Lewis Carroll in Moscow. Hotel Dusaux

Address: Teatralny proezd, 3

“At Moscow we found a carriage and porter waiting for “Dusaux Hotel,” to which we were bound”

According to “Handbook for travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland” edited in 1865, “Hotel Dusaux”, near the Kremlin, was suitable for “the independent traveller, who prefers a French cuisine and an apartment of greater luxe, or one who has the prejudice of his class against herding with his countrymen

abroad”.[1] Monsieur Dusaux is described “as a pattern landlord—courteous, unassuming, obliging, attentive to his guests”.[2] 

Having been for some years chef in the establishment of an ambassador of his own country, he looked after the cuisine of his own hotel with a never-failing solicitude and left the general management of the house to an active and intelligent German intendant who spoke English fluently and knew everything in Moscow.

Lewis Carroll in Moscow. Intro

145 years ago Moscow was visited by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll. That was a part of his 1867 trip (from July 12 to September 13—nine weeks) to Russia. As many other foreigners Lewis Carroll arrived in Moscow from the capital city of St. Petersburg. We know about his journey from the diaries written in Russia. Carroll’s Russian diary was first published in 1928 as Tour in 1867 by C. L. Dodgson (not under the pen name of Lewis Carroll), and then in 1935 as The Russian Journal and Other Selections from the Works of Lewis Carroll, edited by John Francis McDermott. Nowadays the text of the memoirs is not available on the Internet. Nevertheless, thanks to the All-Russian Library for Foreign Literature the Russian Journal by Lewis Carroll can be found at least in Moscow and thereby cited here.

Dodgson’s journey was proposed by his travel companion, fellow preacher Henry Parry Liddon. The latter was made canon of St Paul's Cathedral three years later in 1870. 

 C.L. Dodgson & H.P. Liddon

Liddon’s biographers note the spiritual atmosphere in Russia – “devout, orthodox, and conservative, yet eminently anti-papal – was exactly congenial to his own temper”[1]. Dodgson and Liddon saw Russia under the reign of Tsar Alexander II. Carroll’s trip to Russia seems to be a typical tourist extravaganza. He spent much of his time visiting galleries, museums, the theatre, climbing up towers to see the views, shopping for mementos, and the like.