Tikhvin, north of Borovichi, and on the Tikhvinka, has, since 1811, formedthe terminus of a navigable canal connecting the Volga and Ladoga water systems,and supplying St. Petersburg with about 20,000 tons of cereals and timber yearly.Its convent contains one of the most venerated miraculous images of the Virgin inall Russia, and formerly owned 4,500 " souls" (serfs), presented to it by devoutczars and nobles.In the upper basin drained by the Svir and Neva the only important place isPetrozavodsk, on a western inlet of Lake Onega, and in a mining district containinggold mines (now abandoned), copper lodes, and veins of magnetic iron with asmuch as 96 per cent, of pure metal. Founded in 1704 by Peter the Great, ittakes its name of " Peter's Mill " from a gun foundry and small-arms factoryestablished here for the purpose of utilising the neighbouring mineral treasures.Petrozavodsk has also become the capital of the government of Olonetz, and isnow the central trading station between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea.