Through Russian Central Asia

ALL the way to Verney the carts are travelling eastward, but on the road to Kopal two processions meet one another; the colonists coming from Tashkent meet the colonists coming from Omsk and Semipalatinsk. It struck me that those coming from the North were a poorer, harder, more jaded people than those who had accompanied me from the West. Perhaps that was because the journey from Siberia was more trying and there was less to eat on the way, or because the people who came by way of the northern road were from provinces of Russia where the standard of living and the average of health were lower.

The pioneers were a rugged sort of folk. They walked with their oxen and horses, they wandered all over the sandy wastes looking for roots and straws, and fifty people would spend hours getting enough fuel to make a fire to boil their pots. They got covered in white dust; their boots were through; their feet blistered; their carts broke down or cattle died; but still the band went on patiently, cheerily. They went very slowly, and I overtook many bands as I walked. I would fall in with the caravan at evening, and listen with an involuntary thrill to the great choruses these people sang as they went. They chaffed one another, gossiped, shouted to the cattle, sang with as much easy-going cheerfulness as if they were in their native province and driving the cattle in from their own pasture lands, and not threading the road across the silent deserts of Central Asia. I would see another party afar off at ten in the morning, a grey-brown mass on the horizon, and catch it up by twelve noon. And there would be a strange sight: not a single peasant walking or in sight. Only the creaking, slowly moving, patient carts and the clumsy, straining oxen or little ponies, going on by themselves without the flick of a whip or the whisper of a master’s voice. And, coming close up to the wagons, I would hear snoring. The whole caravan would be sleeping and snoring in the shelter of the tarpaulin tilts, and yet going ever slowly on, slowly on, through the blaze of the Asian noon-day, over the desert, toward the happy valleys of the East.

I suppose that, but for the instinctive movements of the Russian people and the seeking spirit, it would be difficult for the Government to settle these remote tracts of the Russian Empire. People would not go simply because of the grants they obtain. It is the wandering spirit that is the foundation of the Empire. In Central Asia the officials complain that the people who come are not like those who remain behind in Russia; they are the most restless of all Russians. They have wandered thus far, but they have no wish to settle down even now. They take up land, build villages, till the soil, but sure enough after a few years they are itching to move on farther. The majority of colonists are people who have come not direct from Russia, but from some less remote farm or homestead in Turkestan, Seven Rivers Land, or Siberia. And these people do not recognise the arbitrary limits of the Russian Empire, but stray over in considerable numbers into Persia, Mongolia, and Chinese Tartary. It is true that the Government exercises considerable control upon the movements of the pioneers. It indicates each year what tracts of territory are open to colonisation, what developments have been made in the irrigation system, and shows spots where villages may be built. The colonial village is not a haphazard growth such as is the ordinary European village. It does not simply grow; it is planned by the Government engineers and indicated in a schedule before ever a single inhabitant has set eyes on it.

THE IRRIGATED DESERT—AN EMBLEM OF RUSSIAN
COLONISATION IN CENTRAL ASIA

When the harvest has been taken in in Russia many peasants go on pilgrimage to shrines and many go out in quest of new land. The khodoki, or walkers, set out. A village or a family sends out a messenger to seek new land; this messenger is called a khodok. The khodoki are specially encouraged by the Government. The police will not allow a whole village to take to the road and go off all together in quest of land; they insist on the khodok going first and booking something in advance. Very great reductions are made in railway fares and great facilities are given to the khodoki, who go forth and look at all the valleys and irrigated levels at the disposal of the colonists during the year in question. They travel in twos and threes, one khodok being required for each three families.

When the khodoki come back, after three weeks, or it may be three months, or three years, there is necessarily tremendous excitement in the village. They cannot then disclaim the khodok’s authority to have taken land in their name, or in any case they very seldom do disclaim it. It often happens, of course, that the khodoki return saying that they have found nothing better than their own land and their own village, and that, consequently, they do not recommend a move. Many of the khodoki I met on the road were well-to-do peasants who had a stake in the old country and would not readily advise their constituent villagers to sell out and come to Central Asia. Still, more than half of the messengers sent out come back with a positive message. They have found and taken land.

Whether the khodok has done well or ill, the families set out. It happens occasionally that the messengers choose death-traps and places of eternal desolation, and they are terribly blamed. But it ought to be remembered that Government engineers and agricultural specialists have indicated the sites as possible before ever the khodoki set eyes on them; or a Russian general, visiting a district, has said: “Plant fifteen villages on the eastern slopes of this range of hills,” or “twenty villages along this valley,” and it has been done simply because he wanted Russian villages for strategical considerations.

The manner of settling the Empire is so interesting to us that I append a summary of the information given to all Russians desirous to emigrate to the Russian colonies. This is for the year 1914:

The provinces open to colonisation this year are those of Uralsk, Turgaisk, Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, Seven Rivers, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenisei, Irkutsk, Transbaikal, Amur, and Primorsk. Also Yakutsk, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka.

The following people are allowed to settle beyond the Ural.—All peasants and meshtchane, those engaged exclusively in agriculture, and also artisans, workmen, factory hands, merchants and shopkeepers. People of other classes must, before emigrating, apply to the governor of the province in which they live.

The Government invites no one to emigrate, and is anxious only to show all possible help to those who have decided to take that step, and to make the emigration laws and the grants and privileges accorded to colonists clear to everyone.

EMIGRATION OF AGRICULTURISTS

All agriculturists thinking of crossing into Asia should first think well: Is there not some way of improving the home land and remaining on it?

Having become owners of your land at home (by the completion of purchase after the liberation from serfdom), it is possible to let part of it out to others, or by careful culture greatly increase the harvest, or you can mortgage it to the Peasants’ Bank and buy other land, either in your own or in a neighbouring province.

It is another matter when the land you possess is so little that there is none to let out or mortgage, or when it is difficult to buy suitable land at all near, when the land offered by Government or private owners becomes year by year less and the prices year by year higher.

Then it is worth while considering the question of emigration to Asiatic Russia, where there is still much space. The Government assigns land to the extent of 25-50 dessiatinas a farm or 8-15 dessiatinas for each male soul. Or it is possible to settle in a village or Cossack station by special arrangement, and lease land cheaply from settled colonists. To enable people to travel to such places the Government helps with cheap tariffs and money grants.

During the past seven years more than three million souls have firmly established themselves in this way, and in many places it may be said that the colonists have become rich and live in a more flourishing way than they did on the old lands at home. But it must be remembered that such results are not attained at once. It is not a little heavy labour, grief and poverty that have to be undergone during the first years in the new place. Not every family has the strength to bear such trial. It is reckoned that of every hundred families going across the Ural fifteen return to the old country after having failed to take root in the new. It is hard for families where the general health is weak, where there are not good working hands, or where there is no money whatever to start with. Such families would do better not to stir; better to work a bit more on the home lands till they get some means to take up new land and try and develop it.

THE EMIGRATION OF FACTORY HANDS AND ARTISANS

The towns and villages are greatly in need of people knowing trades. Especially great is the need in the provinces of Amur, Primorsk, and Transbaikal, where railways, fortresses, and barracks are being built, and where mining, fishing and lumbering are in full swing. More than a hundred thousand men are employed annually on the Government works alone, and private firms want more. Unskilled labourers, brickmakers, joiners, diggers, bricklayers, sawyers, locksmiths, glaziers, miners, and anyone who has any special knowledge or knack, willing hands and a heart to work.

Wages are higher than in European Russia, and all manner of help is given in transport. There is a great reduction of fares on the Siberian Railway, and every artel of workmen contracted for the Government, and also for many private businesses in connection with lumbering and fisheries, is transported to its field of work FREE OF CHARGE and taken back at specially cheap rates.

Many of those who go out with artels like the country and the conditions so much that they prefer to stay and take up plots of land and settle.

WHERE AND HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SETTLE?

In the provinces open for colonisation there are a great number of specially chosen plots of Government land at the disposal of individuals or of numbers electing to farm and work together. The names of peasants electing to see these or choose one of them are gratuitously enrolled by the emigration officials. In the more settled and inhabited places of Siberia, Turkestan and Seven Rivers Land, where land has now obtained a considerable value, there are also special plots marked out by the Government, and these may be bought. Also in many peasant settlements and Cossack stations there are wide stretches of land granted by the Government to the Cossacks or sold in time past to freed serfs, and on these it is possible to settle when arrangements can be made privately with the peasants or the Cossacks, as the case may be. Finally, it is also possible to lease land or to buy it from private individuals.

TO WHOM DOES THE GOVERNMENT GIVE HELP?

Although emigration is permitted to all who wish, yet, in order to enjoy the advantages of Governmental help and grants in aid, it is necessary that families should first send out messengers, and should await their return before setting out themselves. This is only enforced by the Government in order to save the people from the ruin which often follows unconsidered and frivolous emigration. It should be remembered that all who have not obtained land in advance through their messengers (khodoki) will find that they have to take their turn last in the selection of plots of land.

THE SENDING OF MESSENGERS (KHODOKI)

Any peasant or town family occupying itself with agriculture can now send out a khodok, and it is now allowed to send one khodok to represent several families, but not more than five. What is more, any working man, artisan or tradesman can obtain a khodok’s certificate without difficulty, and can make the journey to the places of colonisation and become acquainted with the local conditions.

The faithful khodok should make a thorough study of conditions of life in the new places, consider carefully all the plots of land offered, and, choosing the most suitable, inscribe his name for it according to the regulations. The khodok must not set off without his certificate, for only by showing the certificate can he travel at reduced rates or be recognised by the officials in Turkestan or Siberia.

In Seven Rivers Land and the other provinces of Turkestan no permission is given to people of other than the Russian race or the Orthodox religion. In the case of Old Believers and other sects whose teaching forbids military service, no permission can be granted to settle—therefore, no Molokans, Baptists or Seventh Day Adventists are allowed to settle anywhere in Turkestan.

The certificates, both for khodoki and emigrating families, are given gratuitously. The khodok certificate for 1913 is printed on yellow paper, the colonists’ on rose-coloured paper, and the tariff certificate on green.[D]

The most convenient time for looking over the plots of land is from April till June, but the best are taken up very quickly at the beginning of spring; many people of foresight get to the various points in the winter in order to form an idea of the winter life of the district and to be on the spot when the new plots are laid open in the early spring.

In order to make it easier for the messengers and to decrease the expense, khodoki are advised to go in groups and not alone. A party together always fares better than separate people can, and more trouble is necessarily taken for them.

Khodoki often take very little money with them, and, through poverty, are obliged to return without having found the land they want. It is not possible to find suitable land at once; it is necessary to go to various places and look at many farms. For that, time and money are both necessary.

It is not thought wise to answer advertisements or apply at offices where the promise of arranging everything is made. It is impossible to take up land except through application to the emigration officials, and they do their work without making any charge. Everyone who promises to obtain an option on a plot of Government land after the payment of a fee is practising deceit, and complaint should be lodged at the Emigration Department in St. Petersburg. (Postal address: St. Petersburg Emigration Department, Morskaya 42. Telegraphic address: St. Petersburg, Emigrant.)

Khodoki should remember that many of the free plots of land indicated in the booklet may have been allotted to other people before their arrival. So it is, generally speaking, wise to take a wide view of the possible places of settlement. Khodoki should obtain the full list of plots offered by the Government. This list can be obtained at Seezran station, at Orenburg, Iletsk, Ak-bulak, Jurun, Arees, Tashkent.

The following reductions are made in railway and steamer fares for messengers and colonists and their families, and also in the charges for baggage:

1. People holding certificates as colonists or messengers of colonists are taken on all railways at a reduced fare—at a fourth of the cost of a third-class ticket—and they are accommodated in the grey wagons of the fourth class, or, in the absence of these, in goods trains. Children up to ten years of age are carried free.

2. Baggage is taken on the same train as that by which the colonists travel, and is charged at the rate of one hundredth part of a farthing per pood per verst, the first pood per ticket going free. Horses and horned cattle are taken at half a farthing per head per verst, and small domestic animals at a quarter of a farthing per head per verst. Fowls and small animals in cages or baskets are charged by weight as if they were ordinary baggage.

3. Baggage is divided into three categories.

First category.—Domestic goods and furniture in packing cases; more than eight poods per person of either sex cannot be taken at this rate.

Second category.—Animals, carts, agricultural machinery, guns, provisions, can only be taken to the number and extent shown on the back of the tariff certificate.

Third category.—Grain, flour, seed, trees and vines can only be taken up to ten poods per person.

Beyond these limits baggage must be taken at the general commercial tariff.

In the case of loss the railway undertakes to pay the owner forty roubles a pood for baggage in the first category (though not more than 120 roubles for each ticket), six roubles a pood for the second category, and a rouble and a half a pood for the third category.

Table of Distances

Table of Railway Fares for Emigrants

Baggage Tariff for Emigrants

Charges on the Rivers

At the larger stations and piers colonists’ shelters have been built; free medical aid is given, and hot food is served out cheap (for instance, a plate of lenten or of ordinary soup, four copecks—one penny).

To children up to ten years of age and to sick persons, hot food is given free. To small children (up to three years), white bread and milk is given free.

People who become ill of infectious diseases are removed to the Government hospitals and treated free.

At the great emigration stations beware of swindlers and charlatans, of whom there are not a few. It goes without saying that even the poorest emigrants have a little money, and they stand to lose even that if they are not careful. Beware of loiterers, card games with unknown persons, pick-pockets, robbers. Hide your money in a place where it cannot be stolen. Do not accept drinks of vodka or beer from unknown people. It is a common trick to scatter thorn-apple seed in vodka; the colonist loses consciousness, and is robbed. Many people have suffered in this way through lack of caution.

If on the road you purchase cattle or horses, obtain a certificate of purchase, or else the persons from whom you have bought may come back and declare that you have stolen what you bought.

SEVEN RIVERS PROVINCE (Semiretchenskaya Oblast)

One of the most remote Central Asian possessions of Russia, remarkable for its natural wealth and the beauty of Nature.

The route thither is either by rail to Tashkent or by rail to Omsk, and up the River Irtish to Semipalatinsk, and then 500 to 1,000 versts or more by road.

It is bounded on the south and east by China, on the north by the province of Semipalatinsk, on the west by the provinces of Sirdaria and Ferghan.

The principal inhabitants are wandering Kirghiz, of whom there are about one million. The Russians number about 200,000, and there are about 200,000 of other races. Half the Russian population is Cossack.

The province is divided into the jurisdictions of Verney, Pishpek, Przhevalsk, Jarkent, Kopal and Lepsinsk.

The northern districts of Lepsinsk and Kopal are specially suitable for agricultural settlement, and there is much land there not needing irrigation, as there is comparatively much water.

In the districts of Verney, Jarkent and Pishpek irrigation is generally necessary. Free plots of land are mostly in the district of Jarkent and on the frontier of China. When the railway has been brought across to Verney, trade will certainly develop, so the sale of products will be facilitated and the conditions of farming very profitable.

Then the southern parts of the province are very mountainous. Fruitful valleys are separated by great ranges, but with time a road system will be developed and this difficulty overcome.

A railway will soon be built from Tashkent to Verney.

There are as yet no steamers. The largest river, the Ili, crosses the centre of the province. Besides the Ili there are many mountain streams and also large lakes; among the latter may be named Balkhash, Alakul, Issik-Kul.

The climate is very varied, there being levels of eternal snow and of burning sand. The chief occupations of the colonists are cattle farming and all branches of agriculture. A well-watered farm gives, as a rule, a rich and abundant harvest.

Wheat is sown (from 7 to 10 poods the dessiatina), rye oats (8 to 14 poods), millet, peas, potatoes, maize, sunflowers, mustard, flax, hemp, poppy, buckwheat, etc. And the harvest gives wheat up to 150 poods the dessiatina, oats give from 70 to 120 poods the dessiatina, and barley 90 poods. In the districts of Pishpek, Jarkent and Verney rice is sown, and gives 100 roubles the dessiatina clear profit. Orchards are cultivated almost everywhere with success.

Prices

GOVERNMENT GRANTS

(a) In the measure of 100 roubles the family is given in the districts of Pishpek and Verney, except for certain special districts where colonisation proceeds without loans. A hundred roubles are also given to settlers in the district of Kopal, excepting the survey of Altin-Emel and certain plots in the valley of the River Chu and also in the neighbourhood of the Lake Issik-Kul.

(b) In the measure of 200 roubles the family in the northern parts of the district of Jarkent and in the survey of Altin-Emel in the district of Kopal.

In the southern and eastern frontier region half the loan is reckoned as not returnable to the Government.

In the artificially watered tracts in the districts of Verney and Pishpek no grants are made.

Beyond personal loans special grants are made for purposes of supplying general needs, for the building of schools, churches, village barns, mills, brick factories and irrigation works. For the poorer districts the Government takes upon itself the burden of building schools and churches, and hundreds of thousands of roubles are spent annually for this purpose. The Government also sinks wells for the colonists.

Personal loans are repayable by instalments after five years. The first five years there is no need to repay anything, but during the succeeding ten years after that the whole should be cleared off.

General loans are repayable within ten years.

TAXES

Settlers are free of all Governmental charges and taxes for the first five years. During the second five years half has to be paid, and after ten years settlers take their stand with the established colonists.

MILITARY SERVICE

Settlers over 18 years at the time of settlement are allowed to postpone their starting service for three years.

In Turkestan six years’ grace is given to all over 15 years of age.

TIMBER

When there is no timber, the Government provides free wood for building purposes—from the nearest Crown forest.

TURKESTAN

Though, generally speaking, Turkestan is shut for the purposes of immigration, nevertheless a great number of people go there every year, there being a great demand for labour of all kinds. Cotton growers give even as much as two roubles fifty copecks per day. Good wages are paid on the irrigation works. Artisans are needed in the towns and villages. Turkestan is rich, and can support any working man who goes there. It is good to go there and make some money before taking up land, and also to get some experience of the climate and conditions. As regards the taking up of land when allowed, grants in the measure of 165 roubles are given in the provinces of Sirdaria, Samarkand and Ferghan, and in the measure of 250 roubles to settlers in the frontier regions of Zaalaisk and Pamir, half of which is not returnable.

THE SHADY VILLAGE STREET—ONE LONG LINE OF WILLOWS AND POPLARS

It is impossible to give the whole of this “combined circular” in extenso, but I think I have included or summarised all that is vital. It indicates the scaffolding of empire building. The people at home feel cramped or restless. They send out their khodoki, the pioneer messengers. The messengers select a portion of new land and return to Russia. The families of the emigrants follow. But first they must sell off or abandon all manner of cumbersome property; and good-bye has to be said to friends, to the old village, to church and churchyard, and the dead. Most difficult of all for many Russians is the leaving the dead behind. There is the whole agony of separation, the being cut off from Russia and going forth as a new child into Siberia or Central Asia. Then the long, monotonous train journey, and the road journey at the end of it; the caravan on the Central Asian road, and it is in the caravan that the colonists begin to taste of new life, and many feel they would like to go on wandering so all their lives. But they reach the place the messenger has found for them, and then commences the great work of making a habitation of man where no habitation has ever been before. Prayers and thanksgiving, and then work. There is no possible living without work, and the rather easy-going ways of the old land have to be given up and a new life begun of arduous labour and unflagging energy. To their aid comes hope and the passion for making all things new. No Russian would work so much were it not interesting; it is real life, the wine of experience.

First of all, trees are planted. How pathetic to see the long rows of three-foot-high poplar shoots and willow twigs! A month on this sun-beaten road leaves no doubt in the emigrant’s mind as to what is the first necessity—shade, shade. Trees are planted all along the main Government dyke. The colonist chooses the place for his house; he digs a trench all round it and lets in water from the dyke, and he plants trees along the trench. Then he buys stout poplar trunks and willow trunks, and makes the framework of his cottage. He interlaces little willow twigs, and makes the sort of wilted green, slightly shady, slightly sunny house that children might put up in a wood in England. But that is only the beginning. To the willow house he slaps on mud puddings. This is the filthiest work. He makes a great quantity of mud, and treads it up and down with his bare feet till he gets the consistency he requires, and then, with his hand, fetches out sloppy lumps of it and builds his walls. In a few days the mud hardens, and he has a shady and substantial dwelling, and one that in an earthquake will swing but will not collapse. His roof he makes of prairie grass, great reeds ten feet to fifteen feet in length and thick and strong, or of willow twigs again and turf. In his second year he has a little hay harvest on his roof. He ploughs his little bit of desert. He exchanges some of his oxen for cows. He strives with all his power—as does a transplanted flower—to take root. He looks forlorn. You look at his poor estate and say: “It is a poor experiment. The sun is too strong for him; he will just wither off, and the desert will be as before.” But you come another day and you see a change, and exclaim: “He has taken root, after all; there is a shoot of young life there, tender and green.” Along the road I noticed villages of all ages; of this year, of last year, of four years gone, of twenty years, forty years.

There are now several thousand Russian villages in Central Asia—year by year scores of new names creep into the map in faint italics. It is astonishing to English eyes, because we are accustomed to think that maps of Asia do not change. We like to preserve the old Asiatic names of places, and our map-makers seem to have prejudice in favour of Teuton nomenclature similar to the prejudice for spelling the names of Russian places with German pronunciation equivalents. Asia becomes predominantly Russian, and not by virtue of troops stationed at outlandish posts, but by virtue of this process of settling.

The process of colonisation is, however, slower than the process of colonising the British Empire. The population is said to increase at a greater rate, but the organic development is slower. The facilities for getting to Siberia and Central Asia are greater, but the prospect held out is not so alluring, not so fascinating. There is more work to be done by the immigrant here than in Canada or Australia or Africa. There are no large fortunes to be made in a few years, no speculative chances, no great whirling wheel of life set going. On the other hand, Russian colonisation is sounder colonisation, more solid and lasting. It has a better quality and it promises more for the future, unless we British are going to wake up to the facts of our situation.