ODESSA--CAPITAL OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA
We crossed from Sevastopol to Odessa by steamer in about eighteen
hours, stopping to discharge cargo and passengers at the ancient
port of Eupatoria. The Greek name denotes the origin of that town,
which flourished centuries before the Christian era, but is now of
comparative insignificance. In the morning we found ourselves in a
crowded harbour under a bluff 200 or 250 feet high, crowned with
several monumental buildings and presenting a noble front to the sea.
At the extreme western end of the town, beyond the expanse of foliage
of Alexander II Park, are the buildings of the industrial exposition,
which is now in progress. Their fantastic forms are so white that they
look like the fancy ornaments with which confectioners decorate wedding
cake.
Odessa is comparatively a new town, being only a little more than a
hundred years old, and entirely a Russian creation. The Turks had a
fortress here called Khodja-bey, which was carried by assault in 1778
by the Russian forces under General Ribas during the war with Turkey,
which Catherine II provoked for conquest. The title to the property
was conveyed by the Great Turk to the czar of all the Russias by the
treaty of Jassy, December 29, 1791. It graciously pleased her imperial
majesty to utilize the natural advantages of the location for defence
of commerce, and she ordered a town created here. General Ribas laid it
out and built the first house, and her majesty, who was always fond of
classical names, commanded that it should be called Odessus, from the
Odyssey of Homer, which mentions this place.
In 1803 the Duke de Richelieu, a refugee from the French Revolution,
who came to Russia and was given an important commission in the
army, was appointed governor. The population then numbered only a
few thousand, but his enterprise and taste made it a beautiful and
important city. Upon his death, Count Woronzoff, afterward prince,
to whom I have alluded several times in connection with the Crimea,
took up the work where Richelieu left it off, and proved himself a
remarkable builder. He founded the university, the public library, the
museum, the municipal opera house; and schools of medicine attached to
the hospitals were encouraged and subsidized by him. He gave an impetus
to trade and commerce which lasted for half a century; he built roads
into the interior, dredged the harbour, created docks, and encouraged
the introduction of profitable industries.
Woronzoff was born in St. Petersburg in 1782, and was the son of a
distinguished statesman. His father was ambassador to London during his
boyhood, which caused him to be educated there, and he took a degree
at Cambridge University. Returning to Russia he obtained a commission
in the army and commenced his military career as a subaltern in a
Caucasian regiment commanded by a famous Georgian, Prince Tzytzyanoff.
He proved a brilliant soldier, was promoted rapidly and wore the
epaulets of a major general before he was thirty years old. In the
war with Napoleon he commanded a division of grenadiers and during the
retreat of the French, followed closely upon their flank to the German
frontier.
At the conclusion of the war he went to England and remained until
he was called by the emperor to undertake the organization of the
government of Bessarabia, and shortly after succeeded the Duke de
Richelieu as governor of Odessa. He was afterward governor of the
Caucasus and the Crimea, and in all three provinces his memory is
revered and many public works exist as monuments to his enterprise and
foresightedness.
The most conspicuous object on the bluff that overlooks the harbour
of Odessa is a mansion built by Prince Woronzoff and occupied by him
for many years. It is of classical design, with walls of granite,
and is surrounded by limited but handsomely embellished grounds. The
chief feature is a pergola of lofty granite columns reached from the
house, and rising from a little promontory that projects from the
bluff. It can be seen for a long distance and invests with a classical
character the earliest impression of the city. The mansion is spacious,
containing thirty large apartments, and is entered through an extensive
courtyard under a monumental gate. For several years it has been
occupied as a school for engineers.
In 1810, when the first census was taken, Odessa had 9,000 population;
in 1910 it has 520,000 but there has been a steady decrease during the
last five years, which is due to the rivalry of other ports which are
attracting trade because of better harbours, better railway connections
and better facilities for doing business. The strong and violent
socialistic element in Odessa has also injured the city by frightening
away capital and preventing the establishment of manufacturing
industries because of the fear of labour strikes.
About 25 per cent. of all the grain exports from Russia were shipped
from Odessa until about ten years ago. The total often reached
nearly three million tons, but the old-fashioned methods of handling
freight, and particularly grain, in use here are so expensive as to be
practically prohibitory. Sometimes the elevator charges are as high
as two and a half cents per pood, or thirty-six pounds. Nicolaieff,
Kherson and Rostov-on-the-Don have such superior facilities that Odessa
cannot recover the trade until she improves her docks and harbour and
mechanical appliances for handling freight.
The imperial government has plans for extensive improvements in the
harbour of Odessa to furnish suitable facilities for handling the
grain, at a total expenditure of ten million dollars. A commission
from St. Petersburg and the municipal officials have made thorough
surveys and completed designs which have been submitted to the duma
for approval and the necessary appropriations. The work will be done
under the direction of the minister of commerce and labour at St.
Petersburg and will include a breakwater nearly a mile long, costing a
million dollars or more, a series of stone wharves and piers costing
two millions, railway terminals costing two and a half millions, four
grain elevators and conveyors, with a capacity of seventy-two thousand
tons, each two millions; granaries, conveyers and other facilities for
loading and unloading, one million; an electric light and power plant
to cost half a million; filling in and reclaiming land, half a
million; and various other features.
[Illustration: Chamber of Commerce, Odessa]
Odessa has the reputation of being a very fast city, one of the most
immoral communities in Europe, and the young Russians are given to
gambling and dissipation of all kinds. At night the streets are
brilliantly lighted, and are crowded with promenaders of both sexes.
There are many cafés on the sidewalks, in the interior courts of the
business section, and in the parks and squares. All night the air
is filled with music and laughter, and pleasure-seekers turn night
into day. One is inclined to wonder when the crowd of men he sees in
the cafés and theatres attend to their business, but when the shops,
offices, and banks open in the morning at ten o’clock there seems to be
no lack of customers and clerks, and everybody is on the rush.
The Exchange, a handsome building of Oriental architecture, is the
centre of activity. The trading takes place in a splendid hall on lines
similar to those of the board of trade at Chicago. The remainder of the
building is devoted to sample rooms, committee rooms, reading rooms,
and other purposes.
As grain is the principal staple of southern Russia, and Odessa is the
chief market, all business movements centre around the board of trade.
Business is very dull just now; there have been several bad crops;
fourteen of the largest flour mills in the city have been closed down
for want of wheat to grind, and that has thrown a large number of
people out of employment, as well as reduced the volume of business.
But this year’s crop is a record breaker and prosperity is expected
soon again.
There are more than 200,000 Jews in Odessa--exceeding one third of the
entire population--and, as everywhere else, they control the banking,
the manufacturing, the export trade, the milling, the wholesale and
retail mercantile establishments, and practically everything of an
industrial and commercial enterprise. And, naturally, they are hated by
the Russians and envied for their success and prosperity. The prejudice
against the Jewish population elsewhere as well as here is due to
economic rather than religious reasons--simply because they are getting
richer and more prosperous, while the Russians are losing ground in
all the professions and occupations. They have wasted their capital in
bad investments and dissipations and extravagance, and are forced to
mortgage their property to the Jews to keep up appearances.
In the meantime the Jews have been securing control of all the
profitable enterprises and lines of business in Odessa. Their sons show
the same earnestness and zeal in the university that they show in the
counting-room. Therefore they make the best doctors and lawyers and
engineers, and their services are in demand, while the Russian members
of the professions are idly waiting for business. A Russian will employ
a Jewish lawyer or doctor or engineer in preference to one of his
own race, not because he loves the Jew or desires to encourage him,
but simply because he needs him, and recognizes his superiority, his
shrewdness, and his success.
The same is true among the working classes. The Russians labourer
spends his wages for vodka. The Jew puts his in the savings bank.
The Russian labourer never saves anything. The Jew is economical and
abstemious, his family live on bread and vegetables, and by keeping
good habits they grow strong, while the Russian grows weak. While the
proud young Russian is carousing in the cafés chantant, and losing his
money in gambling halls, the Jewish young man is busy with his books.
This difference in habits produces the results which exasperate the
Russian and drive him to the persecution of his rivals. He considers
it an insult to himself and his race whenever he hears of a brilliant
achievement or instance of prosperity among the Jews, and the spirit of
envy and jealousy so aroused is the cause of persecution.
Odessa is a fine city, one of the finest in Europe, and its proud
people are in the habit of comparing it with Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.
The streets are wide and well paved and most of them are shaded with
double columns of trees. There is no residence section, however, as
in many other cities, for everybody lives in an apartment-house, with
the lower floor occupied by shops and the upper floors for lodgings
and offices. Most people live with their business. You will find a
hardware shop, a dairy, a grocery on the ground floor of your dwelling,
insurance offices and lawyers scattered through the upper floors,
with the households of the tenants in the adjoining rooms. There is
no home life, almost everybody lunches and dines at a restaurant, and
in the summer months they are mostly on the street. In the winter
the weather is very cold. In October house-keepers close the double
windows and stop the leaks with cotton batting and padding made for
that purpose. This keeps out every particle of fresh air until spring.
I have never found a people so afraid of fresh air as the Russians, and
that antipathy is very annoying to American and English people who are
compelled to occupy the same compartments in railway trains and the
same dining and drawing rooms in the hotels.
Another peculiarity is that everybody wears an overcoat of the same
weight, summer and winter. No matter how hot it is the men wear long,
thick, heavy overcoats over their regular suits. This is especially
true of army officers, and it is odd to see a gallant captain in winter
apparel walking in the promenade with a graceful young woman in the
lightest of embroidered white batiste.
The principal business section of Odessa is noted for its architecture.
The public buildings and the hotels are unusually good. The cathedral
of the orthodox Greek church, which is placed in the centre of a wide
square, where it can be seen to the best advantage, is a splendid
example of Byzantine architecture, and the interior furnishings fine
examples of gilt carving. There are several highly revered relics--the
arms and fingers and teeth of saints.
The municipality erected and owns the opera house, one of the finest
in Europe and modeled after that of Paris. A subsidized opera company
gives performances twice a week for six months of the year. Around
the opera house is a group of interesting buildings. Several of the
most important streets of the city focus there. It is the centre of
the banking community and exporting business. The city hall is a
large building of classic design overlooking the bay, and contains
a well-proportioned chamber for the use of the provincial duma or
legislature.
[Illustration: Municipal Opera House, Odessa]
Beginning at the city hall and extending for a quarter of a mile or
more along a bluff that overlooks the bay is a wide promenade, heavily
shaded, that is cool even at noon in the heat of midsummer. There
thousands of people gather every evening and spend the twilight
walking to and fro, flirting and gossiping and having a good time.
On a shelf in the bluff a little below is a large and well-arranged
playground for children, maintained by the city, where grown people,
except nurses and mothers, are not admitted. Adjoining it is an
open-air gymnasium for men, equipped with ample facilities, and that is
well patronized also.
Leading from the esplanade to the docks below is a wide stairway of
stone, which was built seventy-five years ago, and a continual stream
of human beings is surging up and down throughout the day and the
night. There are restaurants and cafés on each side, and at the foot
several public bathing-houses before you reach the docks.
The principal hotels and cafés front on the promenade, and during the
afternoon and evening the music never ceases and the gay crowds never
grow less.
Among the other public buildings around the opera house is the Imperial
Museum, where a small but remarkable collection of Scythian and Greek
antiquities from the Crimea and the coast of the Black Sea have been
arranged in excellent taste. It is unique in several respects and the
most important collection consists of twenty thousand coins, dating
back to the beginning of civilization--Greek, Persian, Scythian,
Cimmerian, Taurian, Gothic, Avar, Genoese, Turkish, etc. I am told
there are coins in this collection that cannot be found anywhere else,
and what makes it the more interesting is that every one of them was
dug out of the ground in the Crimea or along the northern shore of the
Black Sea. How so many coins of different denominations and different
periods of time came to be buried in the earth is a mystery. Perhaps
it was due to the carelessness of people who went around with holes
in their pockets, scattering silver and gold and copper over the earth
as they walked; perhaps they were so much afraid of burglars that
they buried their money, or maybe they were overtaken by the wrath of
the Almighty, like Mrs. Lot, and the money they carried refused to
turn into salt. But it is the actual fact that not only these twenty
thousand specimens, mostly prehistoric, were found in the soil at
different places but similar money is being dug up every few months.
Opposite the museum is an attractive looking building called the
English clubhouse by a sort of official Irish bull. Notwithstanding
the name, there isn’t a single Englishman or American in the list of
members and no newspaper, magazine, or other publication in the English
language can be found in its reading room. This anomaly is due to
the opposition of the Russian government to all social organizations
among its subjects, for fear of conspiracies and co-operation in
resisting the tyranny of laws and the police. When this club was
proposed a permit was asked for a social organization on the plan of
an English club, and, after due consideration, it was granted for “an
English club,” that is, a club similar to those of England. Hence the
significance of the name.
There is a German club and an Anglo-American club in the same
neighbourhood, to which the English-speaking portion of the population
belongs, and a British Sailors’ Institute on the lines of a Y. M. C. A.
for the benefit of the crews of the many British steamers which come
regularly to Odessa.
In another part of the city the imperial library occupies an imposing
building of classic design with several hundred thousand books. The
university, which ranks third among educational institutions in Russia,
occupies several buildings and has between four thousand and five
thousand students. The schools of art, engineering, chemistry, and
medicine are celebrated, and the students of medicine have access to
several enormous hospitals and charitable institutions for the infirm
and defective. I am told that medical science has attained much higher
proficiency in the southern provinces than in northern Russia.
There are several military schools, which are needed more than anything
else, and are well patronized, for the army is the principal thing
here, and when a young man is deciding upon a career he always tries
that first. The army grows bigger, the taxes grow higher, the people
grow poorer, and labour becomes scarcer in Russia every year. Military
rank seems to be essential to happiness and social prestige. Nearly
every man you meet on the street or in the hotels and cafés wears a
uniform and everybody has a military rank. The school teacher, the
apothecary, the lawyer, and doctor, and architect, the clerks in the
custom-house, the post-office and city hall--even the convicts in
the prisons--wear uniforms, and the registrars of the schools of the
university are dressed like major-generals.
There is a boom town in southern Russia with a short history like
that of some of our Western cities--yesterday a village, to-day a
flourishing centre of commerce and trade, to-morrow the metropolis of
the Black Sea. The boomers call it “The Winnipeg of Europe,” but it
was named Nicolaieff, in honour of Nicholas, the iron czar, and it is
situated at the mouth of the river Bug, at the head of an estuary of
the Black Sea, sixty miles north of Odessa and six hours’ sail from
that port by the ordinary steamers.
Until 1884 Nicolaieff was a sleepy and insignificant village included
in the area which Catherine II wrested from the Great Turk in the war
of 1778. During the Crimean War it gained some historical prestige by
being a temporary naval station after Sevastopol was corked up. During
the latest war between Russia and Turkey in 1877–78 it was used as a
rendezvous camp, but there was no business there until 1884, when a
railway from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities in the northern
part of the empire was extended down to touch the Black Sea, and
Nicolaieff became an outlet for the grain of southern Russia and an
entrepôt of much imported merchandise.
The convenience of the situation, the superiority of its harbour over
that of Odessa, and the favour of the imperial family and the clique
of sycophants and speculators who hang around the grand dukes, gave
it a preference among shippers, and, since 1898, it has been growing
faster than Minneapolis or Seattle. It has jumped from 18,000 to
200,000 population in a decade. During the same time it has acquired
the largest shipping business in grain, manganese ore, and coal in the
Russian Empire and is booming along in an extraordinary manner. The
population is increasing at the rate of ten thousand a year. The volume
of business is gaining with even greater rapidity, the value of real
estate has advanced 1,000 per cent. during the last eighteen years and
the wealth of the community is increasing at a corresponding rate.
The successful prosperity of Nicolaieff, correctly or incorrectly,
is attributed to the partiality of the grand dukes and the imperial
court, through whose influence much has doubtless been done to
encourage the new town, at the expense of Odessa. A deep harbour has
been dredged, with a channel of thirty feet; the government has built
elevators, and the department of communications has manipulated railway
rates and traffic arrangements so as to divert the grain trade in that
direction.
It is the unanimous opinion that Nicolaieff is favoured above all other
cities by the imperial family and the members of the court, and that
the benefits and advantages it enjoys have been entirely due to their
influence for two reasons:
First, it is asserted that the grand dukes and their friends are
heavily interested in real estate speculations at Nicolaieff and have
made enormous sums of money by the advance in the prices of property,
which is entirely probable.
Second, it is asserted that the grand dukes and their friends are not
only willing but anxious to destroy Odessa because of their hatred of
the Jews. Nearly all of the business at Nicolaieff is in the hands of
Russians; at Odessa the Jews control everything, and will enjoy the
benefit of whatever is done for the improvement and prosperity of this
city.
This is a strange reason, but stranger things have happened in Russia
and even more civilized countries. The court never comes to Odessa.
There is no nobility, no aristocracy, no society here. It is purely
a business community, and the wealthy classes are all Jews. It is
asserted that the governor-general cannot round up enough civilians
of sufficient rank to fill his dinner table, while a large number of
impecunious noblemen and poor relations of the proud families of the
court have been given lucrative situations at Nicolaieff.
One would think that the grand dukes would keep out of such schemes,
after their experience at Manchuria. It was their avarice and grasping
disposition that brought on the war with Japan. You will remember that
the first clash between the two nations occurred in the Yalu Valley of
Korea, where a company organized by the grand dukes was trying to steal
the timber.
That is a historical fact, and there may be equal foundation for the
reports that are so freely repeated concerning their speculations at
Nicolaieff. If so, the future prosperity of the town rests upon an
unstable foundation.
The latest story is that the naval headquarters are to be removed from
Sevastopol to Nicolaieff, through the influence of the grand ducal
circle, but it scarcely seems credible that such a perfect harbour and
such enormous investments in shops, docks, warehouses, arsenals, and
other plants as have been made there should be abandoned to gratify a
few greedy speculators, not to mention the sentimental and historical
interest, and the soil that has been sanctified with Russian blood.
Nicolaieff is a very crude and uncouth place at present. It covers an
enormous area, with wide streets, well shaded with artificially planted
trees, and long blocks of one-story houses. Some of the streets are
three miles long and two hundred feet wide, with parking in the centre.
As is usual with new towns, living is very expensive. The swells drink
champagne instead of beer, and seats at the opera are five rubles
instead of two. There are several large department stores filled with
the most expensive goods; the jewellery shops are equal to any in St.
Petersburg and quite as many diamonds are disposed of. One shop sells
nothing but goloshes and during the muddy weather in spring and fall,
fifteen clerks are necessary to serve the crowds of customers. There
are several large restaurants with orchestra music; café chantants are
found on almost every block, with artists from Paris, and they run all
night. The most popular resort just now is an American skating rink.
The school-houses are superior to any others in Russia, outside of
St. Petersburg or Moscow. There are technical schools for instruction
in all the branches; there is a military school, a naval academy and
a school of art and architecture. Altogether Nicolaieff is the most
up-to-date town in the empire, and has great confidence in the future.
The municipality has recently negotiated a loan for $500,000,000 for
public improvements--an electric tramway, a new sewerage system, new
markets and slaughter-houses, a new court-house and school-houses and a
municipal pawnshop.
Kherson, one of the oldest towns on the Black Sea, not far from
Nicolaieff, is also prospering mightily under the favour of the
imperial government. While its future is not so bright as that of
Nicolaieff, a great deal of government money is being spent there for
public improvements and it is growing rapidly.
Kherson has a historic interest, because it was the home and is the
burial place of the great Prince Potemkin, one of the many lovers of
Catherine the Great, who conquered this country for her and added
the north coast of the Black Sea to her domain. He died in 1791
and Catherine built a cathedral over his grave. Her crazy son and
successor, Paul I, jealous of his mother’s love for Potemkin and his
influence over her life, ordered the body to be taken from the splendid
marble sarcophagus she had designed for it, and “thrown into a hole
under the floor of the crypt, and the crypt filled with earth, and
levelled over, so that it will appear as if it had never existed.” This
order was obeyed, but in 1854 Nicholas I had the crypt cleared out and
the remains of Potemkin restored to the altar of the cathedral and a
monument erected in memory of the great prince upon which his principal
achievements are inscribed.
There is an extraordinary painting in this cathedral, which illustrates
how far the flattery of empresses can be carried. It represents
Catherine the Great in the guise of the Holy Virgin, borne to paradise
on the back of a double-headed eagle of Russia.
John Howard, the great English philanthropist, is also buried at
Kherson, where he had large business interests and spent much time.
He died there while on a business visit. There is a monument to his
memory, erected by the citizens, bearing this inscription:
JOHN HOWARD
Died January 20, 1790
In the fifty-sixth year of his age
Vixit Propter Alios
Alios Salvos Fecit
Southern Russia is developing very rapidly in population, in wealth, in
the area of land cultivated and in the volume of grain harvested and
coal produced. The large estates, which have comprised as many as forty
thousand and fifty thousand acres, owned by non-residents among the
nobility, are being split up into small farms and sold to the tenants
who actually work the land, through the assistance of agricultural
banks which have been established by the Russian government.
Many wise people think this is a bad policy, because the small farmer
cannot handle labour-saving machinery, and thus multiply the capacity
of his hands, but the socialistic policy of the duma is to feed the
land-hungry, and every peasant demands a farm. There has been no
necessity of applying the compulsory clause or going into the courts
or commencing proceedings for expropriation. Sufficient land has been
offered for sale thus far to satisfy every demand, as in Ireland, and
within a few years the entire area of southern Russia will be divided
up into “one-mule farms,” which is as much as one family can cultivate.
A good deal is being done in the way of improving the educational
facilities of the peasants. There is now a school in almost every
village and almost every child fifteen years old and under can read
and write. Fifteen years ago a peasant who could read and write was as
rare as a lion. The schools are of a very low grade, however, and the
number ought to be increased, but the officials who have charge of such
matters answer the criticism by saying that they will start a school
for every competent teacher that can be found. It is not a question
of school-houses, they declare, but a question of teachers. Other
people retort that there would be a sufficient number of teachers if
the government would offer reasonable wages. The salaries paid are no
inducement for competent teachers to offer their services. Educated men
and women can earn more money in other occupations.
There is a deep murmur of discontent throughout all the provinces that
have been annexed to Russia within the last century, over a recent
edict issued by the czar prohibiting instruction in any other but the
Russian language and forbidding the organization of literary societies
and mutual improvement clubs to study other languages and literature.
The same trouble occurred in the Turkish provinces, but as the Russian
Empire is a conglomerate of seventy-seven different races, each having
its own language, history and traditions, the situation is more serious.
The object of this edict is to Russianize and assimilate these numerous
elements and destroy, as far as possible, their individuality and
clannishness, but the people consider it an attack upon their race
and their traditions, and it has caused an intense prejudice against
the Russian national public schools. I am told there has been much
improvement in the personnel of the clergy of the Russian church. It is
slow, but apparent. The salaries paid to the priests are not sufficient
to support their families, and therefore intelligent and educated
men are kept out of the priesthood. The ignorance and incompetency
of the priests is responsible for a dry rot and an almost universal
disintegration in the established church. The intelligent people
are losing their respect for the priesthood and drifting away into
dissenting sects, which are becoming stronger and more numerous as they
attract more intelligent and influential elements of the population.
Everybody will agree that it is a good deal of a job to steal a
battleship, but that very thing was done off the harbour of Sevastopol
on June 27, 1905, during the Russian revolution. There is a big fleet
of war vessels always lying in the inner and outer bay of Sevastopol,
strung along for several miles, and some of them go out to maneuvre
every day. I counted three battleships, four cruisers, and we could
see a swarm of gunboats, torpedo boats and submarines, and three or
four big transports tied up at the dock of the naval station. They were
painted “battle gray,” or lead colour, and looked very formidable; but
the record made by the Russian navy in the war with Japan demonstrated
that it can lose ships easier than it can capture them.
The huge, lead-coloured leviathan called _Panteleimon_, in honour of
one of the most popular saints in the Russian calendar, was formerly
the _Potemkin_, and under that name left Sevastopol for gun practice
Sunday morning, June 25, 1905, convoyed by a torpedo boat. On Tuesday
the crew sent a round robin to the captain declaring that their food
was not fit to eat and that the meat especially was decomposed and
unhealthful. At the second meal on that day the crew refused to eat
their rations and dumped them overboard. They were mustered on the
quarterdeck, where the executive officer ordered those who considered
the food wholesome and had taken no part in the demonstration to step
to starboard.
A majority of the sailors obeyed the order. The malcontents were then
ordered forward, and as they started at a sign from their leader each
seized a gun from the pyramids that were stacked upon the deck after
the muster, and each began to load with cartridges from his belt. The
executive officer commanded them to stack the guns. As they refused
to obey, he seized a gun from the nearest man and fired two or three
shots with it at the spokesman of the complainants, who fell mortally
wounded to the deck, and died in a few moments. The mutineers returned
the fire and followed the officers to their cabins, shooting them down
as fast as they were overtaken. Several officers who jumped overboard
were killed in the water, and it is said that a rapid-fire gun was used
upon them. Every officer and midshipman on the _Potemkin_ and about
thirty sailors were killed in the mêlée. The officers on the torpedo
boat attempted to go to the rescue of their comrades on the _Potemkin_,
but the sailors would not permit it, and before the day was over seized
their commander and all the other officers, put them into a boat and
cut them adrift.
A managing committee of twenty mutineers was organized upon the
_Potemkin_, who selected the chief boatswain for navigator, and started
for Odessa, where they arrived about daylight the next morning, June
28. They took ashore the body of the sailor who was first killed by
the executive officer, placed it in a coffin and left it lying upon a
bier in front of a Russian orthodox church near the railway wharves,
which is attended chiefly by sailors and workingmen. Inscribed upon a
paper pinned to the breast of the dead man was his name, Omelchuk, and
a statement that he had been murdered by Captain Gilyarkovsky because
he was not willing to eat putrid food. It was also explained that all
of the officers of the battleship had been killed by the crew, and that
the vessel was under the command of a committee of sailors, who would
bombard the city if any attempt was made to take away the body of the
sailor or attack the ship.
The news spread rapidly and created a profound sensation. Thousands
of workmen gathered around the bier at the church and listened to
inflammatory speeches made by anarchists and other agitators, and
on the following day began a series of riots lasting all that week;
accompanied by murders, looting, arson, highway robbery, blackmail, and
the hold-up of all passenger trains on the railroads entering the city.
This disturbance was followed by a general strike in which the strikers
set fire to warehouses, elevators and other buildings along the dock,
seizing the cargoes of several steamers and throwing them into the sea.
Almost the entire docks of Odessa were swept with fire, and many of the
rioters, drunk with wine and other liquors found in looting, are said
to have perished in the flames. The exact number of killed during the
disorders has never been ascertained, but is estimated at six hundred
men, with a few women and children. The financial loss and damage done
to property amounted to several millions of dollars.
While this was going on the stolen battleship _Potemkin_ was lying at
anchor in the harbour within sight of the esplanade which is the centre
of social gayety and a parade ground for the people of Odessa. The
next morning the sailors seized two colliers, private property, and
transferred the coal to the bunkers of the battleship.
On the thirtieth of June the Black Sea fleet, consisting of four
battleships and five torpedo boats, arrived at Odessa under command of
a senior flag-officer and the _Potemkin_ went out to meet them with
decks cleared for action. She first ranged alongside the battleship
_George Victorius_, the crew of which met them with an ovation and
immediately after rose in mutiny, overpowered their officers, disarmed
them, and conducted them ashore, with the exception of Lieutenant
Grigorkoff, officer of the deck, who committed suicide.
The mutineers, having full possession of the _George Victorius_,
appointed a committee of twenty sailors to take charge. A quarrel
ensued, and a portion of the crew, actuated partially by fear of
punishment and partially by jealousy and dissatisfaction, gained the
upper hand and under the leadership of the boatswain surrendered to
the commander of the military district of Odessa. Several days later
the crew delivered over sixty-seven of the leaders in the mutiny and
renewed their oaths of allegiance to the czar. After this the commander
and officers of the vessel went on board and resumed their former
duties.
The crew of the transport _Prut_ also mutinied, seized their officers,
killing an ensign and boatswain who resisted. But on the following day
they thought better of the situation, released their officers, and
requested them to take command again.
The battleship _Potemkin_, under the command of her former boatswain,
attended by the torpedo boat No. 267, then started for a cruise around
the Black Sea, visiting various ports, saluting them according to
custom and, in two instances, requesting provisions and fuel, which
were refused. At the port of Constanza, in Roumania, the authorities
endeavoured to persuade the mutineers to surrender the ship, with
an assurance that they should not be arrested or held subject to
extradition, but after consulting together the six hundred sailors
rejected the proposition and continued to sail about several days
longer until their coal gave out. Finally, when they realized that it
was impossible for them to obtain more fuel, or to continue afloat
without it, they cruised quietly into the harbour at Constanza,
Roumania, where the committee in command entered into negotiations
with the government for the surrender of the ship.
It was agreed that none of the mutineers should be arrested, detained,
or otherwise interfered with, but that every man aboard would be
permitted to land and to go where he pleased, on condition that no arms
or other property belonging to the ship should be injured or carried
away, and that everything should be left exactly as it was when the
mutiny broke out. It was also agreed that the sailors should be given
five days to get out of the country.
This agreement was kept, and five days later the _Potemkin_ was
delivered by the captain of the port of Constanza to a crew of officers
and men from the Russian navy, who were sent down from Sevastopol
for that purpose. Her bunkers were filled with coal and she was
taken back to Sevastopol, where she was repainted and renamed. Her
extraordinary experience is never alluded to in the Russian navy. It
is a painful topic. Most of the mutineers left Constanza and scattered
over Europe. Those who remained in Roumania have been protected, but
many of the others have been captured. Some are in prison, some were
shot at the time of the arrest, others were hanged under sentence of a
court-martial.