Through Siberia

Application for horses.—Effect of Petersburg letter.—A false start.—A horse killed.—Attempted cooking.—Siberian weather.—Meteorology.—Scenery.—Trees, plants, and flowers.—An elementary school.—Education in Western Siberia.

Though our journey to Barnaul took place quite early in our posting career, it was by no means devoid of incident. On Thursday, June 12th, we sent for a “troika” of horses at noon, and were coolly told by the postal authorities that we could have them towards midnight. Now the chief of their department at Petersburg had favoured me with a special letter, addressed to the post-masters on our route, enjoining them to help me, and requesting that I might be delayed as little as possible. We had been favoured likewise with a crown podorojna. This latter had been presented, but to no purpose; and it seemed a clear case for bringing our heavy artillery into action. We presented, therefore, the postal letter, and the effect was magical. Before the official had half read it, he sprang to his feet, eyed me respectfully, bustled off to his chief, and, speedily returning, promised the horses in an hour. They appeared punctually, and we started “troika” fashion—that is, three horses driven abreast. Unfortunately, however, the starosta, or man in charge of the postal yard, could not read our podorojna, and he took it for granted that we wished to go towards Krasnoiarsk, and told the yemstchik to drive us thither. Nor was it till we had run some dozen miles or more that it was discovered we were not on the road to Barnaul. We had, of course, to retrace our steps to Tomsk, and then we heard that it was not the first time this starosta had sent off travellers in the wrong direction. The mistake in our case had caused the extra expenditure of eighteen pennyworth of horse-flesh, and I thought it right to visit the loss of this sum on the starosta for the benefit of future travellers as well as our own. I therefore declined to pay for the privilege of having been taken out of our way, and left the starosta to settle with the post-master.

Making a fresh start, we found ourselves by nightfall near the river Tom. The ordinary road was under water, and the banks of the stream were so flooded that we were obliged to take a cross-country road leading some 25 miles out of the way; and as it went over hill and dale, and almost “hedges and ditches,” we were advised to stay till morning. But we pushed on, crossed the river at daybreak, and at the third station, in the direction of the Barabinsky steppe, turned southwards, and travelled well till Saturday evening, when, on stopping awhile to rest the horses, one of them dropped and died upon the spot. We were pulling the creature off the road—one having hold of a leg, another of her tail, and so on—when the remaining horses, as if indignant at such conduct, rushed over the bank, and tore away with the tarantass into the forest. Some of us pursued, and fortunately caught and brought them back without further harm. The loss of a horse is more serious in Eastern than in Western Siberia, where people have herds of horses worthy of patriarchs. One lady told me that her husband possessed from 4,000 to 5,000 horses, and about as many cows. Pasturage is abundant, and horse-flesh is cheap. Our horse was reckoned a good one, and valued at £4 10s. The post-master could claim nothing from us for its loss, and thanked us warmly for 10s. towards repairing his damage. As we went along we saw large herds of mares with their foals, turned loose for the summer in company with a single horse to guard them. Should danger approach, in the form of a wild beast for instance, the stallion drives all the mares within a circle with their heels outwards, and the foals in the centre, whilst he stamps the ground with rage and dares the wolf to come within reach of their hoofs.

When we reached the last river we had to cross, which at ordinary times was probably not half a mile wide, we found it so flooded that the ferry-boat had a journey of more than five miles. This took a long while, and, when returning, we thought to save time by eating a meal on the water. In my luncheon-basket is a “Rob Roy” cuisine, with a view to the using of which, before leaving England, I took an evening’s cooking lesson. I was now anxious to demonstrate to the Russians that it was possible to make a cup of tea without the aid of a samovar. We therefore commenced operations, there being on board not only our own three horses, but half-a-dozen others with their drivers and tarantasses. The great advantage of this cuisine is that, whereas a puff of wind may extinguish an ordinary spirit-lamp, the “Rob Roy,” by setting fire to the steam of the spirit, burns so furiously that a hurricane will not blow it out. It makes, however, a considerable roar; and when matters reached this stage, not only were all the natives surprised, but the horses began so to kick and to plunge that we feared an upset. One of the drivers said his horse was 30 years old, and had never heard such a noise in his life! So, for the general safety of all on board, I packed up my kitchen and had to forego the tea.

Hitherto our Siberian tour had been highly enjoyable. South of Tomsk the weather was charming, and the new spring vegetation lovely. A question that has been repeatedly put to me since my return to England is, “Did you not find it very cold in Siberia?” It may be well, therefore, that this question should here be answered. Snow fell on the night we entered the country, and the ground next morning, May 29th, was white; but the snow disappeared after an hour or two, and we saw no more for some days. By the 5th of June we reached on the Obi a latitude 100 miles north of Petersburg, where the buds had not yet opened, nor had the winter floods subsided. I heard subsequently that the opening of spring had come that year unusually early in Petersburg, and exceptionally late in Siberia, where the ice usually breaks up at Tobolsk at the end of April. On the 6th of June we had snow, and the trees on the banks had little verdure till we reached Tomsk on the 9th, after which fine weather set in, and was followed by almost uninterrupted sunshine till the beginning of autumn. The summer climate, therefore, of those parts of Siberia through which I passed I consider simply delightful—neither oppressively hot by day nor unpleasantly cold by night.

Before leaving England, my neighbour, Mr. Glaisher the meteorologist, had urged me to take a few instruments for the purpose of making observations, and had kindly lent me for the journey a valuable unmounted thermometer. I took, besides, an aneroid barometer, a compass, an anemometer, maximum and minimum thermometers, and two others. With these instruments I felt very much like a boy leaving home on a summer morning with excellent fishing tackle, and bent on taking nothing less than trout. When returning, I felt that I had brought back minnows. On my first night out, at Cologne, my apparatus was duly exposed from the hotel window, and on reaching Petersburg I climbed daily to the top of the hotel to measure the velocity of the wind. At the copper-mine at Nijni Tagilsk I was resolved on being very learned, and took my instruments to test the temperature of springs and the velocity of air currents. But, alas! I broke my thermometer, and, having reached the bottom of the mine, had forgotten, when undressing, to take my watch. On the Obi I was able to take a few observations, but it was impossible to continue this during posting journeys; and further on I broke my minimum thermometer, after which I abandoned hope of attaining meteorological distinction.⁠[1]

The journey to Barnaul revealed to us beauties of scenery and vegetation for which we were hardly prepared after the flat and leafless districts through which we had been passing. The landscape now became undulating, and the traveller who passes further south to Biisk, and beyond, approaches the regions of the Altai chain, which are spoken of as well worth seeing.⁠[2] The grass between Tomsk and Barnaul was remarkable, and the further south we went the more luxuriant it became. Much of the flora was familiar, but we were now introduced to a good many trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers, found more or less in the country west of Irkutsk, that were new to us. The most prominent of the trees was the white-barked birch, justly called the “lady of the forest.” We saw also the cedar-nut tree, the pitch pine, the larch, the flowering acacia, spruce fir, and alder, the white-pine, willow, lime, Siberian poplar, laburnum, and white-flowering cheriomkha—the last a beautiful object when in blossom, and yielding for fruit a small bird cherry. Among the shrubs appeared the white hawthorn, and an abundance of wild red currants, which, like bird cherries, are eaten by the people—the latter being made into bread and cakes, and, in common with other fruits, put into brandy to make naliphka. These fruits are very sour as compared with the English kinds. Strawberry and raspberry plants abounded, though we did not get our first plate of wild strawberries till 11th July. In autumn, numerous berries are plentiful, such as cranberries (called klukva), bilberries, cowberries, bearberries, stoneberries, the mountain ash berry, and the Arctic bramble. All these are found, too, in European Russia, north of Petersburg, the last having a blossom like a single rose, a strawberry leaf, and a fruit resembling the English blackberry. In summer, strawberries and raspberries are the best fruits within reach of the Siberian traveller until he reaches the southern region of the Amur. Among the spring flowers we missed (or perhaps overlooked) the pale primrose; but violets are found, also sweet-williams, daisies, foxgloves, rich camomile flowers, the wild rose, crocus, lily of the valley, and many others. The fields were actually blue with forget-me-nots. We noticed also on this journey what was to me a new plant, bearing an orange flower something like a buttercup, but very much larger, and of which there were many. Also east of Tomsk we saw a large red lily, made much of in English gardens, but which here was growing wild; also, in great abundance, a red flower very much like the peony.

On the road to Barnaul, at a place called Medvedsky, is an elementary school, to which, in returning, we paid a visit, and so were brought into contact with village education.⁠[3] There were in attendance 32 boys and girls, of ages varying from 6 to 16, most of whom came from distant places (some 30 miles off), and lodged in the village. Only 8 were from the immediate neighbourhood. Adults sometimes attend the school, in which the education is free, the school being supported by the commune or mir. The scholars attend daily from 8 o’clock till 2, after which hour some of them learn bookbinding. Sundays and saints’ days are holidays, but the children are required to be every Sunday at church. There was a priest in the room giving instruction. I asked the children some Scripture questions, but was poorly answered. Many of the children, however, jumped at the opportunity of purchasing a New Testament for 1¼d., and we left a supply for them. The master wished the boys to be examined in arithmetic, whereupon, among other questions, I asked them, “What two numbers multiplied together make 7?” They knitted their brows as if making a great effort—and even the master’s countenance seemed to betray that he thought the question too difficult. All laughed heartily, however, when, on giving it up, I told them that the factors were 7 and 1. The master lived in an adjoining part of the house; and in this far-off place I observed on the wall of the schoolmaster’s room, as I had seen on that of one of the prison officials at Tiumen, an English engraving of the portrait of Professor Darwin. The schoolmaster said I was the first Englishman he had seen, gladly purchased some of our books, and thanked us for our visit.