Through Siberia

The province of Tomsk.—The city of Tomsk.—Visit to the Governor.—The prison.—Institution for prisoners’ children.—A Lutheran minister.—Finnish colonies in Siberia.—Their pastoral care.—Dissuaded from visiting Minusinsk.—Distribution of Finnish books.—Détour to Barnaul.

The province of Tomsk is, in some respects, the most favoured in Siberia. It is not so huge and unwieldy as some of the others, and does not, like its two neighbours of Tobolsk and Yeneseisk, extend to the Frozen Sea; but, beginning on the 62nd parallel for its northernmost boundary, it continues southward as far as the borders of Mongolia, from which it is separated by the Altai mountains. The climate is good, and the land is valuable for agricultural purposes, while the mountainous districts are exceedingly rich in minerals.⁠[1]

The city of Tomsk is situated on the river Tom, whence it derives its name, and has a population of 30,000. Its streets are wide but steep, and in the centre of the town is a good specimen of that prominent feature in so many Russian towns—a Gostinnoi Dvor (bazaar or market). It is an aggregation of shops and open spaces, to which the stranger is constantly sent for anything he may require. If a countrywoman has butter or milk to sell, she takes up her position there; so do hucksters with small wares. Larger establishments are to be found elsewhere, but the Gostinnoi Dvor of a Russian town contains a concentration of goods that supplies all wants. Many of the houses at Tomsk are of brick; it boasts of several hotels, two banks, and two photographers. In a distant part of the town is an imposing building, the law courts, etc., also a large church or cathedral, which is still unfinished.

We called upon M. Sooproonenko, the Governor, who was very obliging, and sent us at once to see the two prisons, in one of which criminals are kept, whilst in the other they only stay whilst passing through to their destinations. The condition of prison affairs in Tomsk showed that there was an active local committee. The jail in which criminals are permanently confined is a heavy brick building, with low, vaulted corridors, in which prisoners may be kept for terms varying from one month to four years. The authorities complained that in winter it is damp. This was one of the few prisons where there was a school, which such prisoners as chose might attend; but out of 640, when we were there, only 30 did so. Among those confined was an old man who had been condemned to hard labour further east, but on his way his penalty had been mitigated, and he allowed to stay at Tomsk. There was some little show of work going on in the shoemakers’, carpenters’, and blacksmiths’ shops; but the great mass of the prisoners was herded in rooms where they had nothing to do. When invited by the Governor to point out any defects I had noticed, I mentioned, first, that I thought all should work. He replied that they have no laws to compel them (I presume he spoke of a certain class of prisoners), and that the severest punishment they are allowed to inflict is three days’ solitude with bread and water. We saw so many prisons in Siberia in which the majority of the prisoners had nothing to do, that the sight became wearisome; and when the authorities told us that they could not find them work, I was vain enough inwardly to say, “It strikes me that I could.” But on reaching San Francisco, I altered my mind when inspecting a prison managed on modern principles, where they can manufacture in a day more than a thousand doors, to say nothing of hundreds of other articles of wood, leather, iron, and I know not what; and yet, even there, they had men condemned to hard labour twirling their thumbs for want of a job. The difficulty of employing a large number of Siberian convicts is vastly enhanced by the difficulty and the expense of the carriage of raw materials, and the comparatively small demand for manufactured articles.

Our distribution of books was highly appreciated at Tomsk, and one prisoner gave me in return a paper-knife he had made, for which he would accept no money. In the underground storehouse we saw quass in huge vats worthy of an abbot’s cellar, and large receptacles for sour cabbage, of which the Russians make soup. The cabbage is salted in September and pressed, and in ten days is ready for use. The store contained also a large number of tongues, which cost on the spot from 2d. to 6d. each. In one of the wards, the men who formed the church choir asked permission to sing us a hymn, which they did very creditably.

The most pleasing part of our visit, however, was that made to an adjoining building within the prison grounds—an institution for the children of prisoners and of the poor, which had been built by the local committee. The matron apologized that they were not in holiday trim, but the place was as neat and clean as could be. We called in the afternoon. The girls had an English sewing-machine, and were busy at work, whilst some were embroidering elaborate initials in the corners of handkerchiefs, to the orders of ladies in the town. Some of the boys were learning shoemaking, whilst others were taught to be of use in waiting on the doctors in the prisoners’ hospital. Such progress do some of them make that one boy had recently left the school to go to help a doctor at the gold-mines, for which he was to receive his board and lodging, and £30 a year. There are certain funds in connection with the institution, by means of which the girls, on leaving to go out to service, receive various gifts up to about £50; and with this, one of the committee told us, they not unfrequently take away an education which makes them better informed than their Siberian mistresses.

Before we had been many hours in Tomsk we discovered an English lady, with whom and her husband we dined, and who told us that a certain Finnish pastor—Roshier, who had been named to me in my Finnish correspondence—was staying in the town. We therefore sought him out to ask advice concerning the whereabouts and the mode of approach to some of the Finnish colonies which I was anxious to visit.

The reader will perhaps wonder how there come to be Finnish colonies in Siberia at all. Often when a Finnish prisoner is condemned to a certain term of imprisonment in his own country, he petitions the Grand Duke, who is the Emperor of Russia, to send him instead to Siberia as a colonist, and the request is usually granted. I recollect meeting a young man at Wiborg, in the castle prison, in 1874, who told me that, rather than serve for three years as a convict in the town of his birth, he had asked to be allowed to go to Siberia. The Finns do not usually speak Russian. Consequently, on arriving in Siberia, they are quasi-foreigners, and, accordingly, are not scattered hither and thither, but put together in villages with Lithuanian, Esthonian, Lettish, and other convicts from the Baltic provinces. Of this nature are the colonies I wished to visit near Omsk, called Ruschkova and Jelanka, each with 400 inhabitants, and near to which are four villages, bearing the home-names of Riga, Reval, Narva, and Helsingfors. Another colony of a similar kind is Werchne Sujetuk, about 50 miles south of Minusinsk.⁠[2] Pastor Roshier had been settled there for 15 years, and was returning home. The Finnish Government were looking out for one to fill his place, to whom they offered a stipend of £150 per annum; but when I heard from Mr. Roshier that he had not conversed with an educated fellow-countryman for 10 years, that he could speak no Russian, and that his dwelling had been in the midst of convicts only, I was not surprised to hear that the Finnish Government had a difficulty in finding a successor.

For my own part, it had been my intention certainly to turn aside to Werchne Sujetuk, thinking to go across country to Minusinsk, return by raft on the Yenesei, or by road, to Krasnoiarsk, and there await the arrival of the remainder of our luggage—plans which a better knowledge of the country afterwards taught me were visionary indeed. When we did subsequently arrive at Krasnoiarsk, we found persons who, on account of the floods, had been waiting a fortnight to go to Minusinsk.⁠[3] The remainder, however, of our baggage was not yet come from Tiumen, and could not arrive for a week; so we agreed meanwhile to make a détour to Barnaul. There we should find a prison, and another in the same direction, at Biisk, to which we could send; priests and people would be benefited by the way; and we hoped to see the Emperor’s usine for the smelting of gold and silver. This looked more inviting, even though it involved a journey of 700 miles, than loitering at Tomsk for a week. We were now to begin tarantass travelling in earnest, which I think had better be once for all described, partly for the benefit of the uninitiated, who may possibly become Siberian travellers, and partly that the reader may not be wearied hereafter by a too frequent recurrence to the same topic.