great virtues in fasting; and a prolonged fast-time implies a
subsequent carnival. The rigor of the Russian fasts strictly excludes
every article of food containing the least particle of animal matter.
Flesh and fowl are, of course, rigorously _tabooed_; so are milk, eggs,
butter; and even sugar, on account of the animal matter used in refining
it, of which a small portion might possibly remain. The fast preceding
Easter, called, by way of eminence, "The Great Fast," lasts seven full
weeks, and is observed with a strictness unknown even in Catholic
countries. The lower classes refrain even from fish during the first and
last of these seven weeks, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays in the
remaining five. When we reflect how large a part some or all of these
animal substances form of the _cuisine_ of all northern nations, and in
Russia most of all, we shall be ready to believe that this Great Fast is
an important epoch in the Russian calendar, and is not to be encountered
without a preparatory period of feasting, the recollection of which may
serve to mitigate the enforced abstinence.

Among the upper classes in St. Petersburg balls, routs, and all carnival
revelries begin to crowd thick and fast upon each other as early as the
commencement of February. But the mass of the people compress these
preparatory exercises into the week before the beginning of the fast. This
is the famous _Masslaenitza_ or "Butter Week," which contains the sum and
substance of all Russian festivity. All the butter that should naturally
have gone into the consumption of the succeeding seven weeks is
concentrated into this. Whatever can be eaten with butter is buttered;
what can not, is eschewed. The standard dish of the week is _blinni_, a
kind of pancake, made with butter; fried in butter, and eaten with
butter-sauce. For this one week the great national dish of _shtshee_ or
cabbage-soup is banished from the land.

Breakfast dispatched, then come the amusements. Formerly the swings,
ice-mountains, and temporary theatres were erected upon the frozen plain
of the Neva. But some years since, the ice gave way under the immense
pressure, and a large number of the revelers were drowned. Since that time
the great square of the Admiralty has been devoted to this purpose. For
days previous, long trains of sledges are seen thronging to the spot,
bearing timbers, poles, planks, huge blocks of ice, and all the materials
necessary for the erection of boot