A Group of Russian Peasants.A Group of Russian Peasants.
I read the following in theStatistlast year, finding later that it was contributed by a friend of mine:—
“Government emigration offices are situated all over Russia in Europe. These supply would-be settlers in Siberia with information as to water supply, timber, fuel, distances from market, etc. Intending settlers choose some of their number, at the expense of the government, to inspect the different tracts of land parcelled out for settlement, and select areas considered suitable for the settlers. This may take a whole year, and the deputed settlers return and report to their fellows. A petition is then sent in to the government—say that 100 men want to go to such and such a place. Then the government marks on the map that this land has been apportioned to the applicants, and it is set aside for them accordingly. The land is given free up to 275 acres per head. Each man thus has his own land. He cannot sell it, and it cannot be mortgaged either, though he get into debt. The land is his as long as he cares to work it. For special purposes, horse and cattle breeding, the government now permits larger areas up to 10,000 acres to be acquired,and helps settlers in this connection by providing, for breeding purposes, thoroughbred stallions and Jersey bulls. The government send the settlers down passage free, and as the people are simply peasants, doctors and nurses are provided to look after them and treat them for sickness, etc. Further, the settlers are given in certain cases a sum up to £20 to reach their destination. They are allowed, carriage free, to take one cow, implements, and other goods for their purposes. The government gives them free timber for house building, though the settlers have to cut it themselves. Should the settlers be short of money or funds for buying horses, ploughs, etc., they can get a credit through the Land Bank up to £20, which they have to pay back in instalments spread over a long period.”
Does not a government which thus develops its country and moves its working population in vast numbers from places where they are not doing well to other places where they may do better well deserve to be called “fatherly” in its care for their interests?
It is well known to those who have been watching Russia’s progress that she has of late, and especially last year, been drawing upon her enormous revenues and taking advantage of her unexampled prosperity, as one of the best-informed journalists in Europe[10]has stated, “for public works, railways, and canals, factories, schools, post offices, model farms and reform measures for the improvement of the lot of the working man.” It was in the interests of her working poor that one of the most costly and far-reaching experiments ever undertaken by a government, at great financial sacrifice to itself, was launched just before war was declared—the legislation concerningvodka.
It surely is an inspiring thought that we and our new friend may tread the path of social reform together just when it has become alike the need and opportunity of our time! There is nothing so certain than that it is along this path that our two sovereigns will gladly lead us. We in our country have never before had King and Queen visiting the manufacturing districts of their realm, acquainting themselves with every detail of daily work, going simply and naturally into homes, and sharing the humble fare of the working classes. We have never had a king before—without reflecting upon any who have preceded him we may say it—who has gone amongst his soldiers and sailors, as one of themselves, crossing over to the front that he might see how they did, and show them that hewas determined to know for himself the conditions under which they were so nobly doing their duty, so that they should not only have his leadership but all the sympathy he could give them.
It has been just the same in Russia. There, at last, has come the great departure from precedent and tradition for which the Emperor has always longed and felt to be possible since he came to London and said, “Some day it will be like that in Russia!” The “some day” has come at last. One felt it when he went into the Duma last year at the outbreak of the war, and, on his own initiative alone, addressed its members informally on the task of serving their country together. Other things have followed in quick succession! The Empress and her daughters became nurses at once as soon as the wounded soldiers began to be brought in. They wore the uniform, and were addressed as Sister Olga or Sister Tatiana like every one else, although the Russian Court has been held to be the most exacting and punctilious court in Europe. Again and again the Emperor has been to the front, endearing himself to his soldiers, to whom it is known that he equipped himself in a common soldier’s uniform, before he passed it, with kit, rifle, and boots complete, and tramped miles across thecountry that he might know what it was like to be on the march.
Does it make no difference to Ivan Ivanoff to say to himself on the march when he thinks of his Emperor, “He knows what it’s like, for he’s done it himself? Somewhere he’s thinking about his soldiers, and heknows.” He was photographed in their uniform, just as one of themselves, and the photograph was distributed amongst the troops. “Godsave the Tsar!” is the one clamorous cry of the streets in Russia to-day, we are told. The Emperor and Empress show themselves in a balcony in Petrograd as naturally as King George and Queen Mary show themselves at Buckingham Palace when the crowd ask for them.
Such a thing has never been seen, or even thought of, before in Russia. The last time the Emperor came up from the Crimea to the capital, there were soldiers within speaking distance of each other along the entire length of rail, keeping watch and guard. Soon he will go about unattended, and without escort; and as it was with Queen Victoria, so “it will be like that in Russia.”
Again, I want to dwell upon this link between us, and its tremendous promise for the future. The two greatest rulers in the world, closely and affectionately related, have the same idealsof what rulers should be, and want nothing better than to lead and serve their people; andGod, in His providence, has given them at the same time both the power and opportunity for doing this splendid work together.
Never, probably, has the monarchical principle, in its best aspect, been so intelligently accepted in both empires as now. A near relation of the Emperor’s, though much his senior, was telling me once of a recent visit he had paid to England, and of some of his experiences in the East End, where, under the guidance of a detective, he had visited some of the worst haunts.
“And do you know, bishop?” he said, “I learnt from that detective that everybody in London showed their respect for King Edward, at his death, by going into mourning; and the very thievesstoleblack to mourn him with the rest! There’s the monarchical principle, going down even to the lowest classes in the nation!”
“But, sir,” I ventured, “I don’t think that men of that class would be thinking of him as a ruler, but as a sportsman.”
“No! no!” he maintained. “It was the monarchical principle going down to the very lowest of the people!” And I am sure he thinks so, and tells the story to enforce it.
There can be no doubt that the monarchicalprinciple, as we understand it, makes rapid progress in Russia. The Emperor has always been an autocrat, but his worst enemy could not accuse him of ever having been merely despotic; and surely, though gradually, he will be less and less an autocrat, and more and more constitutional in his rule. He meets the needs and satisfies the ideals of his people, as he embodies in his person government and rule. If any one thinks that Russia has a seething revolutionary spirit longing for expression and an outlet, I can’t help feeling that they are utterly and entirely mistaken. Serious discontent and unrest prevail; but, as I will try and show later, it is directed against the social order rather than against the Emperor himself. Plots to kill him have been plots to overturn the social order, and nothing more.
Even political exiles in Siberia never blame him for their condition, as Mr. de Windt tells us: “I never once heard members of the imperial family spoken of with the slightest animosity or disrespect; and once when the Emperor was mentioned one of the exiles burst out with a bitter laugh—
“‘The Emperor! You may be quite sure the Emperor does not know what goes on, or we should not be here a day longer.’”
The people are wholly loyal, and regard theirruler as embodying a government which is in their own interests as being his children. There can be no doubt that this is the feeling throughout the empire, however difficult it may be for some classes in our community to believe it.
For instance, as it has been pointed out,[11]“When not long ago in the House of Commons it was debated whether or no the King should pay a visit to the Emperor of Russia, and some one suggested that were the visit to be cancelled the immense majority of the Russian people would regard it as an insult, and that the Russian peasants bore no ill-will towards the Emperor, but rather complained of the results of a system of government which in the last few years has undergone, and is still undergoing, radical change.” When such arguments were brought forward some of the Labour Members nearly burst with ironical cheers. Here, they thought, was the voice of officialdom, Torydom, and hypocrisy speaking. Now turn to the facts. When Professor Kovolievski was elected a member of the first Duma in the government of Karkov as an advanced Liberal Member, he, after his election, asked some of his peasant electors whether he was not right in supposing that had he said anything offensive with regardto the Emperor at his meetings there would have been no applause.
“‘We should not only have not applauded,’ was the answer, ‘but we should have beaten you to death.’”
There is nothing of the merely sentimental in this feeling that their government is, and ought to be, paternal in its character. Every Russian peasant drinks it in from the first, for he gets his training in theMirof his native village. It is there he learns what family and social rule really mean, and they are identical. His home is ruled by his father, the village by the elder; and everything is as constitutional and as democratic as it can be, or is anywhere else in the world. The children have their rights, but look up to and obey their father. They are free and responsible in village life, but yield to their elders. It is natural, therefore, and no other view is even possible, for men brought up in such surroundings to look outside the village and regard the State as a whole in the same way. There too they feel that they have full rights, and yet are under a firm, unquestioned, and paternal rule—the rule of him who, while rightly called their Emperor, yet is better known to themselves and loyally loved as their “Little Father.”
FOOTNOTES:[10]Dr. E. J. Dillon.[11]The Hon. Maurice Baring.
[10]Dr. E. J. Dillon.
[10]Dr. E. J. Dillon.
[11]The Hon. Maurice Baring.
[11]The Hon. Maurice Baring.
Amongst all the interesting experiences of an unusually varied and adventurous life, since, in the very middle of my Oxford course I had, for health’s sake, to spend a couple of years ranching in the River Plate, my long drives across the steppes stand out in bold and pleasing relief.
They were necessitated by a Mining Camp Mission in Siberia, for the steppes form a large part of the eastern portion of the Russian Empire, and do not belong to Russia proper at all, lying beyond the Volga and the Urals. It is in that part of Asiatic Russia that the development of the empire’s vast resources is taking place with special rapidity, and our own countrymen are bearing a hand in it and playing no unworthy part.
I believe the word “steppes” is given to that undulating but level country in the provinces of Ufa and Orenburg, about two days’ and two nights’ journey by train east of Moscow, inhabitedby the Bashkirs, the descendants of those Tartar hordes who nearly overwhelmed Russia at one time, and possibly Europe itself, and were called for their relentless cruelty “the Scourge ofGod.”
Consecration of Burial Ground in the Siberian Steppes. (See page 178.)Consecration of Burial Ground in the Siberian Steppes. (See page178.)
They are a fierce-looking race, even now, though peaceable enough, and it seems strange to find them so near to Moscow still, and to see them at their devotions when driving past their mosques on a Friday. They are great agriculturists, and a delightful sight is presented by their vast tracts of tender green wheat and oats shooting up as soon as the winter is over, and even while, in out-of-the-way hollows, snow still remains. The earth is black and very rich in character, and the seed, sown often before the end of September, lies nearly seven months under the protecting and fertilizing snow. As soon as this has gone and spring comes, the young crops shoot up with amazing speed and strength. Late frosts are terrible disasters, of course, under such circumstances.
But therealsteppes, which resemble the veldt of Africa, or the pampas of South, and the prairie of North America, are those vast level plains, partly agricultural, partly pasture, and partly scrub and sand, which lie another day and night still further east, and extend for thousands ofmiles to the south till they reach nearly to the borders of Turkestan. These are the steppes I know best. There is also a pastoral steppe of large extent and of agricultural character just above the Black Sea.
If the reader will refer to the map he will see what a huge portion even of the great country of Siberia is taken up by the Kirghiz Steppes, and as they are extraordinarily rich in minerals, so far as one can judge from enterprises already successfully started, produce large crops, and sustain innumerable flocks and herds, it will be seen how much they are likely to count for in the progress of Russia. The Kirghiz, familiarly called the “Ks” in the mining camps, are a Tartar race, like the Bashkirs, and, like them also in religion, are Mohammedans; but while I saw mosques amongst the Bashkirs filled with praying congregations, I never saw either mosque or prayers amongst the Kirghiz, nor their women veiled. They are small in stature, very strongly built, rather like the Japanese, and splendid horsemen. A Kirghiz when mounted seems part of his horse as he dashes across the steppes at full speed with the merest apology for reins and bit, ready to pull up in the twinkling of an eye.
They struck me always as very friendly, though I have read that others have not found them so.
That they are very hospitable every one admits. A traveller, it is said, can go thousands of miles across the steppes without a rouble in his pocket, and want for nothing. Everywhere he will be hospitably entertained. A Russian, of course, asks nothing better than to have a guest, and considers himself honoured in being asked to take him in for a meal or for the night; and the Kirghiz are Eastern in their reception of guests as well.
In the steppes governments of Ufa, Orenburg, and Akmolinsk the population must be nearly seven millions, of which the great majority are the nomadic Kirghiz, living in tents in the summer, and taking their flocks and herds away to the south and into villages, where they can have roofs and walls during the seven months—at least!—of terrible winter.
The tent is a most comfortable abode, though not much to look at from outside. It has a wooden floor, with a rug or skins upon it, is circular in its area, but has no pole of any kind, being built up very neatly and ingeniously upon a framework of canes and laths until it is in shape like a well-spread-out low and evenly-rounded haystack. It has a movable top in its centre, which affords ample ventilation. Inside it is lined with felt, which has often prettily embroidered draperies fastened upon it; and outside the canework it is well covered over with stout canvas securely lashed into its place. It will be seen that no obstacle is presented to the strong winds which continually blow over the steppes, as there are no “corners” such as are spoken of in Job i. 14, which shows us that tents were raised upon four poles in early Israelitish days as they are still amongst the Bedouin tribes of North Africa and Arabia.
The beautifully and symmetrically roundeduerta, as the Kirghiz tent is called, receives every wind that sweeps over it, and never makes the slightest movement. At least twenty people could be, and often are, gathered inside when some festivity is afoot, though each family as a rule has its own tent. They are extremely attractive, and when I once went to see an American family, engaged in preliminary mining work, I found them with one of these tents for their living-room, set up with sideboard, dining-table, easy-chairs, etc., and another opposite to it fitted up as a most comfortable bedroom with brass beds and all the usual furniture, the little cookhouse also being not far away. Breathing in the marvellous air of the steppes, I thought I had never seen the “simple life” presented in a more alluring form. I have longed, indeed, eversince to have a month of it some time, and get as close to Mother Nature as it is possible to do in these busy days.
Outside a Kirghiz Uerta.Outside a Kirghiz Uerta.
The descendants of Jonadab knew what they were about, and what was good for them, when they determined to keep to their pastoral life, and hold on to all their tent-dwelling traditions; and as for wine, no one need ever feel the need of such a stimulant in the invigorating air of those great plains.
Amongst the Kirghiz one feels an extraordinarily biblical atmosphere, and is back again in the days of Abraham and the patriarchs, and the “women in the tent,” of whom Jael sang after the great victory. The men are attired much as Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau were, and the women very probably keep the traditions of thousands of years in wearing their pretty nun-like head-dresses of white, which leave their pleasant faces free and uncovered.
These Kirghiz hardly ever use money. They grow “rich in many flocks and herds,” and if they sold would immediately buy again. Some of them, however, are very well off, and I was told that one, who lived simply with his wife in auertaon the steppes, had sent his only son to complete his education in Paris, and get a medical degree at its University. For this he would haveto sell off some of the increase of his flock, and send the proceeds to his son.
Let me now explain how I came to be amongst these tent-dwelling folk at all. During my first visit to Petrograd I was asked one evening by a member of the Russia Company if I could appoint a chaplain to go out to Siberia once a year or so, and visit the scattered little groups of our own countrymen who are there, but, at that time, had never seen a clergyman nor had a service since coming into the country.
“There are unbaptized,” he said, “and unconfirmed, and even those who need to be married with the service of their Church, who through no fault of their own, but through circumstances, have had to go without it. There are people who have been in Siberia all their lives, and some who have been there forty and fifty years, and never once had any ministration of their Church. Can nothing be done?”
This, of course, was a strong and direct appeal, and, after considering for a short time, it seemed impossible to appoint a chaplain for work of which one knew nothing, and so I proposed to go myself, which I found later was what it was hoped and expected that I should do. Accordingly in 1912 and again in 1913 I carried out this intention, and found that it practically tookthe form of a Mining Camp Mission; for, though I visited one or two other British communities, yet the most interesting part of both years’ experiences was in going to the mines situated, except in one case, in the very heart of the steppes. Each, though employing thousands of Kirghiz and Russians, is managed by a British staff of between twenty and thirty, and is the property of a British company with its board of directors meeting in its offices in London.
I will describe two of these journeys, for without knowing something of the steppes and of those who live there, and indeed taking in something of their spirit, it is impossible to feel that one really knows Russia.
Four days and nights from Moscow brings one to Petropavlosk (Peter and Paul’s town), and it is from there, in a southerly direction at first, and then heading towards the east, that the great Spassky Copper Mine is reached, for which a drive of a thousand miles, there and back, is necessary. I had not realized till just before I set out that I should have to drive on day and night without stopping for anything but food and to change horses, as there were no Russian rest-houses on that route, and the Kirghiz tents were impossible owing to the great number of living beings, other than human, which inhabited them.It was no light thing to undertake, as it meant leaving on Tuesday and getting in late on Saturday evening, and this only if all went well. Some people can sleep under such conditions during the night. I don’t know how they possibly can, for there are no roads in any true sense of the word, and none of the vehicles which cross them have springs.
The manager of the mine had kindly sent down the usualtarantass, which, hooded like a victoria, is a very stout cart, lashed securely upon poles, and drawn by three horses ortroika. There is no seat inside, but hay is placed over the bottom, and pillows and cushions on the top, and there one reclines during the day, and lies down at night. It all sounds very comfortable and even luxurious, but as there are no roads, and only the roughest of tracks with fearful ruts and soft places where water lingers, with sometimes a sloping bank down to a stream, and, as the wild driver keeps his horses at their full speed, one is hurled violently and roughly about the whole time, sleep, for me at least, is beyond my wildest hopes from start to finish.
Tarantass with its Troika for the Steppes.Tarantass with its Troika for the Steppes.
For the first day or so I had the greatest difficulty to avoid biting my tongue in two as I was thrown about and it came between my teeth, and I used to look with amazement and envy atmy Kirghiz conductor, on the box beside the driver, swaying about in all directions like a tree in a hurricane, but sound asleep. His name was Mamajam, and on our arrival he brought his little daughter Fatima to see me, and another youth named Abdullah, completing the Arabian Nights impression he had already given me.
There is no regularity in the arrangements for changing horses along the steppes. Sometimes one would drive about twentyversts(twelve and a half miles) and then change, while at others we would go on as far as sixty, or even eighty,versts(fifty miles) without any change at all. The horses are very strong and hardy, and are never allowed either food or drink until the journey is over; and, with the horses, the driver is changed also, as every man brings and understands his own. It was a wonderful study in character, temperament, and dress, for the men were extraordinarily different from each other, though all most attractive and interesting; the Kirghiz more so than the one or two Russians we had.
We carried our food, chiefly tinned, with us, but there was an abundance of eggs, butter, and white bread always to be got, and, most welcome sight, always the steamingsamovar, with its promise of cheering and comforting tea. It is astonishing how one’s ordinary food can be cutdown in quantity when necessary. We gradually came down to two meals a day, and on the return journey these only consisted of eggs, bread and butter, and tea; and yet the simple life and magnificent air made one feel always extraordinarily fit and well and in good spirits.
The steppes, though vast solitudes as far as human habitations are concerned, are full of life and movement, and the most is made of the short summer. Caravans are continually meeting the traveller as he goes south or north, or crossing his route from east to west, or west to east, carrying tea from China, timber and other articles of commerce, travellers from town to town, or from one village to another, or a little band of colonists seeking land upon which to settle, or herdsmen in charge of sheep, oxen, or horses. Perhaps one’s driver catches sight of anothertroikagoing in the same direction, and with a shrill cry urges on his team; the other, nothing loath, joins in, and for a quarter of an hour there is a most thrilling race. There is never a dull moment night or day, though perhaps the most inspiring times are those when one has just changed horses, and has a wild young Kirghiz on the box who, seeing an opportunity of showing off, stands up whirling his whip and, shrieking, yelling, whistling, like a demon, urges his horsesto their utmost speed, making the dust and earth fly in all directions. It makes one feel that it is good to be alive.
The air is most transporting at that height, four thousand feet above sea-level; the whole steppes in the early summer are strewn with flowers, larks are singing overhead, streams are flowing on every side, there is a clear horizon as at sea, though now and then there is hilly ground, the sky is ever delightfully blue and without a cloud, and the sun shines brightly, though not too fiercely, from morn till eve. Nothing could be more delightful than that first experience, especially as one thought of the object of one’s journey and the services of the coming Sunday. Then the wonderful nights, beginning with the sweet, bell-like sounds of the innumerable frogs after the birds had ceased. As I did not sleep I saw and enjoyed all that the nights had to give, and we had the full moon. First the golden sunlight gradually died away and the silvery light of the moon appeared, that in its turn, after what seemed an extraordinarily short time, giving place to the dawn, which shows itself sometimes more than an hour before the actual sunrise. Night on the steppes, like the day, is also full of movement, for many of those who travel long distances prefer to let their horses and bullocks feed and restduring the long day, when they enjoy their pasture best, getting their own rest also at the same time, basking in the sun, and continuing their journey through the night, which is never really dark.
My second night out, just after midnight, I was startled at seeing a camel come into view in the moonlight on my right, going in the opposite direction and dragging a small cart, but making no sound upon the grass. It looked quite spectral in the moonlight, and was followed by another, and yet another; then came a bullock, then a horse or two, one after another, then more camels, all with carts and in single file. Not a sound could be heard, and only at intervals men walked beside them. It went on and on, the strange, silent procession, and I could not think what manner of caravan it could possibly be. All the carts were small, carefully covered over, and evidently had small loads, though requiring powerful creatures to draw them; and then all at once I understood. It was smelted copper being taken down to the railhead from which I had come, and from the mine to which I was going! I then began to count how many had still to pass me, and reckoned up a hundred and six, so that there must have been nearly three hundred in all. They take three months to godown, load up with stores, and return, and yet I was told that such transport was cheaper than sending by rail will be when that part of the government of Akmolinsk is connected with the great Trans-Siberian line running from Petropavlosk both to Moscow and Petrograd.
Another time I should take the opportunity afforded by a pause when changing horses in the night to get a few hours’ sleep in thetarantassin the open air, which would, of course, make all the difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than a notice was sent quickly round, “The bishop has come, and there will be services at the manager’s house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six, and Holy Communion at half-past seven,” yet at half-past seven every one of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager’s two little boys were there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautifulikon, flowers, and two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own service was over.
This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up, some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is, some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens of the rich ore.
The foreman and his family—two girls and two sons of between twenty and thirty—had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day I left,when that whole family received Communion together. I know what a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to have family unity; and, as she died suddenly before the year was over, I shall always feel that my long journey across the steppes was fully worth while if it were only for the happiness it had brought her in enabling her for once in her life to receive Communion with all the members of her family.
I had another most interesting experience before leaving Spassky and the Akmolinsk Steppes. Some little time before my arrival, two of the staff had lost their lives in the smelting-works and been buried in a little plot of ground with two monuments placed above them. One of the memorials was of pure copper, the other of stone, and there was a wooden railing round the small enclosure. The manager asked me to consecrate this little plot of ground with a larger space added to it, so that they might have their own littleGod’sacre.
As soon as the Russian priest heard that this was to be done he immediately asked if he and his people might be present and share in the service? And to this, of course, we readily agreed. It was impossible, however, to draw up any joint service, as we were ignorant of eachother’s language, so I arranged that he should say a few prayers first and that I should take our own service afterwards. This he was very glad to do, and, robed in his vestments as for the Liturgy, he prayed for the departed, singing with his people, present in great numbers, a touching little litany, and finishing with the offering of incense. As I looked at all those fellow Christians of ours and their priest, and then outside at the great circle of the vast steppes stretching away in all directions, so suggestive of greatness of spirit, I felt most deeply moved as I took the censer from him and, offering the incense as he had done, led the way, censing the boundaries of the new burial-ground marked out by stones. Our little community followed singing, “OGod, our help in ages past,” every line of which helped us all to realize a little at least of that large-hearted view of life and of death which no other passage of Scripture gives us with the directness and grandeur of Psalm xc.
The people looked on at this simple little procession with the closest attention and sympathy, and then, after an address—an entirely new experience for them in a religious service—I proceeded to the consecration of the ground. I should fancy it is the only instance, as yet, of clergy of the two Churches actually sharinga service together; and that was especially in my mind as I took the good priest’s censer to offer, just as he had done and from the same censer, “an oblation with great gladness,” feeling to the full “how good and joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” I should say of that service also that it was quite worth while taking that long journey across the steppes to have it.
The prevailing idea of Siberia in this country is, as we all know, that it is a terrible waste of ice and snow, a land of mines and of convicts, ravaged by packs of wolves; and this is not at all an incorrect impression of the greater part of it and for the longest period of the year. All that is wrong in the impression is that it leaves out the five months of the year in which there is the glow and charm of the tropics, with growth and upspringing life and beauty on every hand. The steppes are a paradise of singing birds and blooming flowers and flowing streams, where the air is joyous to breathe, invigorating, quickening, and inspiriting beyond description. These are the Siberian Steppes I have known and traversed and loved, and long and hope to see again.
But I am keenly alive to all the real and ever-present sense of peril which the winter brings with it as soon as it comes, and which it keepssteadily before the mind till it is over for all who have to meet it and struggle against it. I have heard men speak of the terrible blizzards and the appalling cold; of the deadly gloom, when the air is so full of snow that they can hardly see a hand before their faces, and they wander uncertainly for a whole day and night together until they give themselves up for lost, to find after all, when the storm is over, that they are only a few yards away from their own doors, or in the middle of the street from which they had started.
They instantly drop their voices on the Kirghiz Steppes when they begin to speak of winter, and on some faces there comes at once that beaten look which, whenever it appears, is testimony that the man has measured himself against the sterner forces of Nature or of human life, and has failed.
Inside a Kirghiz Uerta.Inside a Kirghiz Uerta.
Tolstoi’sMaster and Mangives a very clear and convincing account of what a snowstorm may mean for even experienced travellers. There the scene is laid in Russia, and between one village and another in a country often traversed; but the vast spaces of Siberia in that long, gloomy winter must be specially fraught with dangers and terrors during those swiftly rising and deadlyboirams, as the wind-storms are called, which completely obliterate all landmarks while they last, and which are not to be met with anywhereelse in the inhabited parts of the world. At Spassky they told me of a Kirghiz horseman who had been found one morning, during the preceding winter, just outside his home, horse and rider rigid in the snow and frozen stiff, both of them dead for hours. They had struggled against theboiramas long as they could, the man probably urging on his horse to the last, and both giving up the struggle together as the awful frost took possession of them, so swiftly that there was no falling off for the one nor sinking down for the other. And, if they had only known it, or the blinding storm had permitted them to see, they were at the very door of their home and within reach of warmth and food and shelter.
I remember once saying to friends that I supposed when travelling in winter they could make themselves very comfortable by packing themselves in with “hot-water foot-warmers.” “Hot-water foot-warmers!” they exclaimed. “Why, the frost would have them and destroy them completely almost before we had left the door.”
Then the wolves are there also! Siberia has not changed in that respect from the weird land of which we have read as long as we can remember, and is still the haunt of the most fierce anduntiring enemies which man and beast alike have to fear when they are the hunters and not the hunted. The fair Siberia of the glorious summer knows no wolves. Then there is food enough and to spare always within reach, and there are homes and family life even for wolves to think of and be happy about. There is no need then, though they are gregarious by nature, for them to join together. Each can fend for himself, and have enough for all his family and to spare. Not a wolf is to be seen except very rarely, and the traveller never even thinks of them with fear as, singly, sleek, and well fed, they slink away immediately as soon as seen. It is altogether different when winter comes, and hunger, even famine, gets a grip upon them because so many other creatures are hibernating. Then the quarry must be of different character, and nothing is too strong or big for a huge pack well led. Once they have been driven by stern necessity to combine together and choose their leader they will stick at nothing and attempt almost anything.
A friend of mine, born in Petrograd, tells us of an old travelling carriage of his father’s, in which he and his brothers and sisters, when children, used to play.
“It was raised very high from the ground,”he says, “only to be reached by a small ladder, so as to be out of the reach of wolves.”
Just the same stories are told after every winter as those of which we have so often read in prose and verse; and, out of the many told me as happening quite recently, I select the following:—
Three winters ago a wedding party went from their village, in the Altai, where the ceremony had taken place in the morning at the home of the bride, to the village where the bridegroom lived, and to which he was now taking back his newly-wedded wife. They were a hundred and twenty in number, and made a large party, with their horses and sledges, and were not afraid; but an unusually large pack of wolves was out that afternoon, and, soon scenting them, gave chase. Party after party were overtaken, pulled down, and, with horses as well, devoured. The bride and bridegroom and best man were in the front sledge with good horses, and kept ahead till they were quite close to the village, when they too were overtaken by a few of the strongest and swiftest of their pursuers. To save themselves the bridegroom and best man threw out the bride, and thus stopped the pursuit for a time sufficiently for them to gain the village. It was a shocking thing to do, but when thevillagers began to question and help them out the awful explanation was forthcoming! The two men had gone mad with fright, and had not known what they were really doing. In that terrible hunting down, with the shrieks and despairing cries of their friends, as they were overtaken, ever ringing in their ears as they urged their own terror-stricken horses forward, it is little wonder that their minds gave way.
Let there be no mistake, therefore, about the steppes. The reader may keep the new impression (if it is new) that I have endeavoured to give of a most beautiful, rich, and fertile country; and which I am hoping to be visiting again while this book is being read, finding, I hope, this country of the wolves story rejoicing in all the glow and beauty of summer. But still, for nearly seven months of the year, that Siberia is the old Siberia still, fast bound in the grip of an appalling frost, waging, in its storms, a never-ceasing battle against human enterprise and effort; and the haunt of those insatiable and savage creatures which seem to stand out from all other creatures in being devoid, when in packs, of all fear or dread of man.
The steppes above Turkestan, which I visited last, are milder in climate than those of Akmolinsk. Great parts of them are sand, witha sage-like scrub, dear to the heart of camels; and they have a drier and even more invigorating air than that of the northern plains. Across these I travelled my five hundred miles in a Panhard motor-car, with a wild Russian chauffeur who knew no fear. He dashed across a country which practically had no roads and resembled a rough Scotch moor, with anélanthat the most daring French chauffeur might envy. He was a fine fellow, Boroff by name, and carried me on as before, day and night, and again with sunshine for the one and moonlight for the other. “The devil’s wagon” is the name the wondering Kirghiz have given the motor-car from the first, but it is the last description it deserves. My journey of under twenty-four hours from the railhead to the Atbazar Mining Camp, if I had had to go by camel, as I expected might be possible until my actual arrival, would have taken me some twelve days, or even more.
All the transport in these steppes is by camels, and I could not be satisfied until I had made a small expedition upon one, and shall, perhaps, have to do the same again; but modern appliances are not to be despised, and no one can wish for a better experience of the steppes than to make the journey in the middle of summer and in a good modern motor-car.
The Social Problem, as it presents itself to thoughtful people in Russia, really demands a book to itself. No doubt it will come before long, and from some experienced pen. It is only possible for me just to touch upon it in this chapter, which one must write; or else even this very general view of Russia’s life of to-day would be utterly inadequate and incomplete. And, in so doing, I shall have to try and show how different it is in Russia from the same problem as presented in other countries in Europe.
It is well known, for instance, that the great question for ourselves waiting for solution at some early date is the social question. What was called for us the “Triple Alliance” in the world of labour, the Union of the Railway, Transport, and Mining Workers was completed just before war broke out; and, though with a patriotism beyond praise all needs and desires of their own are put aside for the present, ourworkers will give expression to their wishes at no distant day after peace comes. Even before this book is in print the masses in Germany, grimly silent so long except for the ever-increasing votes for their socialistic representatives, silent even during the disillusionment which has come to them these last six months, may have at last spoken out. We are told that their leader, Herr Bebel, who is said to have known the German character through and through, declared that the first serious defeat experienced by Germany “would produce a miracle.” Social unrest is still universal.