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nathandgame · 4 years ago

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Monday 16th September 1839

[Anne and Ann finally cross the 1839 border (whereupon Anne promptly loses her pen on the road, and just picks up a pencil and continues scribbling without missing a beat), and congratulate themselves on being in Russia, as well as on having avoided their books being temporarily impounded by Imperial censors. Anne passes a very favourable verdict on Finland and the Finns, Ann makes tea, and in spite of the station inn being very far from luxurious, our heroines ingeniously make themselves quite snug and comfortable. The rooms are warm, which is good as Anne has had chillblains in her little finger, and their coachman suffers from lumbago. The inn is, however, all out of chamber pots, and so – foreshadowing a notorious later crockery repurposing incident – the Ann(e)s use a soup tureen instead.]

[up at] 5

[to bed at] 11 35/”

fine morning and Fahrenheit 56.º at 5 a.m. – off at 6 –

Wiborg 18 2/3

Hotoka 17

St. Petersburg 83 2/3

Helsingfors 300

at Lillpero at 7 38/” – off at 7 57/” just out of Wiborg bouldery common i.e. after passing thro’ the suburb with the good church – then from there for some distance thinned young Scotch fir forest a few little corn fields and afterwards rocky bouldery young Scotch fir forest and coarse sandy road as yesterday – Very few cottages but I slept great part of the way looking out every now and then – Lillpero well enough little lone house – Russian – we have met several little waggons loaded with something covered generally with matting – no servant about at Wiborg so gave nothing – from Lillpero to the frontier 86 wersts at 12 kopeks = 26/64 I shall have enough finnish money left – Lillpero in the forest and forest forwards but yesterday generally and today so far the forest less swampy than common – road good – sandy soil as yesterday but road hard and good – the police declined searching the carriage at Wiborg said they could not do it – now (9 10/60) 1st view of sea or lake or water since leaving Wiborg – and now nice woody open country and farm and cottages – a little hamlet passed or farm or 2 about ½ hour ago in a break of the forest – fields – no corn out – good flock of sheep recently shorn – ½ hour ago saw a plant of cranberry in flower – at beyond the station at 9 13/” had to turn back – alight at our station

Stolpe bod – stolpe, stoop

Baum (beam) tree

at Hotoka comfortable room at 9 ¼ to breakfast – beautiful view from our breakfast room window of the fine wooded fjord – Russian – our bearded landlord very civil and good looking – the men much better looking than the women – breakfast boiled milk and 4 boiled eggs and bread and butter they brought us butter but we had our own and bread spared of yesterday’s dinner – breakfast at 9 38/” to 10 5/” – several nice outbuildings –

“View of the Post Station of Hottoka” (today’s Streltsovo) in 1832 (by V. Langer), seven years before Anne and Ann breakfasted in one of the buildings shown, looking at the “fine wooded fjord” (an inlet of Lake Glubokoye/Muolaanjärvi) on the left (image source):

Hotacka

Lillpero 17 versts

Kyröla 14 versts

St. Petersburg 100 2/3 versts

Viborg 35 2/3

off at 10 19/” thin bouldery young forest and sea (right) couple of hundred yards off very beautiful – and at 10 27/” peep of the sea not far off (left) – at 10 33/” (in 14 minutes) have lost sight of sea except one little glimpse or 2 soon afterwards – and a beautiful peep again of sea (left) – 10 40/” unpainted hamlet 1 street of gable-ends to the road perhaps 200 yards long – the 1st village thus answering Handbook’s description page 142 it is in pretty break of the forest, with nice clean even little corn fields asleep – till at 11 ½ very picturesque irregular village of Kyröla and our good station – large good one story wood house yellow (but old painted) with white window frames – very nice little neat new-looking fresh painted (yellow with pea green roof)

Krasnoje Selo Hotacka 14

St. Petersburg 87 Pampala 15 ½

Viborg 49 2/3

Helsingfors 326 2/3

church – and 2 or 3 good houses with red roofs oldish yellow paint I think – the rest of the village hamlet-like and unpainted – by irregular I mean that the middle of the village street swelled out at a sort of large square containing the church and good houses – very pretty about here – fine broad expanse of wooded islandy water left – and extensive view of open wooded country – woody birchy and firs along our road capital road – and not hilly today – this last village of Kyröla or Krasnoje Selo the prettiest we have seen very nice drive this stage – open birchy Scotch fir forest – frequent peeps of the water left – ? dry upland forest – sandy but road good – more hilly than before – the water left must be part of the series of lakes from Viborg that join the Ladoga? – plenty of cranberries all along but the pretty red berries not larger than our bilberries – at 1 ¾ at Pampala good small unpainted lone house

Kyrölä 15 2/3

Kivinebb 13

St. Petersburg 71.

in nice dry airy break in the forest snow plough – a calèche drove up just after us – off at 1 12/” – at 1 22/” (in 10 minutes) nice peep over the forest upon fine wooded extensive country all around us – and several little such peeps past stage from the tops of little hills – sandy but road good – at 2 10/” (right – near) large picturesque church on hill – the church with dark coloured roof except east end cupola roof red – and unpainted hamlet at its foot and our station, good unpainted house at 2 12/” might have slept here apparently very well –

Kivinebb

Pampala 13 versts

Rainaioki 12 ½ versts

St. Petersburg 58 versts

A view of Kivenappa (Kivinebb, today’s Pervomayskoye) in the 1930s, with the “large picturesque church on hill”, sadly destroyed in the Winter War (image source):

2 snow ploughs – nice hilly wooded open airy country all round about – the village nicely placed on high ground – off again at 2 ½ – on rising the hill, country very pretty here – fine extensive view – hamlets and farms scattered up and down – yellow stubble fields and green young rye and good green peas [ten ago?] – the unpainted (drab) hamlets and dark pine wooded hills finely contrasted – but the hills not high – now rising grounds all around us – all right and left a wide woody plain pretty well peopled – no overflowing population anywhere in this cold nord – great deal of birch all today – now at 2 50/” the wide plain right seems one sheet of dark pure forest and we pass thro’ a little unpainted scattered hamlet or 3 or 4 or a series of scattered farms and their numerous hamlet-like appurtenances – here and everywhere the wood fences as in Sweden and Norway – at 3 5/” cross good river and wood bridge and 14 men with as many one horse ploughs ploughing in one stubble field – cattle – 3 little corn stacks in a field – nice farming here – 7 narrow lines between stakes – on rails or how of something like peas holm – geese here – abundance of them at Viborg – in the Baltic near the 2 steamers, and on the ramparts and in the streets and everywhere – our stage hilly this time and road sandy but good – at 3 23/” unpainted scattered hamlet and pretty little lake near by it, and a bit of small boulder stone cobble wall fence the 1st I have seen in the North – (Sweden Norway or here) – at the station at 3 33/” – on high ground – lone

Raiaioki

Kivinebb 12 ½ versts

Walkiasari 12 ½ versts

St. Petersburg 45 4/6 versts

house unpainted body – red roof good enough looking house – might sleep apparently as well as at many of the other stations – the hamlet scattered about at a little distance – the appurtenances of the station numerous as usual and hamlet-like wide wooded plain right and left and surely it the sea we just see in the extreme distance before us (right) – off at 3 47/” very pretty at 3 52/” little steep descent onto wooden bridge over little stream that is perhaps the boundary

An 1830s view (by Pehr Adolf Kruskopf) of the bridge over the Rajajoki (Sestra) river which Anne and Ann have just crossed – imagine their carriage on it! In 1839 the river indeed made up part of the boundary between the Grand Duchy of Finland and the rest of the Russian Empire (the Finnish-Russian border is much further west now and Vyborg is now in Russia), so by crossing the bridge they left Finland behind them and entered Russia (image source). Observe the “steep descent” on the left!

steep boulder stone paved ascent – enough for our horses to do to get us up – and good largish horses – good all the way from Viborg – pretty and hilly and much birch – thin forest, and pasture and cows – yes! (now 4 ¾) it is the sea, a long sweep, in the distance (right) – the pavé roughish begun on this side the bridge at 3 52/” but we go on the sides (sandy but very fair) now and then very much – and after all the pavé is not so bad so far – I would rather risk our carriage here than from Hamburg to Lubeck, or even in the streets of Stockholm where if the pave is something better the deep channels are terrible – now at 4 5/” the afternoon is dullish – shall we have rain? now at 4 ¼ fine wooded country – range of wooded hill (left) closes in (at perhaps 7 or 8 miles English) our plain at the left – low birch wood beeches and young Scotch firs scattered here and to the right (in the distance) and to the right in the distance the fine sweep of sea with a dark line at the back of it forming the horizon look down in front in the distance upon dark plain rising to the horizon – and now 4 25/” a scattered hamlet unpainted as usual – the sea now sweeps ½ round us in the distance from right to en face – we look upon one sheet of forest belted right and in front by sea – now towns or villages distinguishable – the road now sandy (at 4 ½) and goodish – the pavé nowhere prevented my writing – at 4 ½ lose my pen – in taking off bonnet must have kicked it out – now at 4 ½ very sandy and heavy –

[writes in pencil (since she’s just lost her pen!), and later inks over the pencilled writing] for a little way the birch generally green shewing merely a tinge of autumn here and there – hilly stage – now at 4 55/” a little town or village in sight before us (right) with handsome white, blue-cupolaed, church – now at 5 first buck wheat that I have observed part standing ripe, and part cut, tied up in little sheaves, and in stook – and our road now and for a little while back as broad as 3 roads (perhaps 60 yards wide) and we go on the grass or as well as we can thro’ the sand – and now (5 5/”) a few scattered farmsteads – our road this stage the worst we have had in Denmark Sweden or Norway, but still the road to Hazelunen much worse in point of sand, and the road from Hamburg to Lubec much worse in 1833 in point of pavé – the pavé begins again now at 5 10/” (we had it from 3 52/” to 4 ½) but we keep on the side – on the sand – several little long narrow tacks with spruce fir branches laid on the thatch (as observed once before – steep pitch down to wood bridge and stream – then ascend to the town, and at the Station at 5 ¼ at Walkiasari – John stopt at the station house and we had sent Gross to the douane, and got the baskets and cloaks out before they came to say the carriage and all must go to the place – there at 5 25/” and Ann and I there ¾ hour –

then came back sided our room and Ann made tea – sat over it till 8 10/” then prepared our bed – only one in the house – had Grotza at 8 ¾ when we had got all ready – and then till now (10 p.m.) inked over the latter 2/3 of the last page and so far of this – Jean was in despair at the thought of our staying all night – said if we did we must sleep upon hay for there were no beds – and in came a large bundle of nice soft hay which now lies in the corner of our room – we have spread out the one scantily filled bed (with flocks I suppose) on sofa and chairs, so as to be wide enough for us both – of the 2 pieces of not quite clean linen each about 1 ½ yard square we have made an under sheet, and shall put our cloaks over us – we have the luxury of 4 pillows, and shall do very well – we had our own bread and butter and tea and sugar but they brought very fair bread (wheat) and good butter, and 4 boiled eggs and a little bowl of milk with the cream on it for our tea – the cream made our tea excellent and we sat over and enjoyed it, declaring how well off we were – we had got well thro’ the ordeal of the douane, and congratulated ourselves on being in Russia – our books I believe were all taken out of the carriage and looked at; but, as desired, I copied the list I have and the Stockholm date dated it Stockholm as really dated there, and signed it

‘Anne Lister

de Shibden hall’

and then enclosed it in an envelope and as desired sealed it with my own seal my arms, wrote on the back ‘List of the books belonging to Mrs. Lister’ and sent this by Gross to the Douane to be forwarded to St. Peterburg, I engaging to go with in six weeks to the Committee of censorship to claim the list – said I should go to Mrs. Wilson’s – we are thus allowed to take all our books and things and go in comfort – How much better than the pother we should have had if we had arrived at St. Petersburg by the steamer! –

our journey thro’ Finland has really been a very agreeable and a very economical one; and we have seen the country and the people – the latter always civil and ready to do their utmost to please, and the former well-farmed (made the most of) and interesting – the roads everywhere good till this last stage – and the sand of this nothing to that of Hazelunen and the pavés for poste after poste of the South of France often quite as much or more jolting and trying to the springs of a carriage than the 43 minutes out 88 minutes (from 3 47/” to 5 ¼) here – this is the 1st time we have failed to find good clean beds and sheets at the Station houses and only once or twice we have the people been without white (wheat) bread – the little steep pitches are too short to be dangerous – the horses rarely stumble; and a man must be a very bad driver and totally unaccustomed to this sort of roads if he cannot get on comfortably even with a heavy English carriage like ours about 8 versts an hour – I never observed the man or boy (Holcar) ask for anything more than what was due for the horses 6 kopeks each from country stations and double that from towns – Åbo is a good town – Helsingfors very beautiful, cheerful and comfortable (the Society’s house good hotel) and one might have advantages from the university professors (all the students away – vacance for a fortnight longer) – Viborg dull as all fortresses of such sort must be? but a good town and its fjord and situation beautiful – the cold

the cold weather is coming – I have had a little chilblain in my right little finger these 2 days or more and Jean has got a little lumbago since Saturday – fine day tho’ dullish coldish in the morning and dampish in the afternoon), – Fahrenheit 56 1/4º now at 10 ¾ p.m. our 2 rooms have been warmed by a stove; for they were quite comfortably warm on our arrival no pot ath /sic/ brekfast /sic/ and we have a tureen for one tonight Raining now at 10 ¾ p.m.

Anne’s marginal notes:

geese

1st cobblestone wall

Pavé

Buckwheat

wide road begins

pavé

the wood all young no large trees.

no pot

Anne and Ann’s route (in red) from Vyborg to Valkiasari, with stations she mentions by name marked in blue (source of the original map):