Russia and the East—Moscow—The Power of the Bureaucracy—Through European Russia by Rail—The Decline of the Peasant Commune—A Tartar Village—Tartar and Slav—The Siberian Borderland—The Steppes—A Wayside Station—Russian Asia—Fellow-Travellers—The Englishman at a Disadvantage—A Russian Commercial Traveller—Siberia for the Siberians—Russian Fatalism—The Baraba Steppe—The Altai Uplift—The Yenisei—Krasnoyarsk.
First Impressions—Hotels—Restaurants—Commerce—A Progressive Siberian—The Problem of the Jews—English Commercial Methods—Municipal Government—Education—Militarism—The Decline of the Bazaar—Current Prices—Commercial Possibilities—Urban Society—The Breakdown of the Caste System—The Growth of the Industrial Proletariat—Current Wages—Economic Conclusions.
A Journey on the Siberian Post Road (Atchinsk to Minusinsk)
40
Siberian Roads—The Change of Seasons—A Typical Provincial Town—Our Cart Caravan—Immigrants—A Night in a Siberian Peasant's Hut—Bargaining—Peasant Agriculture—A Vast Country—Siberian Villages—Siberian Fare—The Abakansk Steppes—Easter Eve—The Breaking of the Fast—Russified Tartars—The Tartar Religion—A Village Holiday—Crossing the Yenisei—Minusinsk—Finding Lodgings.
We arrive in the Easter Holidays—Siberian Business Methods—A Religious Ceremony—Buying Horses—My First Experience of a Tartar Horse—A little Oriental Blackmail—A Typical Siberian Bank—Our Relations with Officialdom—Bureaucratic Red Tape—An Official hawking Gold Concessions—A Mining Inspector—Provincial Education and Public Institutions—A Man of Science—Social Life in a Provincial Town—Scenes in the Boulevard—A Tartar Household—A Political Exile—His Views of Siberia—I meet the Governor of the Local Gaol—I visit the Gaol.
Typical Village Scenes—A Siberian Peasant Home, its Cleanliness, Comfort and Lack of Art—I join the Village Games—A Siberian's idea of his Neighbours in Mongolia—His Ignorance of Old Russia—The Village Schoolmaster—I meet a Revolutionary—Sunday Morning in Church—The Priest and the People—I wander in the Forests—The Beauties of a Siberian Spring—I talk with an old Ploughman—His Ideas of Agriculture—I attend a Meeting of the Village Commune—Local Government—Communal Land System and its Modifications—Siberian Peasant Society, its Toleration and Fellowship—Advantages and Disadvantages of the Commune—Economic Standard of Peasants—Conclusions.
The Pioneers of Siberian Trade—The Fur Traders on the Toundras—Their Relations with the Natives—The Borderland of Siberia and Mongolia—Its Attraction for the Siberian Fur and Wool Trader—I visit a Frontier Wool-Trading Settlement—Typical Scenes—I visit a Nomad Tartar Encampment—I spend Three Days in a Tartar Yurt—Cordial Relations between Russian and Tartar—I arrive at a Siberian Wool
Trader's House—Cosmopolitan Society—Tartars in all Stages of Russification—I visit a Chinese Trader's House—Social Surroundings of the Chinaman—His Economic Superiority to the Siberian—I wander among the Siberian Fur Traders of the Upper Yenisei—A Typical Fur Trader's Hut Surroundings—The Dense Forest—Character of the Siberian Fur Trader—His Independence—His Intelligence—His Fatalism—His Contact with Nature and the Effect on his Life and Ideals.
History of the Colonization and Social Evolution of Siberia
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Earliest Finnish Races in Siberia—The Coming of the Turkish Races—The Tartar Khanate of Siberia—Relations with the Russians—The Conquest of Sibir—Cossack Colonization of Siberia—Reasons for Russia's Advance—Convict Settlements of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries—Their Dangerous Influence on Siberian Society—The Coming of the Peasant Immigrant—Political and Criminal Prisoners in Siberia at the Present Time—Modern Administrative System in Siberia—Growth of Public Opinion—The Early Relations between Russians and Native Siberians—Russian Influence upon them—Types of the modern Siberian Natives.
Present Economic Conditions of Western and Central Siberia
205
1. General Geographical Conditions. 2. Western Siberia and the Altai—Physical Zones, Administrative Areas, Population and Immigration—Wheat Cultivation—The Dairy Industry, its Growth and Importance—Live-Stock Industry—Forests and the Possibilities of the Timber Trade—The Fur Trade—Mining—Commerical and Industrial Centres of Western Siberia. 3. Central Siberia (Yenisei Government)—Physical Zones, Population and Immigration—Agriculture—The Live-Stock Industry—Fishing—The Fur Trade—Mining—Prospects of Industrial Development and the Commercial Centres of Central Siberia.
The Economic Condition of the Siberian Peasant—Possibilities for Investment in Land—In Public Works—In Commerce—Legal Rights of Foreign Companies in Russia—Mining Rights in Siberia—British Consular Representation and the Need for its Improvement—Railways and other Communications in Siberia, (1) History of the Great Siberian Railway. (2) Projected Railways in Western Siberia. (3) Central Siberia and its Communications. (4) The All-Sea Yenisei Route, its Possibilities and its Difficulties.
Mongolia, in its Present Economic and Political Relation to the Russian and Chinese Empire)
261
1. Physical Characters of Mongolia. 2. Early Russo-Chinese Relations. 3. Administrative Authorities in Mongolia. 4. The Natives of Mongolia. 5. Mongolia as an Asiatic Market—(1) Its External Trade. (2) Currency. (3) Russo-Chinese System of Credit. (4) Mongolian Imports and Exports. (5) The Future of Mongolia's Trade Relations—(6) The present Political Situation in Mongolia.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1912, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1973, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
