were
found in the Poventshanka, and a necklace of them was presented to the
Empress Catherine Alexievna. These pearls rarely leave the province in
which they are collected, as the inhabitants are fond of using them for
personal decoration. Young girls attend to the fishing, and workmen
pierce them for about two copecks each. Choice ones sell for thirty to
one hundred rubles apiece.
In
the government of Archangel pearls have been collected for centuries
from the streams flowing into the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean. An
extended account of the fisheries of this region was given by Von
Middendorff.1 He states that the Unto margaritifera inhabits
all the rivers in which the descent is not too rapid, and especially in
the Tjura, the Tuloma, the Kovda, Kereda, the Kanda, etc. The fisheries
have been conducted exclusively by the shore Laplanders; but they have
been neglected in recent years owing to the small returns. Von Hessling
notes that the pearls are dull in color ; in the opinion of the
fishermen this is caused by the mysterious influence of the copper
money which they carry with them. The Tuloma was formerly a productive
river; its pearls were sold in Kola, whence they were carried to Archangel,
335 miles distant, where they were pierced by expert workmen. The
Tjura also yielded many pearls ; but since a Laplander was drowned
while fishing for them, a legend has spread that the spirit of the
river guards the pearls, and the natives hesitate about seeking them.
Probably
the occurrence of so many in the home streams had much to do with
developing in Russia that great love for the pearl which has made it
the national ornament, all classes finding pleasure in its possession.
While the superb gems treasured by the nobility are mostly from
oriental seas, a considerable percentage of those worn by the peasantry
are from the native waters. An interesting account of this fondness
among a certain class of Russian women—the Jewesses of Little
Russia—was given sixty years ago by the German traveler Kohl.
In
Alexandria, a small city in the government of Kherson in South Russia,
a Jew kept a café, and his charming daughter served us with coffee. We
paid her compliments on her beautiful eyes and teeth. But she seemed to
be much less vain of these natural ornaments than of the acquired ones
in the magnificent glittering pearl-cap which she wore upon her head.
For all the women through South and Little Russia even as far as
Galicia wear a certain stiff, baggy cap which is very disfiguring, and
is covered all over with a great number of pearls, upon a foundation of
black velvet. It is called a "mushka." This cap, with very unimportant
modifications, has almost always the same form; the
xBaer and Helmersen, "Beiträge zur Kenntniss des russischen Reiches," St. Petersburg,
1845, Vol. XI, pp. 143, 144·
