>In 1610, the Polish army entered Moscow. Its ranks included people who left behind interesting memories and descriptions of Russian customs. One of them was Samuel Maskiewicz, a companion and later lieutenant of the hussar banner of Prince Janusz Porycki. He was stationed in Moscow for 18 months, which allowed him to gain more than a cursory understanding of local customs. He described some of them in his diary. Interestingly, unlike many Polish diaries and accounts from the 18th century or later, Maskiewicz's memories were not written with more or less hidden hatred towards Muscovites. This is hardly surprising. After all, he was one of the soldiers who brought the tsarist state to its knees. His horse was stabled in the hall of the tsar's palace, a place where even boyars had been afraid to go until then. Maskiewicz burned Moscow for several days and probably (probably, because he didn't boast about it) had the blood of more than one townsman on his hands. It was not him who was afraid, but it was him who was both feared and hated. And what did he see in the capital of the tsars? Let's give a voice to our hussar:

>"Moscow courts
>There are as many judges as can find different cases. For example, one judge judges a thief, another a robber, another a thug, although these are all the same craft, the same excess [crime], and what about different matters; and all these, each of them, have a separate courthouse, which is called a rozrad, and every day they judge in the morning until they ring the bell for the great dinner [mass] in the church, and when they hear the bell, all the judgments cease. They do not punish the greatest and bloody excesses with the throat, but only with a whip [flogging], apart from the slightest suspicion of treason on the part of the tsar's person, without a court or law, they put him on ice at the slightest accusation and do not allow the matter to be explained [they do not allow to explain or defend themselves ]

>There are no sciences there either, and they use them because they are forbidden, so that no one can be found wiser than the Tsar, so that the mir (that is, the common people), despising their lord, would take the other as their master, because there mir strength can. It was, they say, during the time of that tyrant [Ivan the Terrible] that a merchant from us (because they had freedom with goods when traveling) brought there minutiae [calendars, practical guides] in a wagon, as I heard from a boyar, the one Golovina, who had previously written about him. When the tsar found out, he ordered some of these books to be brought to him; that, in their opinion, they were very wise, because the tsar himself did not understand anything. Fearing that people would not understand this, he ordered them all to be taken to his castle and, having paid as the merchant himself wanted, he ordered them to be thrown into the fire. Another one of these I saw was Gołowina, who told me that he had a brother who was very ready for foreign languages, but he was not allowed to practice them in public. He was hiding a German, which is not difficult to find in Moscow. He also found a Pole who understood Latin and who secretly dressed them in Moscow. They made peace with him for a long time, having acquired Latin and German books. And he learned strength from them [he learned much from them]; I myself saw the hands of that person writing, translating the language from Latin into Polish; and he saw the Latin and German books that came to him after his brother's death; and what [it could be] when science came to this joke [talent].

>In conversations with us, our people recommended that they should get freedom by joining us, and they simply said: your freedom is good for you, and our slavery is good for us; for your freedom is, indeed, freedom; don't we know, he says, that among you the stronger oppresses the leaner [poorer]? he is allowed to take the wealth of the poorer person and kill him himself, and while seeking justice under your law, he will be delayed for a dozen years before he receives [judgment and justice], and on the other hand he will never get it. In our country - he says - the richest boyar cannot do anything to the poorest, because at the first complaint the Tsar will free me from him; and if the Tsar himself does wrong to me, it is allowed to him like God, because he both punishes and repents [he grants grace]. ]; I am not as sorry as I am to suffer from my brother when the Tsar, who is the lord of all the world, scolds me; for they understand that there is no greater monarch under the sun of the world than their Tsar, and no one can succeed him, and that is why they call him Sonco. , Integrity, Svetlo Ruskoye. All of these people, the mir, the boyars and so on and so forth, remind one more of some bearded rabble, not a normal human society like our fine noblemen.

>The tsar himself has his own palaces in Crimea-Gorod, but each subsequent tsar builds a dwelling according to his own imagination, having broken down the previous one [the dwelling of his predecessor]. However, the most formal among all [palaces] were those of Dymitr the first, because [they were built] in the shape of Polish [palaces]. Szujski built others after them; he left those.
>The palace is made of brick, which they call Zolotaya Polat; all Moscow princes and tsars are painted in this, with gold higher on the walls; and merging [with] various stories of the Old Law [Old Testament]. The windows in it are very large and run in two rows, one higher than the other; and there are 19 of these [windows]. There is an underground furnace, so only heat goes through the holes, and although it is such a big machine [a big building], because it is close to 20 fathoms [less than 40 meters] on one side, and it is square, it is vaulted. The pillar has one in the middle, on which the vault everything hangs. The Tsar appears there to the common people, alone and at certain times [sometimes] with the Tsarina.

>I stood [stationed] in this palace with some company for quite a long time, because of the fire [protecting myself from the fire], because Moscow [the Russians] often visited us with fireballs, and our horses stood in the hall of this palace; something that Moscow has probably never experienced before, because even a proud boyarist could enter this palace without the Tsar's permission, with fear from God."[1]

>Later, Maskiewicz continues the description of the vast wooden city and concludes:
>“And yet we reduced all these things to ashes in three days; such great decorations of this city disappeared in a short time [...]”[2]

>The author himself, a dozen or so pages earlier, writes about Muscovites drinking excessively and mixing different types of alcohol, which our nobility criticized terribly. And in addition, from the same and slightly earlier period (dymitriads), you can also find diaries by Dyamentowski and Niemojewski describing drunkenness: "At weddings, there is no good thought, no music, dancing, except drinking, although they do not have the habit of drinking to themselves, only , after drinking, he will set it down or give it to the person sitting next to him, and there is no need to be afraid that he will fulfill it. When they are about to leave, the host will stand and offer a large goblet to the health of the great prince first, then to the health of the patriarch, then to the metropolitan, the host, the fairy, the groom, the detynek - until they drink, alternating now honey, now vodka, now beer. And whoever wanted to protect herself next would be under suspicion. While eating, they also mix a cup of vodka and another drink. And every time they drink, they cut off their belly and stroke their belly.

>The "enlightened" Tsar Peter I later ordered each soldier to be given one and a half liters of "grain wine" a day. Drinking has always been a style, even the essence of life in Muscovy. There was no time when the concepts of moskal and gorzałka were separated.

>>16884888
Thanks David

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Interesting stuff, but why use an image of Bowie for this thread?