AN ARCTIC INFERNO
NOTE.--The information contained in the following chapter
was chiefly obtained from Government officials stationed at
Sredni-Kolymsk, the facts being afterwards verified, or
otherwise, by political exiles at the same place by my
request.
We reached Sredni-Kolymsk early in March on a glorious day, one of those
peculiar to the Arctic regions, when the pure, crisp air exhilarates
like champagne, and nature sparkles like a diamond in the sunshine. But
as we neared it, the sight of that dismal drab settlement seemed to
darken the smiling landscape like a coffin which has been carried by
mistake into a brilliant ball-room. I once thought the acme of
desolation had been reached at Verkhoyansk, but to drive into this place
was like entering a cemetery. Imagine a double row of squalid log-huts,
with windows of ice, some of which, detached by the warm spring
sunshine, have fallen to the ground. This is the main "street," at one
extremity of which stands a wooden church in the last stage of decay, at
the other the house of the Chief of Police, the only decent building in
the place. So low indeed are these in stature that the settlement is
concealed, two or three hundred yards away, by the stunted trees around
it. Only the rickety spire of a chapel is visible, and this overtops
the neighbouring dwellings by only a few feet. Picture perhaps a score
of other huts as squalid as the rest scattered around an area of half a
mile, and you have before you the last "civilised" outpost in Northern
Siberia. All around it a desolate plain, fringed by grey-green Arctic
vegetation and bisected by the frozen river Kolyma; over all the silence
of the grave. Such is Sredni-Kolymsk, as it appeared to me even in that
brilliant sunshine--the most gloomy, God-forsaken spot on the face of
this earth.
At first sight the place looked like an encampment deserted by trappers,
or some village decimated by deadly sickness; anything but the abode of
human beings. For a while our arrival attracted no attention, but
presently skin-clad forms emerged here and there from the miserable
huts, and haggard faces nodded a cheerless welcome as we drove past them
towards the police office. Here a dwelling was assigned to us, and we
took up our residence in quarters colder and filthier than any we had
occupied since leaving Verkhoyansk. And yet our lodgings were preferable
to many of those occupied by the exiles.
During our visit Sredni-Kolymsk had a population of about three hundred
souls, of whom only fourteen were political offenders. The remainder
were officials, criminal colonists, and natives of the Yakute, Lamute,
or Tunguse races. The Cossacks here subsist chiefly by trapping and
fishing, but are also nominally employed as guards--a useless
precaution, as starvation would inevitably follow an attempt to escape.
The criminal colonists are allotted a plot of ground in this district
after a term of penal servitude, and I have never beheld, even in
Sakhalin, such a band of murderous-looking ruffians as were assembled
here. They were a constant terror to the exiles, and even officials
rarely ventured out after dark.
The police officials here were sour, stern-visaged individuals, and our
welcome was as frigid as it had been warm at Verkhoyansk. The Chief of
Police had recently met his death under tragic circumstances, which I
shall presently describe, and I was received by the acting _ispravnik_,
whose grim manners and appearance were in unpleasant contrast to those
of our kind old friend Katcherofsky. Although this natural prison had no
bolts and bars or other evidences of a penal system, the very air seemed
tainted with mystery and oppression, and the melancholy row of huts to
scrawl the word "captivity" across the desolate landscape. Even the
_ispravnik's_ room, with its heavy black furniture and sombre draperies,
was suggestive of the Inquisition, and I searched instinctively around
me for the rack and thumbscrews. How many a poor wretch had stood in
this gloomy apartment waiting patiently, after months of unspeakable
suffering, for some filthy hovel wherein to lay his head. It seemed to
me that crape and fetters would more fittingly have adorned those
whitewashed walls than a sacred _Ikon_ encrusted with jewels, and
heavily gilt oil-paintings of their Imperial Majesties! A couple of
tables littered with papers occupied the centre of the room, and at one
of these sat the _ispravnik_, a wooden-faced peremptory person in dark
green tunic and gold shoulder straps. A couple of clerks, also in
uniform, were busily engaged at the other desk, sorting the mail which
our Cossack had brought, and in expectation of which a group of poorly
clad, shivering exiles were already waiting in the piercing cold
outside. But when we left this place ten days later not a single letter
had reached its destination, although the post-bag contained over a
hundred addressed to the various politicals.
Even the Governor-General's all-powerful document produced little effect
here, for the _ispravnik_ appeared to regard himself as beyond the reach
of even the Tsar's Viceroy, which, indeed, from an inaccessible point of
view, he undoubtedly was. "You cannot possibly go," was the curt
rejoinder to my request for dogs and drivers to convey us to the Bering
Straits. "In the first place, a famine is raging here and you will be
unable to procure provisions. Stepan tells me that you have barely
enough food with you to last for two weeks, and it would take you at
least twice that time to reach the nearest Tchuktchi settlement, which
we know to be beyond Tchaun Bay, six hundred miles away. A year ago two
of our people tried to reach it, and perished, although they left here
well supplied with dogs and provisions. For all I know the _Kor_ (which
has decimated this district) may have killed off the coast natives or
driven them into the interior of the country, and then where would you
be, even supposing you reached Tchaun Bay, with no shelter, no food, and
another month at least through an icy waste to Bering Straits. As for
dogs, most of ours have perished from the scarcity of fish caught last
summer; I don't think there are thirty sound dogs in the place, and you
would need at least three times that number. Reindeer, even if we could
get them, are out of the question, for there is not an ounce of moss on
the coast. But even with dogs forthcoming I doubt whether you would find
drivers to accompany you, for all our people are in deadly terror of the
Tchuktchis. No, no! Take my advice and give up this mad project even if
you have to remain here throughout the summer. It will at any rate be
better than leaving your bones on the shores of the Arctic Ocean."
My experience of Russian _ispravniks_ is varied and extensive, and I
therefore realised that argument was useless with this adamantine
official, whose petty tyranny was evidently not confined to his dealing
with his exiles. I therefore returned to our cheerless quarters in
anything but a pleasant frame of mind, and almost convinced that our
overland expedition was now finally wrecked. The outlook was not a
cheerful one, for the homeward journey would in itself be miserable
enough, without the addition of floods and a possible detention through
a sultry, mosquito-infested summer at Verkhoyansk. It has seldom been my
lot to pass such a depressing evening as that which followed my
interview with the _ispravnik_, but the prospect of an entire summer's
imprisonment in Arctic wilds affected us far less than the failure of
the expedition. Harding probably echoed the feelings of all when he
exclaimed with a gesture of despair: "When we set out on this job the
devil must have taken the tickets!"
Stepan alone was silent and taciturn. When I awoke next morning at
daybreak he had disappeared, presumably to procure reindeer for the
return journey. But the season was now so far advanced that the
_ispravnik_ called during the day to beg me not to risk a spring journey
to Yakutsk. It was far better, he averred, to remain here and travel
back in safety and comparative comfort in the late fall. It would even
be preferable to attempt the summer journey down the Kolyma River and
over the Stanovoi Mountains to Ola on the Okhotsk Sea. The trip had
certainly never been made, but then no more had our projected one to
America, and how infinitely preferable to arrive at Ola, where we might
only have to wait a few days for a steamer, than to start off on a wild
goose chase to Bering Straits which we should probably never reach at
all. "Besides," continued the _ispravnik_, "the Ola trip would be so
easy by comparison with the other. No drivers and dog-sleds to be
procured, merely a flat-bottomed boat which could be put together in a
few days." From my friend's eagerness to avoid trouble of any kind I now
strongly suspected that laziness was the chief cause of our present
dilemma, although this official's demeanour was so much more
conciliatory than on the previous day, that I fancied that a night's
reflection had revealed the unpleasant results that might follow my
unfavourable report of his conduct at Irkutsk. Although we sat for hours
that day consuming tea and innumerable cigarettes, I was no nearer the
solution of the problem at sunset than at dawn. And had I but known it,
all the time I was vainly urging this stolid boor to reconsider his
decision, help was arriving from a totally unexpected quarter. I
discussed a cheerless and silent meal with my companions, and we were
turning in that night when Stepan strolled in, cool and imperturbable as
usual. He even divested himself of furs and helped himself to food
before making an announcement which sent the blood tingling through my
veins with excitement and renewed hope.
"I have got the dogs," said the Cossack quietly, with his mouth full of
fish and black bread. "Sixty-four of them; we can go on now!" The news
seemed too good to be true, until Stepan explained that he had travelled
thirty miles down the river that day to obtain the animals from a
friend. The dogs were poor, weakly brutes, and the price asked an
exorbitant one, but I would gladly have paid it thrice over, or pushed
on towards our goal, if need be, with a team of tortoises. Even now I
anticipated some difficulty with the _ispravnik_, and was relieved when,
the next morning, he consented without demur to our departure. Indeed, I
rather fancy he was grateful to the Cossack for ridding him so easily of
his troublesome guests. The indefatigable Stepan had also procured three
drivers, so that I had no further anxiety on that score. But several
days must elapse before sufficiently strong sleds for our purpose could
be constructed. I therefore resolved to utilise the time by making the
acquaintance of the exiles and studying the conditions of their
existence in this out-of-the-way corner of creation. This was at first
no easy matter, for if the officials here were suspicious the politicals
were a thousand times more so, of one who had invariably written in
favour of Russian prisons. Most of these "politicals" were familiar with
Mr. Kennan's indictment and my subsequent defence of the Russian exile
system, but the fact that my party was the first to visit this place for
a period of over thirty years imbued an investigation of its penal
system with such intense interest that, notwithstanding many rebuffs, I
finally gained the confidence of all those who had been banished to this
Arctic inferno. And the information which I now place before the reader
is the more valuable in that it was derived, in the first place, from an
official source.
I should perhaps state that my experience of Russian prisons dates from
the year 1890. Mr. Kennan's report on the conditions of the penal
establishments throughout Siberia was then arousing indignation
throughout civilised Europe, and his heart-rending accounts of the
sufferings endured by political and criminal offenders obviously called
for some sort of an explanation from the Tsar's Government. A mere
official denial of the charges would have been useless; a disinterested
person was needed to report upon the prisons and _etapes_ which had been
described as hells upon earth, and to either confirm or gainsay the
statements made by the American traveller. The evidence of a Russian
subject would, for obvious reasons, have met with incredulity, and it
came to pass, therefore, that through the agency of Madame de Novikoff,
herself a prison Directress, I was selected for a task, which although
extremely interesting, subjected me to much unfavourable criticism on my
return to England. Some yellow journals even went so far as to suggest
that I had received payment from the Russian Government for
"whitewashing" its penal system, but I fancy the following pages should
conclusively disprove the existence of any monetary transactions, past
or present, between the Tsar's officials and myself, to say nothing of
the fact that my favourable account of the prisons of Western Siberia
has been endorsed by such reliable and well-known English travellers as
Dr. Lansdell and Mr. J. Y. Simpson. In fairness, however, to Mr. Kennan,
I should state that my inspection of the Tomsk forwarding prison and
similar establishments was made fully five years after his visit.
In 1894 I again proceeded to Siberia (under similar conditions) to
report upon the penal settlement on the Island of Sakhalin, the
political prison of Akatui, and the mines, where only convict labour is
employed, of Eastern Siberia. On this occasion I travelled from Japan to
the Island of Sakhalin on board a Russian convict ship, a voyage which
convinced me that the Russian criminal convict is as humanely treated
and well cared for at sea as he is on land, which says a great deal. I
have always maintained that were I sentenced to a term of penal
servitude I would infinitely sooner serve it in (some parts of) Siberia
than in England. It is not now my intention, however, to deal with the
criminal question, but to describe, as accurately as I can, the life led
by a handful of political exiles.
There are now only two prisons throughout the Russian Empire where
political prisoners are actually incarcerated,[40] one is the fortress
of Schlusselburg on Lake Ladoga within a short journey of St.
Petersburg, the other the prison of Akatui, in the trans-Baikal
province, about three hundred miles east of Irkutsk. Schlusselburg I
have never visited, but I inspected the prison of Akatui, and conversed
freely with the politicals within its walls. The majority were men of
education, but dangerous conspirators, condemned to long terms of penal
servitude. The strictest prison discipline, the wearing of fetters, hard
labour in the silver mines, and association at night in public cells
with the vilest criminals was the lot of those whom I saw at Akatui, and
yet I doubt if any of these men would willingly have changed places with
their exiled comrades "domiciled" in comparative liberty at
Sredni-Kolymsk. For the stupendous distance of the latter place from
civilisation surrounds it with even more gloom and mystery than the
Russian Bastille on Lake Ladoga, which is the most dreaded prison of
all.
[Footnote 40: Political prisoners are no longer confined in the fortress
of SS. Peter and Paul. Short terms of imprisonment previous to
banishment to Siberia are served in the citadels of Warsaw and other
cities, but Schlusselburg and Akatui are the only establishments now
used as political prisons in the real sense of the word.]
At the time of our visit, the exiles here numbered twelve men and two
women, only two of whom had been banished for actual crime. One of these
was Madame Akimova, who was found with explosives concealed about her
person at the coronation of Nicholas II., and the other, Zimmermann,
convicted of complicity in the destruction of the public workshops at
Lodz by dynamite a few years ago. With these two exceptions the
Sredni-Kolymsk exiles were absolutely guiltless of active participation
in the revolutionary movement, indeed, most of them appeared to be
quiet, intelligent men, of moderate political views who would probably
have contributed to the welfare and prosperity of any country but their
own. Only one or two openly professed what may be called anarchistic
views, and these were young students, recent arrivals, who looked more
like robbing an orchard than threatening a throne. So far as I could
see, however, most of these so-called political offenders had been
consigned to this living tomb merely for openly expressing opinions in
favour of a constitution and freedom of speech. And strange as it may
seem, some of them were occasionally almost cheerful under circumstances
that would utterly annihilate the health and spirits of an average
Englishman. But even European Russia is an unutterably dreary land in a
stranger's eyes, which perhaps accounts for this remarkable fact.
The most pitiable characteristic about Sredni-Kolymsk is perhaps the
morbid influence of the place and its surroundings on the mental powers.
The first thing noticeable amongst those who had passed some years here
was the utter vacancy of mind, even of men who in Europe had shone in
the various professions. Amongst them was a well-known Polish
author,[41] who, upon his arrival here, only three years ago, set to
work upon an historical novel to lighten the leaden hours of exile. But
it must be more than disheartening to realise that your work, however
good it may be, will never reach the printer's hands. In six months the
book was thrown aside in disgust, and in less than a year afterwards the
writer's mind had become so unhinged by the maddening monotony of life,
that he would, in civilisation, have been placed under restraint. I met
also a once famous professor of anatomy (who had been here for seven
years), and who, although completely indifferent to the latest
discoveries of surgical science, displayed an eager interest as to what
was going on at the Paris music-halls. Indeed, I can safely state that,
with three exceptions, there was not a perfectly sane man or woman
amongst all the exiles I saw here.
[Footnote 41: I was requested to suppress the name.]
"A couple of years usually makes them shaky," said an official, "and the
strongest-minded generally become childish when they have been here for
five or six."
"But why is it?" I asked.
My friend walked to the window and pointed to the mournful street, the
dismal hovels, and frozen river darkening in the dusk.
"That," he said, "and the awful silence. Day after day, year after year,
not a sound. I have stood in that street at mid-day and heard a watch
tick in my pocket. Think of it, Mr. de Windt. I myself arrived here only
a few months ago, but even I shall soon have to get away for a change,
or----" and he tapped his forehead significantly.
The insanity which I found so prevalent amongst the exiles here is no
doubt largely due to physical privation. When a man is banished for
political reasons to Siberia, his property is confiscated to the
uttermost farthing by the Russian Government, which provides a fixed
monthly allowance for his maintenance in exile. At Sredni-Kolymsk it is
nineteen roubles a month, or about L1 16s., an absurdly inadequate
allowance in a place where the necessaries of life are always at famine
prices. During our stay here flour was selling at a rouble a pound, and
an abominable kind of brick tea at two roubles a pound, while candles,
sugar, and salt cost exactly five times as much as at Yakutsk, where
European prices are already trebled. The price of deer-meat was,
therefore, prohibitive, and the exiles were living throughout the winter
upon fish caught the preceding summer, unsalted, and therefore quite
unfit for human consumption. And this at mid-day was their sole
nourishment, breakfast and supper consisting of one glass of weak tea
and a small piece of gritty black bread! Sugar was such a luxury that a
lump was held in the teeth while the liquid was swallowed, one piece
thus serving for several days in succession. Were a house and clothing
provided, even the miserable pittance provided by the Government might
suffice to keep body and soul together, but this is not the case. Some
of the exiles were accordingly occupying almost roofless sheds that had
been vacated by the Yakutes, while many were so poorly clad that in
winter time they were unable to leave their miserable huts.
The house occupied by Monsieur Strajevsky, a Polish gentleman, whose
personality I shall always recall with sincere regard and sympathy, will
serve as a type of the better class of dwelling occupied by these
exiles. It consisted of a low, mud-plastered log hut about 6 ft. in
height, 14 ft. by 10 ft. was the measurement of the one room it
contained, with a floor of beaten earth, glistening with the filth of
years. A yellow light filtered dimly, even on the brightest day, through
the slab of ice which formed the solitary window, but it revealed only
too clearly the dirt and squalor of the room. Some planks on trestles
formed my friend's sleeping-place, and more planks strewn with books and
writing materials, his table. An old kerosene tin was the only chair,
and as I seated myself my friend went to the mud hearth and kindled a
few sticks, which burned brightly for a few moments and then flickered
out. He then left the hut, climbed on to the roof, and closed the
chimney with a bundle of rags. This is the Yakute mode of warming an
apartment, and it is practised for economy, for Sredni-Kolymsk is near
the tree line, and firewood, like everything else, is an expensive
article. Even timber is so costly here that towards sunset every
inhabitant of Sredni-Kolymsk fired up preparatory to blocking up his
chimney for the night. The outlook from our hut was at this hour a weird
and unique one, as an avenue of fires rose from the mud hovels and
ascended in sheets of flame to the starlit sky. But this illumination
was stifled in a few seconds by dense clouds of smoke. This method of
obtaining warmth is scarcely a success, for I sat during my visit to
Strajevsky in an atmosphere minus 47 deg. Fahrenheit by my thermometer.
And in this miserable den my Polish friend, once a prosperous barrister
in Warsaw, had passed eight of the best years of his life, and is still,
if alive, dragging out a hopeless existence.
In summer time life here is perhaps less intolerable than during the
winter, for the Kolyma River teems with fish, and edible berries are
obtainable in the woods. Geese, duck, and other wild fowl are plentiful
in the spring, and as fire-arms are not prohibited, game at this season
is a welcome addition to a generally naked larder. Manual labour, too,
is procurable, and an exile may earn a few roubles by fishing,
trapping, wood-cutting, &c.; but the dark winter months must be passed
in a condition of inactive despair. During the winter season there are
two mails from Russia brought by the Cossacks in charge of the yearly
consignment of exiles, but in spring, summer, and early autumn
Sredni-Kolymsk is as completely cut off from the outer world, as a
desert island in mid-ocean, by swamps and thousands of shallow lakes
which extend landwards on every side for hundreds of miles. A
reindeer-sled skims easily over their frozen surface, but in the open
season a traveller sinks knee-deep at every step into the wet spongy
ground.
Summer here is no glad season of sunshine and flowers, only a few brief
weeks of damp and cloudy weather, for even on fine days the sun looms
through a curtain of mist. Rainy weather prevails, and the leaky huts
are often flooded for days together by an incessant downfall. Swarms of
mosquitoes and sand flies are added to other miseries, for there is no
protection against these pests by night or day, save by means of
_dimokuris_, a bundle of leaves, moss, and damp pine logs which is
ignited near a hut and envelops it in a perpetual cloud of pungent and
stifling smoke. At this season of the year there is much sickness,
especially a kind of low fever produced by the _miasma_ from the
surrounding marshes. Epidemics are frequent, and during our stay
smallpox was raging, but chiefly amongst the native population. Leprosy
is as prevalent here as in Central Asia, but Russians suffer chiefly
from bronchitis and diphtheria, which never fail to make their
appearance with the return of spring. Every one suffers continually
from catarrh, irrespective of age or race, indeed we all had it
ourselves. And yet in this hotbed of pestilence there is no Government
infirmary, nor is any provision whatever made for the sick. Mr.
Miskievitch (a young medical student and himself an exile) was attending
the community, but a total lack of medical and surgical appliances
rendered his case a hopeless one. I inquired for the old hospital and
was shown a barn-like construction partly open to the winds and occupied
by a family of filthy but thriving Yakutes. The new infirmary for which
a large sum of money was subscribed in St. Petersburg ten years ago
adjoined the older building, but the former was still in its initial
stage of foundations and four corner posts, where it will probably
reign, the silent witness of a late _ispravnik's_ reign and rascality.
But there exists a mental disease far more dreaded than any bodily
affliction, or than even death itself, by this little colony of martyrs.
This is a form of hysteria chiefly prevalent amongst women, but common
to all, officials, exiles, and natives alike, who reside for any length
of time in this hell upon earth.[42] The attack is usually unexpected; a
person hitherto calm and collected will suddenly commence to shout,
sing, and dance at the most inopportune moment, and from that time the
mind of the patient becomes permanently deranged. A curious phase of
this disease is the irresistible impulse to mimic the voice and actions
of others. Thus I witnessed a painful scene one night in the home of an
exile who had assembled some comrades to meet me, and, in the street one
day, a peasant woman, born and bred here, seized my arm and repeated,
with weird accuracy, a sentence in French which I was addressing to de
Clinchamp. This strange affliction is apparently unknown in other Arctic
settlements. It is probably due to gloomy surroundings and the eternal
silence which enfolds this region. The malady would seem to be
essentially local, for the daughter of a Sredni-Kolymsk official who was
attacked, immediately recovered on her removal to Yakutsk. On the other
hand, sufferers compelled to remain here generally become, after a few
years, hopelessly insane. In the opinion of Dr. Miskievitch the
affliction is largely due to a total inertia of the reasoning faculties,
which after a time becomes a positive torture to the educated mind.
[Footnote 42: The Russian explorer, Von Wrangell, mentions an apparently
similar mental disease as existing in these regions in 1820. He writes:
"There is here, indeed (Sredni-Kolymsk), as in all Northern Siberia,
that singular malady called _mirak_, which, according to the universal
superstition of the people, proceeds from the ghost of a much-dreaded
sorceress, which is supposed to enter into and torment the patient. The
_mirak_ appears to me to be only an extreme degree of hysteria; the
persons attacked are chiefly women."--"Siberia and the Polar Sea," by
Von Wrangell, 1829.]
This evil could undoubtedly be remedied. For instance, were mental work
of any kind, even unremunerative, provided by the Government it would be
eagerly welcomed by every exile with whom I conversed, but the
authorities seem to consider apathy of the mind as essential a
punishment as privation of the body. Some years ago the exiles here were
permitted to instruct young children of the Free Community, and their
life was thus rendered infinitely less unbearable than before, but
shortly afterwards, and for no apparent reason, an order was issued
from St. Petersburg to cancel this "privilege."
I found, oddly enough, an almost total lack of resentment amongst the
victims consigned here by an infamous travesty of justice. Madame
Akimova, for instance, a plain but homely-looking person, seemed devoted
to the care of her miserable little household to the exclusion of all
mundane matters. I sometimes wondered, as I sat in her hut, and watched
the pale, patient little woman clad in rusty black ceaselessly striving
to make his home less wretched for her husband, whether this could
really be Theisa Akimova, the famous Nihilist, whose name had one time,
and not so very long ago, electrified Europe. We often spoke of Paris,
which Akimova knew well, but she evinced little or no interest in the
political questions of the day, and I never once heard her murmur a word
of complaint. Nevertheless she is here for life. Zimmermann was another
example of mute resignation, but I fancy that in his case years of exile
had somewhat dulled the edge of a once powerful intellect. Strajevsky,
Miskievitch, and the others were enduring a life of captivity and
suffering for offences which, in any country but Russia, would scarcely
have subjected them to a fine, and yet they never in my hearing showed
vindictiveness towards those who had sent them into exile. And it is a
significant fact that, although the higher officials of State were
sometimes execrated, I never once heard a member of the Imperial family
spoken of with the slightest animosity, or even disrespect. A reason for
this is perhaps to be found in the following incident: Upon one
occasion I expressed my surprise to an exile that his Majesty the Tsar,
a ruler renowned for his humanity and tolerance, should sanction the
existence of such a place of exile as Sredni-Kolymsk.
"The Emperor!" was the answer with a bitter laugh; "you may be quite
sure that the Emperor does not know what goes on, or we should not be
here for a day longer."
Although the expedition remained here for only ten days, it seemed, on
the day of our departure, as though as many months had elapsed since our
arrival. Each day seemed an eternity, for my visit to the huts of the
exiles always took place, for obvious reasons, after dark. During the
hours of daylight there was absolutely nothing to do but to stare
moodily out of the window at the wintry scene as cheerless as a lunar
landscape. Outdoor exercise is undesirable in a place where you cannot
walk three hundred yards in any direction without floundering into a
snow-drift up to your waist. So during the interminable afternoons I
usually found my way to the tiny hut known as the Library. It contained
seven or eight hundred books on dull and dreary subjects which, however,
had been read and reread until most of the volumes were torn and
coverless. Amongst the numerous photographs of exiles past and present
that were nailed to the log wall one object daily excited my curiosity.
This was a funeral wreath composed of faded wild flowers secured by a
black silk ribbon, and bearing the golden inscription "Auf Wiedersehen"
in German characters. One evening at the house of an official I happened
to mention this withered garland, and learned that it had been laid
upon the coffin of a young exile by his comrades only a few weeks
previously. The sad circumstances under which this youth met his death,
and the startling _denouement_ which followed the latter, form one of
the darkest tragedies that has occurred of recent years in the annals of
Siberian exile. I give the story word for word as it was related to me
by the successor of the infamous Ivanoff who figures in the tale.
In the winter of 1900 there came to Sredni-Kolymsk one Serge
Kaleshnikoff, who, previous to his preliminary detention at the prison
of Kharkoff, had held a commission in the Russian Volunteer Fleet. For
alleged complicity with a revolutionary society known as the "Will of
the People"[43] Kaleshnikoff was sentenced to imprisonment for twelve
months in a European fortress, and subsequent banishment for eight years
to Siberia.
[Footnote 43: Russian: _Narodna-Volya_.]
Kaleshnikoff was a young man of about twenty-three years of age, whose
sympathetic nature and attractive manners soon rendered him a universal
favourite. Even the officials regarded him more as a friend than a
prisoner--with one exception. This was Ivanoff, the Chief of Police,
whose marked aversion to the young sailor was noticeable from the first
day the latter set foot in the settlement. But as Ivanoff was an
ignorant and surly boor, disliked even by his colleagues, Kaleshnikoff
endured his petty persecutions with comparative equanimity.
One day during the summer of 1901, while fishing from a canoe on the
Kolyma, Kaleshnikoff espied the barge of Ivanoff returning from
Nijni-Kolymsk, a settlement about three hundred miles down the river.
The exile, who was expecting a letter from a fellow "political"
domiciled at the latter place, paddled out into mid-stream and boarded
the barge, leaving his canoe to trail astern. Ivanoff, who met him at
the gangway, had been drinking heavily, as was his wont. His only answer
to Kaleshnikoff's polite inquiry was an oath, and a shameful epithet, to
which the other naturally replied with some warmth. An angry discussion
followed, with the result that the Chief of Police, now livid with rage,
summoned the guard. By Ivanoff's orders Kaleshnikoff was then bound hand
and foot, flogged with rope's ends into a state of insensibility, and
flung, bruised and bleeding, into his boat. The latter was then cast
adrift, and the police barge proceeded on her way up the river.
The incident occurred some miles below Sredni-Kolymsk. The next evening,
as Madame Boreisha and M. Ergin (both exiles, and the latter an intimate
friend of Kaleshnikoff) were strolling by the riverside, they met the
latter, who, weakened by exhaustion and loss of blood, had taken more
than twenty-four hours to return to the settlement. Ergin, shocked by
his friend's wild and blood-stained appearance, pressed him for an
explanation, but Kaleshnikoff, with a vacant stare, waved him aside, and
with a despairing gesture disappeared into his hut, only a few yards
distant. A few minutes later a pistol-shot was heard, and Ergin,
instinctively fearing the worst, rushed to his friend's assistance, only
to find that the latter had taken his life. Beside the dead man was a
sheet of paper bearing the words, hastily scrawled in pencil:
"Farewell! I go to a happier land."[44]
[Footnote 44: I was told that the majority of the suicides amongst the
exiles here occur towards the end of their term of banishment, a fact
which seemed incredible until I learned that sentences are frequently
prolonged for an indefinite period, just at the time when the exile is
expecting release. The suspense and uncertainty attending the last
months of captivity are thus a frequent cause of self-destruction,
especially amongst women and the younger men.]
An inquiry followed, and Ivanoff was placed under temporary arrest.
Unfortunately for the Chief of Police, this order did not entail
confinement to the house, or he might have escaped the tragic fate which
overtook him on the afternoon of the very day that his victim was laid
to rest in a lonely grave in the suicides' graveyard[45] on the banks of
the river. As luck would have it, the hated official was lounging
outside his doorway, smoking a cigarette, as Ergin, a gun on his
shoulder, strolled homeward from the marshes. The latter asserts that
the act was unpremeditated, for at the time his thoughts were far away.
But Ergin adds: "The sudden appearance of that evil face and the
recollection of its owner's foul and inhuman cruelty suddenly inspired
me with uncontrollable fury, and I raised my fowling-piece and shot the
man dead, just as he had divined my purpose and turned to rush indoors."
Ergin has ere this been tried for murder at Yakutsk, but I was assured
that he would be acquitted, for Ivanoff's conduct would in any case have
met with severe punishment at the hands of the authorities in St.
Petersburg. Physical brutality is, as regards Russian political exiles,
a thing of the past, and an official guilty of it now lays himself open
to instant dismissal, or even to a term of imprisonment.
[Footnote 45: Only suicides are buried in this plot of ground, which
contains over a score of graves.]
Such is a plain and unvarnished account of the penal settlement of
Sredni-Kolymsk, an accursed spot which should assuredly and without
delay be erased from the face of civilisation. The above tragedy is but
one of many that have occurred of recent years, and although space will
not admit of my giving the details of others, I can vouch for the fact
that since the year 1898 no fewer than three cases of suicide and four
of insanity have occurred here amongst about a score of exiles. And yet
every winter more miserable hovels are prepared for the reception of
comrades; every year Sredni-Kolymsk enfolds fresh victims in her deadly
embrace. "You will tell them in England of our life," said one, his eyes
dim with tears, as I entered the dog-sled which was to bear me through
weeks of desolation to the Bering Straits. And the promise then made in
that lifeless, forsaken corner of the earth, where, as the exiles say,
"God is high and the Tsar is far away," I have now faithfully kept. For
the first time in thirty years I am able to give an "unofficial" account
of the life of these unfortunates, and to deliver to the world their
piteous appeal for deliverance. May it be that these pages have not been
written in vain, that the clemency of a wise and merciful Ruler may yet
be extended towards the unfortunate outcasts in that Siberian hell of
famine, pestilence, and darkness, scarcely less terrible in its ghastly
loneliness than those frozen realms of eternal silence which enshrine
the mystery of the world.