"Great Dirty Swamp." What European historians, travelers and diplomats wrote about Russia 200 years ago

The king knows even the Prussian Statute, and could personally command a parade in Berlin, ”wrote with the delight of Russia and her king Nicholas and Prussian diplomat Friedrich Wilhelm Bismarck in 1836. It was then that his Wednesday Otto, who would be destined to become a "iron chancellor" of Prussia, and later the Second German Reich, came of age. Video of the Day "Life in Petergofi is very simple, - did not stop in the compliments of Prussak.

"In addition to weekends and holidays, all day long, and even at a dining table, everyone is in military clothing and military hats . . . In the evenings during the holidays, military music is heard everywhere in the parks. " If you consider that one of the rods of Prussian self -identification was even then military discipline, then the increased tone of these descriptions is quite clear.

Otto Bismarck, the son of the author of these lines, will also appear on people mainly in uniform, and Germany will unite under one ciser "iron and blood". However, Russia's fascination in German lands was shared not only diplomats, who would be obliged to express kindness. The sympathizers of the "slave countries", as its poets called it, in the nineteenth century were also fully enterprising businessmen, such as Baron August von Haksthausen.

In 1842, he published a complimentary response in the Prussian newspaper regarding the Decree of Nicholas and the obliged peasants. The king read the article and ordered to organize a Baron trip by Russia. For six months, Haksthausen's journey continued the provinces of the empire, accompanied by his assistant Henry Kozharten, as well as given by the emperor of the young Russian translator Aderkas.