_TOMSK._
The province of Tomsk.--The city of Tomsk.--Visit to the
Governor.--The prison.--Institution for prisoners’ children.--A
Lutheran minister.--Finnish colonies in Siberia.--Their pastoral
care.--Dissuaded from visiting Minusinsk.--Distribution of Finnish
books.--_Détour_ to Barnaul.
The province of Tomsk is, in some respects, the most favoured in
Siberia. It is not so huge and unwieldy as some of the others, and does
not, like its two neighbours of Tobolsk and Yeneseisk, extend to the
Frozen Sea; but, beginning on the 62nd parallel for its northernmost
boundary, it continues southward as far as the borders of Mongolia,
from which it is separated by the Altai mountains. The climate is
good, and the land is valuable for agricultural purposes, while the
mountainous districts are exceedingly rich in minerals.[1]
The city of Tomsk is situated on the river Tom, whence it derives
its name, and has a population of 30,000. Its streets are wide but
steep, and in the centre of the town is a good specimen of that
prominent feature in so many Russian towns--a _Gostinnoi Dvor_ (bazaar
or market). It is an aggregation of shops and open spaces, to which
the stranger is constantly sent for anything he may require. If a
countrywoman has butter or milk to sell, she takes up her position
there; so do hucksters with small wares. Larger establishments are to
be found elsewhere, but the _Gostinnoi Dvor_ of a Russian town contains
a concentration of goods that supplies all wants. Many of the houses
at Tomsk are of brick; it boasts of several hotels, two banks, and two
photographers. In a distant part of the town is an imposing building,
the law courts, etc., also a large church or cathedral, which is still
unfinished.
We called upon M. Sooproonenko, the Governor, who was very obliging,
and sent us at once to see the two prisons, in one of which criminals
are kept, whilst in the other they only stay whilst passing through to
their destinations. The condition of prison affairs in Tomsk showed
that there was an active local committee. The jail in which criminals
are permanently confined is a heavy brick building, with low, vaulted
corridors, in which prisoners may be kept for terms varying from one
month to four years. The authorities complained that in winter it is
damp. This was one of the few prisons where there was a school, which
such prisoners as chose might attend; but out of 640, when we were
there, only 30 did so. Among those confined was an old man who had
been condemned to hard labour further east, but on his way his penalty
had been mitigated, and he allowed to stay at Tomsk. There was some
little show of work going on in the shoemakers’, carpenters’, and
blacksmiths’ shops; but the great mass of the prisoners was herded
in rooms where they had nothing to do. When invited by the Governor
to point out any defects I had noticed, I mentioned, first, that I
thought all should work. He replied that they have no laws to compel
them (I presume he spoke of a certain _class_ of prisoners), and that
the severest punishment they are allowed to inflict is three days’
solitude with bread and water. We saw so many prisons in Siberia in
which the majority of the prisoners had nothing to do, that the sight
became wearisome; and when the authorities told us that they could
not find them work, I was vain enough inwardly to say, “It strikes
me that _I_ could.” But on reaching San Francisco, I altered my mind
when inspecting a prison managed on modern principles, where they can
manufacture in a day more than a thousand doors, to say nothing of
hundreds of other articles of wood, leather, iron, and I know not what;
and yet, even there, they had men condemned to hard labour twirling
their thumbs for want of a job. The difficulty of employing a large
number of Siberian convicts is vastly enhanced by the difficulty and
the expense of the carriage of raw materials, and the comparatively
small demand for manufactured articles.
Our distribution of books was highly appreciated at Tomsk, and one
prisoner gave me in return a paper-knife he had made, for which he
would accept no money. In the underground storehouse we saw quass
in huge vats worthy of an abbot’s cellar, and large receptacles for
sour cabbage, of which the Russians make soup. The cabbage is salted
in September and pressed, and in ten days is ready for use. The store
contained also a large number of tongues, which cost on the spot from
2_d._ to 6_d._ each. In one of the wards, the men who formed the
church choir asked permission to sing us a hymn, which they did very
creditably.
The most pleasing part of our visit, however, was that made to an
adjoining building within the prison grounds--an institution for the
children of prisoners and of the poor, which had been built by the
local committee. The matron apologized that they were not in holiday
trim, but the place was as neat and clean as could be. We called in the
afternoon. The girls had an English sewing-machine, and were busy at
work, whilst some were embroidering elaborate initials in the corners
of handkerchiefs, to the orders of ladies in the town. Some of the
boys were learning shoemaking, whilst others were taught to be of use
in waiting on the doctors in the prisoners’ hospital. Such progress do
some of them make that one boy had recently left the school to go to
help a doctor at the gold-mines, for which he was to receive his board
and lodging, and £30 a year. There are certain funds in connection with
the institution, by means of which the girls, on leaving to go out to
service, receive various gifts up to about £50; and with this, one of
the committee told us, they not unfrequently take away an education
which makes them better informed than their Siberian mistresses.
Before we had been many hours in Tomsk we discovered an English lady,
with whom and her husband we dined, and who told us that a certain
Finnish pastor--Roshier, who had been named to me in my Finnish
correspondence--was staying in the town. We therefore sought him out to
ask advice concerning the whereabouts and the mode of approach to some
of the Finnish colonies which I was anxious to visit.
The reader will perhaps wonder how there come to be Finnish colonies
in Siberia at all. Often when a Finnish prisoner is condemned to a
certain term of imprisonment in his own country, he petitions the
Grand Duke, who is the Emperor of Russia, to send him instead to
Siberia as a colonist, and the request is usually granted. I recollect
meeting a young man at Wiborg, in the castle prison, in 1874, who
told me that, rather than serve for three years as a convict in the
town of his birth, he had asked to be allowed to go to Siberia. The
Finns do not usually speak Russian. Consequently, on arriving in
Siberia, they are quasi-foreigners, and, accordingly, are not scattered
hither and thither, but put together in villages with Lithuanian,
Esthonian, Lettish, and other convicts from the Baltic provinces.
Of this nature are the colonies I wished to visit near Omsk, called
Ruschkova and Jelanka, each with 400 inhabitants, and near to which
are four villages, bearing the home-names of Riga, Reval, Narva, and
Helsingfors. Another colony of a similar kind is Werchne Sujetuk, about
50 miles south of Minusinsk.[2] Pastor Roshier had been settled there
for 15 years, and was returning home. The Finnish Government were
looking out for one to fill his place, to whom they offered a stipend
of £150 per annum; but when I heard from Mr. Roshier that he had not
conversed with an educated fellow-countryman for 10 years, that he
could speak no Russian, and that his dwelling had been in the midst of
convicts only, I was not surprised to hear that the Finnish Government
had a difficulty in finding a successor.
For my own part, it had been my intention certainly to turn aside to
Werchne Sujetuk, thinking to go across country to Minusinsk, return by
raft on the Yenesei, or by road, to Krasnoiarsk, and there await the
arrival of the remainder of our luggage--plans which a better knowledge
of the country afterwards taught me were visionary indeed. When we did
subsequently arrive at Krasnoiarsk, we found persons who, on account
of the floods, had been waiting a fortnight to go to Minusinsk.[3] The
remainder, however, of our baggage was not yet come from Tiumen, and
could not arrive for a week; so we agreed meanwhile to make a _détour_
to Barnaul. There we should find a prison, and another in the same
direction, at Biisk, to which we could send; priests and people would
be benefited by the way; and we hoped to see the Emperor’s _usine_
for the smelting of gold and silver. This looked more inviting, even
though it involved a journey of 700 miles, than loitering at Tomsk for
a week. We were now to begin tarantass travelling in earnest, which
I think had better be once for all described, partly for the benefit
of the uninitiated, who may possibly become Siberian travellers, and
partly that the reader may not be wearied hereafter by a too frequent
recurrence to the same topic.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is the most populous province of Siberia after that of Tobolsk,
and contains 838,000 inhabitants. Another reference to Hoppe’s Almanack
shows the vast preponderance of its rural population over that of other
provinces, and shows also a large population of the upper classes, many
of whom, doubtless, are descendants of noble exiles. In 1875 the number
of hereditary nobles in the province was 2,400; ecclesiastical persons,
4,000; town population, 4,400; and rural population, 725,000; whilst
the military forces numbered 30,000; foreigners, 48; and the mixed
races (chiefly Tatars, Teleuti, and Altai Kalmuks) numbered 130,000,
the population being spread over an area of half a million square
miles--a territory bigger than any two countries in Europe except
Russia. The government is divided into six uyezds. It has seven prisons
and four large hospitals. The principal towns are Barnaul, Kainsk,
Biisk, Kuznetsk, Mariinsk, Narim, and Tomsk, which last is the capital
and residence of the Governor.
[2] Since 1850, it appeared, 541 persons have been sent there, of whom
142 are dead; 20 for fresh crimes were transported further east, and 80
have disappeared--probably run away to live by pilfering and plunder.
Some of the last-named possibly have been killed by the Russians
and buried; for when the peasants catch men of this kind doing them
mischief, so far off are the courts, and so difficult is the bringing
of witnesses, that they take the law into their own hands, and put the
malefactors to death. In all, there should be now 547 persons living
at Werchne Sujetuk, including 358 Finns. But about 300 live away at
the gold-mines, and so it comes to pass that not more than 10 or 12
families reside there regularly.
[3] Apart from and in addition to these difficulties, however, there
were other considerations that dissuaded me from going--such as the
small number of Finns I should find, my ignorance of their language,
their not being in particular need of books, and the offer of the
pastor to enclose mine in a parcel he was sending to the catechist
he had left in charge. All this caused me to listen to what proved
good advice, and instead of going, I determined to send about a third
of my books by the pastor. When further east, I elected to go home
through America, consequently another third of my books was sent to the
Lutheran pastor at Omsk. Some were left also for the Lutheran pastor at
Irkutsk; and I gave the remainder to various prisons and persons for
the Finns in the east.
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