| Popis: |
Chapter 10 provides an introduction to the interior of Russia. In 1811, Rosenstrauch moved to Moscow to open a “cosmetics” shop there. The first part of the chapter reconstructs his likely experience on the trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg: the system of postal relay stations (iam) that made swift long-distance travel possible; the encounter with the vastness, emptiness, and poverty of the Russian countryside; and the visible signs of the reforming power of the imperial regime, such as the canal system linking Europe with Asia. Drawing on the writings of other travelers, this section also considers the reflections about the Russian social system that such a trip inspired, and discusses the debates among contemporaries about the morality of serfdom, the spread of luxury goods in the provinces, and the civilizing potential of Russia’s authoritarian regime. The second part of the chapter describes Moscow’s role as the premier gathering place for much of the Russian nobility, and the important role that foreign luxury-goods merchants played in Russian noble life as well as the hostility that their activities attracted from Russian nationalists and social critics. |
