RUSSIA’S COLONIZATION SCHEME.
I haven’t yet introduced you to my companions. Thomas Gaskell, citizen
of the United States of America, short, fair, a little bit bald, with
a record of having travelled through the whole of Asia from end to
end, and still only twenty-eight years of age. John Scawell, British
subject, tall, dark, reserved, and just fresh from Western Australia,
India, and the Transvaal. Evan Asprey, also British subject and also
slightly bald, medium height, fair and good to keep close to, as he
had already spent five years in Siberia, and was the only one amongst
us who understood clearly more than twenty words of Russian. Here we
were, then, at the commencement of Siberia, and bound to one of the
wildest regions of that wild country--the Syansk Mountains on the
Chinese frontier. Our mission was one entirely of peace, although the
customs officials at the Russian frontier _had_ confiscated Scawell’s
Mannlicher rifle and Webley revolver, and might have done the same with
my Smith and Wesson, if I hadn’t had it up my sleeve at the time. We
were going out just to see what Siberia was like. Half pleasure, half
business. People at home thought Siberia was a land of promise. The
Trans-Siberian Railway was opening the country. Germans with a loose
eye for business had announced their intention of looking up Asiatic
Russia. Being English, we wanted to get in also--if not the first, at
least in the van.
The station at Chelabinsk was not a cheerful place to spend six hours
in--for that was the amount of time which had to lapse ere the train
bound for Kreveschokovo on the banks of the river Obi was billed to
leave. Gratuitous information concerning the Trans-Siberian Railway
was freely offered by fellow-passengers, and we began to fear the
worst. Tales about three hours’ stoppages at small stations; half a
day here and a day there. No bridges over the Obi and Chulim rivers;
so that the monotonous train journey should be relieved by a little
sledging. An affable man is the Russian traveller, and a cheerful liar.
The Russian for “I know” and “I _don’t_ know” are so nearly alike that
only a Russian can tell the difference, and maybe this is why he would
rather tell an untruth than confess ignorance. Beneath his affability,
however, the observer can easily detect a purpose. His soul-absorbing
desire is to know who and what you are, where from, where going to,
and what you are going to do. What do you think of Russia? How old are
you? Will England let Russia have Constantinople? How many millions of
roubles have you got? Have you seen absolutely the finest city, and the
finest street in the world--St. Petersburg and the Nevsky Prospect
respectively? If one is wise he will be frank. But the torrent of
reiterated questions at every fresh acquaintance becomes boring after
a bit, and oftentimes we preferred to keep in our bunks in the train
rather than be compelled to go over the jargon of stereotyped replies
in the buffet. English is almost unknown in this region of the Urals;
next to Russian, German seems the language most freely spoken. Military
officers and functionaries of upper rank know French, but English we
never heard spoken in all our railway journey from Moscow. I think that
sometimes we were looked upon as curiosities, if one might judge from
the number of glances and finger points directed towards us, and the
oft-repeated word “Anglichiny,” or “Englishman,” when circumstances
compelled us to declare our nationality. But I must say that though
they were inquisitive we were invariably treated with respect by our
fellow-travellers.
[Illustration: EMIGRANTS AT CHELABINSK.]
But on one occasion, three overbearing Russian functionaries, who are
revered as Chinovniks, tried to take advantage of our slim knowledge of
things Siberian. The Russian cars, I might say, by way of preface, are
built on the side-corridor principle; each _coupé_ is designed to hold
four persons--two on racks, which are formed by lifting up the back of
each seat and securing them by means of iron outswinging tee-pieces,
and two on the main seats themselves. We had liberally bribed our
porter to get us a complete _coupé_, but it was while we were partaking
of a last glass of tea in the buffet that the three Chinovniks referred
to, being probably dissatisfied with their own quarters, removed
our baggage and installed themselves in our places. One of us had
slipped out of the buffet to see that nothing was being stolen, and
brought back the dismal news. There was scant hope of our getting
justice, but we awaited our opportunity. Thinking themselves safe, the
Chinovniks could not resist the fascination of tea-drinking, and their
departure was a signal for a combined attack on their baggage, its
removal, and the replacement of our own. The Chinovniks returned as the
train was on the point of leaving. They glared at us. We gazed blandly
back. They spoke loudly and long to us. We replied by unrolling our
blankets and pillows and preparing for slumber. They raved at us; but
we only looked at them with mild reproach. They fetched the conductor,
who, after listening to their tale, which was shouted with three
voices in his two ears, addressed a question to us, which to three of
the four, at any rate, was as incomprehensible as Afghan or Volapuk.
We could only fall back upon our standard saviour, and that was to
cry simultaneously, “_Neo panimio paa Ruski!_”--“I don’t understand
Russian!” The conductor shrugged his shoulders and looked inquiringly
at the Chinovniks. The Chinovniks raised their voices in their great
ire, and then the conductor did absolutely the wisest thing he could,
and that was to leave the car. The Chinovniks were nonplussed, vocal
persuasion had utterly failed to move us; forcible was entirely out of
the question for a Russian, and so they had to leave us.
This little incident may serve as some illustration of the Russian
character. I have seen two men in a car, one at each end, quarrelling
in the most terrible manner, hurling invectives at each other and
boiling over with rage, but never getting one inch nearer one to the
other. A tenth of the inducement would be enough for a free fight in
England.
It was in the early hours before the Siberian train crawled slowly
out of Chelabinsk station and commenced to bump miserably over the
badly laid road. The boy-stoker at the stove end of the car commenced
his infernal work, and in half an hour the temperature was something
abominable. The heat was bad enough, but as the car contained some
twenty-four passengers, and all possessed a large number of damp furs,
in all conditions of cleanliness, and possessing all varieties of
odour, the atmosphere was one almost unbearable. The worst of it is,
that the passengers abhor ventilation of the slightest degree. In the
roof of the car there is a ventilator, but it is always tightly closed.
The windows are double and immovable; the doors at each end are double,
one being closed before the other is opened; and thus, day in and day
out, scarcely a breath of fresh air can enter the carriage. Inside we
sweated and gasped for breath; the instant we alighted at a station our
hair, moustache, beard, and eyelashes would become covered with hard
white frost, and the exhalations from our lungs would be converted into
fine snow.
When morning came, and we arose from our uncomfortable couch, it was to
find the train jolting slowly over a level stretch of country; quite
uncultivated, and with here and there a melancholy clump of stunted
birch trees. We were on the edge of the great Tartar steppe, which
stretched north and south for thousands of miles, and which is bounded
on the east by the Irtish River, from whose banks stretches eastward
Siberia’s longest steppe--the Baraba, home of the Khirghiz hordes. The
Urals were completely out of sight, and we had the not very cheerful
prospect of a fifteen-hundred-mile journey over an absolute desert.
Seen in the summer, the steppe lands are by no means displeasing,
although their monotony is trying. Instead of the inevitable snow which
now stretched in all its glaring whiteness before us, the steppe is a
carpet of variegated bloom. The grass is stunted; not nearly as long
as that of the American prairie, this probably owing to the fact that
much of the water in the plains is strongly impregnated with alkali.
These steppes are, with the exception of the vast plains of perpetually
frozen ground adjacent to the arctic circle, the most unpopulated part
of all Siberia. Beyond the few miserable villages which occur every
thirty or forty miles, there is no sign of life except the occasional
kibitka of the nomadic Khirghiz. North or south of the high-road the
steppe goes uninterruptedly for many hundreds of miles, roadless,
treeless, not a landmark to guide one, swampy, sandy, and unprofitable.
Under its snowy shroud the steppe looks better.
Late in the day we arrived at Kurgan, a tolerably large town, with the
railway station miles away from the nearest house. Unwilling to take
the bread out of the mouths of the horse-breeding populace of Siberia
all at once, it would seem that the Russian Government has purposely
fixed the stations of the Siberian railroad as far away from the towns
as possible, in order to give the great army of drosky-drivers a
chance. Kurgan was interesting as being the first point where we saw
the debarkation of outward-bound emigrants.
Emigration to Siberia is now going on very vigorously, and not before
it is wanted, for the population of Russia, European and Asiatic, is
very disproportionate. The nomadic tribes of Siberia, such as the
Bashkires, Khirghiz, Tungus, Buriats, Votiaks, Kamchakdales, and
Samoyedes scarcely count, so small are their numbers in comparison
to the millions of acres comprising Asiatic Russia. The official
computation of the population being (including both Russians and
aborigines) one man to every five square miles. The first cause of the
extremely slow progress in populating Siberia may be set down to its
distance and inaccessibility from the congested districts of Russia.
The only means of reaching its heart, up till the commencement of the
Trans-Siberian Railway work, being by the lonely tarantass or the
occasional steamers plying the tortuous waterways of the Irtish and Obi
systems. The Siberian railway, however, promises to considerably alter
this state of things--combined with the startling facts that Southern
Russia is rapidly getting overcrowded. Another stumbling-block to the
rapid development of Siberia hitherto has been the great prejudice
existing against it throughout European Russia, a prejudice which may
be said to be far greater than that among foreigners. For many years
Siberia has been the dumping-ground for criminals of the worst class.
It has been held up as a Bastille-like threat to every Muscovite.
Mothers have for ages quieted their noisy children with, “Hush! or I
will send you to Siberia!” And thus every man who goes to Siberia,
voluntarily or otherwise, is looked upon as an exile. Although the
want of communication may be set down as the first, the chief cause
undoubtedly exists in Siberia having been made a penal colony.
It is said that the great famine of 1890-1 which spread throughout
Southern Russia, turned the eyes of the Government Siberia-wards as
a possible outlet for surplus population. The late Czar had ever
taken a kindly interest in his Asiatic possessions, and it was the
dream of his life to see Siberia developed to its fullest extent. The
wish was commendable, but the means were lacking. It was in order to
see with imperial eyes what Siberia was that the present Czar (then
Czarevitch) took his memorable journey across the steppes and mountains
from the Pacific coast, and then came Alexander’s famous ukase: “Let
there be a railway built across Siberia--the shortest way possible.”
The Czarevitch was then in Vladivostock, the Russian Pacific port.
A telegram from St. Petersburg bade him remain there and await the
corner-stone, which was to be laid in that town as the foundation-piece
of what will, in the course of a few years, rank as the monumental
railway enterprise of the nineteenth century. Alexander, right up to
his death, cherished his colonization scheme, and the heritage he left
his son has been energetically pushed forward.
Some assert that the idea which dominated the Siberian railway
scheme was that of strategy. While there may exist the strategical
undercurrent, no one who has passed over the line from end to end
as far as it is constructed can be oblivious to the fact that at
present, at any rate, one of the principal objects of the railway is
the transportation of emigrants to the fertile valleys of Central
Siberia. The train-bound traveller passes train load after train load
of outward-bound emigrants. At the principal stations of Chelabinsk,
Kurgan, Omsk, Kainsk, and Atchinsk, emigrants by the hundreds are
detrained, and may be seen encamped by the roadside awaiting their
further transportation north, south, or east. The numbers are evidence
complete that the attractions offered by the Government outweigh
entirely prejudice and the discomfort of a long journey.
The principle underlying Russia’s colonization scheme is similar to
England’s policy with regard to Canada, only that the means are easier
and the efforts and influence more energetic and widespread. The agents
of the Government are sent to the most thickly populated or distressed
portion of European Russia, and there the desirability of emigrating
to Siberia is impressed upon the more industrious of the peasantry,
who, in Russia itself, can scarcely make ends meet. Neer-do-wells are
not catered for, but the Russian Government offers inducements to the
willing, and at the same time fixes a nominal fare to Siberia, in
order to keep out the absolute drones. This fare is fixed at the rate
of one-twentieth of a penny per verst; and thus it is possible for a
peasant to travel, say, three thousand versts (two thousand miles) for
the moderate sum of six roubles (13_s._ 3_d._). From Southern Russia
this would land the emigrant in the heart of Siberia.
On arrival at his destination, the colonist is given a free grant of
land, ten deseteens in area, which equals about twenty-seven acres
English. He has permission to cut enough wood to build his house and
fencing and to provide him with fuel for one year. Thus, with a clear
start, and providing the peasant is industrious and frugal, there is
every opportunity for him of not only being able to feed and clothe
himself and his family warmly and cleanly, but of making a small profit
out of agricultural pursuits. For purposes of comparison, it may be as
well to state that in Russia itself the peasant is allowed only four
deseteens of land, but, as the price of agriculture is abnormally low,
it is next door to impossible for him to make ends meet, inasmuch as
the rude agricultural instruments he uses, and the entire absence of
artificial fertilization, in a few years impoverishes his property
to such an extent that it is hopeless. With the increased acreage in
Siberia, a better climate, and a richer soil, his chances are enhanced,
while a powerful factor is that agricultural prices all round rank from
fifty to a hundred per cent. higher than in European Russia. Of course
such prices will not last for ever, but as Siberia, minerally and
commercially, is far richer than Russia itself, the peasant is bound to
come in for some of the reflected prosperity.
The Westerner might perhaps take exception to the manner in which
the emigrants are transported to Siberia. I confess it came upon me
at first with a shock. The emigrants’ train is simply one of cattle
trucks, each car being marked on the side for “forty men or eight
horses.” There are no seats or lights provided, and into each of
these pens forty men, women, and children have to herd over a dreary
railway journey of fourteen or fifteen days. They have to provide
their own food, but at every station a large samovar is kept boiling
in order to provide them with hot water for their tea. At the points
of detrainment the emigrants are compelled to camp on the steppe or
on the mountain-side until provision is made for them to proceed to
the land apportioned off to their use. The filth, the rags, the utter
woe-begone aspect of the Russian emigrant is something inconceivable to
the European, but then it must be remembered that the Russian moujik is
used to roughing it all his life, and to hog, forty a time, in a cattle
truck, or to sleep by the camp fire, with no more covering than the
sky, is no very great hardship for him.
It must be gratifying to the Russian Government that the privileges
offered to the peasant have been keenly appreciated, and the
difficulty which now exists is to get the land ready for the
overwhelming tide of colonists flowing into Siberia. In 1896 alone
nearly a quarter of a million peasants left Russia for Siberia. At
that time neither the railway nor the colonizing department could
cope with the rush, and the Emperor was compelled to issue the ukase
commanding the officials of the various Siberian Governments to drop
all other State work and devote, for the time being, their efforts to
the colonization movement. For a time things were in rather a chaotic
state, and a large number of emigrants, finding no land ready for them,
returned to Russia.
Anticipating my journey a little, I had at Omsk a long and interesting
conversation with one of the head officials of the Colonization
Department. He was on his way to Turkestan, there to confer with the
officials regarding the colonization of that valuable and practically
un-Russianized possession. He assured me that the rush for Siberia
had not only completely astonished the authorities, but was rather
startling in the fact that it threatened to deplete portions of Russia
of labour. The Russian peasant is of such a simple disposition that
he is apt to think the inducements offered him are the means to a
comparative paradise. Thus many of the emigrants have suffered sore
disappointment, and, partly from this and from home-sickness, have
returned to Russia. The Government is, however, grappling manfully with
the task that it has set itself, and it will take but a few short years
to even up the disproportionate population of Russia considerably. One
fact cannot be overlooked, and that is that the Trans-Siberian Railway,
apart from its political and commercial significance, is likely to be
handed down to posterity as the means by which the riches of the great
white Czar were brought to the thresholds of his people.