Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/41

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PRISONS AND EXILES IN IRKÚTSK
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cess to the territory of Yakútsk for longer periods than ever. The "Rules Relating to Police Surveillance" provide that the maximum term of exile without trial shall be five years, but since 1888 this term has been extended arbitrarily to ten years, and politically suspicious or untrustworthy persons have been banished without trial for that length of time to the very worst part of the Yakútsk territory, viz., the strictly arctic settlements of Verkhoyánsk and Srédni Kolímsk. Among such exiles, whose names and photographs have been sent to me, are Alexéi Makaréfski, a student from the Veterinary Institute at Kharkof, and another student named Ivan Tsítsenko. The territory of Yakútsk, moreover, has been made, since 1888, the place of banishment for all Jewish suspects, without regard to the nature of their supposed untrustworthiness, and without regard to age or sex. Among such exiles, whose names and photographs have been sent to me, are two young girls, Rosa Frank and Vera Sheftel, who were students in one of the high medical schools for women in St. Petersburg, and who were banished to Srédni Kolímsk for three and five years respectively in 1888. They can hardly expect, of course, to live to return to their homes.

Two of the most interesting politicals whom we met in Irkutsk were Mr. and Mrs. Ivan Cherniávski, who were banished to Siberia by administrative process in 1878. I became very well acquainted with them, and for Mrs. Cherniávski especially I came to feel the profoundest pity and regard. Few women, even in Russia, have had before the age of thirty-five so tragic and heart-breaking a life, and still fewer have maintained through hardships, sickness, and bereavement such cheerfulness and courage. She was arrested in Odessa in the early part of 1878 at the age of about twenty-five, and after a long term of imprisonment was sent by administrative process to the province of Tobólsk. In the city prison of Kiev, on her way to Siberia, she was detained for a few days, and while there was