THREE DAYS ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
Armed with our false passports, we moved along up the valley of the
Tuba. Every ten or fifteen versts we came across large villages of from
one to six hundred houses, where all administration was in the hands of
Soviets and where spies scrutinized all passers-by. We could not avoid
these villages for two reasons. First, our attempts to avoid them
when we were constantly meeting the peasants in the country would have
aroused suspicion and would have caused any Soviet to arrest us and
send us to the “Cheka” in Minnusinsk, where we should have sung our
last song. Secondly, in his documents my fellow traveler was granted
permission to use the government post relays for forwarding him on his
journey. Therefore, we were forced to visit the village Soviets and
change our horses. Our own mounts we had given to the Tartar and Cossack
who helped us at the mouth of the Tuba, and the Cossack brought us in
his wagon to the first village, where we received the post horses. All
except a small minority of the peasants were against the Bolsheviki and
voluntarily assisted us. I paid them for their help by treating their
sick and my fellow traveler gave them practical advice in the management
of their agriculture. Those who helped us chiefly were the old
dissenters and the Cossacks.
Sometimes we came across villages entirely Communistic but very soon we
learned to distinguish them. When we entered a village with our horse
bells tinkling and found the peasants who happened to be sitting in
front of their houses ready to get up with a frown and a grumble that
here were more new devils coming, we knew that this was a village
opposed to the Communists and that here we could stop in safety. But,
if the peasants approached and greeted us with pleasure, calling us
“Comrades,” we knew at once that we were among the enemy and took great
precautions. Such villages were inhabited by people who were not the
Siberian liberty-loving peasants but by emigrants from the Ukraine,
idle and drunk, living in poor dirty huts, though their village
were surrounded with the black and fertile soil of the steppes. Very
dangerous and pleasant moments we spent in the large village of Karatuz.
It is rather a town. In the year 1912 two colleges were opened here and
the population reached 15,000 people. It is the capital of the South
Yenisei Cossacks. But by now it is very difficult to recognize this
town. The peasant emigrants and Red army murdered all the Cossack
population and destroyed and burned most of the houses; and it is at
present the center of Bolshevism and Communism in the eastern part of
the Minnusinsk district. In the building of the Soviet, where we came to
exchange our horses, there was being held a meeting of the “Cheka.” We
were immediately surrounded and questioned about our documents. We were
not any too calm about the impression which might be made by our papers
and attempted to avoid this examination. My fellow traveler afterwards
often said to me:
“It is great good fortune that among the Bolsheviki the good-for-nothing
shoemaker of yesterday is the Governor of today and scientists sweep
the streets or clean the stables of the Red cavalry. I can talk with
the Bolsheviki because they do not know the difference between
‘disinfection’ and ‘diphtheria,’ ‘anthracite’ and ‘appendicitis’ and can
talk them round in all things, even up to persuading them not to put a
bullet into me.”
And so we talked the members of the “Cheka” round to everything that we
wanted. We presented to them a bright scheme for the future development
of their district, when we would build the roads and bridges which would
allow them to export the wood from Urianhai, iron and gold from the
Sayan Mountains, cattle and furs from Mongolia. What a triumph of
creative work for the Soviet Government! Our ode occupied about an
hour and afterwards the members of the “Cheka,” forgetting about our
documents, personally changed our horses, placed our luggage on the
wagon and wished us success. It was the last ordeal within the borders
of Russia.
When we had crossed the valley of the river Amyl, Happiness smiled on
us. Near the ferry we met a member of the militia from Karatuz. He had
on his wagon several rifles and automatic pistols, mostly Mausers,
for outfitting an expedition through Urianhai in quest of some Cossack
officers who had been greatly troubling the Bolsheviki. We stood upon
our guard. We could very easily have met this expedition and we were
not quite assured that the soldiers would be so appreciative of our
high-sounding phrases as were the members of the “Cheka.” Carefully
questioning the militiaman, we ferreted out the route their expedition
was to take. In the next village we stayed in the same house with him. I
had to open my luggage and suddenly I noticed his admiring glance fixed
upon my bag.
“What pleases you so much?” I asked.
He whispered: “Trousers . . . Trousers.”
I had received from my townsmen quite new trousers of black thick
cloth for riding. Those trousers attracted the rapt attention of the
militiaman.
“If you have no other trousers. . . .” I remarked, reflecting upon my
plan of attack against my new friend.
“No,” he explained with sadness, “the Soviet does not furnish trousers.
They tell me they also go without trousers. And my trousers are
absolutely worn out. Look at them.”
With these words he threw back the corner of his overcoat and I was
astonished how he could keep himself inside these trousers, for they
had such large holes that they were more of a net than trousers, a net
through which a small shark could have slipped.
“Sell me,” he whispered, with a question in his voice.
“I cannot, for I need them myself,” I answered decisively.
He reflected for a few minutes and afterward, approaching me, said: “Let
us go out doors and talk. Here it is inconvenient.”
We went outside. “Now, what about it?” he began. “You are going into
Urianhai. There the Soviet bank-notes have no value and you will not
be able to buy anything, where there are plenty of sables, fox-skins,
ermine and gold dust to be purchased, which they very willingly exchange
for rifles and cartridges. You have each of you a rifle and I will
give you one more rifle with a hundred cartridges if you give me the
trousers.”
“We do not need weapons. We are protected by our documents,” I answered,
as though I did not understand.
“But no,” he interrupted, “you can change that rifle there into furs and
gold. I shall give you that rifle outright.”
“Ah, that’s it, is it? But it’s very little for those trousers. Nowhere
in Russia can you now find trousers. All Russia goes without trousers
and for your rifle I should receive a sable and what use to me is one
skin?”
Word by word I attained to my desire. The militia-man got my trousers
and I received a rifle with one hundred cartridges and two automatic
pistols with forty cartridges each. We were armed now so that we could
defend ourselves. Moreover, I persuaded the happy possessor of my
trousers to give us a permit to carry the weapons. Then the law and
force were both on our side.
In a distant village we bought three horses, two for riding and one for
packing, engaged a guide, purchased dried bread, meat, salt and butter
and, after resting twenty-four hours, began our trip up the Amyl toward
the Sayan Mountains on the border of Urianhai. There we hoped not to
meet Bolsheviki, either sly or silly. In three days from the mouth of
the Tuba we passed the last Russian village near the Mongolian-Urianhai
border, three days of constant contact with a lawless population, of
continuous danger and of the ever present possibility of fortuitous
death. Only iron will power, presence of mind and dogged tenacity
brought us through all the dangers and saved us from rolling back down
our precipice of adventure, at whose foot lay so many others who
had failed to make this same climb to freedom which we had just
accomplished. Perhaps they lacked the persistence or the presence of
mind, perhaps they had not the poetic ability to sing odes about “roads,
bridges and gold mines” or perhaps they simply had no spare trousers.