THE GOVERNMENT OF YENISSEISK AND KRASNOIARSK.
Wretched aspect of the villages of this province--The country at
last becomes hilly--The night watchers at Krasnoiarsk--M.
Lovatine’s three collections--A Polish exile’s ball.
I took my departure from Tomsk on the 26th of January. The appearance
of the road at first did not differ materially from the one I had
recently passed over.
In the villages, however, there was a great difference. Certain details
showed the absence of civilization and industry of any kind. The poor
inhabitants, instead of admitting light into their dwellings through
glass, which would be too costly for them, plug the holes with the
skins of their sheep. One may easily imagine how little light can
penetrate through these small apertures, and how gloomy the existence
of these poor creatures must be during a long winter’s darkness.
These dwellings are raised without any prepared foundation, and are
composed of posts or beams bound firmly together. When a thaw takes
place, the result is a subsidence, and these hovels, instead of falling
down altogether, being secured laterally, simply lean in a mass on one
side. In this position they generally remain; for their inhabitants
give themselves no trouble to set them upright again. The consequence
is that the flooring inside is frequently so inclined, that it is quite
an effort to climb across it. This accident, so very common in this
part of Siberia, gives a miserably dilapidated look to the villages;
the roofs seem ready to fall over each other, or fall away in another
direction; the upper story in some is brought down on end almost to
the ground, and in others the ground floor is thrown up on an inclined
plane to the height of first stories. On beholding this disorder, the
spectator would suppose the village had been scourged with a hurricane
or an earthquake.
The day after our departure from Tomsk, we entered into a vast birch
forest--so vast, that it covers all the central region of Siberia.
These trees, which in our country never come to any great size, and
which we look upon as some of the most attractive ornaments of our
woods, acquire here enormous proportions, but at the same time, I must
say, to the detriment of their gracefulness and beauty. In growing
old, the bark of their trunks loses its bright pale colour, which we
are accustomed to admire, and looks dirty beside the snow; and then,
when they advance to decrepitude, it becomes quite black. The most
noticeable peculiarity of these forests is that they have never been
cut and turned to account. Such an enormous mass of trees allowed to
perish is a thing unheard of in France. Here and there may be seen
huge trunks, lying on the ground, or leaning against others, ready to
fall, or broken off half-way, attesting the violence of some passing
cyclone or the destructive power of lightning. Enormous birds of a
black or deep blue colour, known generally by the name of cock of the
wood, roost on the branches of these venerable trees, and then may be
seen huge owls, all white, turning lazily their flat faces towards
the passing traveller, regarding him without moving, with the utmost
indifference. Here, perhaps, more than elsewhere, is the domain of the
strange and fantastic, and it requires little effort of the imagination
to people it with all the fanciful and grotesque creations of mediæval
poesy.
We continued a long time travelling on through this primeval forest,
whose mournful silence and savage grandeur disposed me to muse rather
than to talk. My companion also seemed to have his thoughts engrossed
with something weighty; he was thinking of the future--of his parents
and friends he was shortly about to join, and, what I suspected, of
Miss Campbell, who had preceded us on this road. Mine, on the contrary,
were rather of the present and the past; I thought of the long distance
I had already glided over in my sledge; then my soul wandered from the
dark, mysterious forest to the unveiled, prosaic steppe, and finally
went astray in bewilderment at the immensity of this trackless space.
The surface, over which we were now moving, was becoming gently
undulated, then little hillocks succeeded, and at last the monotonous
flatness disappeared.
This reminded me very forcibly how indifferent we become in time
to the endlessly repeated or continued scenes of everyday life,
however congenial they may be, and how readily we wake up to even a
bare consciousness of them after a merely moderate interval of their
interruption.
Since leaving the Ural, I had been travelling from six to seven hundred
leagues over a country absolutely flat, presenting some interesting
features, it is true, and not least the marvellous effects of light;
but for all that, it was void of variety and life; and this novel
contrast revealed how dear to me were the animated and changing
scenes to which I had been habituated, and how little, from too much
familiarity with them, was I then able to appreciate them.
During the two days preceding my arrival at Krasnoiarsk, I passed
several hills, sometimes abrupt and sometimes gently sloping, and
then again others rising to a peak high over valleys, that appeared
to me very deep. My eye was at last interested in some change, and
could be attracted on the right by reflections of sunbeams from the
snow mantling striking diverse objects, or repose on the left in the
impenetrable shadows. In short, the monotony had ceased, and to the
fatigues of the journey had succeeded the excitement of locomotion, the
variety and life of picturesque nature. At the view of this change, I
vividly felt how lonely and joyless had been the dead, changeless plain
I had left behind me. I thought of the poor inhabitants of Omsk, who
look over the steppe so often with longing eyes. It is not from a love
for this immense plain, it struck me at the time, but from some vague
instinctive hope, of which they are barely conscious, though sensible,
to see beyond in the horizon the dawn of something brighter than
this endless uniformity, and perhaps in such a hope they find their
happiness.
On approaching Krasnoiarsk, the hills rise higher and higher, and
become at last, around the city, imposing mountains. We made our entry
into this capital of the province of Yenisseisk on the 29th of January
at three in the afternoon.
As the day was closing in, I went out at once, and was able to
contemplate and admire the picturesque position of Krasnoiarsk. It is
built on the banks of the Yenissei, which meanders between two very
high mountains, whose precipitous sides give more striking depth to the
valley they overhang. It is in a hollow at the foot of one of these
towering cliffs that the city is built.
My first impression of Krasnoiarsk was therefore favourable. It seemed
to me that the inhabitants of this city, having such a fine view of
nature before their eyes, ought to be gayer and more inventive than
those I had just left behind me, and my expectation in this was not
at all deceived. The society of Krasnoiarsk, from another cause,
however, might have been thought to be sedate and little disposed to
hospitality, since it is composed of Polish exiles having little reason
for mirth, and some gold-seekers, to whom anything else than heavy
glittering nuggets seemed unworthy to occupy their thoughts.
I did not look up my letters of recommendation to make use of them
till the following day. During the night, a singular and continuous
noise hindered me from sleeping; it was the harsh clank produced by
the violent shock of two pieces of metal. The sounds were repeated at
quick intervals, and seemed to move from one part of the house to the
other. Conjectures as to the cause of this strange noise increased
the excitement of my mind, and contributed to keep me awake. The
explanation came in due course. It appears that the Siberians here
have borrowed from the Chinese this strange custom of warning thieves
by this ceaseless jangling noise, that the inmates are on the alert
within, and that any attempt at a burglary would be discovered and
frustrated. Lucky thieves who thus know which house to avoid and which
to pillage! Happy families who have their ears charmed and their
slumbers lulled with such music!
The first visit I made at Krasnoiarsk was to a _savant_, M. Lovatine,
who has three remarkable collections: first, a collection of objects
in stone--prehistoric stone implements of the aboriginal inhabitants
of Siberia, which are quite similar to others I have seen in other
countries of Europe and in other parts of the world. M. Lovatine seemed
quite devoted to this study, and I could well understand the pleasure
it gave him without being able to enter into it myself. Next, there
was a numismatic collection, on which he gave me some interesting
explanations. I will mention, among others, a medal struck under Peter
the Great, the possession of which at that time exempted compliance
with the general regulation prescribed by this great reformer to his
subjects under which they were obliged to divest themselves of their
beards. Those who wished to indulge in the luxury of this hirsute
appendage were made to pay very dearly for it; for the Emperor was not
indulgent towards those who did not approve his orders: and thus a tax
on a luxury was obtained. The form of this medal is rather singular,
having a piece nipped out on one side like a barber’s shaving dish. The
third collection was geological, to which Siberia, with its abundance
and variety of minerals, could contribute largely. In connection with
this M. Lovatine had some political theories, the principal of which
was that the further south people lived, the more turbulent and the
more difficult to govern they were, and that Southern lands were better
fitted to despots.
The Siberians dance a great deal; balls are frequent and very elegant,
but they rarely take place in private houses. In every city there are
generally two clubs, the club of the _noblesse_ and the club of the
_bourgeoisie_, to either of which one is invited to come and pass the
evening, according to his position, the _noblesse_ being composed of
the Government functionaries and the other of traders.
The day after my arrival at Krasnoiarsk, I was invited to a ball at
the club of the _noblesse_. The functionaries not being numerous
in this city, they had invited a few of the commercial class, and
particularly some Polish exiles. A ball of convicts seemed to be
something incongruous, but it would be an error to suppose that the
Poles exiled in Siberia are at present all ill-treated, and that they
while away their time in weeping for their beloved country. When I come
to Irkutsk, I shall have occasion to speak more fully of the fate of
the Polish exiles in Siberia. But now, here in Krasnoiarsk, nearly all
were members of good society. Their political opinions, like those of
all Poles I have met, are, it is true, extremely advanced. They had
not only taken part in their war of independence, but had been nearly
all implicated in insurrections beyond the borders of their country;
they admired our violent French demagogues, and found excuses for our
Commune; but in spite of these preposterous opinions, which ignorance
of contemporary history and distance from the scene of action may have
rendered excusable, I found at Krasnoiarsk a society of enlightened
Poles and perfectly well-bred men. As they formed the majority, the
ball was quite _à la mode polonaise_, and it is a kind of dancing, in
my opinion, that ought to survive for ever their lost nationality.
One never steps as in an ordinary walk. To proceed from one side to
another, it is necessary to adopt the step called _la polonaise_,
rather difficult to master, it is true, but which is, undoubtedly, very
graceful. The consequence is that in these dances, and especially the
_cotillon_, there is a liveliness that is never seen in our salons,
considered the gayest in the world. As another proof of the knowledge
which the Russians and Poles have of our language, I will merely
observe that here, in this city lost in the depth of Siberia, when the
ball was over and we sat down to supper, a very numerous party spoke no
other language than French.
It is here at Krasnoiarsk that one begins to become acquainted with a
few gold-seekers. I was first received at the house of M. Rodosvenny,
who, although enormously rich, is here considered simply in pretty
comfortable circumstances, on account of his neighbour M. Kousnietzof,
whose mines are considerably richer. After I had seen at Irkutsk and at
Kiachta the houses of Nemptchinof, Bazanof, and Trapeznikof, the luxury
of M. Kousnietzof did not appear to me more extraordinary; but knowing
the cost of living to a simple traveller in Siberia, and having gleaned
some information as to the cost of an elegant house in stone and
ironwork, materials that have chiefly to be brought all the way from
the Ural, I was lost in wonder at this palace of M. Kousnietzof, quite
as extensive as our grand Parisian mansions and almost as luxuriously
appointed.
To mention two or three luxurious follies in which these great
proprietors of gold mines in Eastern Siberia indulge, I will refer
to the cigar ash receptacle--where the smokers in the salon drop the
ends of their cigarettes, according to the Russian custom, after a
meal--composed of a pure nugget of gold, worth sixteen hundred pounds
sterling, and just in the rough state in which it had been found in the
mine. The Czar has permitted, in an exceptional case, M. Kousnietzof
to retain possession of this nugget in his house, on account of the
rarity of such a godsend. The proprietor of this treasure did not omit
to inform me that having had this precious receptacle for thirty years,
he had lost not merely the sixteen hundred pounds sterling, but also
the interest, two thousand four hundred pounds, and, consequently, this
luxury had cost him four thousand pounds. Having gratified my curiosity
by weighing in my hands again and again this enormous nugget, I took
leave of this opulent family.
The next day, we found ourselves again seated in the sledge with a
journey of two hundred and fifty leagues to accomplish without a break,
at the end of which we hoped to find ourselves in Irkutsk, the capital
of Siberia.