Having spent a delightful time in Novgorod, I began to become anxious to experience another city’s attractions. Ford decided he too had had enough of Novgorod, so we departed on horse with all the belongings we could.
We met some….complications.
Not forty-two miles from Muscovy, as we were taking a brief rest at noon-day, some horsemen bore down on us. Any mercy we might have hoped for was lost when we saw them appraise our foreign-ness and pull weapons out of their sleeves as bandits are wont to do here (Olearius 128).
The skirmish was brief: Ford surprised us all by pulling out the first thing he grabbed and--brandishing the towel-- managed to disarm a bandit before we were both restrained. What happened next was humiliating to say the least, but suffice it to say, we had our belongings stolen and naught but our dressing gowns and slippers left. They seemed to think those items of clothing looked too much like normal Russian clothes to be valuable. You see, I later found out that all foreigners in Moscow were required to wear clothing from their native countries so as to reduce confusion on the part of the Russians. Consequently, foreign clothing was at a premium since foreigners had altogether adopted the Russian way of dress (Olearius 129-30).
I did not see the sense in stealing clothes from myself and Ford simply because our clothes were from an entirely different time of English fashion, but I suspect the bandits did not allow such a thing to cross their minds.
Luckily, while I was bemoaning my fate and expecting to die in a strange land at the hand of brutal marauders, a passing hunting party dispersed the fiends. Ford and I were offered company on remaining leg of our journey and even given a kopeck or two out of pity.
On our eventual arrival to Moscow, we were overcome by the grandeur but felt urgently that we must find a way to survive. I resolved to try my hand at sandwich making again, and Ford found work building the extraordinary houses they have here in Moscow (Massie). With the money we had begged, I decided to write my brother for money out of desperation.
It is here I wish to describe the daily dress of the Russian gentlemen in this new place and time I have found myself, for I continue to be forced to wear my dressing gown and slippers here. I am by no means blending in completely, but it would be far worse in England.
The Russian men have a very distinct way of dress. Just as in England, the quality and extravagance of apparel correlates with the status of the wearer. A Russian man will generally wear something of a shirt, which looks like a Greek shirt, but not as long as the Greeks. “The collar is flat and smooth without pleats; and the back, from the shoulder down, is covered with a triangular [piece of cloth] and sewn with red silk” (Olearius 127). Often the collar is clasped with a string or two large pearls. Beneath, they wear trousers of the same light material. Over all this, they may place the kaftan, which can look something like a dressing gown.
A kaftan is something like a coat that buttons or clasps in the front and falls as low as the knees. The sleeves are large (as evidenced from the bandits who cleverly stored weapons in them) and the collars stand tall behind and around the neck (Barbarous 243).
A thin--often gold--girdle is finally tied around the waist with the tassels falling to the ankles. Herein lies a most curious habit of the Russians: they store knives and spoons in their belts for convenience (Barbarous 243). When I first saw this, I thought it was absurd, but I have since mended my ways and store my own sandwich-making tools within my own belt!
Russian men almost always wear a hat. Boyars wear tall, intimidating hats while the common man wears a simple felt or velvet triangular hat. The hats are often made of fox fur, sable, or velvet if the wearer is wealthy. As boyars and other wealthy men pass in the street, I find I gasp at the grand ornamentation of clothes. Boyars especially include vast amounts of gold, jewels, and pearls in their attire.
The boots the Russians wear are created from leather and are pointed at the toe. Heavy winters demand that winter boots be lined with fur. Boots can also be painted. The Russians experience harsh winters and find comfort and warmth in furs with which they line almost every item of clothing. Even the women add fur to their ensembles frequently (Olearius 128).
In physical appearance, the Russian men have wide bellies and long, thick beards. The hair on their head they keep short, unless, as my friend Ivan told me, they fall out of favor with the tsar.
Works Cited
Cherniavsky, Michael. “Ivan the Terrible as Renaissance Prince.” Slavic Review, vol. 27, no. 2, 1968, pp. 195–211. www.jstor.org/stable/2493710.
Rude and Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth-Century English Voyagers. Edited by Lloyd E. Berry and Robert O. Crummey, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
Olearius, Adam. Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Translated and Edited by Samuel H. Baron, Stanford University Press, 1967.
Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. Heart Tree Press, 1996.
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