came too heavily loaded to enter the harbor until her cargo had been
partly discharged by lighters, and she anchored eight miles from the
port. The governor's ship, having on board his excellency, M. Znovief;
Count Bobrinskoy, representative of the Czarovitch Committee; N. von
Cramer, representing the Red Cross of Russia; R. Kerkovius, president of
the Exchange of Riga; von Richer, chief of police; von Keldermann, chief
of customs; von Nagel, captain of the port; N.P. Bornholdt, United
States consul, and J.B. Hubbell steamed an hour down the river to
welcome the "Tynehead," which had all flags and streamers flying and by
the activity of our consul, Mr. Bornholdt, the lighters already lying
alongside to take in the grain. After an hour on board the captain was
brought back in the governor's ship on which we lunched, and later dined
at the governor's palace, where the captain was presented with a
beautiful tea service of Russian enamel inlaid work as a present from
the Czar.
It was arranged that two lines of cars be kept on the dock, into which
the grain should be carried direct from the ship, which lay alongside
the wharf. As soon as a car was filled it was shifted, weighed and
sealed, and when enough were filled they were made into trains and sent
to their destinations with right of way over every other traffic on the
road, not excepting express and passenger trains; and at their
destination no person presumed to break the seal save the one to whom it
was consigned.
When we reached Riga, we learned that two hundred and forty peasants had
been waiting on the dock two days, waiting and waiting for the ship from
America. Not waiting for food, for Riga was not in a famine province,
but waiting that they might not miss the opportunity and the honor of
unloading the American ship that had brought food to their unfortunate
brothers in the interior. As soon as they could get into the hold of the
ship, one hundred and forty of them began the unloading. They worked
night and day, without rest, determined to unload the entire cargo
themselves without help. But on the third night our consul, Mr.
Bornholdt, insisted on their having a relief of twelve hours, and when
the twelve hours were up they were all in their places again, and
remained until the cargo was out, declining to take any pay for their
labor. Twelve women worked along with them, in the same spirit, in the
ship and on the dock, with needles, sewing up the rents in the bags to
prevent waste in handling.
Only a part of the "Tynehead's" cargo was in bags; hence for convenience
and economy in handling and the final distribution, we purchased in St.
Petersburg and Riga 43,000 additional bags to sack the rest of the
cargo, which in all amounted to nearly 117,000 bushels of shelled corn,
11,033 bags of flour and meal, besides small amounts of wheat, rye,
bacon, canned goods, drugs, etc., requiring 307 Russian freight cars for
its transportation. Some of this was reshipped on steamboats sent up the
headwaters of the Volga, reshipped again on cars nearly to the foot of
the Ural Mountains, a distance of 3,000 miles from Riga. Notwithstanding
our declaration while in St. Petersburg that neither the Red Cross nor
the American people desired any public ceremonies in the way of
acknowledgments: dinners, excursions and public demonstrations and
illuminations were planned, which we felt ourselves obliged to decline
on the ground we had first taken, that any effort and any money proposed
to be used in this manner would be most acceptable to all Americans if
turned into food for the hungry, whom we had come to help.
At our hotel the Russian and American colors were crossed over the
entrance; in the shop windows were the American colors, and in other
places, where it seemed that these were not easily procured, title-pages
of American sheet-music were displayed--such as "America," "Hail
Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc, and little
boys in the streets carried American flags of their own make. One little
fellow had made the Russian flag on one side and the American on the
other side of his device. The telephone office was kept open all night,
to be ready for any possible want, and the locomotive with steam up for
any possible service. The Custom House floated on its main staff only
the American flag during the entire time of the unloading of the
"Tynehead," from Saturday morning until Tuesday noon--three days and
a-half. When all was finished at Riga, the last train on its way, all
had been so well planned, so well done in every particular that we felt
there was not the least necessity for any further attention on our part
in looking after this charge. But to the donors at home Russia was a
long way off; they had no personal knowledge of the people they were
trying to help, and some critics had circulated misgivings about the
gifts reaching their intended destination. Hence, that we might be
prepared to give a report from personal observation for the satisfaction
and the gratification of the people at home, who had contributed these
stores, it was decided to see how some of the final distributions were
made.
Our first objective point in the famine district was the Province of
Nijni Novgorod. But we must go by Moscow, where by the courtesy of Count
Bobrinskoy a telegram was received, stating that his brother would pass
through the city to the famine district, and his company could be made
available, if desired. Such an opportunity was not to be lost, and our
course is changed to the south, first by rail to Bogorodizk, thence by
droschky to Michailovskoi, to the house of Shestoparoff, manager of the
beet sugar mills of the Bobrinskoys. Here the home taste and appearance
of everything inside make one feel as if he were in his own New England
home, although not a word of English is heard. After breakfast the next
morning we go to the distributing station, which is supported by the
Bobrinskoy family in one of the sugar mill buildings. Here we find the
doctor, the baker, the soupmaker, several of the first ladies of the
place, great cauldrons of excellent soup, tea, milk, Nestle's food, rye
and corn bread--the tea and milk are for the sick and for the
children--and the doctor, who is familiar with every family, directs who
shall receive and what. The bread and the soup are served on regular
account, the houses and families all having been visited and the
condition of each carefully recorded. As soon as one is able in part to
care for himself the bread is sold at a moderate price.
A number of villages are supplied from this bakery and kitchen, and this
is but one of nine carried on by this family entirely at their own
expense. In the afternoon we visit different villages, some twenty
houses or more. We find two Red Cross nurses from Moscow, who are at
work and have their home with the peasants. In four months one has lost
but four cases; the other but two; and the average number of sick in the
past four months by the doctor's report is three hundred. The peasants
say they would rather do without the doctor than be without the nurses
in the village.
The peasants' home consists of one or two square rooms, built of logs,
stone, or mud bricks, with floor of earth, and furniture of boards. One
quarter of the room is given up to the brick oven, which is so
constructed that it serves not only for a stove, oven, cupboard, and bed
in cold weather, but the chickens and small animals find protection from
the cold underneath during the severe cold weather. Usually a large
horizontal pipe of terra cotta passes overhead and out through a
thatched roof of straw, which is often two feet thick. The fuel may be
wood, straw, or dry dung; fuel is scarce. A deep cellar, well covered,
outside, may hold potatoes, roots, etc. The cattle and other animals
find shelter in a room adjoining the family. At Bogorodizk another royal
family, in addition to work similar to the above named, supplied the
peasants with raw material for spinning, weaving and making of native
goods and garments both for themselves and for the market, which the
countess found either at home or by sending them to the larger cities.
Through letters of introduction we had the good fortune to find Count
Tolstoi on his estate at Yasnia Polonia.
When the count was asked his opinion of the cause of the existing
conditions, he said the government might not like to have him say that
the peasants should have more land and own it themselves--that now they
have only enough in the best seasons to give barely food for their
support, and when a year of scarcity comes, they cannot help being
destitute. When asked if there had been improvement in their conditions
since the emancipation, he said if that meant in the way of property,
financially, no, but mentally there had been progress and development.
One of the first questions Count Tolstoi asked was, "What do you think
of most? I would excuse him for such a question; but he always liked to
get into sympathy with the person he was talking with and to know how to
understand him. What subjects occupied my mind most when going to
sleep?" etc.
At night I slept in the library surrounded by English and American books
and magazines.
When asked about the demoralizing effect of giving free help to the
peasants, as said by many, he thought that an excuse of those who did
not want to help. The peasant was never so unhappy as when out of work
and had nothing to do. Even a day's idleness was tiresome to him, and he
did not think that a people who had been worked to their full endurance
for a generation were going to be demoralized by giving them soup when
they were hungry.
Peasants were coming at all hours of the day to see the count. At dinner
time two had been waiting several hours. The Count let the dinner go on,
and stopped to read a long paper they had brought; read it through
carefully; had a long talk with them; unfolded the paper again to look
over passages more carefully; after further talk he read again, and told
me after they were gone, for I remained with him, that they were having
a law suit and had come to him for advice, and so far as he could judge,
the peasants were in the right.
When I bade him good-bye he said, from what he had heard of Miss Barton,
he felt that she must be a very near relation, and wished me to give her
his love.
Starting again for Nijni Novgorod we meet at Moscow Mr. Frank G.
Carpenter, the writer and lecturer, who accompanied us through the Volga
and southern districts. Leaving Moscow in the evening by the fast
express, we reached Nijni the next forenoon at ten. Here we were
entertained by the governor. The city of Nijni Novgorod has a population
of about sixty thousand ten months of the year; during the other two
months its population is increased to six hundred thousand. This extra
population from the twenty-seventh of July to about the fifteenth of
August inhabit the "dead city" in which not a single family lives the
rest of the year. Yet it contains one of the largest and finest
buildings in Russia, and not a match nor a cigar can be lighted at any
time under penalty of twenty-five rubles. The "dead city" is built at
the junction of the Oka River with the Volga, so that it is yearly
inundated to the ceiling of the first stories, when the spring rise of
forty feet or more comes with the melting of the snow. Here, too, is
located one of the largest churches of Nijni, and on the Volga side the
Siberian wharves.
In the living city is the residence of the governor on a clay bluff four
hundred and seventy feet above the river, with the business part at the
foot of the bluff adjoining the river. Nijni being in direct line of
free river transportation as well as railway connection between St.
Petersburg, Siberia, China, and the Caspian districts, the Caucasus, the
oil region of southern Russia, with its wine, grain and fruit districts,
make this city a great commercial centre. And the pulse of famine or
plenty is probably felt here as soon as in any part of the empire.
In the two months named, traders from nearly every European and Asiatic
country gather here with every variety of goods and product that can be
carried by rail, water, or caravan: grains, hides, leather, teas,
metals, precious stones, fish, meats, cloths, silks, peasants' works and
weavings; and the great sandbar in the river Oka of several hundred
acres is covered with Siberian iron. Electricity furnishes light where
needed, for it will be remembered that it is light enough in this
latitude to read at midnight in summer time. Here are also royal
quarters for the governor and State officials, whose social and
executive residences are in the "dead city" during the entire time of
the fair, in which time the governor is an absolute czar in power. To
give briefly a Russian view of the famine and how it was felt in a
single province and the Russian manner of dealing with it I give the
following abridged account:
Nijni claims to have been the first provincial government of Russia to
take active measures to relieve the sufferers by famine. The first news
came to the governor from reports of dry weather in his province in May,
1891, for the crops of the three preceding years had been short, and at
this time the peasants had begun to ask for bread, having already sold a
part of their horses and tools; and only two of the eleven districts had
sufficient bread for their people.
Without waiting to consult the general government, in order to save
time, the governor took the responsibility upon himself of immediately
purchasing one hundred and twenty-five thousand poods (a pud is about
forty pounds), or twenty-two hundred tons of grain, and sent this in the
early part of June to the districts most affected by the drouth. He used
his influence to stop speculation in grain, Nijni being a great grain
centre, and formed a commission from all the districts to carry out
relief measures. It was after this that the Department of the Interior
appropriated one million rubles ($550,000) to buy bread.
It has been a custom in Russia that when a loan is made to the _poor
peasants_ that the _rich_ peasants of the community are held equally
responsible for the payment; hence _they_ have fallen into the habit of
claiming an equal apportionment whenever loans have been made for relief
measures in times past. Thus the Zemstvo (the elective magistrates of
the village) have the power in themselves to say that they had not
ordered nor asked for the grain, and refuse to receive it for those
really needing it. Hence the governor of Nijni ordered that only those
receiving should be charged with the loan.
The whole loan here received was 6,350,000 rubles, all of which except
150,000 rubles had been distributed when we visited the district.
In the nine needy districts of Nijni Novgorod Province there were
587,000 persons needing assistance that were excluded from the
government loan as being between the ages of fifteen and
fifty-five--"therefore able-bodied and able to work." The Nijni governor
followed his judgment rather than the instructions of the Minister of
the Interior, and seeing that this amount was insufficient and that no
provision had been made for cattle and horses, he tried to get
permission to begin public works in order to furnish labor and pay to
those needing it; but this was not secured until December, when
3,000,000 rubles were appropriated for roads, 420,000 rubles for town
improvements, 40,000 for schools and churches. From eight to ten
thousand men were given work in the woods at fifty kopeks, 27 cents, per
day, and one ruble and fifty kopeks, about 77 cents, per team.
To secure a general interest of the people the governor made every
public commission (boards of directors, trustees, etc.), take an active
part in the relief work. He created commissions among the nobility to
superintend relief work, combining the Red Cross, the churches and other
individual organizations all into one committee, so that when the Crown
Prince's committee was formed on the twenty-eighth of December 341,550
rubles had been received and distributed besides 52,020 poods, 2,080,800
pounds, of bread which had been given to those who had no right to the
governmental loan.
By contributions three hundred and thirty-one kitchens were established
in villages, giving meals for one-half to two kopeks per meal. Nijni,
with a living population of sixty thousand, contributed one hundred and
ninety thousand rubles. Places were established in Nijni where twenty
kitchen meal tickets may be purchased for one ruble. The citizens buy
these and give to such as they desire to help.
From Nijni we take steamer down the Volga, and through the kindness of
Mr. Zeveke, owner of the American Steamboat Line, so called because
American names are given to all of his twelve large steamboats, we are
allowed time to visit each town on the Volga, as we pass down the river.
At each place the grain has been received and being used. At Samara we
find Mr. Bezant, one of our consignees, just recovering from the typhus
which was contracted in his relief work. And we get direct reports from
Count Tolstoi, Junior, whose work is in this province farther to the
east, and Prince Dolgoruhow, another consignee in the district of
Burulich; these have ten carloads of the "Tynehead's" corn, and are
saving the lives of many. At this time the Province of Samara alone had
lost five hundred thousand cattle, as many horses and 1,500,000 sheep
from the famine.
At Volsk we saw many people around the church. The bells in a dozen
different towers all ringing; from another church a large procession of
a thousand people were coming, bearing on high poles crosses and banners
and icons. They are joined by the people from the first church, with
their crosses and banners which are not raised till the first procession
is joined, and all march in their variegated red and yellow and bright
colored dresses, with bare feet and uncovered heads in the broiling sun,
miles away to the open fields to pray for rain, which has still been
withheld from this section of Saratoff Province.
The town of Saratoff has a population of 125,000, contains many Germans,
from having been one of the German colonies founded by Queen Catherine
during her reign, to encourage agricultural industries. Here as in Volsk
we found the people in the fields praying for rain, and in the evening
it came. Here we met Mr. Golden, an Englishman, who has been the active
agent in the Saratoff district, and Mr. Muhler, a German, who has been
the active worker on the east side of the Volga in Samara Province. Both
these gentlemen, together with a Catholic Bishop, say that the American
help, both in material and money, came so timely that it saved thousands
of lives that otherwise must have been lost. It came when they could get
nothing from other sources, and their thanks to America are unbounded.
The relief was "as if the Lord had ordered it." Of the "Tynehead's"
cargo, Saratoff received fifty-three carloads and the Province of Samara
one hundred and four cars.
There was a small quantity of the corn that got wet when put into the
ship during a rain in New York, and had begun to heat when unloaded.
This was sent to Saratoff with a suggestion that they use it for their
cattle, but when we reached that place the peasants had washed the corn
and dried it, and said it made very good bread.
As a typical incident and as an expression of the universal feeling
throughout Russia:--when we reached the platform of the station at
Saratoff to start westward, a Russian gentleman who could speak a little
English, and another one and his wife who could not, came to the train,
with an attendant bearing champagne and glasses, and made a speech of
thanks, expressing the gratitude of the people of Russia to America for
the heartfelt sympathy she had so beautifully expressed. The help she
had brought to their people in a time of distress made every Russian
feel to want to personally express his thanks. Wishing every success to
its representatives, they drank to America and bon voyage.
To see some of the smaller consignments, on our way eastward from
Saratoff we stopped at an inland station and went into the country some
miles near Tambof, where two carloads of corn had been consigned. Here
it was being ground in the wind-mills and made into the old-fashioned
New England rye and Indian loaves and baked in great, brick ovens, just
as we had found in other places.
Referring back to Riga. After the last car had been sealed and the
way-bills sent, we were speaking of the harmony and unity that existed
in all the different branches of this relief work, and it incidentally
came out that the count and his family were carrying on an extensive
system of relief among the peasants in the famine district, supplying
some thirty villages with rye and corn bread, obtaining their corn from
southern Russia, with soup, broth and tea for the sick and Nestle's food
for the babies--the latter an experiment of his own. It was suggested
that in such an extensive work as this he should have had some of the
American corn, but he replied they could get on very well without it;
that his family had taken that work upon themselves to do at the
beginning, and would continue to do it until next August and did not
need other help. I expressed a desire to see this work, which I later
found was a fair sample of what is being so quietly done all over Russia
that its extent is unknown until one comes upon it. And it was at
Michailoviski that we had the pleasure of seeing some of this work.
Everywhere we found people of all classes giving their time to the work
of relief to supplement the governmental help; and this does not mean
simply directing, superintending, or planning work for others to
execute, but I found men giving up their own business, the attention of
their estates, to see personally to the detail as well as the general
work. I found cultivated, intelligent, refined women making their homes
in the huts of the peasants, where they could be nearer their work. I
found countesses working in the huts of the typhus hospitals, or taking
the sick into their own homes, giving up social enjoyments and personal
comforts, their own plans, in order to make their work of relief more
effective. If the official side of Russia is subject to criticism, as
sometimes claimed, surely the quiet, personal work and self-sacrifice of
its people in this calamity is an example for any Christian land.
Sitting at the hotel table Count George told how his conscience would
protest against a good dinner after he had returned from his
investigating tours in the famine district to learn the situation, as a
member of the Grand Duke's Committee, for, "the ruble spent for wine
and coffee would keep a peasant child or mother a whole month." But he
says when he got back to St. Petersburg a few days away from the
distressing scenes, his mind occupied with other business, it did not
trouble him at all to eat a good full meal just as he had done before.
On another hand to show how suffering continues in any place from lack
of competent oversight this incident will show.