DAGHESTAN, AND ITS ANCIENT PEOPLES
Daghestan is a province of Russia which lies immediately north of the
Caucasus Mountains, and for 300 miles or more along the west shore of
the Caspian Sea. It is the tip end of Europe. The Caucasus range is the
boundary between the two continents, and beyond it is the hinterland.
It is the wall of separation between the Christian and the Mohammedan
worlds. Daghestan is also the limit of the region of natural moisture.
It is a well-watered country, with hundreds of rivers and creeks, which
rise in the snow-clad mountains and flow into the Caspian. Beyond
Daghestan it is necessary to irrigate the soil by artificial means
to raise any kind of crops. West of Daghestan are forests, fields of
clover and grain, and pastures that are always green. East of its
boundaries lies a desert which stretches for thousands of miles across
the parched areas of Asia. There is no green thing of natural growth
until the borders of China are reached.
Daghestan has always been the prey of rival powers. It has been
plundered and ravaged in turn by all the Asiatic hordes. Its soil has
been fertilized by the blood of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Huns,
Avars, Slavs, Mongols, Tartars, Turks. The “Golden Horde” swept over it
once and again in the great tidal wave of war that lit up the two
continents during the Middle Ages. It has been a battle-ground for
twenty centuries, and the war-chargers of fifty armies have fattened
upon its pastures.
[Illustration: Prince Schamyl “The Lion of Daghestan,” and his sons]
The most important river in Daghestan is the Terek, which is fed by a
glacier on the slopes of that mystic mountain called Kasbek--16,546
feet in height--to which Prometheus was chained. None of the rivers in
Daghestan are navigable, but an almost incredible amount of water power
is going to waste for the lack of mechanical interest and ingenuity.
The inhabitants are farmers and herdsmen; they plow their fields and
reap their harvests and follow their flocks and herds with skill and
diligence, but a Tartar never learns a trade. Agriculture is too
profitable and permits too much leisure for enjoyment, to be exchanged
for any other occupation by those pleasure-loving people. They work
on their farms and in their orchards from the first of May to the
first of September. During that period the custom of centuries forbids
festivities, but after the crops are in, and the cattle and sheep
have been brought down from the mountains into the plains, the Tartar
population give themselves up to their native diversions for the rest
of the year. They are a hospitable people, and whoever breaks bread
or eats salt with them is protected and defended with their lives. A
Tartar farmhouse is a hotel for travellers--a free house of call for
the homeless. No hungry man was ever sent from a Tartar threshold, the
exercise of hospitality being the most important article in their creed.
The women spend their lives at the looms and work up the wool from
the flocks into marketable products--rugs, saddle-bags, blankets, and
other coarse fabrics, which are admired for their design and finish.
The rugs of Daghestan are found on the floors of every city in the
world, and, while they do not compare with those from Persia or Bokhara
and are graded as medium in value, they last forever. The people were
formerly all Mohammedans, and all the Tartars are still--but the
shifting tides of humanity have left adherents of all creeds, and a
majority of the present inhabitants profess the faith of the orthodox
Greek church and are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the patriarch
at St. Petersburg.
There is a railway from Baku to Moscow, and through sleeping cars. The
track hugs the shore of the Caspian Sea for more than a hundred miles,
passing first through a flat, desolate desert, broken by many rocks
of slate and mounds of sun-burned clay. But after several streams are
crossed, mountains appear in the distance and the soil, as well as
the climate, improves. The dryness of the desert is moistened by damp
breezes that blow down from the Caucasus and bring life to the earth.
It was a relief to see green meadows and pastures and verdure-covered
hills, after our long sojourn among the barren wastes of Turkestan. The
meadows were gay in their summer raiment. Wild flowers were fashionable
that year, and the steppes of Daghestan were strewn with them, an
almost infinite variety of colours.
The topography of the steppes of Daghestan resembles the steppes of
North Dakota after harvest time. The surface of the earth undulates
in great waves and ridges. Americans would call it a rolling prairie.
The slopes that face the sun are yellow with the stubble of the grain
that has been harvested. Vast herds of cattle and sheep are grazing
on the northern slopes of the hills, and the absence of fences makes
necessary the employment of shepherds, who wear long, greasy looking
coats of sheepskin, with the wool inside. Their heads are covered with
big shakos that look very heavy and very hot.
At night the sheep are herded in folds made of braided saplings which
are planted and grown for that express purpose. A grove of elms or
hickory or other flexible saplings can be planted at a slight expense,
and when they are two or three years old they can be cut and braided
like basket work. The herdsmen make litters eight or ten feet long and
four or five feet wide, which, when supported by light posts, make a
strong and “hog-tight” fence. Every ranchman has one, and moves it from
pasture to pasture, following his flocks, and turns the sheep and lambs
into this movable corral every night.
The men we saw around the railway stations are Tartars, whose love of
society and excitement brings upon them the contempt of the phlegmatic
Germans and Russians, who scorn such diversions. Their love of dress
also excites the derision of their neighbours. They cling to the
ancient Georgian costume and will not give it up. They wear the
kalak--a long coat with a plaited skirt--and a hood of white woolen
cloth, called a kabula, over their heads, with a long end and tassels
hanging down their back. It is much more graceful than the fez but is
not so dignified as the turban.
The Russian government is diverting immigrants to that section of the
Caucasus from other parts of the empire. Although one of the oldest
communities in the universe, it is still thinly settled. The revolution
of the land-hungry peasants of European Russia in 1905 was followed
by legislation in the duma similar to that of the British Parliament
concerning Ireland, and the great estates are being purchased by the
government, broken up into small farms and sold to the peasants on long
time at a low rate of interest. This movement was hastened and the land
owners were persuaded to sell by arguments similar to those used by
the tenantry in Ireland. The landlords who still refuse to yield are
having a hard time of it. Their barns are set on fire, their cattle are
mutilated, their wheat fields are burned, and various other penalties
are imposed upon them. There is now a law authorizing the compulsory
expropriation of large estates, and the lands belonging to the crown
and the church are being divided and disposed of slowly among peasant
farmers imported from the more densely populated sections of central
Russia.
There are many sturdy Germans there, descendants of immigrants who were
induced to go into the Caucasus by Catherine the Great one hundred and
twenty-five years ago. She gave them large grants of land and relieved
them from taxation and military service, as an inducement to develop
the natural wealth of her empire. By minding their own business they
have managed to get along with the fiery-hearted and hot-tempered
Tartars. The Germans make the best farmers and are the richest portion
of the population. Armenians, Persians, and Greeks are the tradesmen
and the same races furnish the mechanics and labourers. Representatives
of all the races of central Asia are to be found there, and many of
European stock, Latins and Greeks, Huns, Iberians, and Italians,
because when the tidal waves of humanity, to which I have already
referred, receded, a good deal of driftwood was always left behind.
Daghestan has been known to history for three thousand years. Josephus
tells us of a race called the Alans, who dwelt upon the coast of the
Caspian Sea and along the northern slopes of the Caucasus, whence,
passing through “Iron Gates,” they fell upon the Medes and nearly
exterminated them. They invaded Armenia, eight hundred or nine hundred
years before Christ, and laid everything waste behind them. They
crossed over into Persia and made themselves at home in that country
until they were driven out by Cyrus the Great. The “Iron Gates,” so
called, were a part of a great wall, like that of the Chinese, which,
in prehistoric times, extended from the present city of Derbent on
the shore of the Caspian Sea, to the mountain of Koushan-Dagh near
the western limits of Daghestan. This wall is believed by several
authorities to have been built a thousand years before the Christian
era during the reign of a monarch called Nashrevan the Just, for the
protection of his people, who lived north of the Caucasus, against
the wild tribes of Asia. It was eighteen or twenty feet high and so
thick that a squadron of cavalry could gallop along its top. Remnants
are still preserved and the ruins of forty-three castles along its
foundation have been counted between the mountains and the sea. There
was only one passage, through the “Iron Gates” which remained in
perfect preservation until the Middle Ages.
Arabian writers in the early part of the Christian era refer to it
frequently as a gigantic work, and describe fortifications that were
filled with soldiers, and impregnable to attack. The total length of
the wall was two hundred and sixty-six miles so that the castles must
have been about six miles apart. You will remember that the Romans
built a similar wall across the north of England between Carlisle and
Newcastle to keep the Highlanders out of Briton, and other defences of
the kind have been known elsewhere. Oriental writers say that the hour
of prayer used to be communicated along this wall by the sentinels five
times a day.
Other writers attribute the construction of the wall and the gate to
Iskander, or Alexander the Great, who conquered this country and took
possession of it. It was a very important part of his empire, and from
the mountains of Daghestan he drew the bravest and most efficient
horsemen in his armies. He called the people Khozars, and they were
pagans.
Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, of the chair of archæology of
Columbia University, New York, has been engaged for several years in
the fascinating and important task of locating the trail traversed by
Alexander the Great in his conquest of the world between 334 and 323
B.C. He has been able to identify with reasonable certainty nearly all
of the stages made by the great Macedonian in his pursuit of Darius
III, the last of the Achæmenian kings, the places at which he stopped
during his march, and the battle-fields upon which he fought. He is
especially gratified that he has been able to fix with certainty the
location of the famous “Caspian Gates” beyond the city of Rai, which
is ancient Rappa, where the mother of Zoroaster, the founder of the
fire worshippers, was born, between five hundred and four hundred years
before Christ.
Philip of Macedonia, as you will remember, fell by the hand of an
assassin in the midst of his preparations for an invasion of the
Persian empire in the year 336 B.C., and was succeeded by his son,
Alexander, then a mere boy, twenty years old. He had not been on the
throne a year, notwithstanding his youth, before he was recognized as
a greater warrior and a more powerful sovereign than his father and
commanded the universal awe and admiration of the Greeks. At the head
of an army of forty thousand cavalry, infantry, and archers, he started
eastward, on his world-conquering campaign, and fought his first great
battle, B.C. 334, in Asia Minor. He crossed the Taurus Mountains and
subdued Mesopotamia. Thence he marched southward and captured Damascus;
besieged Tyre successfully, passed through Jerusalem, paused to
overthrow the fortress at Gaza, conquered Egypt, founded the city of
Alexandria, which he called by his own name, and there made his first
claim to divinity. Having added all this territory to his empire, he
returned to Mesopotamia and occupied, one after the other, the capitals
of Assyria, Persia, and Media, which were full of wealth and splendour.
The actual amount of gold and silver seized by him in these capitals is
estimated at one hundred and fifty million dollars and the loot made
every soldier in his army rich.
Darius the Great fled before him, and Alexander’s pursuit from
Ecbatana, the capital of Media, through the Parthian passes, is
considered one of the most remarkable of all military campaigns. He
overtook the flying Persian as the latter was dying of wounds dealt
him by a traitor, Bessus, his satrap in Bacoria, in what is now called
Turkestan. Bessus placed the wounded monarch in a covered chariot
and set out to meet Alexander. But Darius refused to follow a band of
traitors, whereupon the conspirators, roused to fury, transfixed him
with their javelins and left him weltering in his blood. Alexander,
who came up only a few moments after Darius had expired, ordered the
body to be embalmed and buried with the honours of an emperor. He
captured and executed Bessus, the regicide, and married the daughter
of Darius, who had no other heir. Thus he assumed, so far as possible,
the character of Darius’s legitimate successor and proclaimed himself
emperor of the East.
He then returned westward to subdue the Caucasus, and marched northward
along the western shore of the Caspian Sea to what was then considered
the limits of the world.
Professor Jackson believes that he then built the wall from the shores
of the Caspian to the crags of the Caucasus Mountains, like the great
wall of China, to hold back the wild tribes of Asia that roamed upon
the northern steppes, and the iron gates near the present city of
Derbent.
After reducing the Caucasus, Alexander invaded the Trans-Caspian
country and marched east and south through Afghanistan, where he
founded a city said to be the modern Kandahar. Then he turned northward
across the Hindu-Kush Mountains and founded another colony, at what is
now Kabul. Then he kept on northward to Bokhara and Samarkand, where
he spent a year or more and built a splendid city which he called
Marakanda.
From there he set out to conquer India and conquered the desert on the
way. In the spring of the year 323 B.C. he returned to Babylon, where
he was met by embassies from all the rulers of the civilized world.
Fresh troops had arrived from Greece for the campaign against India
and the expedition was on the point of starting when Alexander was
seized with fever and died in June, 323 B.C., at the age of thirty-two
years.
The scarcity of maps in ancient times and the frequent changes in
nomenclature in the countries of the East has caused interminable
controversies as to the route of the great Macedonian, and the identity
of many of the places which are associated with his achievements. Dr.
Jackson, who has devoted his life to the study of Persian and Indian
history, undertook to set things straight some years ago and has made
several visits to Asia for that purpose. He is perhaps the highest
authority in America on Persian affairs and has recently published a
book of absorbing interest called “Persia, Past and Present.” A second
book will treat of the Trans-Caspian country and other scenes of the
achievements of Alexander in that part of the world.
Dr. Jackson tells me that he feels confident that he has established
the fact that Alexander built the wall between the Caspian Sea and
the Caucasus Mountains. He has been convinced of this by certain
inscriptions upon tablets attached to the wall, which attribute its
creation to the first world conqueror. And they confirm a belief which
is always cherished. But in his investigations in Baku, the Caspian oil
district, he met with a surprise from which it is difficult to recover,
concerning the age of the ruins of a temple of the fire worshippers
a few miles from that city. It is supposed to have been erected in
very ancient times by pilgrims who were attracted to the banks of the
Caspian because of the naphtha springs that were burning along its
western coast. It is one of the most striking and interesting of all
the ruins in that country. Later comers supposed that these fires
were natural and were worshipped from the earliest times. They built
an imposing temple around them and with great ingenuity conducted the
gas through pipes of cane sheathed with clay to the tops of towers
erected over the gates and at the corners of the enclosure. These fires
were kept up by Parsees from Bombay, descendants of the ancient fire
worshippers of Persia, until early in the ’80s, when the owners of
a concession from the Russian government to develop the oil deposit
seized the place and built a refinery.
Dr. Jackson says: “I always supposed that this fire temple was built
by Zoroaster or some of his followers, and was very much shocked when
I discovered that it is a modern institution; although I still cling
to the belief that it may have been a place of worship for the Persian
fire worshippers from the earliest times.
“In a careful examination of the ruins of the temple at Surakhany,
near Baku, I found seventeen inscriptions, some of them in excellent
condition, and was able to make photographs of them all. Six of them
are on the outside and fifteen on the inside of the walls, and they
are all dated in the eighteenth century A.D., instead of the sixth or
eighth century B.C., as I have always supposed. There is no question
about it. The temple is not only modern, but it was built by Hindoo
fire worshippers--Brahmins from the Punjab--survivors of the old
Vedic worship. They were probably Hindoo merchants at Baku and were
reminded of the faith and the forms of worship of their ancestors by
finding these flaming springs. Furthermore, some of the inscriptions
correspond very closely with those I have seen at Kanzra, in northern
India.
“It has always been a mystery why there is no mention of this temple
in ancient Greek and Roman accounts of the Caucasus and the Caspian
country, which have frequent references to the burning springs of
naphtha. Nor do any of the early Mohammedan writers mention the temple.
The first we hear of it is about the beginning of the eighteenth
century in a narrative of a London merchant named Hanmay, who went
over to that country on a trading expedition and wrote a book about
the Caspian Sea and the surrounding country. He describes the temple
and the fires and gives some interesting information concerning both.
Gibbon in his history describes the temple and says it was destroyed by
Heraclius, the Christian emperor of Byzantium, in the seventh century,
but that is not true.
“I have been able to locate most of the places identified with the
campaigns of Alexander of Macedonia,” continued Professor Jackson, “and
it has been an exceedingly interesting task.
“I have been able to trace back the history of the city of Derbent for
several hundred years before Christ. Notwithstanding its location on
the shores of the Caspian Sea, so far from what we generally assumed to
have been the scenes of human activity at that period, it has had an
important and busy place in history, and is frequently referred to by
writers in ancient days. For example, Tacitus tells us that Alexander
quartered his invalid soldiers there in 330 B.C.
“I have not been able to decipher the inscriptions upon the tablets I
found in the temple of the fire worshippers at Surakhany. I cannot
read the language in which they are written, and I don’t know anything
about them, but one of these days we hope to make them clear.”
Señor Don Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, “chamberlain of the most high and
puissant Lord Don Henry, third of that name, King of Castile and Leon,”
who visited the court of the great Tamerlane, the emperor of Asia,
at Samarkand as an ambassador in 1403, refers to the iron gates in
the wall at Derbent. He speaks also of others in the mountains which
separate China and Turkestan, where, he says: “There is a pass leading
up by a ravine which looks as if it had been artificially cut, and the
hills rise to a great height on either side, and the pass is smooth
and very deep. In the centre of the pass there is a village, and the
mountain rises to a great height behind. This pass is called ‘the gates
of iron,’ and in all the mountain range there is no other pass, so
that it guards the land of Samarkand in the direction of India. These
‘gates of iron’ produce a large revenue to the lord Timour Beg, for all
merchants who come from India pass this way.
“Timour Beg is also lord of the other ‘gates of iron,’ which are near
Derbent, leading to the province of Tartary, in the city of Caffa,
which are also in very lofty mountains, between Tartary and the land
of Derbent, facing the Sea of Bakou, and the people of Tartary are
obliged to use that pass when they go to Persia. The distance from the
‘gates of iron’ at Derbent to those in the land of Samarkand is fifteen
hundred leagues.
“Say if a great lord, who is master of these ‘gates of iron,’ and of
all the land that is between them, such as Timour Beg, is not a mighty
prince! Derbent is a very large city, with a large territory. They
call the ‘gates of iron’ by the names of Derbent and Termit. At this
house they made the ambassadors a present of a horse, and the horses of
this country are much praised for their great spirit. These mountains
of the ‘gates of iron’ are without woods, and in former times they say
that there were gates covered with iron placed across the pass, so that
no one could pass without an order.”
Daghestan was the most costly province ever added to the Russian
Empire. It cost thirty-five years of war and the sacrifice of 200,000
soldiers to subdue the fierce mountain warriors, the Lesghians, the
Teherkess and the other tribes, who were the fiercest fighters in
Europe, and are said to be the descendants of the Hittites of the Old
Testament. They were pagans until Mohammed appeared. Since then they
have been fanatical in their adherence to Islam. They were taught
the art of war by the savage Scythians in prehistoric times, and the
aboriginal tribes were amalgamated in the Middle Ages with the Golden
Horde of Kirghiz from the desert of Khiva, which swept through eastern
Europe like a cyclone. Many of those desert warriors settled here,
and from them descended the hardy, fearless, uncompromising race who
continued to fight for their independence long after Georgia and the
Circassians had acknowledged the sovereignty of the czar. Fifty years
ago Daghestan was called “the graveyard of the Russian army.”
Through the gorges of the Caucasus for more than a generation the
ablest generals in Russian history, including three czars--Nicholas,
the iron czar, and the Alexanders I and II--fought in vain to subdue
those fearless people, who, with one man to their forty, defeated
them often in open fights as well as in ambush among the impregnable
fortresses of nature. Not until the resources of the country were
exhausted and nearly all the towns and cities were laid waste and the
population of fighting men was almost exterminated did they yield.
Finally, when further resistance was impossible, Prince Schamyl,
prophet, priest, astrologer, and necromancer, the hereditary sultan
of those Tartar tribes, laid his gory scimitar at the feet of General
Baryantinsky and took an oath of allegiance to Alexander II. The lord
of the Caucasus, the lion of Daghestan, as the old warrior was called,
was permitted to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he died of a broken
heart beside the tomb of the Prophet and was buried in the sacred city.
After the surrender his warriors settled down on farms and ranches and
have been blessed with great prosperity, although they are restless
of disposition and have made an occasional display of temper and
dissatisfaction that has called for discipline.
The men of Daghestan are irrepressible fighters. They inherited their
warlike habits, and are never so happy and never so contented as when
they are engaged in a desperate campaign. During the war of 1877–8
between Turkey and Russia many of the more fanatical Mohammedans
crossed over into Asia Minor and joined the army of the sultan because
they recognized him as the Padishah of Islam and the lineal successor
of the Prophet. But after peace was arranged most of them came back
to their homes, and Gen. Loris Melikoff, one of the few Armenians who
have risen to military distinction and received honours in the Russian
service, became their governor.
Melikoff is a remarkable man. He conducted the campaign against Turkey
east of the Black Sea under the nominal supervision of the Grand Duke
Michael, brother of the czar, was made an aide-de-camp to the emperor,
and at nine and twenty was commander-in-chief of the Caucasus. As a
rule, Armenians do not make good soldiers. They are merchants instead
of military men, but Melikoff ranks as one of the most brilliant and
successful commanders of the Russian army.
The first and only important city on the railroad between Baku and
Vladikavkas is Derbent, a market for the produce of a large area of
well cultivated fields, for the wool of a thousand flocks, and the
hides of a thousand herds. A good deal of timber from the forests of
the Caucasus is shipped across the Caspian from there also and goes to
Turkestan. Most of the freight is loaded upon barges, towed over to
Astrakhan, and thence up the Volga River to Moscow, Kavan, and other
manufacturing centres.
Derbent is one of the most ancient cities in Europe. It is situated
on the western coast of the Caspian, and has about forty thousand
inhabitants, who are a mixture of all bloods and races and clans. It
is supposed to have been founded in prehistoric times by a race known
as the Aylans, from which the German people sprang. It was besieged
by Alexander of Macedon, by Cyrus the Great, emperor of the Medes
and Persians. All of the great warriors of ancient history have sat
before its walls, recognizing the strategic value of its position and
the importance of placing a shield before the approaches to Persia,
Armenia, and Kurdistan, which have been the prey of every ambitious
empire-builder since the time of Christ.
Another city of lesser importance is Petrosky, comparatively modern,
without much history, but, nevertheless, a busy shipping port for
grain. The small steamers that ply the Caspian are continually going in
and coming out as they find their way between Petrosky and the other
Caspian ports. Much grain is grown upon the steppes of Daghestan, and
the larger part of it is transported to Astrakhan, to be ground into
flour to feed the people of Moscow and Petersburg. At Astrakhan, the
mouth of the Volga, all freight brought by steamer is transferred to
barges, which ply that great river far to the northward.
When the train leaves Petrosky it starts directly westward toward
the mountains, and is welcomed by a row of glorious peaks which rise
snow-clad toward the heavens. The highest peak in the southern part
of the range is called Bazar-Duez, and measures 14,723 feet; the
next highest are Shah-Dagh, 13,951 feet; Kourousch, 13,750 feet;
Doulty-Dagh, 13,425 feet; Kontana-Dagh, 11,425 feet; Goudour-Dagh,
11,075 feet; and a dozen more of ten thousand feet and less. They are
full of romance as well as history. Daghestan has been the scene of
very important events, but during the last four or five centuries,
since America was discovered and the development of European
civilization has required so much attention, it has been overlooked.
The original of the tragedy of Mazeppa, Byron’s hero, was Ivan
Stephanovich, the son of a Tcherkess prince, and was born in 1644.
While a page at the court of one of the petty principalities of Russia,
a nobleman discovered that his wife was in love with the handsome
young mountaineer, and with the cruelty characteristic of the Tartar
race, caused the boy to be stripped naked and bound upon the back of
a wild horse, which was turned loose upon the steppes. After days of
wandering without food Ivan was carried unconscious into a Cossack
camp and after a time became secretary to the hetman or chief. His
influence grew until, in 1687, he was elected chieftain. He won the
admiration of Peter the Great, who bestowed upon him the title of
Prince of the Ukrain, but a few years after, when Peter revoked some
of the ancient privileges and liberties of the Cossacks, he organized
a rebellion against his patron. Before he had a chance to make a
public demonstration the conspiracy was discovered, and Mazeppa fled
for protection to the court of Charles XII of Sweden. Being unable to
capture the rebel, Peter the Great ordered his effigy to be hanged upon
a gallows before the palace, and his capital, Baturin, was sacked and
burned and razed to the ground. Mazeppa’s romantic career furnished the
plot for several novels and dramatic works in addition to Byron’s poem,
and suggested a theme for several famous paintings.
There seems to be something in the atmosphere of the Caucasus to
addle religious ideas and inspire queer interpretations of the Bible.
A majority of the population were formerly Mohammedans, but large
numbers have been converted to the Russian church, although an active
propaganda is not permitted by the government. There are about 500,000
Protestants from Wurtemberg and other German states, who were induced
to settle there during the reign of Catherine II. They hold fast to
their faith, and have built a Lutheran church in almost every town,
where the herr pastor supplements his scanty salary by farming or fruit
growing.
One of the queerest sects of dissenters, which has sloughed off
the orthodox Greek organization, is called “Sgrannyky,” which means
“wanderers.” They have no homes nor houses of worship; no priests
or organizations. Their preachers are elected from among the most
intelligent members of the community, who preach, baptize, perform
funeral obsequies, expound the Scriptures to inquirers, and often teach
in the parochial schools.
The “wanderers” claim to be the only true and literal followers of
Christ. They have “given up everything,” as He commanded. They denounce
the Russian Church for having corrupted the simplicity of the original
faith. They condemn the splendid ritual and ostentatious forms of
worship in temples which cost millions of rubles for unnecessary
architecture and ornaments and vestments, which should be sold and the
proceeds given to the poor.
The “wanderers” hold their services in the open air, like the Druids,
and the “Bush-Baptists” of our own Southern states, because Christ
never preached under a roof or in a temple made with human hands. They
abstain from the exercise of the privileges and rights of citizenship;
they refuse to pay taxes because a portion of the revenue of the
Russian government is devoted to the support of the church; they avoid
being counted in the census, because they do not acknowledge the
sovereignty of the czar; and refuse to sign or accept written contracts
or agreements of any kind, because they regard writing as an invention
of the devil.
Another queer sect are called Hlistys or “People of God,” who practice
a life of absolute chastity, mutilate their bodies, inflict torture
upon themselves, refuse to accept any compensation but food for their
labour, renounce all luxuries and comforts, and believe that by so
doing they purify their spirits and become perfect in holiness.
Another and similar sect style themselves the Stundists, or “Brethren
in Friendship with God.” They adhere to a strict interpretation of the
Bible, live simple lives, renounce wealth, give all they have to the
poor, condemn the institutions and ceremonies of the Russian church,
and are intolerant toward people who do not agree with them.
The “Old Believers,” or Douhobortsy sect, many of whom have emigrated
to Canada, are quite numerous down there, and are among the most
prosperous and successful of the farmers. They were banished from
northern Russia to the Caucasus during the reign of Alexander I, and
forcibly deported by the government at the instigation of the holy
synod. They are, however, honest, industrious, law-abiding farmers,
who educate their children with great care, practise all the virtues
we commend, and are at fault only in some odd practices and queer
manifestations of spirituality which are not conventional.
We awakened in the morning in the midst of a wide prairie which
reminded us more than ever of North Dakota, and we saw what looked like
American reapers in the fields and heard their music above the noise
of the train. Much of the harvest work was being done by women, which
isn’t the Dakota way, but the men are in the army and somebody must
reap the grain. Another thing equally unlike North Dakota is that the
conductor and porter of the train wear big revolvers at their belts,
one on either side, which look like business, and suspended from their
belts behind them are round leather scabbards, like cylinders, into
which something is thrust that looks like a policeman’s club. We
discovered afterward that they are signal flags, tightly rolled and
always within reach.
The train turned westward later in the day to run for many miles along
the foot of the mountains, and at a handsome stone station that might
easily be mistaken for an armoury, we changed to a branch line for the
city of Vladikavkas and the famous Dariel Pass, one of the only two
pathways through the Caucasus.
Vladikavkas is a typical Russian city, founded in 1775 by Prince
Potemkin by direction of Catherine the Great, upon the site of a native
village called Kapoukaya, which means “the gate of the gorge.” At that
time it was of considerable importance to the Russians as a post of
defence against the rebellious mountain tribes, and it has grown into
a busy, bustling, commercial city, with a rich agricultural territory
to support it, and is a depot of military supplies for the entire
Caucasus. The name is spelled several ways--Valdicaucasus, Viadicaukus,
and otherwise, according to the nationality of the speller--but each
of the versions has the same meaning, and that is “the master of the
Caucasus,” for its garrisons command and protect the Dariel Pass and
the military road which was built through its gorges to Tiflis by the
Russians half a century ago. Considered from a military standpoint,
there is no more important highway in the world, and when the next war
between Russia and Turkey occurs within the next ten years, a continual
procession of troops and wagons loaded with ammunition and military
supplies will be passing down to Armenia and Asia Minor through its
narrow defiles.
[Illustration: City Hall of Vladicaucasus]
Vladikavkas has fine, broad streets, which, however, are either very
dusty or very muddy at all times. They are laid out at right angles
and planted with poplars; and the main street, which is a hundred and
sixty feet wide, has a promenade in the centre for the entire distance,
shaded by two rows of trees on both sides and watered by dashing
streams that flow through the gutters. Booths for the sale of tea and
beer, catch-penny shows, seats for the weary, band stands and kiosks
occur at frequent intervals, and in the long twilight of the summer
evenings all the people of the town come out to promenade up and down
this pleasant way, to listen to the military bands, to greet each other
and gossip, and to learn what is going on in their little world.
An electric car line reaches every corner of the city, which is a great
convenience because, like all provincial towns in Russia, Vladikavkas
covers an enormous area. The houses are chiefly of a single story,
built of stone around a courtyard, and occupy large spaces. The shops
are filled with attractive stocks of merchandise, and there are several
large warehouses in which all kinds of agricultural machinery is
offered for sale. Nearly all of it comes from the United States.
The official residence of the governor-general, a city hall of
fantastic Oriental architecture, and a Russian cathedral with five
green domes, are the most conspicuous buildings except the barracks
and military hospital. Just outside of the city is an immense military
school, accommodating five hundred cadets, and a hospital for sick
soldiers, almost as large. Nearly every other man you meet on the
street wears a military uniform, and the dining-room at the hotel
looks like an officers’ mess at headquarters, for most of the tables
are occupied by colonels and generals and favoured gentlemen of the
staff. These signs illustrate the importance of Vladikavkas to the
Russian government, and, although the czar is on friendly terms with
everybody just at present, his preparations for war do not seem to be
suspended. In addition to commanding the approaches to the Dariel Pass,
Vladikavkas is also the northern terminus of the Manisson Pass, the
only other highway over the Caucasus, and is connected with the ancient
city of Kutias over what is known as the Ossetian Road. The distance is
longer and the grades are heavier than those of the Dariel Pass, but it
is the shortest route to Batoum and the Black Sea, and for that reason
is of the greatest importance.
Both of these passes are heavily fortified and numerous monuments have
been erected along the way to mark spots of historic importance and
to inspire the army with a heroic and patriotic feeling. One of these
monuments is in honour of a private soldier.
In 1840, during an uprising of the Circassians, the Mihailovosky fort,
about half way through the pass, was garrisoned by a detachment of
the Seventy-seventh regiment of Russian infantry, under command of
Captain Liko. Being besieged by the rebels and short of provisions and
ammunition, he decided to blow up the place at the next assault. The
remaining powder was converted into a mine and placed under the only
approach to the fort, and a private named Arhippe Ossipoff volunteered
to apply the match. When the besieging force had broken down the gates
and were surging through the archway, Ossipoff fired the mine. Nearly
every man in the Russian garrison and all of the enemy perished, and
the few survivors crawled down the road to tell the news.
When he heard the story the emperor issued a general order commanding
that the name of Arhippe Ossipoff should remain forever upon the muster
roll of the Seventy-seventh regiment. Every morning at dress parade it
is called with the rest, when the first sergeant replies:
“Arhippe Ossipoff died for his country and for the glory of Russia.”