Through Siberia

Charitable committees.—Prison food.—Clothing.—Work.—Hard labour.—Exercise.—Amusements.—Privileges.—Intercourse with friends.—Punishments.—Capital punishment.—Corporal punishment.—Irons.—Prison discipline.—Flogging.—Exceptional severities.

The Russians introduce or allow the introduction into their prisons of an ameliorating influence, in the form of local committees, for furthering the temporal welfare of the prisoners. “You see,” said to me the president of one of these committees, “we have two elements in the government of our prisoners. The police strive for the letter of the law, whilst we strive for kindness to the prisoner.” Thus justice and mercy go hand in hand; and when they happen to fall out, I fancy that in Siberia, after their easy-going fashion, mercy not unfrequently wins the day. Whether all prisons have local committees I do not know; but we came in contact with the operations of several. The members take upon themselves to superintend, clothe, and educate the children of prisoners; and in more than one place we found admirable asylums built for this purpose. They also lend a helping hand to prisoners’ wives, and at Irkutsk we found they had supplied the prison with a library. Their exertions, however, do not stop here; for they look after and in some cases improve and augment the prisoners’ food. The Government allows for each prisoner so much money a day. At Ekaterineburg, for instance, to the common exiles 10 kopecks; to the upper classes 15 kopecks. At Irkutsk we met an upper-class prisoner who had 17½ kopecks, which he received in money. The prisoners who remain at Ekaterineburg are allowed 6 kopecks a day. Instead, however, of each spending his 6 kopecks, the whole is taken and dispensed by the committee in the purchase for the general caldron of meat, vegetables, etc.; and they somehow manage out of threehalfpence a head to give to each prisoner two dishes of food. Whether the committee appeal to the public for funds I know not. At Tomsk we heard that each director of the prison committee gave his ten roubles annually, whilst from the neighbouring villages were brought presents of flour and other kinds of food. Again, it is common to see, outside prison gates, boxes in which may be placed offerings for the welfare of the prisoners; and such is the liberality of the people in this direction, especially on festivals, that in Petersburg those detained get more Easter eggs than they can eat. All this speaks of kindness on the part of the public towards prisoners, in which particular I know no nation that equals the Russian. Further allusion will be made to this hereafter.

Apart, however, from these philanthropic efforts, the reader will perhaps get a better idea of Siberian prison diet from details which came under our own observation. At Tiumen each man was said to receive daily 2½ lbs. (Russian) of bread, ½ lb. of meat on ordinary days, and ¾ lb. on holidays, with salt, pepper, etc., also a daily allowance of quass for drink. The fare in Tobolsk prison was the same, a bucketful of quass or small-beer being provided for every ten men. At Nikolaefsk I heard of corned beef and kash, or corn, substituted for vegetables. At the Alexandreffsky prison they had ½ lb. of meat, including the bone, and 2½ lbs. of bread. At Kara, however, where the men work in the mines, the allowance is still more liberal. Each receives daily 4 lbs. of bread, 1 lb. of meat, ¼ lb. of buckwheat, with tea, but no quass.⁠[1] At Kara, when not working, they receive 3 lbs. of bread, ½ lb. of meat, and 1/12th of a lb. of buckwheat. We found in some of the prisons that, if they do not eat all their food, the prisoners may sell the remainder; or again, the surplus bread may be used for making quass, which, when given, always comes, I believe, from these “economies.” The diet, however, is considerably affected by the rigour with which fast-days are observed in the prisons. Every Wednesday and Friday are fast-days, and there are four great annual fasts, with an aggregate of at least a hundred days, so that there are probably quite half the days in the year when the prisoners get fast diet, which excludes flesh food. I understood, however, that this does not apply to those at hard labour; while other prisoners, during some of the long fasts, receive fish and fish-soup—the latter ad libitum. So at least it is at Tobolsk. If a man happens to be in a position to buy tea or such luxuries, he may do so, and his friends may, if they please, bring him food daily. Thus a man ought not to starve in a Siberian prison.

Nor is he left without clothing. Prisoners awaiting their trial, also exiles losing partial rights, may, if they choose, wear their own clothes, or, if they have none suitable, they are supplied by the Government. Those who lose all their rights, however, must wear convicts’ clothing. This consists, in summer, of a linen shirt and pair of trousers, and a peasant’s coat of camel’s hair, a specimen of which last I bought for five shillings. Those condemned to hard labour have two yellow diamond-shaped patches sewn on the back; those without labour have one piece only. Other marks of a similar character indicate the province from which they come. At Kara a coat of felt is given yearly. A shirt must last six months, and is washed once a week; whilst in summer a pair of rough leather shoes or slippers is served out every 22 days. Those working in the mines are provided also with leather gloves.⁠[2]

Concerning their labour, I seriously avow my belief that in many cases the hardest part of a Siberian prisoner’s lot is not the work imposed upon him, but the absence of it. This appeared to prevail among the prisoners up to Kara.

I met at different places two Poles, who came to the east condemned to hard labour, but who got off exceedingly lightly. What one said amounted to this: that if he liked to work he worked, but if not he let it alone. The authorities told me, in one instance, that they cannot now find enough work for the exiles. Many of the mines have passed from Government into private hands, and some even of those remaining are more or less exhausted. Hence a part of the Russian criminals, who of old would probably have been exiled, are now detained in large prisons in European Russia, such as at Pskof, Wilna, Kharkhof, Orenburg, Simbirsk, Perm, etc.; but the plan has only lessened, not removed, the difficulty of finding useful yet laborious occupation for the condemned. When, therefore, it is remembered that a large number of the criminals cannot read, and that for those who can there has hitherto been, to say the least, but a poor supply of books, the tedium can be easily imagined of imprisonment without work in Siberia. Accordingly, it was little matter for surprise that we heard at Alexandreffsky of prisoners begging for work. In some of the prisons opportunities are afforded for the detained to work, which gives them employment, and also enables them to earn a little money with which to buy comforts. Some, however, are condemned to labour, which labour may be done for the Government direct, or it may be let out by the Government to private persons or companies, as at Kara, where some of the convicts work in private mines belonging to the Emperor, and at Dui in Sakhalin, where the coal-mines are worked by a commercial company.

Thus the work of convicts, when they are put to it, is mainly of three degrees of severity,—that of the fabric, the zavod, and the mines, which I understand to mean as follows. Fabric work is that of a manufactory, or the labour of ordinary mechanics, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, joiners, shoemakers, tailors, etc. The best Russian prison I have seen of this kind was at Petersburg, on the Wiborg side of the Neva, which had almost the busy hum of a factory, where everything seemed well arranged and kept going; but in the prisons of Tobolsk, which I understood to be of this character, there seemed an insufficient number of workshops in proportion to the number of criminals. The word zavod is synonymous with our “works” for the founding and casting of metals; and for this, I presume, is sometimes substituted heavy outdoor or indoor work, such as making bricks, mending roads, or manufacturing salt. But of this class of work we saw next to none, save a handful of men at Alexandreffsky, returning from making bricks. Once more, the mines are of at least three sorts—gold, silver, and coal. The work of the gold-mines resembles the labour of English navvies in making a cutting, whilst that of silver and coal, being underground, is more difficult. From reports I heard, however, of these latter two, it did not appear that the convicts were by any means overworked; but further details upon this matter will be furnished hereafter. Those condemned to the hardest labour need, of course, no special time for exercise. The prisoners without labour are allowed at Alexandreffsky an hour a day for this purpose, which appeared to me too little. More generally, however, we found they had a happy-go-lucky way, especially in the smaller prisons, of opening the doors in the morning, and letting the prisoners, if they did not misbehave themselves, go in and out of the yard as they liked—to sleep, talk, or bask in the sun, and in some cases to smoke.

I am not aware that the authorities permit the prisoners any amusements, though it has been already intimated that they find them for themselves—sometimes in the shape of cards, with which, if report be true, having nothing else to play for, they gamble away their food.

But we have not yet exhausted the prisoners’ privileges. Here are some more of them, though probably they are not the same in all the prisons. According to a convict’s behaviour he is placed in a certain category; and the longer he remains therein, and the better he behaves, the more ameliorations he gets. For instance, if a man condemned to fifteen years’ hard labour conducts himself well, he serves only thirteen years and two months, and, towards the end of the time, gains certain other privileges. If condemned to wear irons four years, he may, in a similar manner, lessen the time by one-third; if in the higher category, he receives 15 per cent. of what he earns by working for the Government, and in his spare time he may work on his own account; if in the lower category, he earns money, but it is withheld until he advances higher. At Alexandreffsky prisoners may receive money from their friends, up to a rouble a week, but not more. At Kara some prisoners are not allowed thus to receive money, but I heard of others there who receive as much as £15 a year, and who also receive visits once or twice a week from, not mere acquaintances—which is not allowed—but their families, who may also daily, if they please, bring them food.

I was told at one large prison that, strictly speaking, it was not permitted to prisoners (except political ones) to write to their friends, which seemed to confirm what I had heard and what I have written elsewhere. But unofficial persons denied this, saying that prisoners are free to write, and this also we heard at some of the prisons. The two statements may perhaps be reconciled thus: that it is one of those cases (and there are many such in Siberian prisons) in which the letter of the law is supposed to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Once more, if men are well behaved, they get, before the expiration of a long sentence, into a position comparatively comfortable. They are allowed to live outside the prison with their wives and families; they may have their house and garden, still working a certain number of hours per day, and obliged to be in their homes by night; but otherwise they are free to do what they list, and are much in the same position as that of an ordinary labourer.

I have yet to speak of punishments, which are of two kinds—those decreed by the civil courts and courts martial, and those subsequently incurred in Siberia. Concerning the former two, it is not quite accurate to say that in Russia there is no capital punishment, since there are at least three offences for which death is the penalty, namely: (1) offences against the persons of the Imperial family, and certain laws concerning them; (2) military crimes, or, what is equivalent, crimes committed when a place is in a state of siege; (3) breaking quarantine laws, such as permitting a vessel with infectious diseases to come into a Russian port. But in these cases culprits are turned over to a military tribunal, which alone can sentence to death; in accordance with which I was told of a case happening in 1877 in Sakhalin, wherein some convicts, with much brutality, killed a whole family, and were sentenced to be shot; but this is rare, and since the convicts had already lost all rights, it would perhaps be considered hardly an exception to the rule that murder in Russia is not followed by capital punishment.

Nor, again, does the Russian law inflict upon any free man corporal punishment. The knout has been abolished for some years. They do, however, put their prisoners in irons, which for the legs weigh from about five to nine pounds English; and if a man rebels, he may get them as heavy as fourteen pounds. I was told, however, that the new chains weigh only five pounds. Those for the wrists weigh two pounds.

As to the period for wearing them, accounts differed. At Alexandreffsky, up to eighteen months usually; at Kara, four years; whilst, at Tobolsk, it was said that prisoners might be in chains from two months to eight years. The manner of carrying the fetters is as follows. Over the leg is worn a coarse woollen stocking, and over that a piece of thick linen cloth; then come the trousers, over which is bound on the shins a pad of leather. A stranger might wonder at first how the trousers could be taken off; and to satisfy our curiosity, a prisoner in Tiumen showed us how it was done, which gave me the opportunity to observe, when his leg was bare, that it had no marks from wearing the irons. On each leg a ring is not locked, but riveted. To these rings is attached a chain of about three feet in length, which, for convenience in walking, is usually suspended in the middle by a string from the waist. This may seem severe enough for English ideas of the present day, but I saw heavier on the legs of two murderers in America. Russian chains, however, are playthings compared with some to be seen in Finland, and which I have put on. In bringing the prisoners in Finland from the country districts to the towns, they make use of the farmers’ carts; and it sometimes happens that the cart is waylaid by accomplices, and the prisoner delivered. To prevent this, therefore, they in some cases put on an extraordinary suit of irons, which outdo those I saw even in China. First, there is a collar for the neck and a girdle for the body, which two are connected by means of chains, the hands likewise being fastened to the girdle. On each ankle is put an iron stirrup or socket, which projects over the front of the feet far enough to receive through its holes a heavy iron bar, weighing thirty-six pounds, the whole weight of which is made to rest on the prisoner’s insteps and to connect the feet. Then from the middle of the bar comes another chain, fastening it to the girdle. The whole is of iron, and weighs about 108 lbs. It should be added that these are seldom used in Finland, and then only for desperate characters; but in Russia no such chains exist. The heaviest of the Russian irons are about the weight, I imagine, of those formerly in use in England, if one may judge from the pair called “Jack Sheppard’s irons,” which are kept as a curiosity in Newgate. Moreover, if report be true, there is a good deal of hocus-pocus connected with Siberian fetters. To an ordinary observer the fetters look riveted on in such a manner that without a smith it would appear impossible to get them off. The largeness of the rings, however, to allow of their fitting over the stocking, the bandage of linen, the trousers, and then the leather gaiter, will make it probable that, on the removal of these bandages, it may be possible in some cases to slip out the naked foot. However that may be, I heard from another source, not to be doubted, that a certain governor of a province, on visiting one of his prisons, was moved with compassion, and ordered that the chains should be struck off the prisoners; upon which they wriggled and kicked them off with such alacrity as to leave no doubt on his mind that they had been donned as uniform in which to receive his Excellency’s visit. A released prisoner has told me that so dexterous do they become in pressing the thumb into the palm of the hand, that they used to slip off their handcuffs and sleep without them. M. Andreoli also mentions in his account that, whilst on the march, the payment of four roubles to the soldiers in charge got them free of the chain to which they were attached, on the understanding, however, that the guard should not be got into trouble by any one running away, and that the iron should be properly affixed when approaching the town or their resting-place for the night. He also mentions that, in a drove of 147 prisoners, there were 21—that is, a seventh—wearing chains. Throughout Siberia I saw only one man wearing handcuffs; but, in Western Siberia, chains were seen on the legs of many—how many I cannot say, but less, I should think, than a seventh; and this proportion markedly decreased as we proceeded further east.

The courts sometimes order a man—generally one who has run away repeatedly—to be chained, on reaching his destination, to a barrow or implement, which thus always accompanies him wherever he may go. A doctor informed me that he had seen a prisoner’s ticket with such a doom thereon within the previous twelve months; and I heard that at Sakhalin one or two ferocious characters were thus confined; but I saw none. There were none, I found on inquiry, among the two thousand at Kara; and such treatment was said to be exceedingly rare.

With regard to punishments inflicted for insubordination to prison authorities, or for subsequent crimes of convicts, the mildest form is incarceration in a solitary cell. A man is next deprived, in part, of food and minor comforts, as in England. Then, if not already in irons, he may have them put on; or, if this do not suffice, he may be “birched,” after the fashion in which our fathers corrected us. I witnessed this performance at Nikolaefsk. Having heard on a Saturday—which is there the day for flogging—that a man was to receive 60 stripes with the rod, I thought it right, since the visitation of prisons was my speciality, to go and see it, and thus shirk no occasion of witnessing with my eyes what I learned through my ears. The man was a released convict, of horrible countenance, who had served his time in confinement, and was subsequently taken as a joiner into a merchant’s establishment, and he had rewarded his employer by robbing him. Accordingly, in the police station, he was brought from his room to the presence of the police-master. Behind the culprit stood a Cossack, and at his side a clerk, who read over his sentence. The prisoner then signed the paper, to signify that he had heard it read, and was marched back to another room and placed on the floor, with his back laid bare, one Cossack holding his head and another his feet. Two soldiers then inflicted the stripes successively, whilst a third counted aloud the number administered. The man wriggled and roared, and the skin became very red, but I saw no blood, and the operation was soon over.

I came away, I confess, considerably perturbed; but the Nikolaefsk folks said that was nothing, and further informed me that, for the commission of other than very serious offences, they frequently deal in this summary manner with released convicts, both male and female. The switches composing the rod, according to M. Andreoli, must, by law, be sufficiently small to allow of three being passed together into the muzzle of a musket. Those I saw reminded me of a dame’s birch, save that they were longer, and the switches somewhat stouter than those formerly seen in schools—indeed, facsimiles of those used in the prison of Cold Bath Fields in London. A marvellous feature of the case is that some of the men (ay, and women too) not only receive the rod, but laugh and are impudent after it. One of my hosts in another town told me that some years ago, soon after the Amur came into the hands of the Russians, he was robbed by a soldier of some clothes, upon which the police-master sentenced the thief to receive 500 stripes with the birch rod; but the governor hearing of it increased the number to 1,100. My host was asked if he were willing to see the stripes inflicted; and, going at five in the morning, he saw 500 administered. As the man lay on the grass, and as each rod was worn out, it was replaced by a new one from a heap lying by. The prosecutor begged that the rest might be remitted, and came away. The whole number, however, were administered, and the man was kept in the hospital for a fortnight, at the end of which time he came to his prosecutor to ask for a glass of grog, and said that for a bottleful of spirits he would not mind having another 1,100 if it might again be followed by a fine time in the hospital!

I heard of others laughing at the birch. But there is yet one thing they fear, and that is a whip called the “troichatka,” or “plète.” I forewarn the reader that the treatment of this subject may harrow his feelings; yet, if a writer is to present a true picture of what has come under his observation, he must delineate not only the lights of his picture but the shadows also. The author of “Tom Brown’s School Days,” when about to describe a fight at Rugby, recommends any of his readers who feel particularly sensitive to skip the chapter; and I venture to give similar advice with regard to the next few paragraphs.

The knout, as already said, has been abolished for some years, notwithstanding the persistent introduction of this instrument into the pages of some of the vindictive class of writers on Russian affairs. I found it had been discontinued sufficiently long to make it difficult for me to get an explanation of what it used to be like. M. Pietrowski, in his “Story of a Siberian Exile,” De Lagny, and one or two other writers of his class, do their very best to invest the knout with every horror, and to make it appear that a long strip of flesh was torn off the culprit’s back at every stroke. A more trustworthy account is that of M. Andreoli, which I am the more disposed to believe, because it agrees pretty accurately with the description of the instrument given me by an old man who had seen it used at Chita. The Russian post-drivers still use for their horses what they call a “knout,” which is a short whip like a heavy English hunting-whip, only that the lash consists of three or four pieces of twisted hide linked together continuously by metal rings. It makes a formidable instrument even for driving a horse. But on comparing this with our two descriptions, I make no doubt that the genuine knout for criminals was a somewhat similar whip to that now employed sometimes for horses. M. Andreoli gives it a handle from one to two inches in diameter, and 9 inches in length. At the top of the handle is a ring, then a lash of raw hide 18 inches long, with a ring at the end; then a second lash and ring; and thirdly came the part which is the “knout” proper, namely, a flat lash of hard leather, 21 inches long, bent to a curve and ending with a hook something like the beak of a bird—the entire length of handle and lash being 2½ arshines, or nearly 6 feet. The instrument used to be wielded by a convict, who received his liberty or certain privileges for doing this work. I heard from a lawyer that the public flagellator in Moscow was so skilful in the manipulation of his weapon, that he could with it snip a cigarette off a window without breaking the glass, or at a single blow break an inch board, and, therefore, the spine of a man’s back. He was said to have found his profession so lucrative that, when his daughter married, he gave her a dowry of 60,000 roubles, at that time equal to, say, £9,000. He made his money from those he flogged. The law demanded that the person to be beaten should receive a certain number of stripes, but did not exact that the recipient should suffer; and thus, when well paid, this hero let the knout fall lightly—so, at least, the story goes.

The “troichatka,” or “plète,” is a whip of twisted hide, fastened to a handle 10 inches long and an inch thick. The lash, about the same thickness at the top as the handle, tapers for 12 inches, and then divides in three smaller lashes, 25 inches long, and about the size of the little finger, the whole measuring 4 feet in length, and weighing nearly 15 ounces. M. Pietrowski represents the plète as consisting of “three thongs weighted at the ends with balls of lead.” The balls of lead, however, if I mistake not, are a piece of invention to harrow the feelings. At all events, none of those I saw (and I saw a boxful) had anything attached to the lashes, nor did they need it, for the instrument is quite severe enough in itself. From 20 to 50 lashes is the number usually given, though they may go up to 100. The criminal is bound to a thick board, wide at the top and narrowed towards the bottom, called a kobyla, or “mare,” which, by means of an iron leg, is made to incline at an angle of about 30 degrees. At the upper end of the board are three places hollowed out to receive in the centre the face and head, and on either side the hands, all which are bound down with leather thongs. A little lower and at either side are two iron loops, which confine the arms, whilst the feet are secured at the bottom. At an execution (for such as described to me by eye-witnesses it almost amounts to) a medical man and some of the authorities must be present. The convict executioner takes three or more plètes, and, having stretched them to render them supple, takes up his position about 10 yards distant, walks quickly to secure a momentum, and brings down the lash with full force on the lower part of the culprit’s back. This he repeats two or three times, letting the lash fall in the same place. Then he walks from the other side, so as to bring it down in a different direction, and, after a few strokes, changes his whip and walks from a third point, the strokes thus falling upon the man something in the shape of a star or an asterisk. M. Andreoli intimates that the flagellator is often bribed by the culprit or his friends, in which case he brings down the first blow with terrible severity, making the poor creature writhe and scream horribly, but then diminishes the force of his blows as he proceeds; whereas, if he be not bribed, he begins gently and gradually increases in severity, which is far worse. He has, however, to be wary, for if he does not strike hard enough he is threatened with twenty-five stripes for himself, which were given the summer before my visit to an executioner in Nikolaefsk. Most descriptions of this punishment represent the culprit’s back as raw, and running with blood—and it is better for the man when this is the case. A skilful flagellator draws little or no blood, and more pain is caused when the skin simply rises in wales; but, when this is the case, mortification sometimes sets in, and the prisoner speedily dies. One thus thrashed in the morning had died at night during the week preceding that in which I received my information.

Before passing from this dreadful subject I wish to make quite clear what was told me: that no man for the first offence can, by Russian law, be condemned to corporal punishment. Also I was given to understand, by a legal authority, that the plète exists only at three places in Siberia—Kara, Nikolaefsk, and Sakhalin, (though I was informed by a released exile that he saw it, 15 years ago, at Chita, and nearly everywhere,) so that only the very worst criminals ever see it at all. If they were moderate offenders they would not be so far east, and those who get it have usually gone through deportation, prison, and irons, and yet remain incorrigible. Also it should be remembered that in these localities the inhabitants are few, and are surrounded by hundreds of convicts or ex-convicts; that a very large proportion of the women-servants, and men-servants too, are of the same class, some of them not having even finished their terms; and that, in addition to these ex-prisoners, who are supposed to be corrected and better behaved, a considerable number of the worst characters are constantly escaping. More than 100 escaped from Sakhalin, I was told, the winter before my visit. When free, they make for Nikolaefsk to escape starvation, caring little what they do. In 1877 three convicts, to get the paltry sum of £12, brutally killed a woman and put her down a well. Hence the inhabitants say that, were they not defended by some very strong deterrents, they would not be safe a moment, since, if a man commit half-a-dozen murders, he knows he is not to be hanged.

I have thus forced myself to mention all the kinds of punishment, painful as some of them are, that came under my observation or to my knowledge in Siberia; and I have done so in part because I desired to leave no room for uneasy suspicions that aught had been kept back from the reader. Moreover, I should not think it right to contradict the many false statements which have appeared from time to time concerning the punishment of Siberian exiles without giving a picture of things as I really found them.

On the whole, my conviction is that, if a Russian exile behaves himself decently well, he may in Siberia be more comfortable than in many, and as comfortable as in most, of the prisons of the world. There are yet other points to be mentioned in connection with Siberian prisons, but these can be best treated of as we visit, in succession, the various towns in which they are situated.