Through the Eyes of Another

My Friends!

When last I wrote to you, times were dark under the rule of the Mongol hordes.  However, we have pulled through, and peace and prosperity abound once again.  It all, happened so long ago, now, that I will spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that all is joyous again in Muscovy.  Ivan is now tsar, and he rules from the Kremlin in Moscow.  He can be a terror to the nobles in court, but as of yet, the people are simply glad to be a free people once more.

Chancellor, on his arrival in Moscow

By chance, I ran into a fellow foreigner recently who had himself stumbled into Russia quite by accident.  His name was Richard Chancellor, and he told me of his remarkable journey into the heart of Russia.  He had initially left on a voyage to China, but made landfall in Russia in 1553 at a monastery by the sea (Berry and Crummey, 2012).  From there, he has traveled all around this beautiful country, and seems to have developed something of a love for it.  He leaves soon, but has decided he must return soon.  I was surprised to see his son with him on this journey

Among the many experiences he recounted was his trip to Moscow and his audience with Ivan the Tsar.  It seems he was surprised, if not particularly impressed with Moscow itself, claiming that it was "as in bigness. . . as great as the city of London", if a bit haphazard (Berry and Crummey, 2012).  I have not as yet been to London, and could therefore not say how it compares.

Berry, Lloyd E., and Robert O. Crummey, eds. Rude and Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth-Century English Voyagers. University of Wisconsin Pres, 2012.

Morfill, William Richard. The Story of Russia. New York, GP Putnams Sons; London T. Fisher Unwin, 1890.
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