May 26.—We started for Tashkend to-day. I will return to St. Petersburg in September to confer about the publishing of my “Memories,” which I issue for the benefit of the gymnasium of young ladies at Tashkend.
It is a long and tedious journey from St. Petersburg to Tashkend; we have to cover 4,600 miles to reach our new far-away abode.
A crowd of people had come to see us off and stood before the car which was put at our disposal as far as Petrovsk, one of the largest ports of the Caucasus. The next car was reserved for my husband’s suite.
The hour for departure approached. The train is moving and carrying us away on our long journey. I left St. Petersburg in a flood of tears.
May 30th.—We arrived at Petrovsk at eight o’clock in the morning, and took passage on the Alexis a boat bound to Krasnovodsk, the chief port of the Transcaspian provinces. We weighed anchor at 10 o’clock. Our voyage began under favourable auspices; the weather is very mild, not the slightest breeze ruffles the smooth surface of the water, but unfortunately, in even the most splendid weather, the rolling is felt in the Caspian Sea.
May 31st.—Nine o’clock in the morning. In the distance the coasts of the Caucasus rise with snow-clad mountains. We soon reach Baku, the town of petroleum. A noisy crowd of Persians, Tartars and Armenians throng on the quay; the hubbub of voices was almost deafening. My husband profited by the stoppage of our ship to visit the town. He was shown the famous Black Town, where the naphtha is exported. According to the most recent theory, the substance of naphtha is the produce of the petrification of animals and marine plants. It is not easy to make a fountain of naphtha spout out, sometimes it is only after two years of boring, the layer of ground penetrated being sometimes twenty metres thick.
June 1st.—The weather has taken a turn for the worse. The sky is overclouded, the wind is rising and the ship rolls horribly. We have shut ourselves in our cabins.
June 2nd.—The sun was not yet up when the coasts of Asia appeared on the horizon in long white lines. Towards seven o’clock in the morning we entered Krasnovodsk. Flags flutter on the quay, and a triumphal arch is erected with our initials and “Welcome” written in large letters. All the administrative officials of the town have come to present themselves to my husband, who is greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. We come on land and walk between two lines of lookers-on. Prince Toumanoff, the chief of the Transcaspian provinces, came up to me with a large bouquet, whilst a military band was playing a march.
A special train was waiting on the quay. All the cars are painted white. I have my private car provided with every possible comfort and luxury. At one end is the sitting-room containing sofas, armchairs, a large writing-table, shelves, etc. The furniture is covered with red silk brocade to match the window curtains. At the other end a suite consisting of a bedroom with a bed with splendid springs, a bath and dining-room.
Whilst Sergy was visiting the town, my car was taken to the railway station, a large white building of oriental design and ornamentation. Elegantly dressed ladies and officers in full uniform were waiting my husband on the platform. I leant far back, to conceal myself from view, in nervous horror of being stared at. To amuse me a musical band executed the best pieces of their repertoire, in turns with another band composed of wandering minstrels. An old white-bearded man began to sing in a broken voice a bizarre melody to the accompaniment of a zourna, a national instrument. My heart went out to the poor old troubadour with infinite pity.
As soon as my husband arrived, the train steamed away amidst loud cheers.
From Krasnovodsk to Tashkend, we have to make 1,800 kilometres by rail. Prince Toumanoff and a group of engineers accompany us as far as Samarkand. We have invited the whole company to lunch with us.
It was awfully stifling in my car and I was too hot to talk, I was too exhausted to eat, but devoured with thirst. As soon as lunch was over, I hastened to get into my dressing-gown and stretched myself on the sofa.
Our road lay for a long time along the Caspian. The moist, warm air that blew through the carriage windows brought a salt taste from the sea. The stretch of country through which we are now passing is flat and uninteresting. Along the roadway the dust rose in clouds which poured in through the curtains; to crown all we are devoured by flies. I am furious with the nasty insects, with the heat, with the dust, with everything!
At all the stations the military and civil dignitaries meet my husband; enthusiastic receptions are made: speeches, music, etc., etc. Crowds of natives welcome us with Eastern greetings of hands to lips and forehead.
June 3rd.—I didn’t close my eyes during the whole night; I turned and turned in my bed, but sleep would not come.
The barometer continues to rise, it shows already 32 degrees over zero. Such a tedious journey, and we had a long, long way to go still! I lay motionless on my sofa—hot as a grill, and began to heave sighs hard enough to split a rock, but it did not trouble my travelling companions at all, quite on the contrary: if I had ceased to moan, they would have come to see what was the matter with me, because they had grown accustomed to my groans and complaints.
We enter now the arid steppes of Central Asia. We are in the open desert, desolate and immense. As far as the eye could see on each side, the plain spreads before us, nothing but unlimited sand all round, and great monstrous yellow waves come closing in from all sides, threatening to engulf us. Such a wild, solitary landscape! Anything more dreary is impossible to imagine; there was neither water, tree, nor vegetation of any kind, nothing but glaring sun. It seemed as if we had been transported into a forlorn land. We were the only living things in a dead world; no sign of man or beast, not even a wandering bird was to be seen. The monotonous click of the engine was the only sound that broke the silence. The stations appear at great intervals in the midst of the desert. Life mustn’t be sweet here!
As we drew near Kizil-Arvat the landscape changed in character; verdure begins to appear. We are crossing an oasis. In the distance we see a caravan of camels advancing slowly. At sundown we approach Geok-Tepe, and our train stops before the tombs of our soldiers killed during the assault of the town, whilst a requiem was chanted for the repose of their souls. Much blood has been spilt here! We passed before the ruins of the fortress made famous by the heroic defence of the natives during a whole month. The walls of the fortress stretch for several kilometres.
Towards evening we arrived at Askhabad. In spite of the want of water, the vegetation is luxuriant in these parts. My uncle, General Roerberg, was the founder of the town. After the conquest of Akhal-Teke by General Skobeleff in 1881, the Grand Duke Michael, commander in chief of the army of the Caucasus, proposed to my uncle who was at that time General of Division, to occupy the post of chief of the Transcaspian provinces. He was ordered to Askhabad which was but a small village inhabited by wandering tribes. My uncle established peace and tranquillised the country which he began to rule as the Khan (Asiatic despot). In the first place he had to organise the distribution of ground-plots among the natives, the army and the Russian inhabitants, and plan out the town. A few years ago my uncle visited Askhabad and found it in a flourishing state. It has at present 47,000 inhabitants exclusive of the nomad population, (a tribe bearing the name of Tekintzi,) and has two gymnasiums for boys and girls, three municipal schools, and other public establishments.
June 4th.—The night was so fresh that I had to take out my warm blanket. Early in the morning we arrived at Merv. Repetition of yesterday’s greetings with the offering of “Bread and Salt” on a silver dish besides. A few minutes from Merv is Mourgab, a beautiful estate belonging to the Emperor, extending to the very frontier of Persia. At the station of Amou-Daria a wagon was put at the rear of the train, an observation car; all the back was in glass to view the country. We had to cross the Amou-Daria, one of the greatest rivers of the world, on a temporary slender wooden bridge, which swung and quivered under us. An iron bridge about three kilometres long, is in construction, a masterpiece of engineering skill, which will cost a large sum to build. I was awfully uneasy whilst we traversed the bridge, and turned to my husband with a frightened face, but Sergy who had strong nerves, was looking provokingly calm, and laughed at my fears, and nothing was so aggravating as calmness for me at that moment. At the other side of the river we came into a land of beauty and fertility, and rolled through maize and tobacco plantations. I looked around with admiring eyes. Here again was life! The bushes were full of warbling birds.
The sun had set when we arrived at Kermineh in the domains of the Emir of Bokhara. The railway station is situated at ten kilometres from the capital of Bokhara bearing the same name. I was told that the customs in that barbarian country reminded one of prehistoric times. The prison at Kermineh consists of three deep pits in which swarm pell-mell women, men, and children. On approaching the station we saw fires lighted in tar-barrels, showing two battalions of Bokhara soldiers ranged along the railway-line. In the semi-darkness we could have easily taken these men dressed in Russian-cut uniforms, for Russian soldiers, especially whilst they shouted in chorus loud hurras when my husband appeared at the door of his car.
The Emir, who was in Moscow at the time, was represented by three high dignitaries. A large tent had been erected just opposite the station, in which was prepared an abundant dastarkhan (native dainties of all kinds.) The long table covered with a white table-cloth reminded one of European customs, but the throng of natives in long khalats and turbans, the bizarre sounds of the native music and all this Oriental mise-en-scène, testified that we were very far from Europe, in the centre of Mohametanism, on a visit to an Asiatic sovereign. I was peeping through the blinds of the window and watched the crowd on the platform. I saw the glare of the torches, carried by the natives, on the faces and the moving forms. The whole Russian colony was assembled on the platform. A deputation of Bokharans came up to present “Bread and Salt” to my husband. Before leaving Kermineh Sergy sent a telegram to the Emir to thank him for the friendly reception which had been made to him by his representatives.
June 5th.—The train crosses fresh green valleys; the soil is rich and easy to irrigate. The burning sun gives two harvests a year. It is chiefly cotton-shrubs which are cultivated here. Turcomen, wearing enormous fur caps, are working in the fields. We see a group of wandering Kirghees sitting on the ground before their tents. The men of this tribe breed cattle and horses, and fabricate a fermented drink made of mare’s milk, called koumiss.
We approach Samarkand station; the city of Samarkand is some miles distant. It represents a bushy forest in the middle of which low-roofed houses, towers and minarets are scattered. It was annexed to Russia in 1868, after the taking of Bokhara. Samarkand has been one of the most famous cities of the Mussulman world, and had only the town of Pekin as rival in Asia; its princes were equal to the Emperors of China. The glory of Samarkand is departed; alone and desolate stand the ruins, the remnants of ancient splendour. Samarkand has seen fine old doings. My thoughts wandered back to the time when it had echoed to the tramp of the Greek legions, as they thundered forth on their way to India, under the command of Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, who had rested here during his triumphal march. It is here that the sun of the power of Timur or Tamerlane, the greatest King of the country, who reigned in the fourteenth century, rose and set. Ruins and sandy plains replace now Tamerlane’s beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens. On what does human greatness hang! These ruins of ancient splendour surpass the ruins of Rome and Greece by their magnificence, and can be compared only with the ruins of Egypt. Unfortunately, these vestiges of vanished civilisation are destroyed, little by little, by frequent earthquakes, and still more by the inhabitants who continue to pull them unmercifully to pieces for their new buildings. In one of the streets of Samarkand a house was pointed out to my husband whose whole front had been taken from the ruins of one of the most beautiful minarets of the town.
On the platform of the railway station, adorned with flags and wreaths of flowers, the Governor of Samarkand presented to Sergy a deputation of Sartes, one of the richest tribes of Turkestan. Behind the station all the soldiers of the garrison of Samarkand, ranged in lines, cheered my husband by loud hurrahs, which produced a great effect upon the natives.
I was not in a condition to respond to civilities just now, looking very hot, dusty and unbrushed, and presented altogether a very disreputable appearance. I would not be seen in such a state, and as it was too late to pay tribute to vanity, I feigned a bad headache in order not to take part at the dinner which had been prepared for us in the state rooms of the stations, transformed into beautifully arrayed saloons.
The railway-line from Samarkand to Tashkend is not yet inaugurated officially, and the whole way is guarded by patrols to prevent the damage frequently caused to the line by hostile natives.
June 6th.—We have crossed this night the so-named Starving Plain. This waste land is well worthy of its denomination. There was nothing but plain, endless plain, always the same dull colour. The soil is arid, and the want of water seemed more pronounced as we went on. The Grand Duke Nicolas Constantinovitch, uncle to our Emperor, who inhabited Turkestan for more than seventeen years, spent the greatest part of his life in this desert, occupying himself with irrigation works in the plain, a part of which he has furrowed with canals. The Grand Duke has spent more than a million roubles already for the digging of these canals, which are to transform the barren soil of the Starving Plain into fertile fields some day. It is a splendid plan, but how is one to get the quantity of water necessary for this purpose?