Siberia (Price)/Chapter 3

by Morgan Philips Price

CHAPTER III

A JOURNEY ON THE SIBERIAN POST ROAD
(ATCHINSK TO MINUSINSK)

A TRAVELLER in Siberia always finds that there are two periods of the year in which he must not look for comfort in travel. The so-called roads are practically impassable for a month or six weeks during the spring thaw, and in the early winter. Nor are they always pleasant at other times; for in July the heat and dust from the friable soil cause no small discomfort. But even in the height of summer progress on the road is possible at a reasonable rate, whereas in spring and autumn travelling is almost impracticable.

The change from season to season is always sudden. The snow melts within a month: almost before it is gone the grass literally shoots up, and for a few weeks a vegetation of indescribable luxuriance abounds, such as one never sees in temperate climates. But when the moisture of the snow is followed by the dry heat of summer, the beauty of the vegetation begins to fade, the verdure disappears, and the landscape assumes the new charm of that glowing beauty which characterizes the steppes, until the winter begins to cover it again with its snowy mantle.

It was during the period of melting snow, when the roads were in an almost impassable condition, and the ice on the rivers had not broken sufficiently to make navigation possible, that my two companions and I set out to accomplish our journey of 280 miles from the Siberian railway to Minusinsk, the last town on the Mongolian frontier in the Yenisei Government of Siberia.

The town of Achinsk on the Siberian railway, about eighty miles west of Krasnoyarsk, was our starting-point. Thence the road leads southwards for 100 miles across ridges and undulating hills of open forest, and for another 150 miles over rolling steppes along a stretch of country called the Abakansk steppe, till it finally reaches Minusinsk.

In Achinsk we found a typical provincial town, with perhaps less European conveniences than Krasnoyarsk, but with a quieter and more respectable population of the truer Siberian type. It is a market town and the centre for a considerable area of country into which immigrants from old Russia are gradually moving. Here agriculture shows every sign of successful development. There were traders, too, of various nationalities, and I remember an interview with a remarkable personage, whom one would not have expected to meet in Siberia. He was a Greek who, born in Turkey, had become a Russian subject, had lived in Manchuria, and had now come to settle in Siberia. A man of such wide experience could not fail to have some knowledge of the world, and I was interested when he told me that in his opinion the southern parts of Western and Central Siberia had the most prosperous future before them. He had left Manchuria because he could not face the commercial competition of the yellow races, the Japanese and Chinese, who had in the last few years, since the Russo-Japanese War, become very active there. The only place in Asia where Europeans might profitably settle, in his opinion, was Southern Siberia, where there is a European white population with a uniform standard of living, so that all can compete on more or less equal terms. This interested me not a little, especially in connexion with what I heard and saw later in Mongolia.

We set out from Achinsk one April afternoon with two tarantasses and three baggage carts. The tarantasses in this part of Siberia are carts with wicker framework, not unlike open baskets on four wheels, in which two people can just squat or lie down. We said good-bye to the railway, which we were not destined to see again for many months, and crawled southward, bumping over half-frozen ruts and staggering over half-melted snow and black, slimy mud. The so-called post road, which was only a much-used track, led across undulating country covered with open forest of birch, spruce, and Siberian and Scotch pine, called by the Siberians the "taiga."

We passed many places where clearings had been made in the hollows of little valleys, and here the Government surveyors had been at work setting out plots of land for new immigrants who were to arrive from old Russia that summer. Several of these new-comers were already there and had begun constructing their houses, preparatory to ploughing up a bit of land as soon as the snow melted. These immigrants had received from the Government Immigration Bureau 200 roubles in cash and enough seed corn to sow ten acres. Loans of this description are always repayable without interest, in instalments extending over thirty years, beginning the third year after settlement. In fact the Government encourages immigration to Siberia in much the same way as the Canadian Government invites immigrants to Western Canada. All over the country we saw new tracts being opened up. The resemblances were great, the contrasts no less significant, and things did not wear the same aspect as in Canada. Here we missed the backwoodsmen living in isolated log-houses, far from the beaten track. The Russian system of immigration is always typically Slavonic; a whole community, or a part of a community, migrates and forms a common colony, which settles down in the wilds and creates a little isolated society of its own.

 

Darkness now came on and still we crawled along trough the open "taiga." More and more tedious became the journey and still no signs of our destination—nor for that matter did we know where we were facing to rest that night. At last we stopped at ten o'clock by the shores of a frozen river, which turned out to be the Chulim. One of our men said that the next village was a couple of miles on the other side of the river. We could not cross the river in the dark, as the ice was not strong enough to bear the carts. It was necessary, therefore, to take the baggage over bit by bit on a small sledge next day, and meanwhile stop the night on that side. It was pitch dark and freezing hard and we had no food, so our prospects were not cheerful. Soon a barking dog told us that some human creature was about, and we then found a low wooden hut by the shore of the frozen river in a desolate spot. We went inside, thinking to find a resting-place for the night. In a room about twelve feet square, a good part of which was taken up by an enormous high stove, were at least a dozen hairy Siberian peasants. Some were dressed in greasy sheepskins and others scarcely dressed at all; some were lying on the top of the stove, just under the roof; others we fell over as we tried to cross the room; piles of greasy clothes and sheepskins, mixed with old paper and remnants of meals, lay about the floor; the temperature was stifling, and the atmosphere of the hut was past expression. This was my first experience of Siberian wayside huts; it was not my last. In this case we discovered that some "old stagers" from the forest, returning to their village, were resting the night in this hut. It remained for us either to "tumble in" with them, or stay out under the freezing sky.

After eating some bread and drinking a cup of tea with the Siberians we concluded that we should get more rest if we tried the keen atmosphere outside. So we spent the night sleeping on the top of the baggage carts, wrapped in sheepskins and felt mats, and found that the fifteen degrees of frost had no ill effects on our repose.

This sort of experience gives one a good idea of what a Russian can endure in the way of extremes of atmospheric severity. As I have said, there were fifteen degrees outside; yet, after tramping the forests all day long in sheepskins, those peasants could still bear the same clothing without turning a hair, and could sleep on the top of a stove under atmospheric conditions such as I have described. Clearly the nervous system of such a human being must be very similar to that of the lower animals.

Next morning we got a small sledge and hired some men to drag our baggage over to the other side. When it was all over a violent altercation arose. Our Caucasian servant had struck a bargain with one of the Siberians who had agreed to do the work. When the operation was completed each side seemed to interpret the agreement in a different light. As is usual in Asiatic or semi-Asiatic society, a verbal war, which lasted some time, broke out between our servant and half-a-dozen Siberian peasants. These skirmishes generally end in smoke, or at the most a few feeble pushes or attempts at blows between the belligerents, but in this case the fiery Caucasian seemed to think his honour at stake, and a loaded revolver was produced as an armament policy to back up diplomacy. This necessitated the intervention of a third person in the shape of one of my companions, who, by a simple financial operation, relieved the tension between the two parties. A few minutes later we were on our way southward, while half-a-dozen Siberian peasants might have been seen settling down on the banks of the Chulim River to get drunk on vodka. Such blackmail a traveller in the East has to endure sometimes.

All that day we trekked southward, and succeeded in accomplishing thirty miles, although the tracks were full of mud and half-melted snow, and the side streams swollen with flood water.

The route lay over undulating country, the forest having been here largely cut away by peasant colonies of old standing. Most of the land was growing steppe grass, and barely one-fourth was under cultivation. Patches could be seen here and there where land had been cultivated for some years and had then been left to grow wild; here birch and coarse grass were now growing, marking those waste patches distinctly on the hillsides.

It was obvious that the farming was quite primitive. No manure was used, for the soil was a rich, black mould. Who can say, having regard to the vast area of the country, what population such a soil might not support if farmed on a more scientific system?

Measured on the map the day's journey seemed miserably small—no more than the length of one's thumb-nail. We had passed hill after hill, crossed stream after stream, and two rivers of no inconsiderable size, and had seen village after village with its church appear before us and vanish behind us. Yet how much farther were we on our journey? The immensity of the country began to overpower me—it was beyond my conception. I had been struck before with great distances in Canada, but when a journey of thirty miles is practically as nothing on the map, and covers a negligible area of the Yenisei Government, which in turn covers only a fraction of the total area of Siberia, it is enough to stagger anyone who tries to conceive distance. I began to ask myself if we should ever reach the end of our journey. And then I seemed to lose the sense of time—to Oriental travellers a desirable and almost necessary qualification. How can one be happy in the East if one has to fight against time, the old enemy of the West?

The villages which we passed on the way were Russian in every aspect. Streets were wide and full of ruts and slime. The houses had log frames and rough-hewn boards for the roof. They had a clean and well-kept appearance and were surrounded by fences of wooden boards. Through the fence a gateway opened into a courtyard where the live stock were kept. A stream generally runs behind the village, and the manure from the yards is pitched in heaps along its banks, being carried away each year by the spring floods. Inside we always found the houses neat and clean. There is a large room with a brick stove, taking up perhaps a quarter of the room. In this the family eat, live and sleep, some on the stove, and some on the floor, while a separate small room is kept and reserved for visitors or others who are not members of the family. The rooms are whitewashed, and each member of the family has a steam bath every week, in a hut kept for the purpose outside. The notion that the Russian peasant is habitually dirty is most mistaken. Here, at all events, the average Siberian peasant's house could compete with the best cottages in rural England. The temperature of the rooms is generally rather a trial to such as are not used to extreme cold outside, and sealed windows with a stove inside.

The peasants themselves are pleasant, childlike people, quiet and meditative, but always ready to give or receive information from a stranger if they are well treated. In fact they are like all peasants throughout the world that I have ever met. I have never yet seen any among the white races of mankind that differ very much below the surface.

Continuing our journey we found that fifty miles south of the railway the Chulim River makes a great bend, following the sweep of a long ridge of high land, which is covered with "taiga" or open forest. Across this we had to make our way through snow-drifts and forest tracks. It is one of the outlying ridges of the Kuznetsk Ala Tan, which is itself a north-east outlier of the great Altai uplift. The peasants at the last village shook their heads and did not care about setting out to cross it. But after some trouble we set off and for half-a-day we staggered along rising land through open taiga, proceeding at the rate of no more than two miles an hour. At midday we came to a little village called Klyuchee in the middle of the taiga, and more than half-way up the ridge. Here some hardy Siberian "old-timers" lived with their wives and families. Life must be none too easy for the peasants, as the summer here is shorter at that altitude and the land less productive than on the lower ground. But they all seemed fairly contented and prosperous, judging by the clean and tidy houses. They were all of the real Siberian type, knowing nothing of old Russia, or even of Siberia except for the district where fate had placed them. In fact, although similar in extraction and nationality, these old Siberians are a race apart from European Russians, and owing to their isolation they have developed more hardy and independent characters.

From this point we took our sledges and progressed rapidly over snowdrifts and through forests of pine and spruce, all still in winter's grip. In the evening we dropped again to lower altitudes, and the forest ended as we entered the village of Tukaiskaya, where we spent the night in a peasant's house, and supped on eggs, bread and tea. We partook of this fare three times a day for the greater part of a whole week, after which we should have been glad never to see an egg again. Eggs in these villages cost ⅛th of a penny each, and, as we could not eat more than ten a day, our daily food bill was seldom more than sixpence per man. The peasants themselves lived on eggs, brown and grey bread, made from rye and wheat, and "shchee" or soup made of salt cabbage and mutton. This is their daily food; and every household seemed to have it. I doubt if any English peasants have better fare than that, if as good. Furthermore, the healthiness of the peasants was remarkable, judging from their robust colour and sturdy frames.

Next day the country underwent a great change. The forests were gone, and so was the snow. Dry steppe-like vegetation began to appear, and the melancholy groups of birches began to dwindle. Agriculture continued in patches along the hollows, but the tops of the rolling downs were utilized for grazing only. Soon we reached the Chulim River, which we crossed at the village Korelskaya. Beyond here lay what was unmistakably the steppe. What a change from the forests and snowdrifts of the previous day to dry grassy steppes, where the snow had melted weeks ago, and the grass was being burnt with fires in order to hasten the growth of the spring vegetation!

This was part of the Abakansk and Minusinsk steppes, a large area of dry country with a low summer rainfall, lying to the north of Sayansk Mountains and to the east of the Kuznetsk Ala Tan in the Altai system. Shut in by high catchment areas on all sides except the north, these steppes form one of those dry evaporating basins which are met with in Southern Siberia in these latitudes. The outside edges of such areas adjoining the forest country, similar to what we had just passed through, are suitable for Russian agricultural colonists. The peasants here could get wood from the forest not far distant, and cultivate cereals; but droughts are occasionally severe, and lines of wells have often to be dug to ensure a water-supply. The central and dryer parts of the basin, however, are hardly habitable for Russian peasants. Here cultivation is not possible, and only stock-raising is carried on by natives, whom we saw now for the first time. These were the Abakansk Tartars, relics of the Turko-Finnish races, who live a nomad life upon these steppes.

Travelling now became easy. We trotted briskly and sometimes gallopped over the open steppes. The clear, dry air, and feeling of freedom which the steppes always engenders was most exhilarating after the forests and snows of the previous days. Although it was Siberia still, everything now had an Oriental feeling about it.

We reached the Yenisei that afternoon and during the evening gallopped on to the next village some fifteen miles away. We crossed rolling downs of dry steppe-land, and here and there were collections of tumuli or so-called kurgans, the burial-mounds of the earliest inhabitants of these districts. Around them were upright stones like obelisks; passing by a forest of these in the evening light is a weird sensation to the traveller.

As darkness came on the grass fires, like little glowing lines on the hills beyond, denoted the presence of Russian colonies, where the peasants were burning the grass of the previous year. The glowing lines advanced, retreated, expanded, dwindled and grew again as the wind blew them hither and thither. They acted as the beacon lights which led us on to the next Russian village, where a colony of Siberians

Among the rolling downs of the Abakansk steppes

Crossing a frozen stream on the Abakansk steppes

were settled on the banks of the Yenisei as it flowed through the steppe.

That night was Easter Eve. The whole village had been apparently fasting for some weeks past during Lent, for I had observed, passing by in the former villages, that the peasants had been denying themselves meat. That evening after midnight they were going to be released from their durance, and so the whole village sat up quietly while the priest burnt incense and chanted prayers before the icons and tallow-bespattered altar of the little Greek church. Toward midnight a large company assembled at the church, while the priest monotonously droned "Gospody pomuilui" (Lord, have mercy). At the stroke of midnight, when the church was full, the priest, with uplifted hands, declared "Kritus voscressenny" (Christ is risen), and instantly, with shouting and yelling, the whole company rushed out of the church into the streets. Revolvers, tin kettles, everything and anything with which a noise could be made, was pressed into service, and a terrific din ensued which lasted for half-an-hour. Then the crowd began to disperse to their homes, where they were going to break their fast with an immoderate consumption of food and drink. The reaction after so immoderate a fast is not surprising. Next day most of the inhabitants of the village were in various degrees of intoxication, and it was only with some difficulty and considerable delay that we managed to get horses and men to take us on to the next village.

To celebrate Easter and the close of a long fast by getting thoroughly drunk is the Slavonic ideal of enjoyment! But the vodka spirit is pure, and it is better that the peasants should get thoroughly drunk once and again on pure spirit, than continually soak at impure beer or whisky.

We now crossed the rolling downs of the eastern part of the Abakansk steppe heading southward. Away to the east was an endless expanse of steppe with several salt lakes in the hollows. Over the steppes roamed large flocks of horses, cattle and sheep, while on the tops of the hills, where patches of snow still lay, were little groves of melancholy birch, and here and there one or two stunted larch and pine trees could be seen, relics of the northern forest, holding out against the steppe vegetation, which crept up from below.

It was soon apparent that the Russians were not the only inhabitants of this country. In several of the villages men could be seen dressed just like Russians with tunic, belt, breeches, high boots and fur cap, but with squat faces, black eyes, partially puffed eyelids and black straight hair. They were Russified Tartars, and with hair cut short had much the same appearance as Europeanized Japanese. Some of them were living in the villages and, judging from several half-breeds who were to be seen about, had even intermarried with the inhabitants. Indeed one of our drivers who took us for a short distance was a half-breed. He was a jolly, communicative fellow, singing pretty little Tartar airs, as the tarantass jogged along over the steppes. In this connexion I may note that Russians seem to have that most valuable of all qualities for colonization—viz. the power of intermingling with the subject races with which they come in contact and of submerging, racial distinctions. Thus those of the Tartars, for whom in time the wild nomad life loses some of its attractions come into the Russian villages, settle down, and marry Russian girls, while Russian youths go off and pick up Tartar girls from the steppes.

Out on the steppes we saw little round tents of felt called "yurts," which gave an Asiatic character to the scene. Here were the Abakansk Tartars, true Asiatic nomads, living in their yurts with their flocks and moving from place to place. A little farther on we saw in the hollow of a stream by some poplars another curious erection. It was a log-hut, not like an ordinary Russian house, but octagonal, and imitating apparently the round felt yurt. It was a sort of mongrel house which some of the Tartars have adopted through contact with the Russians. Built of the same material as the Russian houses it imitated as far as possible the round shape of Tartar yurts or tents. I found that the Tartars use these round log-houses, built in sheltered corners, as a permanent winter abode, while in the summer they still use their portable felt tents and roam over the steppes, pitching them where the grass is suitable.

I had a talk with an old Russian peasant in one of the villages about the Abakansk Tartars, and I asked him how the Russian peasants got on with these Tartar neighbours. "All right," he said; "they are quite peaceable people. Sometimes a Tartar will steal your horses, but not so much now, and those who like to live with us in the village become one of us. After all, we are brothers." "And what sort of religion have they?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "they worship God." "Does that mean your God?" I asked. "Yes, sometimes," he said. "Then he has more than one god," I asked. "When someone in the family is ill," he replied, "then they call in the shamman witch doctor to drive away the bad devils. When we have someone ill the priest prays to the Bogomater (Mother of God); but for Tartars, the shamman beats a drum and the illness goes. That is his business, and that is our business, but never mind, when they are well they come to church. We are all brothers."

This curious medley of religious ideas is interesting, showing as it does the Tartar actually in process of Russification. The Abakansk Tartars were originally nature-worshippers, as all the native tribes of Siberia once were and as many of the tribes still are. They held in reverence the objects of nature, such as rivers, lakes, hills and trees, and used a witch doctor to beat a drum and drive illness away from a family. But by contact with the Russians they began to imitate their religion, and when they found, as they sometimes did, that the shamman doctor did not answer, they took to praying to the Bogomater in the Greek church of the Russian village. It illustrates, too, the forbearance of the quiet Russian peasant. "We are all brothers," he says. "God made Christianity for me, and Mohammedanism for the Kazan Tartar. For the Abakansk Tartar he made Christianity too, but if he finds that his shamman doctor keeps the devil away and does him good, let him use him, as we use our felsher, or village doctor."

We came one afternoon to a Russian village called Borodina, in the middle of the steppe. The Russian peasants were all on a prasnik or holiday, and would not move a finger to take us on to the next village, so we had to stay there for the day. The whole village, young and old, was engaged in holiday-making, which for most of the day seemed to consist of doing nothing in particular, and doing it continuously. Groups of old peasants sat outside their doorways on low benches, chatting and eating pine seeds, without a plentiful supply of which you rarely see a Siberian. Unlimited time seemed to be hanging on their hands, but they were quite cheerful about it. An English country village is a perfect Wall Street compared to a Siberian village during the Easter holidays, and one could not help thinking how much material wealth these people might accumulate if they only utilized a portion of their wasted time. But perhaps they don't want to accumulate riches, and they certainly are happier without the frantic rush of the Westerner after purely material objectives. If happiness is to be measured by wealth, then the Siberian peasant is less happy than a city financier, but if it is to be measured, as I believe it really is, by contentment of mind, then the Siberian peasant is the happiest man alive. It seemed strange that money would hardly bribe these peasants to leave their village even for a few hours, and take us on to the next. But nearly everybody in this world ultimately has his price, and with the Russian peasant it can be found in cash too, only it is a good deal higher during an Easter holiday than at ordinary times, and the bribe has to be made sufficiently attractive to lure him on to the steppes, away from his doorstep and his bag of pine seeds. Moreover, in these circumstances the peasants have a habit of collective bargaining, which, though decidedly useful to themselves, is often exasperating to the traveller. It is rather trying to be held up by the whole village and told that there are no horses anywhere, when a few minutes later you see a whole herd being driven in from pasture; or to be told that there is no one to take you on, when the whole village is full of idlers; or to be asked a price six times greater than the fixed post road tariff, because, while no one wants particularly to do the job, still everyone is ready to join hands for a little plunder. The village community thereby creates a monopoly into which it is very difficult to drive the wedge of competition, although occasionally one finds a single peasant ready to break the ring and get the whole job for himself at a reduced rate. The power of collective action and bargaining is one of the greatest assets of the Russian peasant.

From Borodina our track lay over the steppe, undulating in wide sweeps. The vegetation became dryer as we sank into the hollow through which the Yenisei River flowed. We passed over some little streams half frozen at the sides. We had to cut our way through the ice into the bed of the stream, in order to put the carts over. At length some groves of poplars ahead told us that the Yenisei was near, and we soon saw the great river, which was about a quarter of a mile across and full of drifting pack ice after the spring thaw. This was not encouraging, but an old Siberian assured us that we could get over with our luggage. After the usual delay the first batch was taken over and watched anxiously as the poplar "dug-out" was rowed up stream for about two hundred yards, hugging the banks and pushing its way through masses of half-melted ice, which made it quiver from stem to stem. When this was done the boat was rowed straight across the river, being carried down by the current some hundred yards. It thus drifted with the ice without coming in contact with it.

When all was safely over we repaired to the neighbouring village, where we found Easter festivities going on. Groups of youths and girls were stiffly and solemnly dancing simple peasant dances in the streets to the music of an accordion, an instrument which is always very much in evidence in Russian villages. The interior of the houses had been white-washed and decorated with sprays of fir-trees, and Easter cakes, part of which is given to the priest, were to be found in every house. After a meal in a peasant's home and a pleasant chat we continued our journey.

The last stage to Minusinsk was easily accomplished. Travelling southwards over rolling hills, we sank down at last by a long incline into a flat plain across which the Yenisei winds. Situated on a bank of the river and at the north end of the so-called Minusinsk steppe was Minusinsk itself, a typical Siberian town of wooden houses, over-shadowed by three or four Greek churches with green cupolas. It has a population of about 15,000, and is the last town of the Yenisei Government before the Mongolian frontier is reached, and the economic and administrative centre of a large area of country.

Down the main street of the town our horses gallopped on that April afternoon, kicking up clouds of dust, and waking storms of protests from numerous street dogs. Of course there were no hotels in Minusinsk, so we set out to try and find some private individual who would be disposed to have a party of four hungry people and three cartloads of baggage quartered on him for a fortnight. After several unsuccessful attempts a meek-looking man informed us that he had an empty top storey over his shop which he would be pleased to place at our disposal. Thither we repaired, and found a nice lot of empty rooms suitable for us and our baggage. We arranged with the apparent owner of the house to pay the sum of one rouble a day for this, and as the bargain seemed extraordinarily cheap we got to work at once and began hauling our baggage in.

Suddenly there was a bolt from the blue in the shape of an old woman, who appeared, spluttering with rage, and said the house was hers, and she would allow no one in under four roubles a day. Meanwhile the first man had decamped, which made the situation decidedly awkward, but our sharp Caucasian servant was equal to it. He disappeared for five minutes, leaving us to the tender mercies of verbal avalanches, and in fear of having our eyes scratched out. He then returned accompanied by a police officer whom he had called in as an umpire, having duly squared him with a couple of roubles and a glass of vodka. The case was then presented to this impartial legal tribunal, and after much verbal warfare the decision went in favour of the defendants, which meant that our bargain of one rouble held good.

We then wanted to find out the real owner of the house, so as to know whom to pay, and to be sure that no third party would turn up and claim fresh rights. But having given judgment for the defendant the police officer seemed more favourably inclined for another glass of vodka than for any more verdicts, and disappeared forthwith, leaving us still hopelessly mystified.

It eventually turned out that the old woman was the real owner, and so, strengthened by the arm of the law, which in turn had been strengthened by vodka, we settled into our novel abode over the shop of a Siberian frontier town.