Great Catherine (34 page)

In the German suburb—where Catherine was no doubt most at home—foreign merchants had built over the centuries a small replica of a northern European town, with a grid of wide streets, houses with gardens, public squares and neoclassical architecture. But this oasis of relative tidiness and patterned order seemed out of place, hemmed in as it was on all sides by warrens of pattern-less, unplanned dwellings, shops and shrines, Tatar temples and Chinese pagodas and pavilions, with here and there a Turkish mosque.

The bustling heart of Moscow was the Kitaigorod, or market district, with its rows of stalls running along the bank of the Moskva River under the high walls of the Kremlin. The Kitaigorod was a hive of commerce, where twisting alleys seemed to go on forever under a dense vaulted roof, and goods from half the

world were displayed in the dimness: metalwork from Yaroslavl and Kholmogory, hides from Kazan, velvet and brocade from France and Italy, swords from Damascus, enamels from Kiev and Solvychegodsk, even bone carvings from far away Archangel. Siberian furs were heaped next to pottery from Samarkand, fruit and vegetables from Astrakhan and stale fish (the Muscovites were said to prefer it stale) from Moscow's twenty rivers and streams and the lower Volga.

Tradesmen and artisans set up shop in low stalls lined with tree bark, with icons nailed to the beams and lamps hanging below them. While waiting for trade they drank tea and said their prayers, gossiped with friends, played ball and fed the huge flocks of pigeons that roosted under the vaulted ceiling. Pigeons, like bells, were holy objects; Muscovites revered them as symbols of the holy spirit, and protected them from harm.

Rich merchants visiting Moscow stayed in the inns of Kitaigor-od, and even princes and important noblemen maintained farms along its outskirts. Horse-drawn sleds brought goods to replenish its ancient stalls every day, and traders scoured the city and outlying villages for rags, broken dishes, discarded furniture and curiosities to sell in the flea market. What could not be bought in the vast bazaar was not worth buying. One could even have a tooth drawn there, or buy charms and medicines, or visit a barber, or have one's fortune told.

The Moscow poor crowded the Kitaigorod on market days, picking their way along, haggling for bargains, crossing themselves at the sight of holy pictures, priests and funeral processions, clutching their purses and watching out for thieves, closing their ears to the hubbub and holding their noses when the mingled scents of sour beer, cooked cabbage, leather, boot grease and musky cologne became unbearable. Disease came from the market, and crime and mayhem were rampant there; still, it was worth the risk, for the best prices were to be had in the worst areas, where the stalls were built over a muddy swamp and rain and snow fell through gaps in the roof canopy.

In the wood market, coffins were laid out by the hundreds, in sizes small enough for infants or large enough for the tallest and most bearlike Russian man. They were little more than hollowed tree trunks, cut in half and fitted with crudely shaped lids; coarse and unfinished though they were, they sold briskly in the long freezing winters and nearly as well in the short, plague-ridden summers. In addition to coffins, timber merchants also sold entire houses, each board numbered so that they could be disassembled and easily rebuilt at the buyer's preferred location. With every devastating fire there came an immediate and voracious demand for new houses, and the wood merchants, carpenters and cabinetmakers thrived.

In Red Square, in front of one of the principal gates leading into the Kremlin, was the official city center, where imperial orders were read and where patriarchs stood to bless the faithful. Here the many-domed church of St. Basil rose in all its fantastic splendor, each of its domed structures more fancifully decorated than the next. Here blind beggars sang for coins and trainers of dancing bears set their beasts to performing. Actors and acrobats vied for the coins of the ever-present crowd, while peddlers sold live fish from tanks and pushcart vendors offered meat pies, hot mead and kvass, a drink made from fermented rye bread.

Priests without churches sold their services in Red Square, offering to perform masses for hire. Nearby, scribes sold carefully copied lives of the saints, accounts of miracles and chronicles. For a price, they also offered earthy stories and vulgar verses, though they kept these manuscripts well hidden. Equally well hidden were the prostitutes who frequented Red Square, staying away from the ancient round platform called the Place of the Brow where holy relics were buried and executions were carried out.

Grisly judicial murders drew onlookers to the Place of the Brow. Here murderers and thieves were beheaded by axe-wielding executioners. Rebels were beaten with knouts and broken on the wheel, suffering a slow, tormenting death. Renegade priests, accused of inciting discontent, were hanged under

the domes of the cathedral, their bodies left to rot where they hung from one season to the next as a warning to the populace. Notorious criminals were slowly dismembered, each limb hacked off with a hatchet before the writhing, bleeding torso was severed from the head.

When Catherine entered Red Square on September 13, 1762, huge crowds greeted her carriage. The weather had been dull and gray and cold and the cobblestones in the square were encrusted with ice. Still, the warmly wrapped Muscovites cheered her and called out blessings as she passed along her route, which was marked out with arches wrapped in green boughs. Prince Trubetskoy, who had been charged with making all arrangements for the coronation, had done his best to prepare the city to receive the empress. He cautioned her that the people were disgruntled; between the drenching autumn rains, which left the streets all but impassable and interrupted the supply of food from the countryside, and the high prices that invariably set in with the early frosts, there was much grumbling and disquiet.

Catherine nodded graciously to the thronging Muscovites, most of whom were seeing her for the first time. She had her son with her, and encouraged him to show his small pale face at the window. Paul had been ill, and was not yet fully recovered, but Catherine needed him at her side when she confronted her subjects, to increase her appeal. She wanted them to think of her, not as the ambitious German woman who had ordered her husband's murder, but as a madonna figure, a compassionate mother protective of her son.

In truth her mind was not on her son—though his fragile health was a concern, for if he should die she would lose an important pillar of her legitimacy—but on the need to keep good order in Moscow over the following ten days, when the coronation festivities were to begin. There must be no food riots, or disturbances caused by troublemakers or opportunists who denounced her as morally unfit to reign. She was aware of disloyalty and potential disloyalty all around her, even among the women

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who served her and were in and out of her private apartments dozens of times a day.

These women were in a position to know all that mattered most to her, like it or not she was vulnerable to them. They knew, just now, that she was carrying another child. Once again, it was Gregory Orlov's child, only this time it would be born, not to the grand duke's wife, but to a reigning empress. If the baby were to be a boy, the succession could be altered, with the sickly Paul set aside in favor of Orlov's more robust son. (Catherine's other child by Orlov, the infant Alexis, was being cared for by her chamberlain Shkurin, kept out of sight of the court; his future fate was uncertain.) But for the time being the only sign of Catherine's pregnancy was her sour stomach—a symptom that she had learned over the years how to disguise.

During the ten days that Catherine spent in the Kremlin Palace, ostensibly fasting and cleansing her soul in preparation for the holy ritual of coronation, she met with her councillors, learned the words she must pronounce during the ceremony, and went over every detail with Prince Trubetskoy. The treasury was bare, yet the coronation had to dazzle. There had to be gorgeous carriages, richly caparisoned horses, everything must be gilded and encrusted with gems. Catherine's own gown of shining golden silk thickly embroidered with gold and silver threads had to draw all eyes to her, as the radiant focus of the spectacle.

The late Empress Elizabeth's wardrobe was plundered for finery for the coming coronation. Jewels were gouged from buckles and buttons, pearls stripped from skirts and headdresses. Old velvet was turned into new liveries. Old silk was cut and stitched and re-hemmed. Master goldsmiths crafted a crown for Catherine, set with five thousand small diamonds and seventy-six large and lustrous pearls. A gigantic ruby shone from the top, surmounted by a cross. The rest of the regalia were burnished and made ready to be presented to the empress. In her scepter, symbol of her ruling authority, shone the hugely magnificent Orlov

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diamond, which gleamed like a beacon and reminded her of the man who had helped to put her on the throne.

All the cannon of the Kremlin thundered forth early on the morning of Sunday, September 22, to salute Catherine's coronation day. Bells clanged and tolled, regiments formed up and marched to their appointed positions in Cathedral Square, musicians took their places and the first of a long train of carriages rolled in through the Kremlin gates.

For four hours the nobility, foreign dignitaries, court officials and finally the golden-robed priests assembled in the Cathedral of the Assumption, where thousands of candles and tapers illuminated a wealth of gold and silver crosses, shrines and lamps and a profusion of gem-encrusted icons. A huge tentlike baldaquin had been erected over a raised dais. Here Catherine was to sit during the ceremony, in full view of the spectators.

Finally at ten o'clock Catherine emerged from her apartments in the palace, resplendent in her golden gown, its sweeping train held up by six attendants, and with a mantle made of four thousand ermine skins over her slender shoulders. Her confessor walked before her, sprinkling holy water on the carpet, the staircase, the stone steps that led into Cathedral Square. A loud fanfare greeted Catherine's appearance in the square, and the crowds waiting outside the walls of the Kremlin echoed the huzzas and shouted blessings.

While massed choirs sang Catherine entered the cathedral, her head held high, her pace majestically slow, and mounted the dais beneath the ornate baldaquin. She listened to the archimandrite read a long sermon in Church Slavonic, the archaic tongue reserved for religious ritual, then took up her book and recited the creed. This done, she took the imperial purple mantle and draped it over her gown, and received from the hands of the venerable priest the replica of the twelfth-century Cap of Monomakh, the golden crown with which all the rulers of Russia had been crowned for six centuries. When she had placed the cap on her

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head more prayers were said, and she was invested with the orb and scepter.

Crowned, bearing the symbols of her high office, arrayed in majesty, Catherine stood before her people for the first time as their sacred sovereign. "In his mortal form, the emperor resembles all men," went the words of the coronation ritual, "but in his power he is like unto Almighty God."

Once again cannon were fired, triggering renewed shouting and cheering. By this time Catherine, who had eaten nothing for many hours, must have felt faint. Cinched into her tight gown, her mantle heavy and the regalia heavier still, her stomach unsettled and her mind led into fantasies by the mosaics of dark angels and saints looming over her from every pillar and wall, she must have longed for the ceremony to end.

But there was more to come. Catherine prayed at the tombs of her predecessors, the grand dukes, emperors and empresses of Russia, and invested herself with the silver star of the Order of St. Andrew on its blue ribbon, with the accompanying gold cross and gold chain. The archimandrite then celebrated mass, and throughout the very long service the empress knelt and stood and knelt again, listening to an interminable sermon and a succession of prayers and sung psalms. Nearly four hours went by before the entire exhausting ritual was over, and the new empress, anointed with the chrism and having received the consecrated bread and wine, was ready to rejoin her people.

When she came into view in the square she was greeted with tumultuous acclaim. Moved beyond measure, the onlookers wept and sang and knelt on the frigid cobblestones, while Catherine went into the cathedrals of the Annunciation and of the Archangel Michael to pray before the ancient icons. Later she ordered her servants to break open a hundred and twenty barrels of small coins and fling them into the crowd. This traditional display of imperial generosity brought forth fresh roars of delight, as Catherine knew it would. But her gift to the people was insignificant compared to the gifts she presented to her courtiers:

lucrative appointments, titles, decorations and jewels in abundance. Gregory and Alexis Orlov were conspicuously rewarded, but there were abundant presents and favors for everyone. Not even the least of the palace servants was forgotten.

By the time night fell the courtiers could scarcely stand. They leaned against the walls, their eyes glazed over with fatigue. Catherine may have napped, or, buoyed by the excitement of the day's grand events, she may have found her second wind. In any event she made one final appearance at midnight, standing atop the Red Staircase next to the Granovitaia Palace to witness the glorious illumination of the Kremlin towers and gateways with yellow lamps. The lights, which brought every turret and crenellation into sharp focus, turned the heavy, brooding fortress into a delicate fairyland. People still milled about in the hundreds in the square below, enjoying the carnival-like aftermath of the day's solemnity. They broke into cries of joy when they saw Catherine, wishing her long life and health and cheering themselves hoarse.

Catherine's coronation day was only the beginning of months of official and unofficial festivities. Every day there were banquets, receptions, formal gatherings in honor of the sovereign— more than enough activity to disturb the customary Muscovite sloth and to provide luxury-loving idlers with occasions to exchange gossip and drive about in their showy carriages drawn by thin, spavined horses.