THE HALL OF THE BLACKHEADS, RIGA.

There may be seen here also, in the summer months, numbers of “Burlaki,”1 a class whom I have met in other parts of Russia. Their occupation is to bring down timber, flax, and grain from the interior. This they do on rafts and immense barges, yoking themselves in gangs, like horses, with a broad band across the chest, and towing the craft along. These men are usually dressed in sheepskins, and wear conical felt hats. They remain in Riga only to dispose of their cargoes and to break up their barges for firewood, before returning home to live on their spring earnings. This branch of trade forms an important feature in the commercial life of Riga, rough-timbered rafts lying all along the banks of the Moscow suburb.

The most elegant and wealthy part of Riga is the St. Petersburg suburb, where live the English and German merchants, and near to which was our hotel. Our first business on the morning after our arrival was to call upon the Governor, General Zinovieff2, who resides in the Imperial Castle, a massive building with two crenellated towers, dating from the time of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights. Afterward we were conducted to the Schwartzhaupter-Haus, or Hall of the Honorable Company of Blackheads, a brotherhood of unmarried merchants, founded in 1232 for the defence of the town, and who constituted a military division. It is now, I believe, little more than a club, whose members must be bachelors, one of whom was to do the honors in receiving us.

(Continued...)

1Burlaki being the plural of burlaks, its most common use in Latvian denoting a criminal, brutal, violent individual. In Tsarist Russia it denoted a fighter or boat-puller. Trivia: "Burlaks" also the Latvian name for a strain of potato once grown for animal feed.
2Mikhail Aleksievich Zinoviev (1838–1895), governor of the Governorate of Livonia, 1885–1895
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