Roughing it in Siberia, with some account of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the gold-mining industry of Asiatic Russia. Illustrated

Front matter

Frontispiece.} robert l. jefferson ROUGHING IT IN SIBERIA with SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY, AND TEE GOLD-MINING INDUSTRY OF ASIATIC RUSSIA BY ROBERT L. JEFFERSON" AUTHOR OF " AWHEEL TO MOSCOW," " ACROSS SIBERIA ON A BICYCLE," ETC. ILLUSTRATED LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY LIMITED jet. Dungtan'ss #?ouge Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. To JOHN KEMP STARLEY, ESQ. Dear Mr. Starley, Appreciating the practical and sympathetic interest which you, have for some years taken in Russian affairs, I venture to dedicate this volume of mine — " Roughing it in Siberia " — to you, as a small token of my esteem. Believe me, Very sincerely yours, Robert L. Jefferson. CONTENTS cnAPTEB PACE I. The First Dat in Asia ... ... ... 1 II. Russia's Colonization Scheme ... ... 12 III. Arrival at Omsk ... ... ... ... 31 IV.

A most Palatial Hotel! ... ... 43 V. Across the Steppe ... ... ... ... 55 VI. In the Obi Valley ... ... ... 68 VII. Impressions of Tomsk ... ... ... 79 VIII. The End of the Railway ... ... 101 IX. Kbasnoiarsk ... ... ... ... 120 X. Down the Yenesei ... ... ... 138 XI. An Exciting Adventure ... ... ... 152 XII. Nearing the Chinese Frontier ... ... 166 XIII. In the Syansk Mountains ... ... ... 181 XIV. Siberian Gold-mining ... ... ... 195 XV. Life at the Mine ... ... ... ... 210 XVI. A Trip into China ... ... ... 224 XVII. Looking Westward ... ... ... ... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO FACE P.' Portrait of the Author ... ... Frontispiece Sketch Map of the Author's Route ... ... ' A Train on the Trans-Siberian Railway ... ... 8 Emigrants at Chelabinsk ... ... ... 16 Omsk ... ... ... ... ••• ••• 40 A Station on the Siberian Railway ... ... 64 Tomsk ... ... 80 Krasnoiarsk from ihe River ... ... ... 112 The Yenesei Rapids— Summer ... ... ... 136 On the Yenesei — Summer ... ... ... 160 Minusinsk ... ... ... ... ... ... 168 Karatuski ... ... ... ... ... 176 Gold-mining Apparatus on the Upper Yenesei ... 192 Tribute Workers in the Syansk Gold-mines ... 208 Our Camp in the Mountains ... ... ... 224 A Gold-mine on the Top of the Syansk Mountains

Chapter I. The First Day In Asia

The short winter day was waning when the Chelabinsk train, seven days out of Moscow, sluggishly passed the big stone erected in a defile in the centre of the Ural mountain range, and which marked the geographical boundary of Europe and Asia. Since yesterday, when we had left the level plains of Eastern Europe for the uplands of the Urals, the pace had been tantalizingly miserable. Some people say that man can get accustomed to anything, but it absorbs an enormous amount of patience in getting accustomed to Russian railway B travelling ; the further eastward one goes, the slower becomes the pace, the longer the stoppages at insignificant stations, and the greater the demonstration — beating of tin cans, blowing of whistles, and ringing of bells — which accompanies each arrival and departure.

But now, with Europe behind, the whole wealth of Asia before one, combined with the uncertainty of the unknown, and which was backed up by popular prejudice and travellers' romantic tales, the thinking man has food for reflection, and much of it. We were rounding curves, sharp ones too, on a badly ballasted track, that caused the heavy Russian cars to oscillate alarmingly, notwithstanding the crawl at which we were proceeding. The views to be obtained from the carriage windows were superb, in spite of the wintry aspect which everything bore. It was January — time of deep snow, frozen rivers, and biting atmosphere — everything around (except the interior of the car) was wintry to the last degree. Snow piled up in great drifts on the sharp spurs of the mountain side ; the branches of the melancholy birches bowing down with the weight of their snowy covering ; icicles hanging in the crevices of the rocks, where, in summer, splashed a mountain cascade.

Deep below us, in a narrow gorge, lay the tortuous course of a fast-flowing river, but now frozen to its very bed, and its surface cut and streaked by the runners of many sledges. Now and again we could catch a glimpse of some woodman's hut perched up on the hillside — a veritable house of snow, and as cold and bleak-looking as any one could think to see. Hurtling violently around the corner, we pass a level-crossing, where stands a caravan of patient horses waiting to cross, with white frost hard on their shaggy coats, and icicles from their eyes and nostrils ; a sheepskin-clad moujik, with fur hat over eyes and ears, and feet encased in huge felt boots, complacently purling at a stunted papiros. Here, too, an old woman comes out to flag the train — a woman who looks, from the amount of heavy clothing she wears, more like an animated beer barrel than a human being, and on whose stolid visage is nothing except an expression of tremendous importance at the position she occupies in the service of His Imperial Majesty Czar Nicholas the Second.

Darkness fell ; my three companions were asleep. The conductor came and inserted in glass boxes at each end of the long car two diminutive candle-ends, the wicks of which he lighted laboriously. He looked at the thermometer to see how far off roasting we were, and then, after gazing superciliously around, left us. The heat in the car was fearful, beads of perspiration stood out on the faces of my sleeping companions, and yet this is only the Russian way of doing thino-s. The Reaumur glass outside showed thirty-six degrees below freezing-point ; inside, the heat was sufficient to almost roast one. And thus for seven days had we sat and lounged, talked and read, and stewed gradually, with no greater diversion than the rush for the buffet at each station, an occasional row with some blustering traveller who would hustle us for places, or the periodical breaking down of the locomotive, which event occurred about once a day on an average.

It was impossible to read, for the light in the car was so dim that one could scarcely see a couple of yards away. The train jolted and groaned and jarred, the candles flickered and guttered, people in the adjoining berths snored, a child was wailing dismally at the other end of the carriage ; the heat became more in tolerable, and I thanked Heaven when, two hours after darkness had fallen, the creaking of brakes and the distant ringing of bells announced our immediate arrival at Chelabinsk — the terminus of the European system of the Russian State Railways. The arrival of a train at a Russian station is attended with an amount of excitement which it is hard to associate with the usually stolid Russian. Particularly is this so in Eastern Russia, where railways are new and interesting. As the train slowly steams in, the assembled mob of sip-htseers and officials raise shouts of welcome — at least they seem to be.

A man hard by the ticket-office performs a terrific tintinabulation on a large suspended bell. All the conductors blow whistles, while the locomotive syren goes off in spasmodic squeal ings. Slowly, but with many jerks and much grinding, the train comes to a standstill. But the passengers are not allowed to descend all at once. First of all the engine-driver must get off and shake hands with the first half dozen men that happen to be hanging about near, no doubt receiving in return a sort of congratulatory address to the effect that he has got so far safely. Half a dozen gaily caparisoned policemen, in red hats with white cockades, and armed to the teeth with revolvers and swords, parade up and salute gravely. All the conductors get off — there seems to be quite a crowd of them. All salute a red-hatted, despotic-looking individual, who is gazing about with tremendous scorn and indifference, as if this sort of thing was very boring, although ten to one his heart is thumping with pride and excitement ; for he is the stationmaster, salary one hundred pounds a year, princely for him, indeed.

This iudi vidual, on thoroughly satisfying himself that beyond the possibility of the remotest doubt the train is really there, raises his hand as if he were about to pronounce a benediction, and instantly there belches from the heart of the mob a smaller mob of much-bewhiskered men in white aprons. These are the porters. These gentlemen throw themselves upon the train in a frenzy of hurry ; tear open the doors, push, scramble, and fall over each other in their endeavours to get in first, and ultimately disappear from view. The crowd outside grows silent in expectancy ; but the racket which proceeds from inside the train tells eloquently that the porters are doing their fell work. The cars now begin to disgorge boxes and men, bundles and women, baskets and babies, everything mixed up, everybody talking.

The crowd outside parts, and the crowd just out slides over the slippery platform in a hard mass to the buffet doors. These always open outwards, and are generally just wide enough for a thin man to get in sideways. Then the crush commences. You are in the middle of the crowd with a corner of a box in your ear and four men standing on your feet. You worm and edge your way out of reach of the box and run your chest against the side of a kettle, blacker than the blackest hat, and which is tied around the neck of an evilsmelling moujik in front of you. Somehow the door gets open ; the janitor inside scuttles, in order to prevent being swept off his feet. In we squeeze, and find ourselves in a long white-washed apartment, heated to a suffocating degree. Down the centre of the apartment runs a long table covered with glasses, plate, and cutlery.

Over on one side is a long bar. covered with smaller glasses and large bottles, A TRAIN ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY. [ To/ace page 8. mostly containing vodki, as well as at least half a hundred dishes of the hors cl'œuvre style — sardines, bits of sausage, sprats, caviare, sliced cucumber, pickled mushrooms, artful dabs of cheese, raw radishes, smoked herring, and such like. For the nonce the crowd ignores the long table, equally so a kitchen-like arrangement in the corner where steams a heterogeneous mass of cutlets and " Russian " beef-steaks, and which is presided over by a couple of marvellously clean-looking men who are rigged out a la chef. Vodki is the lodestone of the arrived passengers. Each man gulps down a small glass of the fiery liquid, seizes a piece of fish, or sausage, or cheese, or whatever he may fancy or may be handy, and subsides to the big table, chewing vigorously.

Energetic waiters pounce upon him, lay before him a big plate of the universal " stche," or cabbage soup, over which our Russian hangs his head and com mences ladling away, apparently oblivious to its boiling heat or the feelings of the people around. The tables fill up. Great slabs of brown meat, floating in fat, are distributed with rapidity, and which are with equal rapidity demolished. Manners are delightfully absent. People jostle, growl, and gulp ; smoke papiros and puff the smoke in each other's faces ; or make the most disgusting noises with their mouths. At last, having got through several pounds of meat and fat, and drunk about six to eight glasses of lemon-coloured hot water, which is called tea, per man, the crowd lounges around in contentment, and waits patiently for the bell to announce the probable departure of the train — which may be anything in the region of one hour to four, or while there is a bit of food in the buffet uneaten.

What a relief to get out of such an evil smelling mob and the heat and general nauseating surroundings, and, wrapt warmly in furs, to promenade the ice-covered platform ! They have unscrewed the engine from the cars, and it has disappeared into the blackness of night on a search for wood and water. At one end of the platform the third and fourth class passengers, peasants of the humblest order, are huddled together — sitting or lying, some asleep, some laughing boister ously — a group of girls in their midst crooning forth a wailing song to the accompaniment of a harmonica, the national musical instru ment of the Russian moujik. Over to the left, twinkling lights denote the town of i o o Chelabinsk. Eastward all is black, save for the blinking of a signal light a mile away. That is the road to Siberia, and here is the commencement of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Chapter II

Russia's colonization scheme. I haven't yet introduced you to my com panions. Thomas Gaskell, citizen of the United States of America, short, fair, a little bit bald, with a record of having travelled through the whole of Asia from end to end, and still only twenty-eight years of age. John Scawell, British subject, tall, dark, reserved, and just fresh from Western Australia, India, and the Transvaal. Evan Asprey, also British subject and also slightly bald, medium height, fair and good to keep close to, as he had already spent five years in Siberia, and was the only one amongst us who understood clearly more than twenty words of Russian. Here we were, then, at the commencement of Siberia, and bound to one of the wildest regions of that wTild country — the Syansk Mountains on the Chinese frontier.

Our mission was one entirely of peace, although the customs officials at the Russian frontier heed con fiscated Scawell's Mannlicher rifle and Webley revolver, and might have done the same with my Smith and Wesson, if I hadn't had it up my sleeve at the time. We were going out just to see what Siberia was like. Half pleasure, half business. People at home thought Siberia was a land of promise. The Trans - Siberian Railway was opening the country. Germans with a loose eye for busi ness had announced their intention of looking up Asiatic Russia. Being English, we wanted to get in also — if not the first, at least in the van. The station at Chelabinsk was not a cheerful place to spend six hours in — for that was the amount of time which had to lapse ere the train bound for Kreveschokovo on the banks of the river Obi was billed to leave.

Gratuitous information concerning the Trans- Siberian Railway was freely offered by fellowpassengers, and we began to fear the worst. Tales about three hours' stoppages at small stations ; half a day here and a day there. No bridges over the Obi and Chulim rivers ; so that the monotonous train journey should be relieved by a little sledging. An affable man is the Russian traveller, and a cheerful liar. The Russian for " I know " and " I don't know " are so nearly alike that only a Russian can tell the difference, and maybe this is why he would rather tell an untruth than confess ignorance. Beneath his affability, however, the observer can easily detect a purpose. His soulabsorbing desire is to know who and what you are, where from, where going to, and what you are going to do. What do you think of Russia ?

How old are you ? Will England let Russia have Constantinople ? How many millions of roubles have you got ? Have you seen absolutely the finest city, and the finest street in the world — St. Petersburg and the Nevsky Prospect respectively ? If one is wise he will be frank. But the torrent of reiterated questions at every fresh acquaintance becomes boring after a bit, and oftentimes we preferred to keep in our bunks in the train rather than be compelled to go over the jargon of stereo typed replies in the buffet. English is almost unknown in this region of the Urals ; next to Russian, German seems the language most freely spoken. Military officers and functionaries of upper rank know French, but English we never heard spoken in all our railway journey from Moscow. I think that some times we wTere looked upon as curiosities, if one might judge from the number of glances and finger points directed towards us, and the oft-repeated word " Anglichiny," or "Englishman," when circumstances compelled us to declare our nationality.

But I must say that though they were inquisitive we were invariably treated with respect by our fellow travellers. But on one occasion, three overbearing Russian functionaries, who are revered as Chinovniks, tried to take advantage of our slim knowledge of things Siberian. The Russian cars, I might say, by way of pre face, are built on the side-corridor principle ; each coupe is designed to hold four persons — two on racks, which are formed by lifting up the back of each seat and securing them by means of iron outsvvinging tee-pieces, and two on the main seats themselves. AVe had liberally bribed our porter to get us a complete coupe, but it was while we were partaking of a last glass of tea in the buffet that the three Chinovniks referred to, being probably dis satisfied with their own quarters, removed our baggage and installed themselves in our places.

One of us had slipped out of the buffet to see that nothing was being stolen, and brought back the dismal news. There was scant hope of our getting justice, but we awaited our opportunity. Thinking them selves safe, the Chinovniks could not resist the fascination of tea-drinking, and their \Toface paqe 16. EMIGRANTS AT CHELABINSK departure was a signal for a combined attack on their baggage, its removal, and the replace ment of our own. The Chinovniks returned as the train was on the point of leaving. They glared at us. We gazed blandly back. They spoke loudly and long to us. We re plied by unrolling our blankets and pillows and preparing for slumber. They raved at us ; but we only looked at them with mild reproach. They fetched the conductor, who, after listening to their tale, which was shouted with three voices in his two ears, addressed a question to us, which to three of the four, at any rate, was as incomprehensible as Afghan or Volapuk.

We could only fall back upon our standard saviour, and that was to cry simultaneously, " Neo panimio paa Ruski ! " — " I don't understand Russian ! " The conductor shrugged his shoulders and looked inquiringly at the Chinovniks. The Chinovniks raised their voices in their great ire, and then the conductor did absolutely the wisest thing he could, and that was to leave c the car. The Chinovniks were nonplussed, vocal persuasion had utterly failed to move us ; forcible was entirely out of the question for a Russian, and so they had to leave us. This little incident may serve as some illus tration of the Russian character. I have seen two men in a car, one at each end, quarrelling in the most terrible manner, hurling invectives at each other and boiling over with rage, but never getting one inch nearer one to the other.

A tenth of the inducement would be enough for a free fight in England. It was in the early hours before the Siberian train crawled slowly out of Chelabinsk station and commenced to bump miserably over the badly laid road. The boy-stoker at the stove end of the car commenced his infernal work, and in half an hour the temperature was some thing abominable. The heat was bad enough, but as the car contained some twenty-four pas sengers, and all possessed a large number of damp furs, in all conditions of cleanliness, and possessing all varieties of odour, the atmosphere was one almost unbearable. The worst of it is, that the passengers abhor ventilation of the slightest degree. In the roof of the car there is a ventilator, but it is always tightly closed. The windows are double and immovable ; the doors at each end are double, one being closed before the other is opened ; and thus, day in and day out, scarcely a breath of fresh air can enter the carriage.

Inside we sweated and gasped for breath ; the instant we alighted at a station our hair, moustache, beard, and eyelashes would become covered wTith hard white frost, and the exhalations from our lungs would be converted into fine snow. When morning came, and we arose from our uncomfortable couch, it was to find the train jolting slowly over a level stretch of country ; quite uncultivated, and with here and there a melancholy clump of stunted birch trees. We were on the edge of the great Tartar steppe, which stretched north and south for thousands of miles, and which is bounded on the east by the Irtish River, from whose banks stretches eastward Siberia's longest steppe — the Baraba, home of the Khirghiz hordes. The Urals were completely out of sight, and we had the not very cheerful prospect of a fifteen hundred-mile journey over an absolute desert.

Seen in the summer, the steppe lands are by no means displeasing, although their monotony is trying. Instead of the inevitable snow which now stretched in all its glaring whiteness before us, the steppe is a carpet of variegated bloom. The grass is stunted ; not nearly as long as that of the American prairie, this probably owing to the fact that much of the water in the plains is strongly impregnated with alkali. These steppe3 are, with the exception of the vast plains of perpetually frozen ground adjacent to the arctic circle, the most unpopulated part of all Siberia. Beyond the few miserable villages which occur every thirty or forty miles, there is no sign of life except the occasional kibitka of the nomadic Khirghiz. North or south of the high-road the steppe goes uninterruptedly for many hundreds of miles, roadless, treeless, not a landmark to guide one, swampy, sandy, and unprofitable.

Under its snowy shroud the steppe looks better. Late in the day we arrived at Kurgan, a tolerably large town, with the railway station miles away from the nearest house. Unwilling to take the bread out of the mouths of the horse-breeding populace of Siberia all at once, it would seem that the Russian Government has purposely fixed the stations of the Siberian railroad as far away from the towns as possible, in order to give the great army of drosky drivers a chance. Kurgan was interesting as being the first point where we saw the debarkation of outward-bound emigrants. Emigration to Siberia is now going on very vigorously, and not before it is wanted, for the population of Russia, European and Asiatic, is very disproportionate. The nomadic tribes of Siberia, such as the Bashkires, Khirghiz, Tungus, Buriats, Votiaks, Kamchakdales, and Samoyedes scarcely count, so small are their numbers in comparison to the millions of acres comprising Asiatic Russia.

The official com putation of the population being (including both Russians and aborigines) one man to every five square miles. The first cause of the extremely slow progress in populating Siberia may be set clown to its distance and inaccessi bility from the congested districts of Russia. The only means of reaching its heart, up till the commencement of the Trans-Siberian Railway work, being by the lonely tarantass or the occasional steamers plying the tortuous waterways of the Irtish and Obi systems. The Siberian railway, however, promises to considerably alter this state of things — com bined with the startling facts that Southern Russia is rapidly getting overcrowded. Another stumbling-block to the rapid development of Siberia hitherto has been the great prejudice existing against it throughout European Russia, a prejudice which may be said to be far greater than that amono foreigners.

For many years Siberia has been the dumping-ground for criminals of the worst class. It has been held up as a Bastille-like threat to every Muscovite. Mothers have for ages quieted their noisy children with, " Hush ! or I will send you to Siberia ! " And thus every man who goes to Siberia, voluntarily or other wise, is looked upon as an exile. Although the want of communication may be set down as the first, the chief cause undoubtedly exists in Siberia having been made a penal colony. It is said that the great famine of 1890-1 which spread throughout Southern Russia, turned the eyes of the Government Siberia wards as a possible outlet for surplus population. The late Czar had ever taken a kindly interest in his Asiatic possessions, and it was the dream of his life to see Siberia developed to its fullest extent.

The wish was commend able, but the means were lacking. It was in order to see with imperial eyes what Siberia was that the present Czar (then Czarevitch) took his memorable journey across the steppes and mountains from the Pacific coast, and then came Alexander's famous ukase : " Let there be a railway built across Siberia — the shortest way possible." The Czarevitch was then in Vladivostock, the Russian Pacific port. A telegram from St. Petersburg bade him remain there and await the corner-stone, which was to be laid in that town as the foundation piece of what will, in the course of a few years, rank as the monumental railway enterprise of the nineteenth century. Alexander, right up to his death, cherished his colonization scheme, and the heritage he left his son has been energetically pushed forward.

Some assert that the idea which dominated the Siberian railway scheme was that of strategy. While there may exist the strate gical undercurrent, no one who has passed over the line from end to end as far as it is con structed can be oblivious to the fact that at present, at any rate, one of the principal objects of the railway is the transportation of emigrants to the fertile valleys of Central Siberia. The train-bound traveller passes train load after train load of outward-bound emigrants. At the principal stations of Chclabinsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Kainsk, and Atchinsk, emigrants by the hundreds are detrained, and may be seen en camped by the roadside awaiting their further transportation north, south, or east. The numbers are evidence complete that the attrac tions offered by the Government outweigh entirely prejudice and the discomfort of a long journey.

The principle underlying Russia's colonization scheme is similar to England's policy with regard to Canada, only that the means are easier and the efforts and influence more energetic and widespread. The agents of the Government are sent to the most thickly populated or distressed portion of European Russia, and there the desirability of emigrating to Siberia is impressed upon the more indus trious of the peasantry, who, in Russia itself, can scarcely make ends meet. Neer-do-wells are not catered for, but the Russian Government offers inducements to the willing, and at the same time fixes a nominal fare to Siberia, in order to keep out the absolute drones. This fare is fixed at the rate of one-twentieth of a penny per verst ; and thus it is possible for a peasant to travel, say, three thousand versts (two thousand miles) for the moderate sum of six roubles (13s. 3d.).

From Southern Russia this would land the emigrant in the heart of Siberia. On arrival at his destination, the colonist is given a free grant of land, ten deseteens in area, which equals about twenty-seven acres English. He has permission to cut enough wood to build his house and fencing and to provide him with fuel for one year. Thus, with a clear start, and providing the peasant is industrious and frugal, there is every oppor tunity for him of not only being able to feed and clothe himself and his family warmly and cleanly, but of making a small profit out of agricultural pursuits. For purposes of com parison, it may be as well to state that in Russia itself the peasant is allowed only four deseteens of land, but, as the price of agriculture is abnormally low, it is next door to impossible for him to make ends meet, inasmuch as the rude agricultural instruments he uses, and the entire absence of artificial fertilization, in a few years impoverishes his property to such an extent that it is hopeless.

With the increased acreage in Siberia, a better climate, and a richer soil, his chances are enhanced, while a powerful factor is that agricultural prices all round rank from fifty to a hundred per cent, higher than in European Russia. Of course such prices will not last for ever, but as Siberia, minerally and com mercially, is far richer than Russia itself, the peasant is bound to come in for some of the reflected prosperity. The Westerner might perhaps take excep tion to the manner in which the emigrants are transported to Siberia. I confess it came upon me at first with a shock. The emigrants' train is simply one of cattle trucks, each car being marked on the side for " forty men or eight horses." There arc no scats or lights provided, and into each of these pens forty men, women, and children have to herd over a dreary railway journey of fourteen or fifteen days.

They have to provide their own food, but at every station a large samovar is kept boiling in order to provide them with hot water for their tea. At the points of detrain ment the emigrants are compelled to camp on the steppe or on the mountain-side until provision is made for them to proceed to the land apportioned off to their use. The filth, the rags, the utter woe-begone aspect of the Russian emigrant is something inconceivable to the European, but then it must be remem bered that the Russian moujik is used to roughing it all his life, and to hog, forty a time, in a cattle truck, or to sleep by the camp fire, with no more covering than the sky, is no very great hardship for him. It must be gratifying to the Russian Government that the privileges offered to the peasant have been keenly appreciated, and the difficulty which now exists is to get the land ready for the overwhelming tide of colonists flowing into Siberia.