TOMSK TO OMSK.
While waiting for our servant to come up with the tarantass, we had
sundry matters to look to in Tomsk before committing ourselves once
more to the road, of which we continued to hear shocking accounts.
Our portmanteaus were so smashed by the concussions the hard rough
roads had exposed us to, as to be unfit for further service, and it
was necessary to replace them with Russian _chemadáns_. This is an
excellent contrivance for rough travelling; being constructed of
soft leather, hard knocks have no effect, and it is capable of being
so tightly lashed up as to be practically waterproof. It has also
this advantage over an ordinary trunk or portmanteau, that whether
it is full or not, there is no empty space left in it to block up
the carriage where there is no room to spare.
A few accessories, in the way of fur gloves and such like, completed
our wardrobe so far. To replace a broken thermometer we were led
into an optician's establishment, managed by some clever Germans.
Here we were surprised to find as good an assortment of instruments
as is usually to be met with in any similar establishment in this
country. Telescopes, microscopes, transit-instruments, theodolites,
and all kinds of surveying instruments, of excellent workmanship,
were there for sale. Everything, except the very simplest articles,
was of foreign make, many of them German, but mostly French.
We had been strongly advised at the outset of our Siberian travels
to provide ourselves with feather pillows, after the manner of the
Russians, to use as buffers between our prominent bones and the hard
substance of the carriage. Judging that our bedding would suffice,
we, with the vanity of ignorance, rejected these good counsels
in defiance of the well-known travelling maxim which inculcates
the wisdom of taking your cue from the people of the country. Our
carcases had been so unmercifully knocked about on the road to
Tomsk, that we dared not go farther without pillows. It was not
so easy to find them, however; for although Tomsk is said to be
celebrated for them we could not hit on the right place to buy them.
They are sold at about fourteen roubles per pood (36 lbs.). Our
landlady was appealed to, but she avowed that there was not, and
never could have been, any such thing in Tomsk, least of all had she
any to dispose of. We were actually beginning to despair of pillows
when a young Russianised German introduced himself to us, and, as
usual in such _rencontres_, the conversation turned on civilisation.
We happened to allude to the pillow difficulty, as proving the
primitive state of society in Tomsk. On this our friend at once
undertook to provide us. He went first to the old lady, and then to
the younger members, none of whom he had seen before, and spent full
half an hour ingratiating himself with them. The pillow question was
in due time gently hinted at, and before very long one, and then
another, and another, was produced, until we had pillows to our
hearts' content. Delighted with his success, we begged our friend
to tell us how he had achieved it. "First," he said, in very good
English, "you must beat about the bush with these ---- Russians;
you must flatter them and humbug them. Then you must talk about
everything but _the_ thing. If you want to buy a horse, you must
pretend you want to sell a cow, and so work gradually round to the
point in view." He went on to tell us how he had coaxed and cajoled
the good people into parting with their pillows, and how he backed
up his requests by a touching appeal to their sense of hospitality.
"You have two distinguished foreigners in your house, they are very
good people, and you ought to treat them with the kindness due to
strangers from distant countries. When Russians go to their country
they are well treated. But if you refuse this small favour to these
people, they will go home and tell their countrymen what beasts the
Russians are," &c.
We were in a dilemma about the mode of travelling from Tomsk. Our
tarantass was very much the worse for the wear, and on bad roads it
might break down at any time. It would hardly be safe to leave the
town with it. It would be equally imprudent to purchase a sledge,
for there was very little snow; none fell during our stay, and there
was reported to be none to the westward. We might of course use the
post-carriages, but that mode of travelling has many inconveniences.
It is uncomfortable in the extreme to sit in, and it necessitates
changing at every station. The nuisance of turning out luggage, and
turning out one's-self, every few hours, multiplies tenfold all the
horrors of the road. Had we listened to the advice proffered to
us on all hands in Tomsk we should have remained there till snow
fell, which might be in one week or in six. We were entertained
with terrible accounts of the road through the Baraba steppe, and
the post had been six days coming from Kolivan, a town only 120
miles from Tomsk. The delay was attributed entirely to the roads,
but making due allowance for Russian vagueness, we thought it just
as likely to have been due to the difficulty of crossing some of
the large rivers. In this uncertainty a diversion occurred in the
advent of Schwartz, on the third day, minus the tarantass. He had
been talked into the impossibility of getting it over the ice, and
was induced to sell it for the small sum of ten roubles silver.
The Russians designate their paper money by the high-sounding term
"silver" roubles, _lucus à non lucendo_. This crowning act of folly,
coupled with the fact of his having left behind (or sold) sundry
articles which were in the tarantass, determined us to give Mr.
Schwartz "the sack," and nothing but reflection on the probable
consequences of his being left with no money, and a blighted
character, to the "cold charity of the world," caused us to relent.
Old Barnaul left us a few hours after Schwartz's arrival. His
destination lay nearly due south from Tomsk, a few stations beyond
which town the road to Barnaul branches off from the Moscow road.
The old gentleman refused to leave us entirely by ourselves, and had
cheerfully sacrificed two whole days of his time, simply to keep us
company until our own man came up. There was much genuine kindness
in this, as in all his intercourse with us, and we parted with the
pleasantest recollections on both sides (I hope).
Having made all necessary arrangements for resuming our journey, and
armed ourselves with a pass from the Director-General of Posts for
Western Siberia, we started on the 5th November in a post kibitka,
with the intention of buying a sledge when we found an opportunity,
and snow enough to use it. It was late in the afternoon before we
got away from Tomsk, and dark before we emerged from the thick
wood into which we plunged on leaving the town. The post-station
had been at a village eighteen versts from Tomsk, but on arriving
there we learned that it had been removed that very day to a place
more convenient for crossing the river Tom, or on the other side
of the Tom, for it was hard to deduce any positive conclusion from
the various and partially contradictory statements we heard. At all
events, be the new station where it might, our yemschiks refused
to drive us any further than the old station in the village. To
be cast adrift with our baggage in a village where no accredited
officer of the government was located, would have consigned us to
unknown troubles. We refused, therefore, to let the yemschiks go,
but insisted on their proceeding to the next station, wherever it
might be. The assistance of the starust, or village elder, was
invoked, and he, with a few peasants, piloted us at our request to
the river Tom, that we might examine for ourselves the state of
the crossing. The ice was good, and apparently strong enough to
bear the carriages, but the yemschiks lapsed into a state of mulish
obstinacy, and refused to stir. The starust and his satellites,
all speaking at once, held forth vigorously on general topics for
the edification of the company, and went to bed. As for us, we had
simply to keep possession of the carriages, and leave the rest to
time. The yemschiks would get hungry, the horses would certainly
have to be fed, and we might hope that when they got tired of
waiting they would go on. With this idea we committed ourselves
to rest in the kibitka. It was sadly deficient in comfort, as
compared with our old tarantass. The kibitka is open in front,
and rather over-ventilated everywhere. Cold kept sleep from our
eyes for a time, while our ears were regaled with spasmodic bursts
of indignation from the yemschiks, who now threatened to take
us back to Tomsk, bag and baggage. To these attacks we offered
nothing but passive resistance, and even the yemschiks wearied of
a discussion so entirely one-sided. We were lulled to sleep in
time by the chanting of some wild native airs by a Russian family
in a neighbouring house. Their songs, many of them very sweet,
are mostly, if not all, of the plaintive order. A drunken "brute
of a husband," whom his poor wife was trying to decoy homewards,
was the only incident that broke in upon the dead stillness of
the night scene in the village of Kaltarskaya. There stood our
wearied horses in the street that livelong night, bearing their
sufferings from cold and hunger with resignation. How the yemschiks
bestowed themselves during the night I know not. One at least must
have kept awake to watch the horses. As morning approached the
cold proved too much for my somnolence, and I was fain to turn out
and grope my way into the house that had until the previous day
been the post-station. On getting the door of a room open, the
warm, fulsome exhalations of closely pent-up human beings that
greeted the nostrils were enough to have produced a revolution in a
sensitive stomach. The hard breathing of some, and the more sonorous
articulations of others, enabled me to ascertain the positions of
the heads of most of the sleepers, but still with every care I came
into collision with sundry legs and trunks in my voyage across the
floor in quest of a clear space where I might stretch myself. At
length I discovered an unoccupied bench or table, and yielded to
the luxury of sleep till daylight. When I again opened my eyes,
my night companions had begun to stir about. Some were engaged in
their toilet, which consists in stretching legs and arms, yawning
a little, shaking up their clothes, and tightening the scarf which
forms their girdle. By stooping low on entering the room I had
escaped a broken head from a false ceiling which was used as a
sleeping bunk. This is a common arrangement in post-houses, where
the family of the post-master and all the yemschiks and hangers-on
of the establishment are often jumbled up together, some climbing
up to the top of the brick stove to sleep, and others lying on the
boarded floor or ceiling which overhangs part of the room like a
hay-loft. The Russian houses generally are built on traditional
principles, the first thing aimed at being the exclusion of _air_,
and consequently cold. They always feel warm, the temperature during
the day being kept up to a pretty uniform scale by the large stoves.
At night the fires go out, but the house retains its heat until
about daylight in the morning, when it begins to feel a little
chilly. There is scarcely one perfectly level floor in the country,
and many of the houses, especially the old ones, are tipped up at
one end so that the line of the roof makes a very wide angle with
the level ground. Some indeed tumble over altogether, where the
owners are too poor or too indifferent to take them down before they
progress so far towards demolition. This phenomenon is not caused
by the sinking of one end from the timbers rotting in the ground,
but by the action of frost in the earth, which, unless the uprights
are sunk deep enough, expands with cold so much as to heave up the
foundations of the houses.
Early in the morning our yemschiks had made up their minds to take
us over the river and to the next station. They had first to obtain
the services of some peasants from the village, to pilot them over
the ice. This local knowledge was necessary to enable them to avoid
holes that had been only recently frozen, and other dangerous
places. The Tom was here a fine broad expanse of ice, white with
snow, very rough and lumpy. The crossing was satisfactorily
effected, and we made the best of our way during the day through a
flat, barren, and most uninteresting country, but still well wooded.
A little snow fell, but only to tantalise us, for the ground never
got covered more than half an inch.
Soon after daylight on the 7th, we arrived at a station on the
right bank of the river Ob, which was the most formidable-looking
obstacle to progress we had yet encountered. But as we had only
ourselves and our baggage to get over, no serious difficulties were
made, though we were threatened with trouble from a gang of drunken
ice-men. The Ob, Obe, Obi or Oby, for all these spellings are used,
is a noble river, and at the point where we crossed it is nearly
half-a-mile wide. The current is rapid, and ice had only formed
along the edges of the water. The difficulty in crossing arose from
the huge masses of floating ice that were carried rapidly down by
the current. To avoid being shut in by these small icebergs required
all the dexterity of the adepts who manned the ferry-boat. Not only
skill, but real hard work was necessary. Poles and boat-hooks were
vigorously plied. The short paddle-oars were of comparatively little
use; but by hooking on to the floating ice and hauling round them,
then shoving off into clear water for a short space, and hooking
on to the next lump of ice, we managed to thread our way through.
The current had carried us down stream, but it was not nearly so
strong on the left side of the channel, and there was a good breadth
of clear water there which enabled the men to recover their lost
ground. On reaching the landing-place, a rope was passed ashore,
that is, to the solid ice, and the boat hauled up bodily far enough
on the ice to enable horses to fetch the luggage. The sides and
bottom of the boat being thickly coated with ice, enabled the men to
slide her about with great facility.
From Tomsk our course had turned southerly, following the course of
the river Tom, and striking the Ob obliquely. From the Ob we turned
west again, and entered the great Baraba steppe.
Two stages from the Ob we reached the town of Kolivan, which is
perhaps the most dreary, cold-looking town in Siberia, situated in
a perfectly bare country, and exposed to every wind that blows. It
possessed a peculiar interest for us, however, as being the then
most easterly telegraph station in Siberia. The Tomsk station had
been completed, but the manager had not arrived to inaugurate the
opening when we left. Kolivan, being a second-rate station, only
Russian messages could be sent; but having got a gentleman in Tomsk
to write one out in that language, I was enabled to send a telegram
from Kolivan to St. Petersburg, a distance of 2700 miles. Many
repetitions were necessary in the transmission of this message, but
it was delivered with perfect accuracy in thirty-six hours.
The Siberian telegraph, being now completed as far as Irkutsk,
will no doubt be extended in time to the Amoor country. It is also
probable that a branch will be formed from Irkutsk to Kiachta, and
the Russians in Siberia confidently believe that their government
will establish a line across Mongolia to Peking.
The Baraba steppe is, for the most part, one vast marsh, extending
from the left bank of the river Ob westward to Tumen. It borders on
the Kirghis steppe on the south, and is apparently a continuation of
it. Its natural features are barren, being at the best a succession
of wild prairies. The grass is long and coarse, but there is so
much water on the ground that, in the summer season, the grass can
hardly be available for pasture. The steppe is bare of wood, with
the exception of strips here and there of dwarf birch-trees, which
struggle for existence. In some of its more elevated parts, trees
grow to a good size, but these spots are like oases in the desert.
The inhabitants of the steppe are few, and lack the comforts enjoyed
by the natives of other parts of Siberia. Villages are thinly
scattered, and poor and mean-looking. The principal subsistence of
the people consists in their cattle, and at every village a large
tract of common land is fenced in for pasture.
At the stations in Baraba the post-master is seldom found at home,
the domestic part of the establishment being generally left in
charge of women, and the posting-department in that of the senior
yemschik. The women in the steppe, we were informed, are mostly
Kirghis, called by the Russians by the generic name of Tartars. The
Kirghis women are physically superior to Russian women of the same
class,--cleaner, better dressed, and handsomer. They have, in many
instances, blue eyes and fair complexions, in marked contrast to
the Kalmuks and Mongols. In manners they are more cheerful than the
Russians.
Game abounds in the steppe. Blackcock were in some parts met with in
great numbers. Pure white pheasants and _ryabchik_ are plentiful,
and, I have been told, though I did not see any, that the ptarmigan
and capercailzie are also to be found.
The most conspicuous objects in the steppe are the windmills,
a number of which are to be found round every village. These
are the only marks that exist in the country, and they indicate
the positions of the villages long before any other evidence of
habitation is visible. They are primitive in construction. In order
to face the wind the whole fabric is moved round on its axis by
means of a clumsy, but powerful lever.
The road through Baraba looks like a strip of ploughed land in
a desert, and was frozen so roughly that if solely depended on,
traffic would soon have been brought to a stand. As it was, the
heavy cart caravans were stopped for a time, and very few travellers
were met with on this part of the journey. We rarely travelled on
the road at all, only crossing it occasionally in quest of tracks
through the open country. The frozen marsh greatly facilitated our
progress. There was enough grass overspreading the ice to enable the
horses to keep a footing, and by taking advantage of every sheet of
ice we came to, we managed, by circuitous paths, to keep clear of
the main road.
The weather was mild in the steppe. The sun was strong enough in the
middle of the day to melt the thin covering of snow that lay on the
ground; and even the nights were not so cold as we had experienced
to the eastward. Snow fell occasionally, but not enough to make a
sledge-road.
Slow as our progress was, it was quicker than we could have
anticipated, and it was some satisfaction to keep ahead of the post
which left Tomsk at the same time with us. Our yemschiks in the
steppe were an unusually drunken set, but though often in jeopardy,
we escaped without accident, saving one upset.
Passing Kainsk on the 9th, we reached the town of Omsk at midnight
on the 11th, putting up at the Hôtel Moscow, an establishment of the
same empty, comfortless character as other Siberian hotels.
Omsk is built round a hill at the junction of the Om river with
the Irtish. It has a population of about 12,000; and is at present
the residence of the Governor-General of Western Siberia. This
functionary had recently made a tour to the Kirghis frontier, where
some disputes had occurred between the Russian soldiers at the
outposts and the Kirghis tribes. These _émeutes_ are of constant
occurrence. The Cossacks at the Russian stations make raids on their
own account on the Kirghis people, and subject them to very rough
treatment. An outbreak among the Kirghis occurs, which requires a
military force to subdue. An expedition for this purpose is sent
every year to the Kirghis steppe--the Russian outposts are pushed
further and further south--more disturbances occur, and so the
frontier is, year by year, extended, on the pretext of keeping the
peace. That has been the system pursued by the Russian Government
in all its aggressions in Asia. Siberia is dotted all over with old
forts, which have become obsolete as the country has become quiet
and settled under Russian sway. One of the strongest of these works
is on the hill that stands in the middle of the town of Omsk. It is
almost intact, and still kept up after a fashion. On the Kirghis
frontier forts continue to be planted as footholds on the soil, and
centres from which outlying territories may be subjugated.
A great deal of injustice, oppression, and cruelty have
unquestionably attended the aggressions of Russia among the various
Asiatic races, but in the long run the results have been rather
beneficial than prejudicial to the tribes. The Kirghis who live
as Russian subjects in the province of Omsk, are probably more
comfortable than their semi-nomad brethren who feed their cattle on
the southern steppes. The Mongol tribes who dwell under the auspices
of Russia under the name of Bouriats, are more cultivated, and lead
a more civilised life than the Mongols proper. They enjoy some
degree of comfort, and have undoubtedly improved by their contact
with the Russians. The wild hunting tribes, again, who inhabit the
forests of Northern Manchuria, recently annexed to Russia, are said
to have longed greatly to be transferred from allegiance to the
autocrat of China to that of the Tsar. On the whole, the ambitious
projects of Russia have been the means of spreading the benefits of
civilisation and Christianity (in a much diluted form, it must be
confessed) to many savage tribes. Highroads have been opened through
deserts, and commerce has followed in the wake of conquest. The
tribes who have become Russian enjoy, under the shelter of a strong
government, immunity from war with neighbouring tribes, to which
they were in former times constantly exposed, and have at least the
opportunity of giving more attention to the arts of peace. Of course
many bad, as well as good, results have flowed from the contact of
Russians with these barbarous people. Those who were too low in the
scale of humanity to bear the shock of a superior order of life,
have been demoralised by it. The Tunguses and Ostiaks, who live in
the northern parts of the provinces of the Irkutsk and Yeniseisk,
are of a very low order of savages. The Tunguses are thievish,
treacherous and cowardly, and live solely by fishing and hunting.
The Ostiaks live almost entirely on and about the water, eat little
else but fish when they can get it. They wander as far north as the
Frozen Ocean. When deprived of their usual food in winter, they
are reduced to eating carrion and garbage of all kinds. In their
habits they are filthily dirty. Small-pox and drunkenness together
make frightful havoc in their numbers. These tribes have been
greatly injured by their contact with Russians. Naturally addicted
to drunkenness, they have been supplied with ardent spirits to their
heart's content by the invaders. The use of money being unknown to
them, they only receive brandy in exchange for their services and
products. They supply the gold-diggings with game, which brings them
in return large quantities of spirits. They also act as guides to
exploring parties, and such services are invariably requited with
brandy. To obtain this liquor seems indeed to be the main object
of their lives, and they have recourse to the most extraordinary
expedients to gain their purpose. They are low idolaters, but they
know how to turn to account the solicitude of the Russian Church
for proselytising. They will allow themselves to be baptised in
consideration of a bottle of brandy, but on the next favourable
opportunity, they will pass over to another part of the country,
and again offer themselves as candidates for baptism, if a similar
inducement be held out. Brandy is fast ruining these people, and in
a few generations they are likely to become extinct--a catastrophe
which will have been greatly accelerated by the Russian settlers.
The reverse of this is the case with the nomad tribes who are spread
over the steppes of the southern districts of Siberia. Their nomad
habits have been so far circumscribed that they remain for many
years together in the same places, moving only to suit the seasons
and the pastures for their horses. They have a fixed place where
they live in spring, but move off for the summer months, then again
to winter quarters. At each of these encampments they leave their
tents of felt or skins standing, thus evincing great confidence in
the security of life and property. These tribes use tents of the
same construction as those of the Mongols; but, unlike them, they
care little for the rearing of horned cattle or sheep, their wealth
consisting in horses, of which they keep large herds. They do not
practise agriculture, but live a great deal by the chase, and a few
of them carry on a kind of wandering trade. They obtain bread and
other necessaries of life in barter for the skins of wild animals,
but never part with their horses until hard pressed by necessity.
If they have no skins, they will rather want bread than sell their
horses. These tribes respect themselves, and command the respect
of others by the strict sobriety of their habits, their general
honesty, and cleanliness. They are mostly Mahometans. In many
respects these people stand higher than the Russians, and are not
likely to be demoralised by them.
Another Mahometan tribe may be mentioned in this category--the
_Yakuts_, who occupy some of the northern part of the province of
Irkutsk. They are no longer nomads, although they still live in
tents. The Yakuts are very industrious people, rear large herds of
horses and cattle, occupy themselves with trade, are skilled in
ironwork, and have more recently taken to agriculture. They bear the
character of sobriety, and are much more cleanly in their habits
than any neighbouring tribes. The Yakuts have a tradition that
they were once settled in the province of Kazan, whence they were
expelled during the great irruption of Tartars into Russia, and
wandered to their present habitat before they settled.
The wildest and most unmanageable of all the Siberian aborigines are
the _Khargasses_, who live about the Altai mountains on the Chinese
frontiers, in the south of the provinces of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk.
The Khargasses are quite nomad, carrying tent and all with them when
they move. They are said to be fierce and treacherous, perfectly
uncivilised, and idolaters. It is a common practice with them
when the time for the collection of their _essak_, or poll-tax,
comes, to strike their tents, and cross the mountains to Chinese
territory. There they remain until some similar claim is made on
them on behalf of the Emperor of China, when they again pack up and
return to Siberia. The Khargasses are great hunters, and live on the
produce of their guns. They own no cattle, their riches consisting
of reindeer and guns, like the Tunguses.
We saw two small tug steamers and six huge barges frozen-in at the
junction of the Om with the Irtish. These barges go as far as Tumen
with their cargoes, but of this more hereafter.
As there was still too little snow on the roads to warrant us in
buying a sledge, we were obliged to continue undergoing the torture
of a small kibitka, changing at every station. Sleep had now become
out of the question, and if we could get a nap once in forty-eight
hours we had to be satisfied. Eating was almost equally irregular,
for the steppe afforded but few opportunities of enjoying a good
meal. And yet this rough mode of life rather improved my health
than otherwise. The constant exposure to the clear bracing Siberian
air was certainly most beneficial, and I am convinced of this,
that with all its ice and snow, there is no finer--that is, more
salubrious--climate in the world than Siberia.