Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — Russian Hotels. [ARTICLE]

Russian Hotels.

Even in good hotels, when they are of the genuine Russian type, there are certain peculiarities which, though not in themselves objectionable, strike a foreigner as peculiar. Thus, when you alight at such an hotel, you are expected to examine a considerable number of rooms, and to inquire about the respective prices. When you have fixed upon a suitable apartment you will do well, if you wish to practice economy, to propose to the landlord considerably less than he demands; and you will generally find, if you have a talent for bargaining, that the rooms may be hired for somewhat less than.the sum first stated. You must be careful, however, to leave no possibility of doubt as to the terms of the contract. Perhaps you assume that, as in taking a cab a horse is always supplied without special, stipulation, so, in hiring a bedroom, the bargain includes a bed and the necessary appurtenances. Such an assumption will not always be justified. The landlord may perhaps give you a bedstead without extra charge, bqt if he be uncorrupted by foreign notions, he win certainly not spontaneously supply , you with bed-linen, pillows, blankets and towels. On the contrary, he will assume that you carry all these articles with you, and, if you do not, you must pay for those which you borrow from him. This ancient custom has produced among certain Russians a curious kind of fastidiousness to which we are strangers. The* strongly dislike using sheets, blankets and towels which are in a certain sense public property, just as we should strongly object to putting on clothes which had been already worn by other people. And the feeling may be developed in people nos Russian by birth. For my own part, I confess to having been conscious of a certain disagreeable feeling on returning, in this respect, to the usages of so-called civilized Europe. Evidently fastidiousness is not an innate quality, but the result of the conditions to which re have been accustomed; and, as such, it may easily take very curious forms. The inconvenience of carrying about these essential articles ofbed-reom furniture is by no means so Seat as may at first sight be supnosed. id-rooms in Russia are always heated, during cold weather, so that one light' blanket, which may be used also as a railway rug, is quite sufficient, while sheets, pillow-cases and towels take up very little-space in a portmanteau. The most cumt rows object is the pillow, for air-cushi' as, having always a disagreeable odo , are- not well suited for the purpose. But Russians are accustomed to this 'aeumbeance. In former days—as at the present time in those parts of the country where there are neither railways nor macadamised roads—people traveled in carts or carriages without springs, and in these instruments of torture a huge pile of cushions or pillows is necessary to avoid contusions and dislocations. On the railways—except perhaps the infamous line which connects the Volga with the Don—the jolts and shaking are not deadly enough to require such an antidote; but, even in nnconservative Russia, customs outlive the conditions that created them; and at every railway station you may see men and women carrying about their pillows with them as we carry wraps and hat boxes. A genuine Russian merchant who loves comfort and respects tradition may travel without a portmanteau, but he considers his pillow as an indispensable article de wyage. To return to the hotel. When you have completed the negotiations with the landlord, you will notice that, utileas you have a servant with you, the waiter prepares to perform the duties of valet/ de chambre. Do not be surprised at his officiousness; which seems founded on the assumption that you are three-fourths paralyzed. Formerly, every well-born Russian had a valet always in attendance, and never dreamed of doing for himself anything which could by any possibility be done for him. You ‘notice that there is no bell in the room, and no mechanical means of communicating with the world below stairs. That is because the attendant was supposed to be always within call, and it is so much easier to shout than to get up and ring the bell. In the good old times all this was quite natural. The well-born Russian had commonly a superabundance of domestic serfs, and there was no reason why one or two of them should not accompany their master when his honor undertook a journey. An additional person in the Tarantass did ”ot increase the expense, and considerably diminished the little unavoidable inconveniences of travel. But times have changed. Fifteen years ago the domestic serfs were emancipated by Imperial ukaz. Free servants demand wages; and on tallways and steamers * single ticket does not include the attendant The present

generation must therefore get through life with a more modest supply of valets, and must learn to do with hia own hands much thtt ■Wlfaaiulj imfoiiaiij L by n up rf in pectsd. to dress himself without assistance 7 i- and MoebMfogly the/ waiter remake ia ydur jwni ta jtet taid Penhw, too. WW, WffPf;, yet extidcfTYwHnff hear; for Stance, h resounding along* tite > corridors,' tatoh' tot order as,—" BstawfoaJ, PitowhaH Jitakan Whep the coilet Operaffimn to»stdtt(pteted/ and yui* order te*4ofe phrsra prdrtß tea in Rtiasia—yon Will be asked whether you be able to reply in the affiAnalin'e/fOr good tea can be' bought only fa antain well-known shops, and pan bevtahg foqnd ‘n hotels. <A..huge 'stomping tea-urn, called a ‘ saqiovarv—etymologtegllv, a “ self-boiler”—will be brou'ght'm, will make year tea according toy our taste. The tumbler you know,, o(course, y is to he used ns a, cup, ,ana wdten filled , may be conveniently employed for cauterizing the points of your fingerkj ' If Vbd 1 should happen to have sfiyttiing datable ,or drinkable In your traveliqg-basket, you need not heSifato to out pj. once, for the waiter will not feel at all aggrieved or astonished as your doing nothing *■ for the 1 good of the Iroued?’" Tho Iwedty dr twenty-five kopeks that ytxppav fcfc the sanwvar—tea-pot, tumbler, aqueer, and slop-basin, being undqr the generic term “Pnbor”—frees you from all corkage and other dued,—D. Macltenaid Wallaice'b * l ■*) ’ filial