IRKUTSK.
The sun shone brightly on the domes and cupolas of Irkutsk when
they burst on the view; the effect of the dazzling white walls and
bright green roofs of the churches was strikingly beautiful. Before
entering the town, our yemschik descended from the box, and tied
up the bells of the horses, in deference to a municipal law of the
town, and in mercy to the inhabitants.
The streets of Irkutsk are straight, wide, and well kept. Indeed the
main streets are too wide, and have always a more or less desolate
appearance.
Our yemschik was again catechised about Metzgyr Hotel, but, after
all, drove us into a hotel which, after unloading our gear, turned
out to be the Amoor. The combined action of two conspirators was
too much for us, and we had but to make the best of our situation.
We were indeed too travel-worn to be particular about our quarters.
A room was allotted to us, facetiously said to contain four
bed-chambers. On inquiring for the said chambers we were pointed
by the _maltchik_ (boy) to certain corners and recesses, in
which, by skilful dove-tailing, it was certainly possible to find
sleeping-room for four people. Beds there were none, but there was
a good solid floor, a plain hard sofa, three chairs, and a table.
There was no fire-place in the room, the temperature being kept
up by blazing furnaces opening in the corridor. The windows were
hermetically sealed for the winter. Our first and last sensation,
during our occupancy of that apartment, was suffocation, only to be
relieved by active out-door exercise. The room was adorned by a few
pictures, and a large placard, framed and hung up in a conspicuous
place, advertised the prix-courant of liquors, cabs, billiards, and
viands. Here we found _côtelettes_ and _bifsteks_, admirably adapted
to the Russian spelling.
The attendance was of a very mean order. An unkempt urchin in
tattered habiliments, did the duty of maid-of-all-work, always in
the way when not wanted, now and again disturbing the time-honoured
dust of our fusty chamber by besoms and dish-cloths, but never
to be found when he was required. No bells are provided for the
convenience of visitors, and you may roar yourself hoarse with
cries of _maltchik_ or _tchelavek!_ before any one will deign even
to answer _sey tchass!_ This word, literally interpreted, means
directly, but it may be more practically translated to-morrow, or
next week, or when convenient. It is only thrown out to allay your
impatience, and keep you in play while the tchelavek is eating his
dinner, or gossiping with the cook. No progress can be made till you
have discovered his retreat, when the _à posteriori_ argument of
boot leather may be applied with good effect. This is the only form
of entreaty that can impress a low Russian with respect, and one
application will generally suffice.
All things considered, there is not much to complain of in the
culinary department, but the service is enough to blunt the keenest
appetite in the world. Everything is cold, dirty, and miserable.
A good beefsteak is put on the table hot, but you have to wait
twenty minutes for something to eat with it; then knives and forks
are wanting, and when you flatter yourself all is in order, and
you begin your dinner, salt is found to be missing. All that can
be tolerated, but oh take care of the eggs! In Siberia they keep
a stock of these in a fossil state for the entertainment of the
unwary, for probably no Russian would be so green as to ask for
them. At first we doubted whether Russians recognised any difference
between a new-laid egg, and one that had been addled for six months.
But, whatever their own proclivities may be, they do know a fresh
egg when they see it. We succeeded at last in getting some only
"suspicious," by taking hold of the boy in a menacing manner, and
vowing that we would dash in his face every bad egg he should bring
to us.
In a building separate from the hotel is a dining-room and tap-room,
as also a billiard-room, with two tables. This part of the
establishment is almost entirely monopolised by military officers,
who play billiards all the morning, dine at the table d'hôte at 2
o'clock, and continue billiard-playing all the afternoon. Their
billiard-cues have no leather tips, and the one table we attempted
to play on was so uneven, from about twenty patches in the cloth,
that we soon tired of seeing the balls steeple-chasing across the
table. The dining-room is a large oblong, the walls covered with
pictures of gentlemen in cocked hats and epaulettes, in a very low
gaudy style of art. In the centre of one wall is a full-length
portrait of the present emperor, which, with all its artistic
defects, is nevertheless a fair likeness of his Imperial Majesty.
The Russians are a loyal race, and naturally fond of pictures,
whether of saints, or tsars, or heroes.
At the Amoor Hotel, I was greatly pleased to meet a friend and
countryman who was travelling from St. Petersburg to China. The
effect of this unexpected meeting was exhilarating, and I don't know
whether it gave us most pleasure to recount the circumstances of our
journey from China, or to hear our friend's experiences of that part
of the road homewards which still lay before us. We certainly had no
comfortable news to give each other. In exchange for the horrors of
the road through Western Siberia, we threw in the picture of what a
month's ride across the Mongolian steppes in November would be.
Irkutsk is a town that will bear a close inspection. The houses are
all large, and as handsome as wooden buildings can well be made. The
sombre hue of the external walls is the only unsightly feature about
the place; but the general aspect of the town is so well relieved
by the numerous handsome churches and other public buildings, that
the whole effect is pleasing. The streets are adorned with many fine
shops, where every European luxury is obtainable for money. Tailors
and milliners are very fond of parading flourishing sign-boards in
French, and even in that remote corner of the world, Paris is looked
to as the seat of fashion. The _gostinnoi-dvor_ is well supplied
with all the staple articles of merchandise, including every variety
of fur. We purchased very good Congou tea in the bazaar at 1 ruble
35 kopeks per pound, equal to four shillings.
Bakers are in great force in Irkutsk, many of them Germans.
_Frantsooski khleb_ (French bread) is all the rage in Siberia, and
this sign is adopted by all bakers indiscriminately. The "French
bread" is simply white bread made into rolls. It is very good, and
being unobtainable in the country villages, travellers carry a
supply with them from one town to another.
The tobacconists of Irkutsk are famed in Eastern Siberia for
their "papiros," or paper cigars, which they make out of Turkish
tobacco. The Russians, almost without exception of age or sex, smoke
quantities of tobacco in the shape of papiros. In Irkutsk itself,
however, "Moscow" is considered a better brand for papiros than
"Irkutsk."
The prison occupies the corner of two streets. It has one
iron-grated window facing the street, at which the prisoners are
always to be seen clamouring for alms. The Russians are very
charitable and give a great deal to these prisoners. It is very
common also in the streets for passers-by, especially old ladies,
to stop the convicts who are employed under a guard of Cossacks in
carrying water, &c., and give them money. This is so much a matter
of course that when any well-dressed person, suspected of being
charitably disposed, is seen approaching a convict, the Cossacks
halt by instinct.
Every resident in Irkutsk who can afford it keeps a carriage. Their
horses are very showy in harness, and there are enough of them
generally to be seen in the street to be an ornament to the place.
The droshky service is also very good. The drivers always go fast
and their horses are generally fresh and fiery.
There are several good libraries in Irkutsk, branches of scientific
societies, a theatre, a newspaper, and other concomitants of
cultivation. On the whole, I confess that my pre-conceived notions
of Siberian life proved utterly fallacious. I had pictured to
myself a barren, inhospitable climate, unfit for the habitation
of any except those who were compelled by law to exist there, and
who necessarily had to suffer every privation. Instead of that, I
found settled communities, not only enjoying all the amenities of
civilised life, but living in expensive luxury, and many of them in
extravagance.
Irkutsk, like most other Siberian towns, is named after a river.
It has a settled population of 23,000, but in winter, when the
gold-washing ceases, the population is swelled by the addition
of about 4000 miners, who pass the winter in town, and manage to
spend every farthing of their earnings before the mining season
comes round again. The town derives great importance from its being
the residence of the governor-general and the capital of Eastern
Siberia, which not only includes the Amoor country, but that large
tract recently acquired from China, and now called Primorsky, or
the Maritime Region. The heads of the police, military, financial,
and post departments, have their offices in Irkutsk, which not only
gives a tone to society, but keeps a large substratum of subordinate
officers, with their families, about the place, and indirectly tends
to promote the general prosperity. An archbishop also resides in
Irkutsk.
On the second day of our stay in Irkutsk we visited the
governor-general, and made the acquaintance of the chief of police,
who put our papers in train. The governor-general holds a levée once
a week, which happened to be on the day of our visit. About twenty
persons in full dress presented themselves, including a number of
officers, among whom we recognised with difficulty some of our
late fellow-travellers. A number of peasants were assembled in the
hall long before the appointed hour. They wore the most woe-begone
visages, and each seemed to have his own special grievance. Each
was armed with a scroll of paper, probably a petition, that he had
got some one to write for him. These petitions were being patiently
examined by an aide-de-camp, who seemed to decide on which were
fit to be presented to his chief. The governor-general of Eastern
Siberia has no sinecure. He has on his shoulders the affairs of
a region larger than the whole of Europe, and which is yet but
in the infancy of its development. The population is certainly
scant, but it is composed of heterogeneous tribes, and the mere
scarcity of population enhances the difficulty of general progress.
A scattered population is, _ipso facto_, deprived on the one hand
of the great stimulant to improvement which rivalry imparts to
large communities, and on the other, of the facilities for carrying
out the aspirations after better things which it may have. These
disadvantages are a serious obstacle to any people, but to a race
not naturally progressive, they are doubly so. Russia is not one
of those countries where government ought to hold aloof from the
affairs of the people. It may greatly err in doing too much; but
something it must do if Russia is to follow even at a great distance
in the march of development. The people will not put the government
in motion, but the government must lead the people in every step.
In Eastern Siberia there is vast scope for the energy of a man of
administrative ability and singleness of purpose. Untold wealth lies
under its soil. With its iron and coal and lead, and the natural
fertility of a large portion of its soil, it might by well-directed
enterprise, become to a great extent independent of the world;
while the fine rivers that traverse the country offer means of
water-communication perhaps unequalled, certainly unsurpassed, in
any other country. Very much has been done of late years to utilise
these natural privileges; but much more remains to be done. And it
depends greatly on the governor-general, whose vice-regal power is
almost as absolute as the sway of the Tsar himself, whether the
commercial and productive resources of those regions will continue
to develop under the same enlightened impulse as heretofore.
Another element of the importance of Irkutsk is to be found in the
circumstance that it is the commercial centre of Eastern Siberia.
The houses of business of the out-stations, such as Kiachta, have
mostly their head-quarters in Irkutsk. It is the principal dépôt
on the highway between Western Russia, and China and the Amoor
provinces; and a great deal of wealth has been accumulated there by
persons engaged in trade.
The manufactures of this place, and indeed of Siberia generally,
are insignificant and hardly worth alluding to. Manufactures of all
kinds in Irkutsk employ a few hundred workmen, the principal works
being in leather and soap. In a country so rich in minerals this
need not be so. It only needs an enterprising population to turn
the resources of the country to account, and cheapen many of those
articles of daily consumption which the land carriage from Europe
makes so exorbitantly dear in Siberia.
This, and the other great towns in Siberia, are well provided with
educational institutions, and every good family employs private
tutors and governesses. Education is prized by the higher classes,
but utterly neglected by the lower, which include, generally
speaking, the merchants. The society of Siberia is, on the whole,
as good as in Russia proper. The higher class are generally of the
Russian nobility, who, either to retrieve their broken fortunes, or
with a view to more rapid advancement in rank, go out to Siberia to
fill high official stations. Three, and in some cases two, years
of public service in Siberia count for five years in Russia. There
are other inducements to men of rank and intelligence to seek their
fortunes in Siberia, among which may be named the greater scope for
ambition which a half-settled country affords, and the freedom from
the curse of cliques and intrigue which exist in Petersburg, and
which only a few can hope to turn to their own advantage. A man's
individuality counts for more in a country where he meets few of his
peers, and that consideration may possibly weigh with some of them.
Many of the proprietors of gold-diggings are scions of the highest
class of Russian aristocracy. These, and most of the officials,
have generally their families with them in Siberia; and although
they never lose their hold of Russia, practically Siberia is their
home. They spare no expense in the education of their children, and
hence the amount of both native and foreign talent that is employed
in teaching. Foreign artists and men of science are frequently to
be met with in Siberia, and are much sought after and hospitably
entertained in the highest circles. The educated Russians, being
conscious of their native deficiencies, have a high appreciation of
talent, whencesoever it comes. Of late years Siberian society has
received large accessions of educated people in the Polish political
exiles, who are mostly students and professors in the universities,
members of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and artists.
But what has done more, perhaps, than anything else to give a high
tone to the upper classes in Siberia, and to stamp their manners
with elegance, is the thirty years' residence of the political
exiles of 1825, so-called Decembrists. On the day of the accession
of the late Emperor Nicholas, a widespread conspiracy against him
was discovered before it was quite ripe for action. Growing out of
the general discontent which had hatched the abortive plot against
the life of Alexander I., it assumed a definite shape and formidable
magnitude during the three weeks' interregnum which occurred between
the death of Alexander and the accession of Nicholas, during which
time Nicholas had been coquetting with the crown, before formally
intimating his acceptance of it. The army was involved, and many
of the officers of the Imperial Guard were deeply committed. The
premature discovery of the conspiracy disconcerted the most active
leaders of the malcontents, and when the crisis came, the rebellious
troops were reduced by whole regiments who backed out at the last
moment, and the few thousands who were left found themselves
deserted by many of their officers. The forlorn hope assembled in
St. Isaac's Square on the 26th of December, and the very first
act of Nicholas's reign was to blow the insurgents to atoms with
artillery, and cut up the flying remnant with cavalry.
A fearful day of reckoning followed this ill-fated attempt.
A searching inquiry was at once instituted, conducted by
commissioners. It lasted nearly half a year. Instigated by fear,
and the thirst for vengeance, the government interpreted the most
trivial circumstances into treason. The leaders of the insurrection
were mostly young men of good families, but they were indirectly
encouraged by noblemen of great wealth and power. All this was
ferreted out in the protracted investigation. The end of it was the
capital punishment of a few of the most active instigators of the
plot, and the exile of the rest to Siberia.
Among these exiles were many members of the highest aristocracy.
Their wives in most instances followed them into Siberia, which
they were permitted by government to do, on certain conditions.
One condition was, that the wives of exiles should come under an
obligation never to return from the land of their banishment.
Another was, that all their correspondence should pass through
the hands of the governor-general in Siberia, and the ministry
of secret police in St. Petersburg. This latter condition their
ingenuity enabled them easily to evade. These ladies, among whom
were princesses, countesses, and others of rank, fortune, and
refinement, soon began to be influential in Siberia. Their husbands,
who had been condemned to labour in the mines for various terms,
some to ten, others to twenty-five years, and some others for life,
were never detained much more than one year at any of their penal
settlements. None were ever compelled to labour at all, except a
few who were refractory, or who had committed misdemeanours while
in Siberia. As time wore on, and the fury of the government abated,
the interest of the friends and relations of the exiles induced the
governor-general of Eastern Siberia to look favourably on them.
They were then permitted to reside in, and to register themselves
as residents of, various villages in the different provinces of
Siberia. It was not long before they were allowed to reside in the
larger towns, and once there, they soon built for themselves elegant
houses in such places as Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Yeniseisk, where
they lived openly and in comparative comfort, and took up their
natural position as the _élite_ of society. But though fortune
seemed to smile on them, the exiles were politically dead, that
being the inexorable sentence of the law which drove them from
their native country. Children were born to them in Siberia, but
although they took up the position in society which their birth
and education entitled them to, they were, nevertheless, in the
eye of the law, illegitimate, and incapable of enjoying any social
or political rights. The sins of the fathers were visited on the
children to interminable generations. Not only could the children of
exiles not inherit their father's hereditary titles, but they were
debarred even from bearing their own family name! And they inherited
their parents' exile in never being permitted to return to Russia.
This has, no doubt, been in some instances evaded, by daughters
marrying Russian noblemen, and returning to Russia under cover of
their husband's names, but such procedure was nevertheless strictly
against the law.
Thus did the Decembrists expiate their political offences in their
own persons, and in their descendants', for full thirty years, until
the accession of the present emperor. As the iron rule of Nicholas
was inaugurated by an act of crushing severity, so the milder sway
of Alexander II. was marked at its outset by an act of mercy to the
exiles of his father. A free pardon, with permission to return to
Russia, was granted to all the survivors. Their children, born in
Siberia, had their father's hereditary honours and full political
rights restored to them. It is by such measures as this that
Alexander II. has made his name respected and beloved by his people.
The influence of political exiles of various periods has made an
ineradicable impression on the urban communities of Siberia, but the
Decembrists, from their education and polish, have certainly done
most to form the nucleus of good society there.
The mercantile class in Siberia, and indeed all over Russia, stands
decidedly low in the social scale. A merchant, though enormously
rich, and doing a very large business, is essentially a huckster.
In manners they are little removed from the common peasant, from
which class they have generally sprung. They are for the most part
illiterate themselves, and, until very lately, have been incapable
of appreciating the advantages of education for their children.
They are widely separated from the upper classes, who regard them
with unmixed contempt. The line of distinction between the nobility
and the substrata of society is more broadly drawn in Russia than
in any other country, excepting in the empire of Japan, where,
however, the mercantile, and classes in our estimation below them,
are well educated. This distinction of ranks is undoubtedly a
relic of barbarism, but whether the mean tastes of what ought to
be the middle classes in Russia be the cause, or the effect, of
their relatively low status in society, they both mutually act and
re-act on each other as cause and effect, and so the evil constantly
perpetuates itself.
While resting in Irkutsk, we employed ourselves casting about for
means of attaining the maximum of comfort, that is to say, the
minimum of hardship, for the remaining part of the journey. We had
learned the mode of travelling, and thought we knew exactly where
reform could be applied with most effect. The greatest annoyance
the traveller experiences in Russia and Siberia, is the necessity
of paying horse hire at each station. It is bad enough during the
day, but to turn out of a warm nest two or three times in a night,
to banter postmasters and yemschiks, settle your fare to the next
station, and see that your wheels are oiled, is simply intolerable,
especially when the thermometer is anything you like below zero. The
postmasters, with the most laudable desires possible, cannot cheat
you. In every station is exhibited a placard, framed and glazed,
signed and sealed by high functionaries, stating the distance
in versts to each of the two nearest stations, and the fare in
roubles and in kopeks, which, in Eastern Siberia, and also as far
west as Tumen, is one kopek and a-half per verst per horse, that
is, a little over three farthings per mile. Besides this, you are
expected to pay twelve kopeks, or fourpence, for oiling wheels,
which is necessary, on an average, at every third station. Then, if
you use a post-carriage, or _kibitka_, another fourpence is due for
that at every station. The drink-money, or _navodku_, due to the
yemschik, must on no account be forgotten, for the speed with which
you will be driven on the next stage will bear some proportion to
the amount of drink-money which you are reported to have given for
the preceding. Money does not always procure speed, but speed will
always draw money. In the anxiety to award the due meed of merit a
nice estimate must be made of the value of the service rendered,
and the reward fixed at ten, fifteen, or twenty kopeks, or nothing
at all, as the case may require. The condition of the roads and
horses, over which the yemschik has no control, must be carefully
weighed in this important calculation. But while nobody can attempt
to cheat you with any decent prospect of success, it is always
open to the station-keeper to say he has no change to give you. To
meet this dodge you must carry a bag of coppers, which, unless it
weighs nearly a hundred weight, will not last you from one town to
another where alone the coin is procurable. Then, again, it was not
to be denied that our knowledge of Russian was too limited for our
purpose, in the event of our getting into any real difficulty, from
the thousand and one accidents to which travellers in such a country
are liable.
We contrived to magnify all these imaginary difficulties in our own
eyes, when a young Russian, bearing the German name of his father,
Schwartz, waited on us to offer his services on the road as far
as St. Petersburg. He had literally devoured his patrimony with
riotous living, and had been in all employments, from clerk in a
government office in Irkutsk, to actor in the provincial theatre,
and was now bent on returning to his family, like the prodigal, as
he was, without a shirt to his back. His antecedents were nothing
to us: seeing he was a Russian, spoke German perfectly, French
intelligibly, as also a few words of English which he had picked up
from grooms in St. Petersburg. We settled with him at once, giving
him fifteen roubles down, to furnish him with clothes to cover
his limbs from the cold--for the rest he was to work his passage
to Petersburg. An agreement was duly drawn up and signed, and, to
conform to Russian formalities, it was certified by the police,
on which a special passport for him was issued. When all was in
order, a creditor of Schwartz's appeared, and lodged a claim against
him for the sum of ten roubles, which we had of course to pay, or
forego the valuable services of the scamp. The ten roubles was not
very alarming, but the number of similar demands that might follow,
inspired us with sore misgivings on Schwartz's account. The more
we actually paid for him, the stronger arguments we should have
to go on paying. To save the equivalent of the fifteen roubles we
had already given him, it was well worth while to pay other ten.
But when we had spent twenty-five roubles on him, we should only
have a stronger reason to pay twenty more, which, at that stage of
the proceedings, would be evidently throwing good money after bad.
After grave deliberation we determined, illogically as I confess, to
pay the ten roubles demanded, and stop there. By good luck we were
not called upon for more roubles. But our experience with Schwartz
proved so unsatisfactory, that it would have been an economy to pay
a hundred roubles to get rid of him. He was a trouble and a dead
loss to us from first to last. His only real use was, as a standing
butt for invective. His follies were, at the same time, aggravating
and amusing. When he left at a post-station some of the things of
which we had given him charge, it was a solace to us to know that
he had also lost an extra pair of his own boots. And when we missed
a preserved ox tongue, which had been put into water to soak at a
previous station, it relieved our resentful feelings mightily to
make Schwartz go without his dinner.
Snow fell in Irkutsk on the 17th October, and for two days, sledges
were at work in the streets. The sun was powerful enough on the 18th
to melt it a little during the middle of the day. But still there
was the snow, a fortnight before its regular time, and we were just
too late to be able to get over the rivers while they were still
open for boats. It was an early winter in Eastern Siberia: that
world-renowned individual, the "oldest inhabitant," only recollected
one season in which snow-roads were practicable in Irkutsk as early
as the 1st October, Russian date, or 13th, new style.
The 19th was a fine hard morning, with a sky slightly overcast; and
on that day we resumed our nomad life, after six days' rest.
The River Angara flows through Irkutsk, but there is only a small
portion of the town on the left bank. The Irkut, rising in the
mountainous region near Kosogol, on the frontier, south-west of
Irkutsk, falls into the Angara opposite the town. The post-road
crosses the Angara below the confluence. The crossing is effected by
means of a most efficient floating bridge, which consists of a boat
held by a strong warp to an anchor dropped about 500 yards up the
stream in mid-channel. The slack of the warp is buoyed up by three
boats at equal intervals. In crossing, the boat's head is pointed
obliquely across the stream by means of a large oar over the stem.
The strength of the current does the rest. The boat swings on her
anchor until she is laid alongside the landing on the opposite
bank. The boat is double-bottomed, with a spacious platform on deck,
and a moveable rail on each side. There is room on deck for three or
four carriages to stand, and the passage is effected without taking
the horses out. The Angara flows as clear as crystal out of the
Baikal, and maintains its purity after receiving the Irkut. It is
deep at Irkutsk, and the current is nearly six miles an hour.
The town again appears to good advantage from the left bank of the
Angara. The river banks are in themselves rather picturesque, and
when the water, the pretty white spires of the town, and thick woods
around, are combined in one view, the effect is beautiful, and the
traveller retains a pleasing impression of Irkutsk.