Innocents in Russia | Twain's Geography

Submitted by scott on Thu, 10/14/2021 - 10:30

Start Date

Wed, 08/21/1867 - 12:00

End Date

Thu, 08/29/1867 - 12:00

The Quaker City departed Constantinople 19 August, 1867, arriving in Sevastopol 21 August at 5am. It departed at 9 pm the same day, arriving in Odessa 22 August at 4 pm. The ship then departed for Yalta 24 August at 11 am, arriving 25 August at noon. A party from the ship visited Tsar Alexander II on the 26th. On the 28th the ship departed Russia returning to Constantinople. Twain remarks that the trip to Odessa was to take on coal but it may be that the true reason for the trip to Russia was because the Tsar had expressed an interest in acquiring the ship to be used as a family yacht and the Quaker City's owners were eager to sell it. Twain was favorably impressed with the Tsar, thinking him far superior to his preconceived notions of royalty.

Sebastopol

Passports

Odessa

Odessa is about twenty hours’ run from Sebastopol, and is the most northerly port in the Black Sea. We came here to get coal, principally. The city has a population of one hundred and thirty-three thousand, and is growing faster than any other small city out of America. It is a free port, and is the great grain mart of this particular part of the world. Its roadstead is full of ships. Engineers are at work, now, turning the open roadstead into a spacious artificial harbor.

Yalta

We anchored here at Yalta, Russia, two or three days ago. To me the place was a vision of the Sierras. The tall, gray mountains that back it, their sides bristling with pines—cloven with ravines—here and there a hoary rock towering into view—long, straight streaks sweeping down from the summit to the sea, marking the passage of some avalanche of former times—all these were as like what one sees in the Sierras as if the one were a portrait of the other.