THE LAND OF SORROW--SIBERIA
Away yonder in eastern Siberia, on the banks of the Amur River, high on
the projecting cliff stands a huge iron cross which can be seen many
miles away. Upon this Christian emblem is inscribed one of the greatest
sentences in all the literature of the world. Here it is: "Power lies
not in force but in love." Strange it is indeed that such an emblem and
such an inscription should be found in the wilds of this country. But
many are the strange sights one beholds on a journey across this great
lonely, strange, and sad land. Having crossed this country it is my
purpose to recount some of the observations and experiences of the
journey.
But few people today realize the immensity of Siberia. You could take a
map of the whole United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and add to
it a map of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy,
Switzerland, Germany and Austria (before the war), Holland, Denmark, the
Turkish Empire, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, and lay all these
together down on Siberia alone and have territory left. Nearly five
thousand miles of the main line of the great Trans-Siberian railway are
in this one country.
The building of this railroad was a gigantic undertaking and its
construction cost the Russian Government four hundred million dollars.
With all our boasted American hustle it took twenty years to build the
Canadian Pacific railway from coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more
than twice as long and was completed in half that length of time.
Before the war there was hardly ever an accident on this railway. Every
verst (about two-thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and
there was always a man or woman, generally a woman, standing with a flag
as the train passed. I crossed on the International Sleeping Car train.
It took ten days and ten nights and the average speed was more than
twenty miles per hour.
The berths on this train were very comfortable. They were crosswise of
the car while ours are lengthwise. The train consisted of two
first-class, two second-class sleepers, a diner and a baggage car. These
international trains ran once a week each way before the war and
sometimes one had to purchase a ticket weeks in advance to go at a given
time. When all berths were sold those who had none simply had to wait a
week for the next train. I was the lone American on the train all the
way across. There were a number of Englishmen and many Frenchmen on
board.
My roommate was an old sea captain from Scotland. He had been on the sea
forty-six years. Unfortunately his baggage was left at Harbin. He asked
the chief of the train to wire back that it be forwarded on the next
train, giving or rather offering a tip of a few shillings, but the chief
would not give him any satisfaction. The next day the captain tried
again, offering a tip of an English pound. This had the desired effect.
In a few days we discovered that the English Consul from Yokohama was on
board and laid the matter before him. Not long after this the train
chief came and apologized and gave back the tip. I have wondered many
times whether or not the captain ever received his baggage.
The dining car was a regular saloon on wheels. The first thirty minutes
were spent by the waiters in soliciting orders for drinks. If you did
not order anything to drink you were always served last. I had heard
that it was almost impossible to get anything to eat on this train
unless you were liberal in giving tips. So I started out to break the
record--to cross Siberia without giving a tip on the diner. All went
well for a couple of days. I was served all right. In fact, as long as I
had the exact change everything was lovely. But when I gave the
collector a bill he never came back with any change and I had to give it
up. Such a feat as crossing Siberia without giving a tip in the diner
could not be performed. The prices were not exorbitant, however, for one
could get a fairly good meal for a dollar at that time.
Some of the great rivers of the world are in Siberia. It is said that if
all the steel bridges on this main line were placed end to end they
would make a great steel structure more than thirty miles long. These
were all built too by Russian engineers. Lake Baikal is a long, narrow
body of water in the heart of Siberia. It is said to be the most
elevated lake on the globe and has the distinction of being the only
body of fresh water in which seals will live. In some places no bottom
has been found. When the railroad was first built trains were taken
across this lake on gigantic ferries.
As the winters are long and cold, great ice-breakers were built to take
the trains across during the winter time. It is actually said that these
ice-breakers would slowly plow their way through thirty-six inches of
ice. During the Russian-Japanese war these were too slow so they laid
down heavy steel rails on the ice and all winter long trains were
speeded across on this ice railway. Some time ago I made this statement
in a lecture and as soon as the last word was spoken a Russian came
forward saying: "I was a soldier in the Russian army and walked across
this lake on the ice and saw them laying the rails at the time. It was
then nearly sixty below zero."
Siberia is the greatest wheat country on earth. All our great northwest,
with Canada thrown in, is but a mere garden spot as compared with
Siberia. There are multiplied millions of acres of the finest wheat
fields in the world in this great country that are as yet untouched. The
Siberian women make the best bread of any cooks the world around. It is
as white as the driven snow and so good and nourishing that no one who
eats it can ever forget the taste.
Siberia is also one of the greatest dairy countries in the world. When
the war broke out Siberia was actually supplying a large portion of
Europe with dairy products. In two Siberian cities there were
thirty-four large butter and dairy establishments. The Russian
Government sent a professor of agriculture around the world to study the
science and art of buttermaking. The results of his investigation were
published in pamphlet form and sent to buttermakers and agriculturists.
It is said that sometimes a thousand tons of Siberian butter have been
delivered in London in a single week. It is also said that Great Britain
was purchasing five million dollars worth of eggs per year from Siberia
when the war broke out.
I learned something of the superstition of the Siberian peasant when
cream separators were first introduced. It is said that when these hard
working people were told of machines that would separate the cream from
milk instantly they declared that only a machine with a devil in it
could do such a thing. But an enterprising foreigner went ahead and
built a factory and about the time he had some of the separators ready
for delivery a mob gathered, wrecked the factory and smashed the
separators into smithereens, declaring that they would not have machines
with devils in them in their country. That was years ago, however, and
they have long since learned to use and appreciate these machines.
But the saddest sights I saw in Siberia were the trains loaded with
exiles. These cars were not much better than stock cars and had iron
bars across the windows. The sad faces within made one's heart ache to
see them. As I rode in a comfortable car with a good bed to sleep in it
was hard to keep from thinking of these unfortunate people who were
herded like cattle in cold, dirty cars day after day and night after
night for a month. Food was thrown to them almost as though they were
pigs and at best this food was of the coarsest and most unsavory kind.
But their journey, packed in these unwarmed and unsanitary cars was so
much better than what exiles had endured before the railroad was built,
that one can hardly make a comparison. Then the exiles had to make the
long four thousand mile journey on foot. It took about two years. Most
of the convicts wore chains on their ankles that weighed five pounds and
chains on their wrists that weighed two pounds. Sometimes these chains
wore the flesh from the bones and the pain, as they trudged along their
way, was simply terrible. Men and women were herded in droves like
cattle. They had to make so many miles each day through storm or
sunshine. Often it was midnight before they reached the sheds in which
were the sleeping benches. Here they had to lie down on bare planks
without any covering. There was no ventilation in these sheds except a
bare window or two in the gable. In summer they sweltered and in winter
they nearly froze to death.
As these unfortunate people slowly trudged along, the heartless guards
on horseback whipped them and often prodded them with bayonets.
Sometimes both men and women fell fainting and dying along the wayside.
As two were nearly always chained together, the living was unlocked from
the dead, the body kicked out of the way and even left unburied. In the
heat of summer the dust nearly suffocated them and in the late autumn
and early spring (they stopped in winter quarters in the coldest
months), they often floundered along through mud nearly knee deep. Often
the mud was frozen in the morning and their feet would break through.
Perhaps their shoes were completely worn out, but no mercy was shown
them and they had to make their way barefooted.
There was one thing the guards could not do, however, and that was to
keep them still. As they went on their way they kept up a kind of a wail
that was said to be the saddest chant that human ears ever heard. For
miles and miles this mournful wail could be heard by the few people who
lived in villages along the way. Sometimes, however, these villages were
fifty or a hundred miles apart. But this wail was kept up continually.
Every plan imaginable was used to stop it, but this could not be done
and the guards and officers grew accustomed to it and let it go. No
wonder that even yet in Siberia the call of the milkmaid is something
like the wail of the exiles.
One of the most thrilling events during the war was the opening of the
Siberian prison doors in the spring of 1917, when more than one hundred
thousand exiles walked out as free men and women. In the great Irkutsk
prison a company of men were watching some of their fellow prisoners
being flogged when a man appeared at the door saying: "Russia is a
republic and you are all free." Instantly all was excitement. The
officers fled for their lives. Even the prison blacksmiths fled, for
they had welded the shackles on thousands of prisoners and they feared
vengeance. Other smiths were pressed into service and were compelled to
work all night long cutting these iron chains. Many were chained to
wheelbarrows and of course could not get away until their irons were
broken. A committee of public safety was formed at once and precautions
taken. A banquet was prepared in the dismissed governor's palace and
sixty men whose chains had not been cut loose sat down at the table with
their chains rattling.
In one place the priest, while performing his duties in the church,
heard the news and announced it. Fifty men rushed out to kill the local
police captain who had been a regular tyrant. As they came to his home
they were met by the captain's ten-year-old daughter, who stood in front
of her father and calmly said: "You will have to kill me first," and
thus she saved his life.
In five days after the revolution, six thousand exiles had reached
Irkutsk from other prisons. By the way, Irkutsk is the capital of
eastern Siberia and here the greatest prisons were located. It is said
that as many as one hundred thousand prisoners have been in the great
prisons in and around this city at one time. There were no trains for
these freed exiles and they camped along the railroad track. Every day
the company became larger. At one time it was said that fifty thousand
sledges were rushing toward the railroad as fast as horses, dogs and
reindeer could drag them. The snow was already melting and they were
determined to get to the railroad before it was too late.
Those who think the great Russian Empire is nothing but cold, bleak,
barren waste, will have to think again. In 1913 there were eleven
million acres planted in potatoes, five and one-half million acres of
flax and hemp and nearly two million acres in cotton. They even had one
hundred and fifty thousand acres in tobacco. In all there were in
cultivation nearly four hundred million acres of land. In 1914 Russia
and Siberia possessed thirty-five million head of horses, fifty-two
million head of cattle, seventy-two million sheep, and fifteen million
head of hogs.