Through Siberia

Situation of town.—Lodged with Captain de Vries.—Chinese labourers.—Chinese convicts.—Coreans.—Inhabitants of Vladivostock.—Presented at the Governor’s house.—Admiral Erdmann’s improvements.—Visit to barracks.—Boys’ high school.—Education in Russia, its cost and method.—Vladivostock Girls’ Institute; and Free School.—Statistics of crime.—Telegraph companies.—Sunday services.—Protestantism in Siberia.—Village of exiles.—General remarks on exiles.—Preparations for departure.

Vladivostock derives its lordly name from its supposed “command of the east.” The town overlooks an inlet, sheltered by islands, at the end of a promontory jutting out from the middle of the bay of Peter the Great. Behind the harbour rises a lofty hill, crowned by a watch-tower, to which I climbed during my stay, and was rewarded by a remarkably fine view. Northwards stretched the well-wooded Muravieff promontory. East and west lay the gulfs of the Amur and the Ussuri, down the former of which I had steamed from the Suifun; whilst to the south were mountainous islands with rocky headlands, separated from the mainland by the eastern “Bosphorus.” Descending from this elevated spot, and looking from the verandah of the Governor’s house, a less extensive view is obtained, but a very pretty one, comprising the entrance to the harbour called the “Bay of the Golden Horn,” with its two headlands forming the west and southern shores. The depth of water within the harbour is from 30 to 60 feet, and, at the entrance, about double these soundings. The “Bosphorus” is from 60 to 120 feet in depth, and after passing Kazakevich Island, this increases to 200 feet and upwards.

As I steamed into the harbour on Monday afternoon, the 15th September, it was well filled with the ships of many nations, including Chinese junks with their clumsy sails. A German gunboat had just replaced an English line-of-battle ship, and an Italian man-of-war arrived during my stay. There were Russian ships from the Siberian and Pacific fleets, merchant vessels (of which 50 a year visit the port), and a number of boats, many of which ply between Vladivostock, Olga, and Paseat bays. I found, however, no regular service to Japan, but was told that I could probably leave in a Russian man-of-war within a fortnight.

I sought a lodging with Captain de Vries, a Heligolander by birth, who, when in command of a passenger ship plying between England and New York, had become an American subject, and had again changed his nationality to Russian on settling in Siberia at the time of the annexation of the Amur. He had travelled over Siberia, and had a minute knowledge of the Amur and Russian Manchuria; so that from him I acquired a great deal of information, whilst his kind-hearted English wife spared no pains to make me comfortable. In fact, I found the 15 days of my stay at Vladivostock the pleasantest of my tour; for not only had I time to rest and write and acquire information, but I was almost daily received as a guest at the houses of the Governor, or of some of the many inhabitants who spoke English.

The population of Vladivostock in the Almanack is stated to be 8,431, but was estimated to me on the spot at 5,000. The births for 1878 were given by the priest as 184, marriages 13, and deaths 102, of which last 66 were males. The population, however, must fluctuate greatly, for during the previous year 8,000 troops had been quartered in and about the town; and I saw the earth batteries they had thrown up to receive the English, in case the treaty of Berlin had been settled the wrong way. Happily it went the right way; and when H.M.S. Iron Duke, on a northern cruise, steamed into Vladivostock, instead of being injured by torpedoes or fired upon, the officers were invited to dine at the admiral’s house. I judged the party must have been a pleasant one, for the commander of the Siberian fleet told me he had been immensely pleased with the English admiral, and the Governor’s wife and family had nothing to say of the officers but what was gracious and kind.

A large number of the inhabitants of Vladivostock are Manzas, Coreans, and Chinese, whose presence is looked upon in different lights. My host, for instance, thought their numbers a hindrance to Russian progress, because they outbid the Russians, work cheaper, and undersell them. In fact, this was one of the subjects upon which the captain used to wax warm. Accustomed to the high prices of American markets, he was sorely offended at the insignificant profits proposed to him by the Chinese, and, after speaking of their miserable offers for his goods or services, he used to wind up his orations by telling me, in not quite classical English, “There ain’t no footur for this country.” The Governor’s wife and other Russians thought differently, for, apart from the larger exports and imports,⁠[1] they had the Chinese to thank for the vegetable market and the performance of a great deal of local work at a cheap rate, which otherwise would possibly not have been done at all.⁠[2]

Emigrants from the Corea take refuge on Russian soil, in spite of the Corean death penalty attached. In 1868 there were 1,400 of these fugitives; but in the following year, when floods in the Corea drove additional multitudes to seek refuge on neighbouring soil, their further immigration was forbidden by the Russians, and some of the fugitives were sent back, and, on their return, decapitated.⁠[3]

Sad accounts of the Manzas were heard at Vladivostock. My host employed, he said, an old man whom he one day missed, and found that he had been murdered, to be robbed of £10. The Manzas are pirates also. In their transactions with the Russians the Chinese demand to be paid in silver money, and this they take home by sea. Hence I saw more silver roubles in the Sea-coast province than I had observed in any other part of the empire. I saw too, at Khabarofka, a considerable sum of silver money in Mexican dollars. The Manza robbers, accordingly, watch for the boats, murder the crews, and secure the booty.

The Coreans were described as very industrious. They dress in white, and tie up their hair in the shape of a horn. Their summer hats resemble those of the Gilyaks, except that they are hexagonal instead of circular. I went into some of their houses, the walls of which were of mud, plastered on a framework of straw. The floor was of beaten earth, with a mud fireplace in the centre, and a divan round the walls. In the best houses, the wife had a separate apartment. Fire burns in the centre by day, and the flues, under the divan, are heated morning and evening. The people live on millet and rice, and use a spoon of bronze, with a nearly circular flat bowl. Taking one from a man who was eating, I presented the spoon in one hand and a silver coin in the other, intimating that I wished to buy; and when he had taken the coin the master of the house came up, and, receiving from me the spoon and from the man the coin, he graciously returned them both, implying that he gave me what I desired.

The Russian inhabitants of Vladivostock consist almost entirely of officers and persons connected with the army and navy, and there are several foreign inhabitants besides,—some of them Germans, Finns, and Americans. England was represented by an engineer, who went there, I believe, as a mechanic, and whose son-in-law, at the time of my visit, was mayor of the town.⁠[4]

In 1878 there were in Vladivostock 80 merchants of the first guild, who pay in Russia a tax of £50 per annum; 185 of the second guild, who pay £6 per annum; 228 temporary merchants, and 99 street-hawkers; also 215 first-class and 209 second-class clerks.⁠[5]

The junks of the Chinese, their little houses of wood, their sheds and implements, give to Vladivostock a different aspect from that of ordinary Siberian towns. The Russian houses are chiefly of wood, and among the public buildings are both barracks and winter quarters for the seamen of the fleet. To these must be added the Admiralty, an officers’ club, two high-class schools for boys and girls, a library, two free schools, a Russian and a Lutheran church, two telegraph stations, a dockyard, and the Governor’s house.

At this last I was presented, on the day after my arrival, by Captain Naumoff, the captain of the port. The Governor was away on a tour of inspection, but I was introduced to Madame Erdmann, who spoke excellent English, and had all the manners and charm of an English lady. She was a German-Russian from the Baltic provinces, and both she and her husband were Protestants—and zealous ones, too, for they had come out to Vladivostock with the intention of effecting some good in the place, and were evidently doing it. My host, Captain de Vries, bore testimony to the material improvements which had been made by the Governor; for, said he, until the admiral came, “we had no road for the buggy.” His Excellency made also a pretty pleasure-garden at his own cost, for which, now that it is finished, the Government allows a grant for maintenance. Admiral Erdmann, who combined the three offices of Admiral of the Fleet, Chief of the Military, and Civil Governor of the province, drew a stipend of about £2,000 a year, kept an establishment of 15 servants, and seemed to take pleasure in entertaining in vice-regal style the officers of men-of-war of all nations visiting the port.

But Admiral and Madame Erdmann have left other monuments than these to testify to their endeavours to promote the welfare of the town. When they arrived there was no system of poor relief, whereupon her Excellency called together the ladies of the place, and organized a society which has been an immense benefit. She proposed, in the first place, to build a free school, which was done. The institute or boarding-school for girls also was enlarged, and Madame had been the prime mover in another effort to build a Lutheran church and manse. The means by which funds were raised for these charitable objects were, in part, concerts and fancy fairs. One that took place during the first week I was there was described to me as resembling those in England, and I heard that by two such fêtes within a fortnight they cleared the sum of £500.

I was invited to dine at the admiral’s house soon after my arrival, and met there the officers of the Russian clipper Djiguitt, in which I afterwards left Siberia. A band performed during the evening, and fairly surprised me by its excellence; for I had met with nothing to equal it in Russia, and had heard little music of any kind in crossing Siberia. This dinner-party brought me into contact with several naval people, and I subsequently met a Commander Terentieff, who was exceedingly kind in translating for me. He accompanied me one morning to the temporary barracks of the first battalion, whose chief is the Grand Duke Alexei. Its standard was presented by Peter the Great, and the Commandant informed me with pride that it was this battalion that escorted the Russian Ambassador across the Mongolian desert to Peking in the seventeenth century. The barracks were shown me as something noteworthy, in that they were built of mud-bricks not burnt, after the fashion of the new ones at Tashkend. All inside was orderly, but the bedsteads were somewhat close together. Some of the extras in furniture, such as here and there a bright counterpane or quilt, had been purchased by the economies of the regiment. I tasted their soup, and found it excellent. The men varied in age from 22 to 26. Barracks of ordinary bricks for 200 men were in course of construction. Usually the Russian soldiers are their own builders, but in this instance accommodation, including a room for gymnastics convertible into a chapel, was being erected by Chinese labourers at a cost of £6,000.

From the barracks we went to the lock-up, where were 20 military and 21 civil prisoners, the latter being for the most part Manza brigands. At our entrance they went down on all-fours, and continued in that posture whilst one was deputed to ask how their trial was going on; and another, thinking, I suppose, to expedite matters, said that he wished to be baptized. They were a sorry-looking lot; but I must give them credit for keeping their chamber cleaner than the Russian prisoners did. The hide upon which each of them slept was neatly rolled up, and all was arranged in order.

The commander took me to visit the boys’ pro-gymnasium or high-class school for 45 scholars, established four years previously. It was modelled on precisely the same plan as all the schools of its class throughout Russia. Hence two boys in the same grade of school, though one may be at Moscow and the other at Vladivostock, go through the same studies, and keep the same hours to each subject. The scholars dress in a blue and white uniform, and a boy, after passing through the preparatory class, goes on through the various grades up to the sixth, or, for a higher education, to the seventh and eighth classes. He may then go to the university, or to the Lyceum, to study philology and jurisprudence; or, again, to one of the academies, with a view to special studies, such as medicine, mineralogy, divinity, etc.

The cost of education in Russia, as compared with England, is low.⁠[6] The Russian curriculum looks very formidable on paper, and I have heard from an English tutor in Russia that the boys are obliged to work exceedingly hard to pass their examinations. He thought they were worked harder than English boys, and acquired more theoretical knowledge, though the education is of a less practical character than in England.⁠[7] Corporal punishment is forbidden, and is replaced by impositions; and when these are inflicted the scholar receives a note stating his fault, which he must take home and bring back signed by his parents. Should a boy fail to pass his examination in each of his classes, he is usually turned out of the gymnasium, which is a serious loss to him, because a boy gains military exemptions according to the class he is in on leaving school.⁠[8]

Besides the boys’ school at Vladivostock I visited the girls’ institute for the daughters of naval officers, and witnessed the opening religious ceremony of blessing the house after the long vacation. Each child as she came up to kiss the Gospels was sprinkled with holy water, as were also the visitors; after which the priest and his assistant went over the building, sprinkling in all directions. The inspector subsequently declared what children were to be advanced to higher classes. The subjects taught were in keeping with those of the boys’ gymnasium, from which the institute differed in that the children were lodged, clothed, and boarded; 12 free, the rest on payment of £20 per annum. The Government gives a grant of £1,000 per annum towards this school, and the remainder is made up by the children’s fees and voluntary contributions. The cleanliness and good arrangement of this building were striking, not to say luxurious. A great deal, no doubt, was due to the fact that the Governor’s wife visited one of the schools every day. The senior class had two girls of 15 and 16 years of age. To my questions in geography they gave good answers, and in the Gospels fair. They had not read the Epistles, but were expecting so to do that year. One girl was from a peasant home, the other the daughter of a foreign merchant, but they appeared throughout to stand on a level with the officers’ daughters. They had a custom of posting up on a red board for a year the name of the best girl in the school. At the time of my visit the same maiden had held this “blue ribbon” for five years consecutively. Whether it was for excellence of intellect or conduct I know not, but I amused them by offering a prize, such as I had seen given in the schools of the Irish Church Missions, called the “best beloved” prize. The girls were ranged in a line, and each came and whispered in the ear of the teacher the name of the schoolfellow she loved best, and the girl who gained the highest number of votes received the prize. The idea was new to them, and they said the whispering was like going to confession.

There was yet another school the Governor’s wife took me to see—the little free school—built by the society she had founded, and of which it is not too much to say that it was the neatest and best-built house in the town. It was furnished in a manner that would be thought too good for a ragged school in England, and it struck me, as did the institute, that it was somewhat over-provided with teachers.⁠[9]

There were 30 children on the books, of whom one class came in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. The religious instruction consisted in learning the 10 principal prayers of the Russian Church from a small primer, the contents of which would be as much or, I was told, rather more religious knowledge than the average Russian peasant would know. The children received at Christmas presents of clothing, and a marked increase of attendants takes place as the time for the gifts draws near—a phenomenon not confined to Siberian schools!

Madame Erdmann told me of an industrial school in the town for boys, where they are paid 6d. a day for their work. It must not, however, be inferred from these remarks about the educational condition of Vladivostock that things so prevail throughout the province. On the contrary, there are only 15 elementary schools throughout the Primorsk, attended by 215 boys and 66 girls; and the low condition of education was alleged to the Emperor as one of the principal causes of crime in the district.⁠[10]

The foreign communications of Vladivostock are in summer tolerably numerous. Ships from various nations come northwards to avoid the heat of the tropics, or to get coal at Dui, and put in at Vladivostock for provisions, the prices of which, in the meat and vegetable markets, immediately rise on the arrival of a large ship. Again, the inhabitants of this town in the far east have the advantage of two telegraph stations, by one of which they can send a message to London through Siberia, and by the other viâ China and India. The latter wires are those of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, opened in 1871, and passing through Hakodate and Nagasaki, thence to Shanghai and Amoy, and so on to India and Suez. The latter wire goes by the route I followed as far as Khabarofka, there meeting wires from Nikolaefsk, and then continues across Siberia by the route I travelled. The number of messages sent in 1878 from Russia to China was 595, and to Japan 515, or 1,100 in all.

Of the two Siberian wires, one, I found, is reserved for international correspondence. Of 20,000 messages passing from the south through Vladivostock, no less than 15,000 were in English. Of the remaining 5,000, those in the French and German languages absorbed the larger proportion.⁠[11]

The director of the Great Northern Company was Mr. Russell, at whose house I dined, and whose wife played the harmonium at the Sunday service. I have already mentioned the heartiness with which Russians and foreigners alike assisted these services in the Primorsk. At Nikolaefsk, not only did the authorities send round notice of what was to take place, but they seemed to vie with one another in offering assistance. The military commandant offered the use of a room at the club; the captain of the port, being a Protestant, seemed almost aggrieved that his house from the first had not been chosen, and the chief civil authority lent the best room in the Governor’s residence, and attended the service with other dignitaries in full uniform. There were present on the first Sunday 33 persons, Greeks, Romans, and Protestants, representing Russia, Poland, England, America, Finland, Germany, and Sweden. Some came, doubtless, out of curiosity to see the first English service on the Amur, but many were able to understand; and on the second Sunday, which was wet, there were 20 persons present, all men but one. At Vladivostock the service was held in the new Lutheran church. The congregation numbered 27 persons, representing quite as many nationalities as at Nikolaefsk, and some Swiss besides. So few were familiar with the offices of the English Church that I was compelled to make the service of an irregular character; but it was pleasant, after the sermons, to have one and another grasping one’s hand, and expressing their thanks for what they had heard. Some of them had not had such an opportunity for a long time. I was greatly struck with one thing that reached me in connection with these services. Some of the Russians had never attended a Protestant service before, and more than one remarked upon its solemnity. This I thought remarkable as coming from persons who from childhood had been accustomed to an ornate and very elaborate ritual, and none other. They were plainly struck by the quietness that prevailed and by the appeal to the intellect as manifest in the sermon, in contrast to their service of worship only, with persons moving hither and thither; and a well-educated officer, commenting upon the solemnity of the service, said that he had never before been impressed by a sermon in his life.

The offertory at Vladivostock was given to the building fund, for the church was not quite finished. A resident pastor was expected to arrive in the course of a few months, which would make four Lutheran ministers in Siberia, instead of the former three living in or near Omsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk, their general superintendent, Pastor Jürgenssen, living at Moscow. The number of Protestant churches in Siberia is five, and of Protestants about 7,000. At Ekaterineburg are living some 300 German Protestants, but nine persons, we heard, was considered a large Sunday congregation. In the vicinity of Tobolsk some of the Lettish peasants were said to have joined the Russian Church, and some to have fallen away from religion altogether. The account, however, of 1,800 Finns living at Ruschkova was better. They had petitioned for, and were awaiting, a pastor.

At Vladivostock I took my farewell of Siberian exile life at an experimental penal colony called “First River” village. Accompanied by the German captain of the Cyclop, Captains Boris and Charles de Livron, and a lady, we proceeded thither on horseback, by a pretty ride through a partially-cleared forest, till, from the top of a hill, we saw a brewery, brick-fields, and, not far distant, nestling among the trees, the exiles’ village. It consisted of about 20 log houses, occupied by 15 convicts and five others who had served their time, and who might have removed elsewhere, but they so far liked their quarters that they chose to remain. Two naval men lived in the village for the purpose, ostensibly, of keeping order, and a few Chinese had been attracted to settle in the place. Four of the convicts were under sentence of 15 years’ hard labour, one for 20 years, and one for life. They were condemned to Sakhalin, but, seeing that their wives had accompanied them, and that there was not enough work in the coal-mines, the kind-hearted Governor had obtained permission to place them in the little colony as an experiment. The men had built their own houses, and took it in turns to go into Vladivostock, from eight to twelve, to do night work. They might earn what they could by day, and the wives were able to add to the store by laundry work. One wife had by this means possessed herself of two cows.

Besides this, they might take as much land as they chose to cultivate. They were growing potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and cabbages, but the soil was said to be unsuitable for corn. Pigs and poultry were running about; and though, according to their own account, one of them with seven children found it difficult to make a living, yet the others did so easily.

One of the convicts, thinking I was a Government official, informed me that he had not yet received his new clothes, whereupon I learned that, when they begin to colonize, they receive monthly 72 lbs. of flour and 5d. a day. Every year they received a shuba, or sheepskin coat, underlinen, two pairs of winter boots, three pairs of summer shoes, and, once in three years, a long coat. In one of the best of the houses we found a clean, orderly room, with a good samovar, and plenty of pictures and photographs. The owner possessed two cows and a horse; so we were told, at least, by a fellow-convict, who took us into his garden and seated us beneath a bower of wild vines. Milk and wild grapes were afterwards brought for our refreshment. This man had been in the Imperial Guard, and had finished his military service, when, having invited some friends to his house, he killed one of them in a drunken quarrel. I tried to get at the relative positions of some of these convicts before the committal of their crimes and after, and found in one case that in Russia the man was a drunkard and poor, whereas in this village he could live well, and could not get intoxicated so easily, by reason of his distance from Vladivostock. There were but one man and one woman in the village who could read, and one had friends who corresponded with him from Russia. The children were educated at the industrial school at Vladivostock. Thus my last specimen of Siberian exile life was the most favourable of all.

I had now followed the exiles from Moscow all across Siberia, and, with the exception of the mines at Nertchinsk and Dui, had seen them under the varying circumstances in which they live. Looking at the matter calmly and dispassionately, I am bound to say that “exile to Siberia” no longer calls up to my mind the horrors it did formerly. I am quite prepared to believe that instances have occurred of bad management, oppression, and cruelty. I have already quoted some cases; but that the normal condition of things has been exaggerated I am persuaded. Taken at the worst, “condemned to the mines” is not so bad as it seems, and in the case of peasant exiles, willing to work, I cannot but think that many of them have a better chance of doing well in several parts of Siberia than at home in some parts of Russia. English people are accustomed to think of exiles like the parents of “Elizabeth,” banished to a region in the far north where scarcely anything grows; but a little consideration would show this to be, in the great number of cases, extremely unlikely, for the Government would then have to keep them, whereas in the south they can keep themselves. On the sea coast, women convicts get excellent places as servants. One hardship connected with their lot is that, until they have served their time or gained their good conduct class, they cannot marry; and even then the husband, if a free man, must undertake not to quit Siberia and so leave his wife behind. This law is rigidly enforced. I heard of one case of a woman who had behaved particularly well, and whose husband wished to return to Russia, for which even the Governor of a province petitioned, but the request was refused.

A lady told me at Vladivostock that some of her convict servants had recently said to her, “We have such a good time of it here in Siberia, that, had we known it, we would certainly have committed a crime before to get here; and now we mean to write to our relations and tell them to do something to get sent here too,”—a speech that will probably strike the reader as the foolish saying of a servant girl, but the truth of which, in this particular case, I do not doubt. The servant had the good fortune to be taken into the service of Madame Boris de Livron, who had spent many years in America, and of whose home I can speak, because I dined therein; and one had only to contrast with it some wretched izba in European Russia, from which, perhaps, the woman came, and her laborious work in the fields, to render it exceedingly likely that she spoke, after all, only the sober truth. That this was an exceptional case may very well be, and so also the exile village was in a manner exceptional, for the exiles are usually planted, on their release, among colonists, rather than put into villages by themselves; but I have quoted these instances as the least repulsive forms of exile life that came under my notice, and to show that, once set free from prison, the prosperity of the banished is pretty much in their own hands.

Before leaving Vladivostock I called upon the priest, who gave me information about the church, and I likewise made the acquaintance of several of the merchants, among them Mr. Lindholm, who had whaling vessels in the Sea of Okhotsk. With him I exchanged my paper money, at the rate of two roubles four kopecks per Mexican dollar, taking with me a draft on his partners, Messrs. Walsh, Hall, and Co. of Yokohama. Thus prepared I awaited the return of the Governor, and on Monday afternoon, September 29th, the admiral’s flag appeared in the harbour; the naval captains and military officers assembled to present their reports, and I got my luggage on board the Djiguitt. Madame Erdmann insisted on my coming, however, the same evening to be introduced to the admiral, which I thought very kind, immediately after his prolonged absence, and the weariness of his journey. A warm reception was accorded me by the Governor, a lively interest manifested in my plans, and I left terra firma to sleep in the ship.