January, and frost and snow in April. Still the thermometer of
Fahrenheit often falls to 55 degrees below zero, which it seldom reaches
in Moscow. As in summer it often rises to 99 degrees, we may calculate
a range of temperature of 150 degrees. This is a difference of
temperature which would dreadfully try the constitution, did not people
take very great precautions against it by the mode in which they warm
their houses and clothe themselves. In Moscow, when the winter begins,
it commences to freeze in right earnest, and does not leave off at the
beck of any wind which may blow. We consider it to begin in October,
and to end in May--a period of six months--long enough to please the
greatest admirer of ice and snow. We then, once for all, don our fur
cloaks, caps, and boots, without which we never show our noses out of
doors till the beginning of spring. We then also light our stoves and
paste up our windows. You have seen a Russian stove? It is worth
examination. It is a vast mass of stone, which, though it takes a long
time to warm, will keep warm for a much longer period without any
additional fuel. The interior is like an oven, with a chimney, a long
snake-like passage leading to it. As long as the wood continues to
blaze the chimney is kept open, but as soon as it is reduced to ashes,
the passage to it is closed, and the hot air is allowed to pass by
numerous channels into the room. Sometimes the outer air is allowed to
pass through pipes over hot plates in the stove, and in this way fresh
air, properly charged with oxygen, is supplied to the inhabitants. In
large houses the mouth of the stove is in an outer passage or in an
ante-room, while the front is a mere mass of china, or concealed
altogether by looking-glasses or other furniture. One or more servants
in large houses have the entire charge of the stoves. They fill them
with wood the last thing at night, and light them some hours before the
family rise in the morning. In the sleeping-rooms they are kept in all
night. In the houses of the poor, one stove of huge proportions serves
for every purpose. It serves not only to heat the hut, but to bake
their bread, and for all sorts of cookery, and to dry their clothes,
articles of which are generally seen hung up round it. Benches are
placed before it, where the inmates sit to warm themselves, while on a
platform above it are placed beds, where, wrapped up in sheepskins, they
indulge in idleness a