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Unformatted text preview: v , A THROUGH SIBERIA AN EMPIRE IN THE MAKING BY RICHARDSON L. WRIGHT
AND BASSETT DIGBY ibe1ian laborers A photograph in which the d1fferent types 5
of faces me of remmkable 'mttrest )
1 NEW YORK MCBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1913 / I CHAPTER VII
SETTLING SIBERIA E were walking one day with some of our Datski friends past the freight yard of the Irkutsk sta- — tion, which is across the river from the city. Just as We left the pontoon bridge that the Irkutskians throw over the Angarar when all the Baikal ice has gone down, we found our way blocked by a long draft of
freight cars being shunted off to a siding. “ There are some new Siberians,” observed Shonebeck.
“.Do you see the stencil on the side of the car —‘ Twenty-
srx men or six horses ’ ? ” Squaring the station guard at the gate of the freight
yard with some small change, we sauntered along the
tracks by the train that was now pouring forth its occu-
pants. In that long line of box cars you could read the
story of Russia’s settling of Siberia. On the immigrant train you see what purports to be
civilized humanity at its lowest level. You may not quail
at the housing and surroundings of the black races, but
you will be unprepared for this degree of degradation
among whites. The first car behind the engine had a sinister aspect.
Its windows were heavily barred and a Cossack with a
bayoneted rifle stood on the platform at each end. There
were hands held out to us from the windows of that car,
hands that did not reach far because they were manacled. And the faces behind them — some were young and hope-
98 SETTLING SIBERIA 99 ful, some were hard and dead. It was an arrestante
wagon. One cannot travel a day on the railroads of the King-
dom of the Little Father without encountering these
prisons on wheels. Sometimes they form entire trains.
This is not to be wondered at since thousands of prisoners
are shifted about each day. According to conservative
official data, these in transportation in all parts of the
empire on one day, February 1, 1909, numbered 30,000. Before the coming of the railroad the exiles to Siberia
were obliged to tramp the entire distance. They and
their women folk toiled wearily along the post road. The
journey from Tcheliabinsk to Irkutsk and beyond Baikal
took, in those days, all of two years. N ow it is only a
matter of a week or so before they reach their destination. It was not pleasant to linger beside the arrestante.
Moreover, the guards were growing uneasy at our presence. On this immigrant train there were cars for families
and cars for single men. The former were simply stables
on wheels. In them, three human generations— grand-
parents, the man and his wife in their prime, the children
—and the population of their little farmyard back in
Russia. Three cows and half-a—dozen sheep lie in straw
and knee-deep filth, munching hay and green stuff. Bales
of hay and straw are stacked to the roof, the home of the
wandering fowls and turkeys and ducks. A couple of big
lean dogs crouch in a corner. A Russian log hut has not much furniture. All there
is fits comfortably into a box car, even when cows and
sheep, backed by a small haystack, swell the family circle.
Goods and chattels are disposed here and there, chairs are
placed around the rude table, a lamp and even a pair of
religious prints hang on the wall. Baby is installed in
her swinging cradle at the end of a spring. The peasant 100 THROUGH SIBERIA cradle in Siberia is like a meat scales and bounces up and
down. The single men’s quarters were populated by an intimi-
dating band of ruffians, bare-headed, bare-footed, shagg -
bearded creatures with flat animal faces and wild, blood-
shot eyes, one’s conception of a shipwrecked crew after ten
years on the desert island. Toward the tail of the immigrant train was a coach of
dazzling white—the hospital, a very necessary adjunct
to a journey taken under the conditions and lasting from
one to three weeks. Through the open door we caught a
glimpse of a brass and white enameled bed, a spotless white
counterpane across it, and surrounded by all the dainty
fittings of a private room in a good metropolitan hospital.
The uniformed nurse sat by the window embroidering. The clean, white, little room; the bleeding, shaggy
brutes among their cattle in the filth of the dark, mias-
matic box cars next door! The first people who went out to settle Siberia did not
" go of their own accord. They came from the town of
Uglitch, and against them was the charge of having en-
raged the Tsar by testifying to the murder of Tsarevitch
Dmitri. With them was exiled a bell that had persisted
in ringing when the Tsar demanded silence. It was
ordered to be flogged, its ears chipped off, and thus muti-
lated, it was banished to Tobolsk to “ do time ” with the
talkative inhabitants of Uglitch. That was in 1593.
There is significance in the incident because it is typical
of one of the methods Russia has employed in settling her
territory in Asia. For three hundred years Siberia has been a great prison.
For three hundred years it has been the darkest blot on
the escutcheon of Christianity and civilization. Tales of
Russia’s exile system in the past are only too well known. --<~—w —_—4~ —':,... ~—————.o ‘—r‘:’——‘a ' 1 SETTLING SIBERIA 101 And though the revelations of Kennan, of Prince Kro-
potkin and of Leo Deutsch have done much to readjust
the conditions in the jails and awake public sympathy,
Siberia is still a great prison. Since 1900 the exiles to
Siberia have been restricted to political offenders and
those who dissent with violence from the Orthodox Faith.
The remaining bulk of those in prisons east of the Urals
are the local miscreants, the thieves, murderers, forgers,
etc. Yet with this new ruling in force, the body of
prisoners is very great. Between 1823 and 1898, according to figures given in
Wirt Gerrare’s “ Greater Russia,” 700,000 exiles accom-
panied by 216,000 voluntary companions were sent into
Siberia. In the same period 187,000 criminal convicts
with. 107,000 companions went out. Since that time, be-
tween 1898 and 1912, 157,000 were exiled to penal settle-
ments in North Russia and Siberia. Thishof course, in-
cludes the host of politicals banished for participating in
the Revolution of 1905, though it does not include those
who served their sentences in jails. The total number
of exiles in 1909 to all parts of the kingdom amounted to
74,000. These are the figures of the Russian police.
Ninety per cent. of this aggregate went to Siberia. Those
in exile in Siberia at this writing number about 40,000.
Four thousand were sent into banishment in 1911—12. Alien supporters of the bureaucracy and those who see
the country from the windows of the Trans-Siberian ex-
press will be apt to dispute these figures. The fact
remains, however, that political exiles by the hundreds are to-day being shipped out to a living death. YQJLCQHQQE go down the rivers, the Irtish, the Angarar, th‘e Yenisei,
the Kmur'or/therlena, without seeing barges crowded with
exiles en. route to the prison settlements in the Tobolsk and
Yakutsk Governments on the verge of the Arctic circle. / t l l 102 THROUGH SIBERIA Active colonization was begun in the Seventeenth Cen-
tury. The first immigrants who were not exiles were
Cossacks of the Don sent out to make settlements along
the line of the pioneers. These Cossacks, the Government
hoped, would serve a two-fold purpose—provide a mili- tary population and till the soil. Unfortunately, the Cossack is nomadic and, so long as he is soldiering, does
not prove a good husbandman. On the other hand, when
he settles dOWn to plow and sow his fields and reap the
crops, he ceases to be a soldier. As a colonizer, the Cos~
sack did not fulfill all that was expected of him, but he
accomplished a feat of more value. He carried the Rus-
sian eagle to the Pacific and established posts between the
Urals and the “ great ocean.” Aflgntheflessegk ,sazee.th9ss_wh9_rhas dissented from
the POrthodox Faith, the Raskolihks, the Puritans and
Quakers of Siberia to'whom"'Russia ofiered no peaceful
habitation. In those early days thousands of Jews,
Finns and Poles poured into what is now the Government
of Tobolsk. These together with the exiles populated
Siberia. Russia is ofl’ering, at present, great inducements to
those of her peasants who will settle in Siberia. It costs
nothing to emigrate thither though you do not journey as
a convict. Upwards of some quarter of a million peasants
come out evéiy"'yéar‘, in consequence, an annual immi~
gration bulking many times largerthan that to Canada
from England, yet passing unremarked by the rest of the
world. A Russian peasant to-day can receive free transporta-
tion for himself and family, his flocks and his herds and
everything that he hath, from his native village to a settle-
ment in faraway Siberia. And there he will be given
land and loaned a grant for a year’s farming expenses. ....-____—_.‘___~.__ Mm .. __
Wm“ : W‘Wva-WW Siberian SETTLING SIBERIA 103 Each male is given forty and one-half acres, ca1e being
taken that the region to which he is sent compares favor-
ably in general characteristics with the land he had known
in Russia. No taxes are levied for the first three years,
and only one—half of the taxes for the second three. Serv-
ice in the army is not compulsory among immigrants [until
the end of the first three years, that is to say, until they
have cleared their fields and built their houses. More-
over, the Government sees that there is to each family at
least one man. Should the older son die while the
younger is in the ranks, for example, the younger son is
dismissed from active service and sent back to the farm.
If the peasant is absolutely destitute, the Government will
help in furnishing farm utensils, payment being set for a
later date and on tthe instalment plan; will give himgseped,
and, should the first crop be poor, piovide him with the
cash equivalent. He is allowed as much timber as he
needs for the construction of his house and barn. More-
over, in order that the new farmers may learn the methods
of modern agricultural and dairy methods, the/govern-
ment has set up dairy schools and agricultural instruc-
tion stations and offers series of prizes to be competed
for. Nearly the whole of the region in Southern and Central
Siberia capable of sustaining settlements has been sur—
veyed and plotted by the Government inspectors who
assist the local authorities in the distribution of the land.
Therg/re some thirty distributing stations, the largest of
which islet Tcheliabinsk. Under this paternal system, the tide of immigration has
been giowing. Between 1870 and 1890 only half a mil-
lion went out. Then came the raihoad. Between 1893
and 1901, 1,318, 000 went out. In 1908 the figures reached 758,000. There was then a falling off in the H...._ .9.“ -_—.... «.‘K‘ 104: THROUGH SIBERIA number because the land had been visited with great
droughts and poor crops had resulted. 1910 saw only
352,950, and 1911, 226,000. Not all of the immigrants reach the station for which
they set out. This is due either to the lack of personal
funds or the temptation to squat in some section that
pleases their fancy as they journey by. Thus 100,000
are registered each year at Tiumen, three—fifths of whom
never get any farther than the Government of Tobolsk.
The average peasant does not favor going east of Baikal
though the Government is trying to direct immigration
thither. According to officials, the arable zone along the
railroad is crowded, and the central steppes, tilled as
they are at present, visited with periodic droughts and
famine, do not justify more settlers. Of those who go out, a certain percentage returns,
either unsatisfied with the section allotted them or else
unable to cope with the exigencies of the climate and the
roughness of the soil. Thus, of those who went out in
1911, 80,000 have returned. Siberia’s present population amounts to about 10,000,-
000, a large portion of which are convicts or exiles and
their descendants; a dwindling portion the native tribes.
There are about 90,000 Tartars in Western and Central
Siberia. The Kirghis and the Cossacks and the Siberiaks,
the last the descendants of the first settlers who married
the natives, are occupied with most of the grazing. Large
tracts of land for that purpose are granted them. The
Tartars are Mohammedans; their mosques are to be found
in every town of size in Western Siberia. The Kirghis are the remnants of the old Turko-Mon-
golian hordes that at one time threatened to overrun Eu-
rope, but which, as the Cossacks came farther and farther
into the new territory, receded and were beaten into sub- SETTLIN G SIBERIA 105 jection. The present tribes live in ymtas or felt tents,
and raise sheep, horses, camels, goats and cattle. In the neighborhood of Lake Baikal one meets with the
Booriats, and in the neighborhood of Barnaoul and Min-
usinsk, the Kalmucks. The Government is making great
efl’ort to induce these natives to settle down to farming.
The establishment of a governmental instruction farm on
the edge of the Gobi Desert has not as yet met with much
success as these tribes are inherently nomadic and do not
prove good husbandmen. According to the latest reports,
the management of this farm is said to have been taken
over by an American harvester manufacturing company,
a concern which practically monopolizes the business of
farm machinery in Siberia. North of Baikal in the Government of Yakutsk are the
Tunguses, the Ostiaks and the Samoiedes, all of them liv-
ing by hunting and fishing much after the manner of the
American Indian. The Cossacks “offer a diflerent story than do these native
tribes. From the very beginning the pet soldiers of the
Tsar, these fearless troopers have been given more advan—
tages than the ordinary settlers. Iii/Central fiSQeria/pthfley
are granted psixty acres of land per man, and in the Mari-
time Regions, 100 acres. In Western Siberia they, form
about ten per cent. or the population. The Cossack government is a thing apart from the local
administration of affairs. There is a hetmtm or chief and
three under hetmen who form a Military Board and com-
mand all the Cossack troops in Siberia. The little Tsare~
vitch has been made Chief Hetman of all the Cossacks
in the empire. There are three classes, those boys enrolled
for three years’ service at the age of eighteen; those who
enroll at twenty-one to serve for twelve years; and the
reservists, or those who have seen five years’ active service. 106 THROUGH SIBERIA There is much talk in Siberia of the disbanding of the
Cossack army in order to encourage them to take up farm-
ing more seriously. From a picturesque point of view,
at least, this will be a loss, for no body of men in the
world ride with such reckless abandon or such endurance.
The weekly drills of the Cossack force on the city square
in Irkutsk are revelations to the foreigner. Russia has been populating Siberia now for over 300
years, with results that do not compare favorably with
the settling of other colonies; certainly her success is not
relative to the opportunities the country offers. There
are three reasons. The country itself is to blame. The
winters are severe, with. a temperature falling often to
50° below (Fah) in many spots of the arable zone, and
the summers extremely hot, sometimes the thermometer
reading as high as 114:0 (Fah.) in the same district.
There are next to no spring and autumn. Moreover, the
PEQPlS aremlower , in the scalemof civilizationmthan“those
who have settled in the western parts of America. And the exile system, that scheme whereby Russia has tried to fill up her new land with bad men or with political offenders, and expects to get thereby a healthy, loyal, hard-
working people, has much to do with the present state of
afl’airs. The Siberians themselves realized this position.
In 1898 they protested so violently against their country
being a dumping ground for criminals, that two years later
a law was passed abolishing banishment to Siberia for
criminal offense. Those exiled now are only the political
and religious offenders, so the officials assert. If this is
true, then Siberia’s list of murderers and thieves must
rival Russia’s crop of malcontents, for the jails are
crowded, arrestante wagons are seen at all times on the rail-
roads, and the prison barges are kept busy as soon as the
rivers are free of ice. A group of Mongols, showing their strangely fantastic headgear SETTLING SIBERIA 107- Stories of prison abuse in Siberia are still related. Of
course, the treatment of prisoners depends much on the
personal equation of the warder and his assistants, so that
abuse to a greater or less extent exists in every prison of
the world. That men are flogged, that those condemned to
death are abused and beaten before execution, that women
politicals are outraged, that devastating contagious disease,
torture, suicide and murder are rife in the prisons and
exile settlements is as true today as when Kennan crossed
Siberia. The Russian Government, with tactful hospitality, has
removed these eyesores from the View of the squeamish
foreign traveler. There are etapes, or exchange stations
in each city (these also serve as city and county jails)
where prisoners are distributed and allotted their places
of confinement. They are not conspicuous for the excel-
lence of their sanitation. Classification of prisoners is made only between the
criminal and the political, so that the petty thief and the
murderer rest side by side on the same sleeping bench.
In transportation, however, there is no distinction. Thus
a university professor and his pupils, exiled for their
ideals, may have to travel for weeks with the forger and
the thug; and young girls, hardly out of their ’teens, have
to ride in the same arrestante with prostitutes and degen-
erates and are obliged not only to watch scenes too revolting
even to think of, but, as is recorded in several authentic
cases, they themselves to suffer pollution and disease.
When they reach the place of final detention, the politicals
are kept apart. Women politicals, by the way, average
about one to every twenty men. Each prison maintains a workshop, a crude infirmary
and a domed, cross-topped chapel. One marks, not with—
out the temptation to be cynical, that the shimmering 108 THROUGH SIBERIA‘ gilded cross of the Irkutsk prison chapel is on a line with
the sentry boxes above the stockade where stand armed
sentinels ever on the alert to shoot down their unfortunate
fellow men, on the slightest provocation. Since the war, when Japan was ceded the southern half
of the Island of Saghalien, the northern parts of the Gov—
ernments of Tobolsk and Yakutsk have been used as the
spots for exile. In this region where the temperature
hangs all winter at forty degrees below zero (Fah),
where, in summer, perpetual cold fogs enshroud the land,
and in winter the air is dull with snowfall — snow as fine
as salt——up there in little hamlets along the rivers, the
politicals live out their sentences. Those with only short
terms ~— four or five years —— are given $6 a month by the
Government for their support; the life termers, however,
are not given one kopeck. Both classes are permitted to
work if they are fortunate enough to be able to find it;
but, as one who lived a time in an exile village describes
the situation, “ I have seen nothing but worn faces of men
vainly going about in search of work.” The life termer, after having served ten years of his
sentence, may come south from the exile settlement and
live in a town. This liberty applies to all but capital
cities. Those with short terms can go back to European
Russia at the expiration of their sentences. In the past
year many of those who were exiled for participation in
the Revolution of 1905 finished their time and came back
to their homes. Despite an army of spies, of troops, and the rigid ex-
amination of passports at the frontiers, many politicals,
as well as m...
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