Moscow truly foreign--the city after the fire of 1812

The burning of Moscow

Our driver brought us to the top of an elevated piece of ground when we turned and beheld the city at our feet, the Moskva winding through the city and [26] losing itself on our left in the midst of a pretty country for this part of the world.  I have been so long away from home, and have been so accustomed to visiting new places, and considering them for the time being as my real home, that people and places now remind me of really being as far distant from my native land as I naturally am, but looking at Moscow from this height I was forced to think that I was truly in a foreign land.  All that I had heretofore viewed had been European (so to speak), modern—in fact in some degree like America, but this was new.  I beheld before me that which I had before seen in imagination only, and [illeg.] to myself as Asiatic, Oriental, in the times of the Caliph, in fact as something which belonged to another race of people.  Moscow of course is in a great degree modern as regards its’ buildings, yet when its Churches [26] & Mosques were burned as well as its private residences, in 1812, they have generally been rebuilt after the same models, and though often new in materials, are old in style.  This burning of Moscow has of late caused many words pro & con.  As regards the Great Conqueror who here first felt himself somewhat at least subdued, the Russians themselves universally deny the charge of having fired the City & place the fact upon the Soldiers of Napoleon.  By so doing I must say I think they destroy much of the romance of history attributing the deed to their determination, that if the Emperor entered Moscow that he should do so after its glory had departed.