View of the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine II, and to the close of the present century

Front matter

VIEW or THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, DURING THE REIGN OF CATHARINE THE SECOND, AND TO THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. . By WILLIAM XQOICE, F. R. S. MEMBTR OF THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND OF TH& FREE ECONOMICAL SOCIETY AT ST. PETERSBURG. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE SECOND EDITIONS LONDON: Printed by A. Strahan, Printers-Street ; FOR T. K. LONGMAN AND O. REE5, PATERNOSTER-ROW, l800.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. /-pHE Ruffian Empire, which in various respects now fixes the attention of Europe, has for several years been the subject of a multitude of investigations and writings, by which the knowledge of that country is considerably improved and enlarged. The care which Catharine the second, from her first accession to the throne, and during the whole of her reign, devoted to the cultivation of this know ledge,.has been attended with so much success, that Russia, which, prior to the year 1762, was a sort of terra incognita in our part of the globe, is now in possession of a very considerable store of materials, from which the present state of this remarkable country may be illustrated and described. The first and most important step to the elucidation of the natural and moral condition of Russia was the appointment of the academicians of St. Petersourg to travel for the purpose of exploring its qualities in both these respects ; and their journals still form the basis of all that we know with certainty of the inter nal state of this extensive empire. These important discoveries assisted the zeal of some industrious a 2 foreigners,

Introduction

. About the middle of the year 1767, Catharine II. conceived the useful project offending several learned men to travel into the interior of her vast territories, to enable themselves to determine the geographical position of the principal places, to mark their tem perature, and to examine into the nature of their foil, their productions, their wealth, as well as the manners and characters of the 'several people by whom they are inhabited. A country of such a prodigious extent as the russian empire, must naturally attract the nonce of every man who wisoes to increase his knowledge, whether it be considered in regard to the astonisoing number of tribes and nations by which it is inhabited, the great diversity of climates under which they live, or the almost infinite variety of natural curi osities with which it abounds.

But the greater part of this country is still immersed in the profoundest barbarism, and almost inaccessible to the inves tigations of the ordinary traveller. Here vagrant hordes of people, who, entirely addicted to thc pas toral life, roam from place to place, sounning the social X

INTRODUCTION.

. social manners of towns and villages, negligent of agriculture, and leaving uncultivated and almost in a desert-state vast tracts of land blessed with the most favourable foil and the most happy tempe rature of seasons : there, peasants, and even in many places inhabitants of towns, slaves to a thousand prejudices, languishing in bondage to the most stupid superstitions'; brought up, besides, in the severest servitude, and, being accustomed to obey by no other means than blows, are forced to submit to the harsoest treatment : none of those affectionate admo nitions, those prudent and impelling motives, which usually urge mankind to action, make any impression on their degraded minds; they reluctantly labour the fields of a hard master, and fludioufly conceal from his knowledge those riches which some accident, so desirable in other countries, soould have led them to discover y as they would only augment the number of their toils and the heaviness of their yoke.

Hence that careless contempt for the trea sures presented them by Nature, and the neglect of those bounties soe lavissies on them. Hence those immense deserts almost totally destitute of cul tivation and so many towns that are falling to decay. Peter the Great, of too penetrating a view not to perceive both the evil and its causes, took all imaginable pains, and adopted the wisest measures to ameliorate the condition of an empire, so power ful from numberless other circumstances, to free his subjects Introduction. XI subjects by gentle degrees from the shackles of barbarism, to diffuse on all sides the benign light of arts and sciences, to discover the treasures concealed in his dominions, and to furnish agriculture with the remedies and assistances adapted to its improvement. His travels into several countries of Europe for the acquisition of such kinds of knowledge as were most applicable to the use of his dominions, are sufficiently known ; as well as that in 17 17 he honoured the royal academy of sciences at Paris with his presence, and expressed his desire the fol lowing year to be admitted a member ; that he kept up a regular correspondence with that illustrious body, and that he sent to it, as the first essay of his ingenious and magnificent enterprises, an accurate chart of the Caspian, which he caused to be scru pulously taken on the spot.

At the same time he fitted out and dispatched several men of letters to various parts of his empire ; one of them to make the tour of Russia, and two others to proceed to Kazan and Astrakhan, to gain information of every thing of consequence to be known in those countries. In the year 1719, Daniel Amadeus Messersehmidt, a physician of Dantzie, was sent into Siberia, for the purpose of making inquiries into the natural his tory of that immense province, from which expedition he only returned at the beginning of 1727. This learned man did honour to the choice that had been made of him, by an indefatigable activity, and by the proofs he gave of his profound knowledge, INTRODUCTION1. ledge, not only in every department of natural his-s toiy, but likewise in antiquities, as well as in astronomy, having carefully determined the elevation of the pole in all the places where he stopped.

As the northern regions, particularly those of Siberia, were as yet but little known, and as it was very uncertain whether the extremity of these latter might not touch upon America, Peter I. sent from Archangel two soips, with orders to proceed, by the White-sea and the Northern-ocean, into the Frozen-ocean, where they experienced the fame dis» asters as had befallen the other vessels that had gone before them in this attempt ; for one of the two was caught by the fields of ice, and disabled from proceeding any farther ; and as no tidings were ever heard of the other, it, in all probability, perissied. Peter I. was not discouraged by the fai lure of this undertaking ; but he was carried off by deathas he was preparing a new expedition ; he had given the charge of it to two daniso captains, Behring and Spangberg, and a Russian named Tchirikof, with orders to go to Kamtsoatka, whence they were to fail for exploring the northernmost coasts of Siberia.

The sorrowful event of the em peror's death made no alteration in these disposi tions ; and the plan was carried into execution, the fame winter, by the empress Catharine I. who sent a small company of literati, provided with a paper of in structions, which Peter had framed with his own hand. They

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII They returned in 1 730, after having penetrated very far towards the north. The empress Anne was desirous of prosecut ing these important researches still farther, and ordered the erection of a new company, in which Behring was to be employed as captain of the soip. Kamtssiatka was again the point of depar ture for making the principal discoveries, with or ders to neglect nothing that might seed any light on the knowledge of the globe. One part of this so ciety was to navigate the northern seas, while the others were to repair by land to Kamtshatka over Siberia. These latter were to act conformably with the instructions of the imperial academy of Peters burg, and to employ themselves particularly in astronomical observations, geometrical operations, and descriptions relative to the political and natural history of the countries through which they were to pass.

John George Gmelin was one of the chief of those who undertook the journey by land ; almost always accompanied by professor Muller, who had the care of the historical part. They reached as far as Yakutflc ; where Kraseheninikof, the assistant Steller, the painter Berkhan, and the student Gor lanof, quitted them to go to Kamtssiatka, of which they collected the political and natural history, as well as that of the department of Okhotsk. M. de I'lsle de Ia Groyere likewise went thither with, some land surveyors. Afterwards M. Fischer was sent

INTRODUCTION.

. sent in the department of political history ; he reach ed very near to the province of Okhotsk, which he left in the design of returning *. In 1760, M. l'abbe Chappe d'Auteroche wa* sent into Russia, by order and at the expence of the king of France, for observing at Tobolslc the tran sit of Venus over the fun : his observations, pub lissied with great ostentation, contain not near so much as was expected from that academician ; and many of those which he relates had been already long since known. The empress Catharine II. was determined to prosecute these useful investigations, and accordingly gave orders to the academy of sciences to make choice of a company of able and learned men to travel over different districts of the empire with attention and observation. The selection os the learned travellers, the helps that were granted them, the excellent instructions and advice that were given them, will be a lasting honour to that academy.

The very names of a Pallas, a Gmelin, and a Gui. denst-cdt , already promised much. M. Lepekhin had likewise acquired a reputation by different papers inserted in the academical collections ; and the result of the labours of these enlightened men has been seen in the extensive utility which they have since produced. Very few of the accounts that have * For more particulars the reader is referred to the preface of Mr. J. G. Gmelin to the first volume of his travels in Siberia which appeared at Gœttingen 1751. A French translation, or rather abstract of it, was given by M. de Keralio, Paris 1767. been

INTRODUCTION.

. XV been given by travellers contain so great a variety of new and important matters. The journals of these celebrated scholars even furnissi such a great quantity of materials entirely new, for the history of the three kingdoms of nature, for the theory of the earth, for rural ceconomy, in ssiort, for so many different objects relative to the arts and sciences, that it would require, according to the judi cious remark of M. Bekmann of Gœttingen, whole years and the labour of several literary men only to put these materials in order, and properly to class them. In order to form an accurate idea of the different objects to which our learned travellers were enjoined to direct their observations, it will be necessary to give an account of the instructions delivered to them by the academy at their departure.

By these they were to make accurate examinations into — I, The nature of the soil and that of the waters. 2. the means of putting the desert places into cultivation. 3. Ihe actual state of agriculture. 4. The most common diseases, both of men and cattle; and the methods in use of healing and preventing them. 5. The breeding of cattle, particularly ssieep, and that of bees and silk-worms. 6. Thc fissiery and the chace. 7. Minerals and mineral waters. 8. Arts, trades, and objects of industry, q. They must also apply to the discovery of inte? resting plants : and, 10. To rectify the position of places, to make geographical and meteorological observations }

INTRODUCTION.

. scrvations ; to report all that relates to manners, various customs, languages, traditions, and antiqui ties ; and mark down exactly whatever they fliould find remarkable concerning all these points. All these different views were fulfilled in a superior manner by these gentlemen ; and there is no exaggeration in what has been said, that natural his tory never at one time obtained so great an increase of its treasures, as by the inestimable fruit of the la bours of these truly useful men ; and their narratives are become a lasting monument of their zeal, their uncommon talents, and their unwearied activity. Samuel George Gmelin, physician of TubinT guen, began the course of his travels June 23, 1768, accompanied by four students, James Gliutssiaref, Stephen Krassieninikof, Ivan Mikhailof, and Ser gey Mcllof ; having with them an apothecary named Joachim Daniel Luther ; Ivan Borissof a drafts man ; Michael Kotos, a hunter by profession, whose business it was to stuff the animals; and a sufficient escort of .soldiers.

He directed his rout on leaving Petersourg, through Stararuffa, Valdai, Torjok, and Mosco, towards Voronetch ; where he took up his winter quarters, and whence he afterwards passed through Ostrogosk, Pavlovsk, Kazanka, Cimlia and Tscherkask, to Azof. From this last place he set out, about the middle of August 1769, to proceed by Tzaritzin to Astrakhan.; he passed the winter in that city, and only quitted it in June *77o j he traversed, in this last half year, in the whole

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII whole course of 1771, andpartof 1772, the north of Persia; visited Derbent, Baku, Schamaky, En tzili, Peribazar, Ghilan, Mazanderan, returned to Entzili, where he passed the winter, and resumed, in April 1772, the route to Astrakhan. The third volume of his Journal closes with the description of these countries. This able traveller was continually obliged to struggle with adverse events, while tra versing the northern provinces of Persia ; he had es pecially to contend with sicknesses, and the difficulties thrown in his way by the khans of that king dom ; and he is deserving ofthe title of a martyr to natural history, with the greater right, as, after having adorned his life with so many labours, he closed it under the weight of persecutions, and in the miseries of captivity *. The greater part of the writings he left behind him were forced, not with out great difficulty, from the hands of the barba rians.

Peter Simon Pallas, M. D. and professor of natural history, long famous in that branch of knowledge, took his departure from St. Petersourg * He was seized upon at 90 versts from Derbent, in the district of Usmey-khan, and there actually died in prison. The empress gave a gratification to his widow, after this deplorable event, by granting her one yearns pay of the salary she had as signed to her husband during his travels, consisting of 1600 rubles. If the v.-ortky Gmelin had not undertaken his second and unfortunate journey into Persia, rather as a merchant than as a literal yman, and if he had not constantly gone by land, he would not easily have fallen into the hand* of Usmey-khan. v^i.0 I. b towards

INTRODUCTION.

. towards the middle of June 1768. In his progress he visited Novgorod, Valdai, Mosco, Vladimir, Kazimof, Murom, Arfamas, the country extending between the Sura and the Volga, and wintered at Simbirsk, of which he examined all the adjacent parts. The 1 oth of March 1769, he turned ofl to Samara, Syzran, Orenburg, crossed the countries watered by the Ya'i'k, and repaired to Gurief gorodok, which seemed then to be the general ren dezvous of our academical travellers. Here he met, among others, the unfortunate professor Lo vitz *, who had just establisoed his observatory, his assistant Ichonodzof, and lieutenant Euler : M. Lepekhin vvas also at that time in the neighbourhood of Gurief. M. Pallas employed himself, during the whole ofhis stay in this place, in examining the coasts and the isles of that part ofthe Caspian that lay with in his reach.

Hence he returned by the fame road, in order to go, by the way of Orenburg, to Ufa, * M. Lovitz lost his life in a dreadful manner, during thc time that the rebels, who produced so much confusion in Russia in the preceding war against the Turks, were ravaging the colo nies of the evangelical brethren. Our naturalist was taken at Dobrinka, where he thought himself in the greatest safety. A band of these rebels dragged him as far as the borders of the Slovla, where their chief had his quarters ; and, in the month of August 1774, he was there first impaled alive, and afterward* hanged.. The assistants of Lovitz, Ichonodzof and his son, having found means of escaping, saved all his writings and a part of his instruments. Several farther particulars relating to this learned traveller, may be seen in Eusching's Wochentliche nach richten, 1775, p. 56 & sqq. where

INTRODUCTION.

. XIX where he arrived the 2d of October ; and after having spent there the winter, he set out, the ioth of March 1770, for the mountains of Ural, and the province of Isset : the 23d of June he reached Eka tarinenburg, where he made his observations on the great number of mines that are worked in that district ; he proceeded afterwards to the fortress of Tscheliabinik, whence, about the middle of Decem ber, he took his course to Tobolsk. M. Pallas had sojourned the greater part of the winter at Tschelia binik, and traversed and examined, partly by him self and partly by his assistant M. Lepekhin, and by professor Falk, almost all the government of Oren burg, when this latter also came, about the middle of March 177 1, followed shortly after by his assis tant Georgi, to join him in this town of Tschelia binik.

Captain Ritschkof, who had hardly quitted M. Pallas all the winter, now left him, and set out upon another journey. M. Pallas finally left his winter-quarters at Tsche liabinsk the i6thof April 1771, directed his course by the Omsk, followed the course of the Irtysh, visited the mines in the environs of Kolyvan, went to the Schlangenberg (or serpentine mountains) and to Barnaul ; where he found Mr. Falk sick, who was come from Omsk by the steppes or deserts of Barabin. From Barnaul M. Pallas proceeded to Tomsk, and arrived the 10th of October 1771 at Krasnoyarsk upon the Yenissey, which he had made choice of for his winter-quarters. It was there that b2 the

INTRODUCTION.

. XX the student Suyef came up to him again, fa the month of January 1772; he had made, in the course of the last summer, a journey the length of the Oby towards the Frozen-ocean, and was returned to communicate his observations to M. Pallas, who was again joined, in the month of February, by M. Georgi, who had hitherto served as assistant to M. Falk, and afterwards by the students Bykof, Kaschkaref, and Lebedef, whom M. Falk, forced by the bad state of his health to re turn, had sont to M. Pallas. Our learned traveller left his winter-quarters the 7th of March 1772, to proceed, with M. Georgi and two students, by Irkutsk to the lake Baikal, whither he had already sent M. Sokolof in the month of January. After having seen the environs of that lake, Selinginlk and Irkutsk, he regained, the 1 2th of July, the route of Krasnoyarsk, where he set up his winter-quarters, after having visited the Sayane mountains.

In the month of January 1773, they set out on their return, in which they took the way of Tomsk, Tara on thelrtyssi, Kazan, Sarapul, Yaitskoi-gorodok, Astrakhan, and through the country that borders the Sarpa to Tzaritzin, where he met again M. Sokolof, whom he had sent to visit the steppe or desert of Kuman. After having wintered at Tzaritzin, and made several excur sions from that city towards the Volga, he returned at length by Mosco to St. Petersourg, where he arrived the 30th of June 1774. We > XXI

INTRODUCTION.

. We see, by this soort sketch of M. Pallas's travels, that he went over a great part of the fame countries which the first, third, and fourth volumes of, the travels of J. George Gmelin had described. But this ought not to induce us to regard the labour of M. Pallas as a repetition, which might easily have been dispensed with ; the plan of M. Gmelin dif fered entirely from his, and was incomparably more contracted, as to the department of natural history. Besides, professor Pallas took quite other courses than those of M. Gmelin : and Siberia had in the interval acquired an alco ==ether different face, as well by the extension of its frontiers as by the establissi ments that have increased its population, by the new and important mines that have been put in produce, and the founderies that have been erected there ; so that it cannot fail of gaining infinitely by any comparison that might be made between his accounts and those of Gmelin.

John Amadeus Georgi, member ofthe society of natural history at Berlin, wa's at first destined by the imperial academy to relieve professor Falk, who was commissioned with what was called the expedition of Orenburg, and then known to be in a bad state of health. He set out in consequence, the ist of June 177c, took the route by Mosco and Astra khan, and met M. Falk in the steppe of the Kalmuks, very near to an armenian caravan. He followed him across that steppe to Uralsk (at that time Yait skoi-gorodok) and to Orenburg, where they remained till the end of the year. At the beginning of T-TJi,

INTRODUCTION.

. XXII 1771, they travelled by consent into the province of Isser, M. Falk along the lines of Orenburg, and M. G orgi by the Baschkirey and the Ural. He took, during the illness that detained M. Falk, several little journies from Tschelyœba, capital of the province, towards several places, for observing a variety of natural curiosities, and the nations of the country ; finding themselves at length in a capacity to continue their courses, at the latter end of June M. Falk proceeded by Isetskoi to Omssi on the Irtyssi, and directed M. Georgi to come and join him at the last-mentioned place by the new lines of Siberia, or of Ischim on the frontiers of the Kirghises. They then proceeded in company across the steppe of Barabin, to see the silver mines of Koly van near the Oby. They went also afterwards to visit Barnaul, and, as much as a serious malady, with which M. Falk was attacked anew, would permit, the mountainous district of the mines of Altay, and the founderies that depend on Barnaul.

Towards the end of November they continued their journey, following the first elevations of mount Kusoetsk, to Tomsk. It was in this city that M. Falk received from Petersourg a permission to return, on account of his ill state of health. M. Pallas, the chief of the expedition, now remaining alone in the vast regions of Siberia, M. Georgi, as we have already seen, was entered of his. company, and travelled though separately, under his direction. 9 We

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIII We shall here give a ssiort intimation of the places visited by M. Georgi : from Irkutffi he proceeded to the lake Baikal, of which he drew an excellent chart, and thence into Daouria, for the purpose of examining the mines of that name, and into the dis trict of the mines of Arguffin : thence he returned by Irkutsk to Tomsk, Tara, Tobolsk, Isetskoi, llina, Ekatarinenburg, and Ufa, visiting all the mines of those countries ; he returned thence by Perme, on the Ural of the Basehkirs •, once more from Ufa to Tzaritzin and Orenburg; and lastly along the Volga, from Astrakhan to Petersourg by Saratof, Bolgari, Kazan, Makarief, Pavlova, Nisoney-Nov gorod, Yaroslavl, and Tver. On the ioth of Sep tember 1774, he arrived in the imperial residence. On coming to Kazan in March 1774, M, Georgi found professor Falk still there, and extremely ill, which illness he terminated, together with his life, by his own hand a few days after.

Two or three particulars of his biography * will not be disagreeable to the reader. M. Falk was born in Westrogothia, a province in Sweden, about the year 1727. He studied medi cine in the university of Upsal, and went through a course of botany under the celebrated Linnæus, to whose son he was tutor. He publicly defended the dissertation f which that famous botanist had * From the Journal of M. Georgi. + In the collection known under the title of Lknœi amœni (ates academics. b 4 composed

INTRODUCTION.

. composed on a new species of plants, which he called Astromeria. In the year 1 760, when M. Georgi for the first time was at Upsal, the latter was already so deeply affected with depression of spirits, that M. de Linne, in the view of obliging him to take exercise and dissipation, sent him to travel over the island of Gothland, to make a collection ofthe plants it produces, and the various kinds of corals and corallines which the sea leaves on its ssiores. This voyage was attended with no diminution of his distemper, which found a continual supply of aliment in a sanguine melancholy temperament, in a too sedentary way of life, and in the bad state of his finances. Professor Forskael having left Upsal for Copenhagen in I/60, Falk followed him thither, in the design of applying, by the advice of M. de Linne, to be appointed assistant to M. Forskael in his famous journey through Arabia ; but, notwithstanding ail the pains that M.Œderand several other men, of literary reputation at Copenhagen took in his. behalf, his application failed, as the society that were to go on that important expedition was already formed.

Obliged, with much discontent, to return, heherborised as he travelled and enriched the Flora Suecica with several new discoveries. A man in office at St. Petersourg, having written to M. Linne to send him a director for his cabinet of natural history, M. Falk accepted the post, which led him to the chair of professor of botany at the apothe-

INTRODUCTION.

. XXV > apothecaries garden at St. Petersourg, a place that had been vacant from the time that it was quitted by M. Siegesoek. His hypochondriac complaint still continued to torment him. When the imperial academy of sciences was preparing in 1768 the plan of its learned expeditions, it took M. Falk into its service, though his health was uncertain. He was recalled in 1771 ; but, having got only to Kazan in 1773, he there obtained permission to go and use the baths of Kitzliar, from which he returned again to Kazan at the end of the year with his health apparently better. But his disease soon returned with redoubled violence. From the month of December 1 773, he had never quitted his bed, nor taken any other nourisoment than bread dried in the fwedissi manner (knækebrœd), of which he scarcely took once a day some mouthfuls dipped in tea.

At first he received the visits of a few friends ; but afterwards denied himself to them, and was reduced to the strictest solitude. When M. Georgi went to see him, nothing seemed left of him but a skeleton ofa wild and terrifying aspect. The few words he drew from him consisted in complaints occasioned by a host of diseases which kept his body in torture, and threw him into the most cruel sleeplessness. The last evening M. Georgi kept him company till midnight. He spoke little, and said nothing that could give reason to suspect the design he was meditating. His hunter, and at the fame time his trusty servant, offered

INTRODUCTION.

. offered to sit up with him the night ; but he could »ot be persuaded to consent. M. Georgi being requested the next day,Marcfi3 1, to come to the lodging of the unfortunate gentle man, he found him lying before his bed, covered with blood ; beside him lay a razor, with which he had given himself a slight wound in the throat, the fatal pistol and a powder-horn ; all together present ing a tremendous spectacle. He had put the muzzle of the pistol against his throat, and, resting the pom mel upon his bed, he discharged the contents in such manner, that the ball having gone through his head, had stuck in the ceiling. Plis soldier had seen him still sitting up in his bed at four o'clock, at which time he usually fell into a ssiort slumber. In his chamber was found a note written the even ing before, betraying throughout the distracted state of his mind, but nothing declaratory of his design, or that was of any importance. * M. Falk, like all hypochondriac persons, was not very communicative, and on certain occasions was distrustful.

But at the fame time he was of a. sedate temper, complaisant, and upright, which made it a very easy matter to bear with him, and secured to him the indulgence of all his acquaintance. His extreme sobriety had enabled him to make some savings from his pay, though he was very beneficent ; it was not therefore indigence that drove him to this act of violence. He was of a cold

INTRODUCTION.

. XXVII a cold constitution, preferring solitude and quiet to society, to the company of his friends, and to or dinary amusements, which yet he did not ssiun, ex cept in the latter period of his life. As to religion, he soewed on all occasions more respect for it, than any strong effusions of zeal. It was solely to be ascribed to the violence of his distemper, and the weakness of mind which it brought on, that led him to put a period to his days. The fate of this unfortunate scholar was generally and justly la mented *. In the number of those who were of the expedition of M. Pallas was also captain Nicholas Rytschkof, son of Peter Ivanovitch Rytschkof, counsellor of state, who made himself famous for his topography of Orenburg. Rytschkof the son, in 1769, went over some districts of the governments of Kazan and Orenburg . proceeded eastwards from Simbirsk, and thence northwards beyond the Kama, declining afterwards to the north-east along the Ural mountains, which he traversed in his way to Orenburg.