_NIKOLAEFSK._
My arrival.--Visit to prisons and hospitals.--Health
statistics.--Siberian hospitals in general.--A Sunday service
arranged.--Visits to inhabitants.--Russian customs, superstitions,
and amusements.--Dancing.--Nikolaefsk town, arsenal, and
commerce.--Mr. Emery.--Russian bribery.--Cost of provisions and
labour.
Nikolaefsk, founded in 1853, rapidly grew into importance, but
gradually waned after the removal of the “port”; and as our steamer
approached on a cloudy evening, I seemed to have arrived at a very
dismal and out-of-the-way part of the world. My spirits, however,
had risen appreciably during the day. The perplexity in which I left
Khabarofka, and my uncertainty as to how to reach San Francisco, have
been alluded to; but on boarding the _Onon_ I met Mr. Enoch Emery, an
American merchant of Nikolaefsk. After almost disusing my native tongue
for three weeks, I was able to speak again in English, and I now learnt
that for £90 a first-class ticket might be taken from Yokohama in Japan
to Euston Square in London, including food whilst traversing the two
oceans, an allowance of 250 lbs. of luggage, and railway tickets for
America and England. It was not so clear, however, how Japan was to be
reached. The _Dragon_ was not expected at Nikolaefsk, I heard, nor was
there any regular means of getting away other than by retracing my
steps to the Ussuri and Vladivostock. A Russian gunboat had been lying
at the mouth of the Amur, the previous day, with provisions for Dui in
Sakhalin, by which it was suggested that I might get a passage to the
island, and perhaps be trans-shipped to Japan or China on some chance
vessel calling for coal. But when we reached Nikolaefsk this gunboat
had started a few hours before; and thus I landed--with regard to my
future movements--as full of uncertainty as ever.
I had fallen, nevertheless, into good hands; for, in talking to Mr.
Emery, it transpired that we had common friends in Petersburg, one
of whom had spoken to me of the Amur, and would gladly have given me
introductions, had I not persisted in saying that I did not intend to
go so far. Mr. Emery invited me to be his guest--an invitation doubly
welcome in a place where was no better hotel than a beershop, and
because with him I should have the advantage of conversing in English.
Baron Stackelberg was lodged near me, and in the morning we went to
the chief civil authority, M. Andreyeff, to whom I was introduced as a
person desirous of information about the prisons of Sakhalin, and of a
passage, if possible, to the island. To my surprise M. Andreyeff also
was acquainted with some of my friends in Petersburg, and he at once
promised the information; but it was uncertain, he said, when a ship
would leave again with provisions.
The police-master was sent for to take me to see the prisons of
the town. The police-station was the first building we entered; it
contained a few rooms for temporary accommodation. In one of them
were flogging instruments I had heard of at Kara and elsewhere, and
had vainly inquired for more than once. I have no reason to suppose,
however, they were hidden from me in other places, a lawyer having told
me that the troichatka, or plète, was used only at Kara, Nikolaefsk,
and Dui. What they were like shall be told hereafter. I will only say
for the present they were the most terrible things of the kind I had
ever seen. There was a guard-room in the station where Cossacks were
sitting on the floor, eating with wooden spoons from a common saucepan,
and other rooms occupied by clerks and officials. I was then taken
to the town prison, containing 68 prisoners in half-a-dozen rooms.
Some of the men had just come from the bath, the advantages of which
were patent. But I do not recollect seeing accommodation in any of
the Siberian prisons for washing the hands and face except at Tomsk,
where was a sort of caldron mounted on a tripod, and from which,
through four tiny pipes, water was forced, in Russian fashion, to
trickle on the hands. I fancy, however, that not only with prisoners,
but among the lower classes generally, minor ablutions between the
weekly or fortnightly steaming of the bath are regarded more or less as
supererogatory.
In the western suburb of the town was the _étape_, a prison in which
150 persons could be lodged on their way to Sakhalin. Detached, but not
far distant, was the kitchen, in which were convicts of good behaviour,
allowed the run of the town by day, though compelled to sleep in the
building at night. They could thus earn money if they chose.[1] Both
prisons in the town were reported to the Emperor as “old, and built
of bad material, wanting proper sanitary arrangements, and inconvenient
for their purpose.”
[Illustration: THE ÉTAPE PRISON, NIKOLAEFSK.]
A similar description would have been not far wrong of the Nikolaefsk
hospitals, of which there were three--two military and one civil. In
the civil hospital, partly supported by voluntary contributions, they
were sadly cramped for room--so much so that, in one chamber, alongside
of other patients was a boy suffering from small-pox. The chief doctor
had, on his own account, opened an extra room for the blind and the
infirm.[2] In the hospital of the 6th East Siberian battalion were 24
beds only, whereas by law there should have been 48. Happily only five
beds were occupied at the time of my visit, and the list of diseases
treated in the hospital during the preceding 18 months appeared to show
that the medical staff were doing their work successfully. The chief
physician was a German, as are many of the doctors in Russia, and he
took great pains to acquaint me with all I wished to know.[3] I found
some large hospitals for the navy at Vladivostock, with 108 patients
at the time of my visit; but the hospital that pleased me most in the
province, not to say in all Siberia, was that at Khabarofka, built on
the newest principles, and leaving nothing to be desired.[4]
They have in the Sea-coast province no madhouses, properly so called;
but lunatics are treated in a ward of the Nikolaefsk hospital. Of
eight cases during 1878, four recovered, two remained, and two died.
Besides these hospitals I have named, there is in the province one
each at Petropavlovsk, Ghijiga, and Okhotsk. Looking at the Siberian
hospitals with an unprofessional eye, I may say that they struck me as
fairly good. I have twice met Englishmen in Russian hospitals,--one at
Archangel, and the other in the Urals,--and they both said they had
every attention. The hospitals of the country are supported by the
Government, by the army, navy, and civil departments respectively. None
are supported entirely by voluntary contributions. Government servants,
being poor, pay nothing. Civilians pay, and one of the good features of
the Russian hospitals is that persons of the middle classes may enter,
and by a small extra payment receive medical attendance and superior
accommodation.[5] The Siberian towns seemed fairly well supplied with
medical men; but it was rather appalling on the Ussuri to hear from a
telegraph official that he had no medical man within 200 miles to the
south, and 300 to the north.[6]
My coming to Nikolaefsk did not long remain unknown, for it was
suggested that on the Sunday I should conduct a service, there being
no resident Protestant minister, though they had a Roman chapel in
the town. The pro-Governor, Mr. Andreyeff, readily gave his sanction,
offered his house for a place of meeting, and sent round by the police
a notice requesting all to sign who purposed to attend. More than 30
signed, and before Sunday several called on me. I was invited to a
dinner on my first Friday in Nikolaefsk. It happened to be the birthday
of Mr. Schenk, the worthy manager of the principal store. The shop was
closed, and his friends called in the morning to felicitate him, and
to drink and eat nick-nacks from a sideboard. In the evening a capital
dinner was served with asparagus and preserved fruits, which it was
hard to realize we were eating in one of the most dreary parts of
Siberia, where they have seven months’ winter, and where the navigation
does not open till the end of May. Several at table spoke English,
and near me sat a merchant who had lived in the Sandwich Islands and
in Kamchatka. Mr. Emery the same week had a party to lunch; and Mr.
Andreyeff gave a dinner in his garden to some of my fellow-passengers,
myself, and the military commandant. The dinner began with “schnapps,”
and among the dishes was a salmon pie, with rice on the top, the dinner
ending with cream and wild raspberries, of which last there were
bushels growing outside the town.
I made the acquaintance also of some of the naval officers, such
as the captain of the _Ermak_, to whom I gave books for his men,
and Lieutenant Wechman, the captain of the port. The latter was a
Protestant, who invited me on the second Sunday to hold the service
in his house, which I did, and sent books for the barracks of the men
under his command. These social occasions gave me opportunities to
see something of Russians at home, their customs, superstitions, and
amusements. Tea was usually offered whenever a call was made; and as
lemons were not to be had so far away in summer, a spoonful of jam
was often put in the glass instead. They have a custom in Russia of
addressing friends, or those to whom they wish to be polite, by their
Christian name plus their patronymic, or Christian name of their
father, which in the case of Mr. Emery sounded odd to me to hear a lady
ask, “Enoch, son of Simeon, may I give you a glass of tea?”[7]
Among the superstitions of the Russians may be mentioned the not liking
to begin a journey on a Monday. The Governor-General of Western
Siberia told me he usually chose that day expressly, in order to avoid
the crowd of fellow-passengers. Nor do they like to take edge-tools
from another person’s hand, nor to pass the salt, or, if it be done,
the person who receives must smile blandly to break the spell. Again,
when a man is starting upon some special business, he thinks it very
unlucky if the first person he meets in the street should be a priest;
and if the eyes of one dying are not closed by a friend, it is imagined
that there will soon be another death in the family.
The Russians struck me as a people exceedingly ill-provided with manly
amusements. They have nothing to correspond to our cricket, boating,
or football. Their young men seem incapable of rising to any greater
exertion of mind or body than that demanded for billiards, cards,
drinking, and smoking. I saw some soldiers, however, playing with a
large, heavy steel pin, like a tenpenny nail with a heavy head.[8] An
outdoor game played by girls is called “_skaka_” (to jump), something
like the English game of see-saw, only that the two parties do not
sit but stand on the plank, which is only some four feet long, and is
jumped upon with sufficient force that when one person reaches the
ground the other springs into the air, and so on alternately. Swings,
too, are in great demand at fairs and such gatherings. I was treated
to one on the Sukhona, suspended from a cross-beam not less, I should
judge, than 40 feet high.
Dancing is one of the most popular of indoor amusements, and I had
a good opportunity of witnessing the peasants’ performance of it at
Mikhailofsky; for on the evening of our enforced stay a _soirée_ was
extemporized. The dancers were the young men and girls of the village,
dressed in their heavy boots and cotton gowns, but washed and brushed
up for the occasion. The manner in which the girls sat in a row at
the commencement, and the men hung together in an outer room, struck
me very much like a piece of human nature which is seen all the world
over. The music consisted of a fiddle, accordion, and tiny bells;
and in the first dance, two youths having nodded condescendingly to
partners, the four stood up and figured before us, one feature of the
dance being that the men from time to time stamped heavily with their
feet.[9] At an early stage of the proceedings cigarettes were handed
round, and men, girls, and old women all began to smoke--a sure sign
that they were not Starovers, or Old Believers, for they turn out their
sons if they smoke, and call them “pogani,” or “nasty,”--the practice
having been introduced into some parts of Siberia, I was told, within
the last quarter of a century.[10] After dance No. 3, which was by four
girls only, two plates were handed round--one of sweets, the other of
cedar nuts. The latter, from the monotonous gaps they so often fill
at parties, are called by a word which means “Siberian conversation.”
Other refreshments followed in the shape of black bread and cucumbers,
the whole affair looking very formal and solemn; but I am not sure
whether this was normal, or whether the peasants were overawed by the
strange company. I heard that at Nikolaefsk, in winter, they have
frequent balls at the club, but in the summer the evenings are given to
the promenade.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN PEASANT GIRL.]
At this time of day I usually took my constitutional, and searched
about into every hole and corner of the town. Its population stands in
the Almanack at 5,350, which probably was right some years ago, but it
was estimated to me as having decreased to 3,500. The houses extend a
mile and a half along the left bank of the river on a wooded plateau
about fifty feet high. The landing-place is available only for small
craft. Larger vessels lie in the middle of the river, and there is
a wooden pier from which stairs lead to the plateau. The visitor is
then opposite the church, built of wood, having one large cupola and
four small ones. Behind the church stands what was the “Admiralty,”
but is now the police-station, having a flagstaff with semaphore
for signalling vessels in the harbour. To the west of the church is
the officers’ club, and a few minutes’ walk to the east is situated
the admiral’s house, the palace of the town, having around it a few
flowers struggling for existence. In 1866 Mr. Knox found at Nikolaefsk
machine-shops, foundries, and dockyard, into which last I wandered
one evening, and thought of the time when nations are to learn war no
more; for whereas there had been 800 men employed in the place a dozen
years before, I found it covered with weeds, the workshops closed, and
rusty iron lying about in all directions. Here and there were heaps of
bombshells and cannon-balls, with a few grape-shot. Except the sentinel
at the entrance, I met not a soul in the place, from which the glory
had plainly departed. So it was, in fact, with the town generally.
The boarded pavements are fast rotting, and allow the unwary
foot-passenger to step through into the drains. There is sufficient
grass in the streets for cows to graze, and pigs are occasionally seen
there looking about for food. The Governor’s house is falling into
decay, and its grand rooms are looking and smelling dusty, musty, and
old. Again, the buildings erected for the higher Government officials
are inhabited by smaller and feebler folk, and some of the shops are
closed.
Nikolaefsk, nevertheless, from its position at the mouth of a river
which is navigable so far into Asia, will probably continue its present
commercial standing.[11]
There was a medical officer at Nikolaefsk, whose duty it was to examine
the articles sold for food, and who during my stay lodged a complaint
against a merchant for selling damaged flour, although he sold it as
such, and at a reduced price. I heard Russia and Siberia spoken of
as a country where capital can be placed out to great advantage. One
merchant said he could easily get 6 per cent. for his money in Russia,
on security which he deemed satisfactory. I have quoted in an earlier
chapter the 30 or 40 per cent. given for capital at the gold-mines, and
one man I met told me that in Western Siberia he made as much as 100
per cent. on a considerable portion of his capital.
My host, Mr. Emery, had come to the Amur as a boy, and began at the
bottom of the ladder; but at the age of 20 he was able to count his
gains by thousands. He was but 27 when we met, but was looking forward
in a year or two to retire.[12]
One of the drawbacks to honest trading in Russia is the bribery which
officials expect when purchasing Government supplies. An instance of
bribery practised on the rivers was described to me thus: A shipping
agent, for example, carries 5,000 poods of freight, for which the
sender pays him at a certain rate for Government duty. At the
custom-house the agent makes out his bill as having only one-tenth the
real freight, and gives ten roubles each to the officers, who make out
a false bill to correspond with his own. It is then signed by the head
official, who receives no bribe on the spot, but occasionally drives
to the agent’s office, says that he is short of money, and asks for
the loan of 300 roubles or more. The agent “lends” them, not dreaming,
however, to see them again. At the end of the year the agent finds
himself several thousands of roubles in pocket, the higher official
drives his carriage on a surprisingly small stipend, and the lower
officials, having been put into their office by the higher, do not even
ask for their salary, and yet manage to live in houses of their own
procuring.[13]
Again, gambling and drunkenness are two principal snares besetting
foreign traders in Siberia, whose time in winter hangs heavily, and
where, in seaport towns, officers and large consumers expect to be
frequently _fêted_ and invited to drink. Immorality is the third snare,
which leads many astray who are removed from the restraints of home,
and who otherwise hold their heads above gambling and insobriety.
The trade customs of Nikolaefsk were, in some respects, superior to
those in the interior,--due, no doubt, to the influence of the Germans
and Americans. In the bazaars of Petersburg one has to bargain for
everything. A shopman asked me, for instance, 10_s._ for a box, for
which he afterwards “touted” to me, and took 7_s._ At Nikolaefsk
business is done at fixed prices, and I was glad to find that, though
compelled to close their stores for many hours on the greater Russian
festivals, the foreign merchants, for the most part, did not open at
all on Sunday.
The weather during my stay on the Lower Amur was chilly and
disagreeable, and the season for garden produce was about a fortnight
late. On August 19th we ate new potatoes. They cost 2½_d._ per lb.,
but eight days later they cost but 1_d._ per lb. Cucumbers were ready
on the 10th of August, and on the 27th they were selling for 3_s._
per hundred. Eggs cost 5_s._ per hundred, fresh butter 2_s._ 3_d._ per
pound, and beef from 7_d._ to 8½_d._ On August 27th we had our first
spring cabbage made into little pies and eaten with soup. The price of
these cabbages, to a “friend,” was 5_d._ each, but they were expected
shortly to fall to 16_s._ or 20_s._ per hundred. I do not remember
tasting mutton, but was informed that a good sheep weighs about half a
cwt., and costs alive, at Nikolaefsk, from 22_s._ to 30_s._
In Western Siberia, about Tomsk, a sheep can be bought for 2_s._ I
am told that Russians in general abhor mutton, and my informant’s
housekeeper wonders the English can eat it, for _she_ would as
willingly eat cat, dog, or rat as such “garbage.” Game and fish were
surprisingly plentiful. I bought in the streets at Nikolaefsk a
capercailzie (called _glukhar_, or deaf bird) for 10_d._, which was
thought by no means cheap; and a blackcock was offered for a similar
price. The cost of salmon, however, was most surprising. Up to the 20th
August, salmon trout, weighing from 10 to 12 lbs., cost as much as
5_d._ each, but they were then said to be _dear_. On the 15th August
a large salmon, the first fish of the season, and weighing perhaps 15
lbs., was offered to me for 7½_d._, but this was considered quite “a
fancy price.” From the 1st September to the 17th, during which period
the large fish are caught, weighing from 15 lbs. to 25 lbs., they may
be bought for 10_s._ per hundred, or 1_d._ each![14]
I was fortunate in finding at Nikolaefsk some English books, and among
them the travels of Collins, Knox, and Ravenstein, on the Amur. The
reading of these occupied much of my time, and I sometimes wandered
down to the river-side--especially in the morning--to the pier, to
watch the Gilyaks sell their fish.[15] Moored alongside the pier were
some lighters of English build, which were failures for the particular
purpose for which they had been constructed, though they made admirable
landing-places. There were also several barges converted into floating
shops, one of which was the property of a Frenchman, who had been a
tutor in England. He dealt largely with the Gilyaks, and offered me a
live eagle, obtained from them, for 6_s._; a fish-skin coat for 8_s._,
and a tiger’s skin for £3 10_s._ For bear-skins he asked from 10_s._
upwards, whereas in Krasnoiarsk they sell from 10_s._ down to 3_s._
each.
Thus passed by my enforced stay at Nikolaefsk, and, after trying in
vain to get a passage to Japan, I determined to retrace my steps by the
post-boat, which I started to do on Saturday, 30th of August. Before
proceeding southwards, however, I must give some account, in the next
two chapters, of what I have been able to learn concerning Kamchatka
and the island of Sakhalin.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So rare is it for them to see a visitor to the prison in these
parts, that some of the men supposed I was sent by some foreign
Government to inquire into their condition; and I heard that they
subsequently came to seek me with a written paper, but I was not in the
house when they called. My position having been explained to them, they
declined to leave the paper, and so I heard no more of the matter.
[2] They received from Government only £15 per annum for a clerk,
paper, and ink, and so were unable, they said, to get books for the
patients. I was glad therefore to send, and they were thankful to
accept, 50 copies of the New Testament--two for every room, and the
remainder to be given to departing convalescents who could read.
[3] In 1878 there entered the hospital 347 cases, suffering from 39
diseases, of which the principal were: bronchitis, 46; syphilis, 42;
fevers, 39; pleuritis, 26; internal cold, 18; rheumatism, 14; and so
on in diminishing numbers. During the six months immediately preceding
my visit they had received but 83 patients, whilst for the entire year
and a half 13 patients only had died. Besides these they had treated a
large number of slight ailments of out-patients, and given advice to
promiscuous applicants to the number of nearly 3,000.
[4] It was fitted for 100 male and five female patients, with superior
rooms for officers, and a separate apartment for syphilitic diseases,
in which last was a mad Russian soldier, who in early life had been
a travelling acrobat, and who inveighed to me in French against the
doctor, who, he said, kept him there in confinement. Hereditary
syphilis was reported to the Emperor to be the most dangerous disease
in the province, for an inquiry into which a commission of four
persons, with the whole medical staff, had been appointed. In a
hospital in Ekaterineburg I found half the patients, at Vladivostock
one-third, and in Krasnoiarsk one-fifth, suffering from syphilis, and
in Kamchatka they have a barrack for the treatment of this disease only.
[5] Thus at Perm, whilst a poor patient was received into the hospital
at the rate of ten days for 5_s._, better accommodation could be
secured for 1_s._ 4_d._ a day. At Vladivostock civilians paid 1_s._
9_d._ a day, the price being fixed on a three years’ average.
[6] This probably is worse towards Kamchatka; for in 1878 there were
four medical posts vacant--that of chemist at Nikolaefsk, and doctor
at Sofiisk, Ghijiga, and Okhotsk respectively--not a matter for much
wonder, seeing that the salary at the best was but £40 a year!
[7] This is a Semitic custom which has been retained by the Russians.
Even the Emperor and all members of the Imperial family are so
addressed--one reason given for the preference of the Christian to the
family name being, that to be a Christian is a greater honour than to
be an earthly noble.
[8] They raised it above the shoulders, holding the head of the nail
in the palm, and threw it down, making the point pass through a ring,
about an inch and a half in diameter, lying on the ground. The person
throwing it sometimes buried it to the head in the soil, whence another
had to unearth it, or it was driven through a piece of wood, from which
it was another’s business to extricate it. The feat appeared very easy,
but in the few attempts I made I did not succeed in sticking the pin in
the ground.
[9] Perhaps it was akin to the Mazourka, which had its birthplace
in Poland, for I remember witnessing a similar performance in the
salt-mines of Cracow. The second dance was a national one, by a single
pair, and something like a Scottish hornpipe, the man occasionally
sinking down almost to the ground. Then the pair waved handkerchiefs
to each other. I was told that this dance is made to represent the
various stages of courtship, and that a good dancer does not go through
the same figure twice. Another dance was by four couples, in which the
ship’s machinist figured prominently in his heavy boots. One man also
crawled on all fours, and twice passed through the extended legs of
another, and so they continued till the cotton shirts of the men showed
they were getting wet, and the company were growing tired.
[10] The Starovers object to smoking upon the literal meaning of the
text, “That which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”
According to Dr. Pinkerton, an ukase was issued in 1634 condemning
those who took snuff, or sold or even possessed tobacco, to be knouted,
to have their nostrils torn open, or ears cut off, and to be sent into
exile.
[11] There came to it, in 1878, 12 merchant vessels, bringing
manufactured goods to the value of £52,781; alcohol, £4,705; and
wines, beer, and porter, £1,604. I was told by one of the merchants
that Hamburg is the cheapest market for goods for a new country, there
being more imitations made there than elsewhere, which perhaps accounts
for the complaint made to the Russian Government that the imported
manufactures are of the lowest quality. The same merchant told me,
however, that when he imported good articles, the Russians merely
admired them; but that when he imported cheap ones, they _bought_ them.
[12] He had, indeed, already retired in a fashion; for the winter
season at Nikolaefsk had become to him so insupportably dull, that
for the last few years he had posted off in autumn to Petersburg and
other European markets, and then, chartering a schooner of 350 tons
with merchandise, he had either accompanied it round the remainder of
the globe, or crossed the Atlantic to America to see his parents, and
then sailed over the Pacific by the following spring. In this way he
had several times made the circuit of the world, going west or east,
as business or inclination decided. He allowed 18 days in winter for a
sledge journey of 3,300 miles, from Moscow to Irkutsk.
[13] These and similar practices are not confined to merchants, but go
down even to the isvostchiks, who come to Petersburg from the country
and hire themselves to their masters by the month, having to bring in
5_s._ a day. At the end of their term the master is said to do his best
to swindle the cabmen, whilst they, taking their food and scanty wages,
do their best to make a picking from their fares. Sometimes, however,
the biter is bitten; for driving in the capital one day my isvostchik
pointed to a large building, and said that he had just brought there
a well-dressed woman, who had asked him to drive at the side of the
pavement, because the road was better there, she said; and then, when
opposite the door, she had sprung off the low vehicle, and run in
without paying.
[14] About 500 tons of them are salted yearly at Nikolaefsk, for winter
use, the Government having, annually, two contracts for 16 tons, and
others besides. For the most part, however, the fish of the province
is consumed where it is caught, and it is only quite recently that
exportation in small quantities has commenced.
[15] The plentiful season commenced on August 25th, and salmon were
sold for five roubles per hundred. These were commonly used for
salting, but I found that they sold pieces of dried salmon and other
fish a foot long, at the rate of 1_s._ per hundred, as winter food for
dogs. Among the less valued fish of the Amur are the dolphin, trout,
and others, known by the name of _sazan_, _karass_, and a white fish
called _suig_--the last being esteemed in Petersburg a delicacy.