Russia and the world; a study of the war and a statement of the world-problems that now confront Russia and Great Britain

Front matter

RUSSIA

AND THE

WORLD

Introduction

In December, 191 3, when I was just returning to Russia after my tramp in America, The London Times came forward and put its columns at my disposal, and I was able to record my impressions there throughout the whole of the year. During the winter I was seeking words and stories and impressions that would convey better the idea of Russia as the great religious force of Europe : Russia the sanctuary from Westernism. My first articles dealt with the religion of Russia, the meeting of old friends, the idea of sanctuary. I visited many old friends of whom I have written in my books before — Pereplotchikof , the Russian painter, with whom I spent a summer in the forests of Archangel; Loosha, whom I met at Batum ; Varvara Ilinitchna, of the cottage with the Chinese wall at Gelendzhik, on the Black Sea shore; the old grandmother at Vladikavkaz, to whom I brought a crown of thorns and a cross after my pilgrimage to Jerusalem. My first letters home were from Moscow, Kief, Vladikavkaz, and other towns.

But with the coming of spring the road tempted me, and I set out on the longest and most difficult tramp I vi INTRODUCTION

had yet attempted — across Russian Central Asia to the frontier of China and the south of Central Siberia. I went by train as far as the road would take me, and then went on with pack on back. I visited Bokhara, Samarakand, and Tashkent, those wondrous cities which Russia possesses on the northern side of Afghanistan in the Hindu-Koosh. Towards the end of May I set out across the Kirghiz steppes, through Sindaria and Seven Rivers Land, and saw many scores of new Russian villages and irrigated farms in this the youngest of Russian colonies. I was continually with the pioneers of Russian emigration — the endless caravan of ox-drawn or pony-drawn carts carrying all the goods and families of Russians going to the remote East in search of land. It was an interesting tramp, but very hot, very trying. The sun beat down on the desert, and for days there was never a tree, not even a palm tree, under which to shelter. It is a land full of big game, many tigers, many panthers, ibex, antelope. There are many serpents, many eagles and vultures and huge bustards. There are also myriads of creatures of the desert — tortoises, marmottes, dust beetles.

I reached the posts of what is nominally the boundary line of Mongolia, and passed through many Cossack settlements by Kopal, Lepsinsk, and Lake Maiman to Semipalatinsk. At Semipalatinsk, where, by the by, Dostoieffsky suffered part of his exile to Siberia, I came into touch with civilisation, received a stack of letters

INTRODUCTION vii

and newspapers, among other things, read of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his bride and of the consequent punitive expedition of the Austrians. It seemed a serious matter to me then, and I wondered whether things might not be more interesting to me if I returned to the more western parts of Russia, but I was loth to forgo the prospect of resting through late July and August in the Altai — those magnificent pinecovered snow-crested mountains that divide Siberia from China, and give birth to those wondrous rivers of Asia, the Irtish and the Yenisei. I went south to Malo-Kranoyark, and then alongside the main Altai range and over the green hills up to the highlands of Katun Karagai. And there, whilst living in a Cossack station, I heard the barely credible intelligence that there was war.

No one could say with whom there was war, but there certainly was war with some one. It was a terrible moment when I heard that Germany had declared war on Russia, but it was tempered by the fact that I could hardly believe the news to be true. Still, with the call to arms my vagabondage in Central Asia came to an end for the time being. So the war came across my little thread of life.

This book takes up my story on the day of mobilisation on the Altai Mountains. At first I thought of including the whole of the year's experience and thought, and the impressions of my Central Asian viii INTRODUCTION

journey in one book with my pictures and thoughts of the war. But I have thought it better to put aside the earher matter, as hardly relevant to the immediate question of how the war is affecting Russia and how Russia stands in relation to the nations she protects and to the world in general. Some time later I hope to return to the Altai village and resume my wanderings where I left off, and when I have crossed Siberia may perhaps present a personal impression of the Russian Empire.

As regards the spelling of Russian and Polish names I have kept to the rule of spelling according to sound. This was followed in my articles, but The Times following a tradition preferred to change my Chenstokhof into Czestochowa and so on. It would be well if the press as a whole would spell according to sound and Przemysl became simply Pshemisl as it is pronounced,

and so on.

S. G.

February, 191 5.

Contents

WAR

CHAPTER PAGE

I. How THE News of War Came to a Village on