In the olden times, the beautifully colored and ornamented tile stoves were built with a "stove bench," also of tiles, near the floor, on which people could sleep. Nowadays, only peasants sleep on the stove, and they literally sleep on top of the huge, mud-plastered stone oven, close to the ceiling. In dwellings other than peasant huts, what is known as the "German stove" is in use. Each stove is built through the wall to heat two rooms, or a room and corridor. The yard porter brings up ten or twelve birch logs, of moderate girth, peels off a little bark to use as kindling, and in ten minutes there is a roaring fire. The door is left open, and the two draught covers from the flues--which resemble the covers of a range in shape and size--are taken out until the wood is reduced to glowing coals, which no longer emit blue flames. Then the door is closed, the flue plates are replaced, and the stove radiates heat for twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours, or longer, according to the weather and the taste of the persons concerned,--Russian rooms not being kept nearly so hot as American rooms. In this soft, delightful, and healthy heat, heavy underclothing is a misery. Very few Russians wear anything but linen, and foreigners who have been used to wear flannels generally are forced to abandon them in Russia. Hence the necessity for wrapping up warmly when one goes out. Whatever the caprices of the weather, during the winter, according to the almanac, furs are required, especially by foreigners, from the middle of October or earlier until May. People who come from Southern climes, with the memory of the warm sun still lingering in their veins, endure their first Russian winter better than the winters which follow, provided their rashness, especially during the treacherous spring or autumn, does not kill them off promptly. Therefore, the wise foreigner who arrives in autumn sallies forth at once in quest of furs. He will get plenty of bargaining and experience thrown in.