COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.
Those who regard Siberia as merely a vast prison are as far from the truth as those who look upon it as one immeasurable waste of ice. Russia does indeed send thousands of criminals or others under sentence of punishment to Siberia every year; and there are among these some who, having been convicted of serious crimes against life and property, are not free during the whole of their enforced sojourn. But only a very small proportion of all the criminals are really in confinement for the whole period of their sentence, and every one of them has it in his power to render this confinement less severe, or even to free himself from it altogether by his behaviour, and thus he enjoys advantages which do not fall to the lot of the inmates of our prisons and houses of correction. Wide tracts of the vast territory which is governed by the Russian sceptre, great countries according to our ideas, have never been used as penal colonies at all, and will probably always remain free of those forced immigrants, who cause the settled population much more disagreeableness, not to say suffering, than they have to endure themselves. And along the same paths, which formerly were never trodden save in sorrow, there now pass many free human beings, hoping and striving to better their lot in the distant East. Voluntary colonists join the compulsory ones even in such districts and tracts of country as were formerly dreaded and shunned as the most inhospitable regions on earth. A new era is opening for Siberia; for blinding fear is gradually being replaced by illuminating knowledge even among those classes of society which are more prone to fear than desirous of knowledge.
The descriptions of Siberia with which we are familiar come, for the most part, from the mouth or the pen of educated exiles, that is to say, from people whom the settled inhabitants call “unfortunate”, and treat as such. Probably only a very small proportion of the descriptions in question are untrue, but they are, nevertheless, inaccurate in most cases. For misfortune clouds the eyes and the soul, and destroys that impartiality which is the only possible basis of a correct estimate of the conditions of life. These conditions are much better than we are accustomed to believe, much better, indeed, than they are in more than one of the mountainous districts of our Fatherland; for the struggle for existence in Siberia is an easy one as far as man is concerned. Want in the usual sense of the word, lack of the ordinary necessaries of life, is here almost unknown, or at least, only affects those whose power of work has been weakened by illness or other misfortune. Compared with the hardships against which many a poor German dwelling among the mountains has to contend during his whole life, without ever emerging victorious from the struggle, the lot of even the convict in Siberia appears in many cases enviable. Privation oppresses only the mental, not the bodily life of the residents in Siberia, for whoever is faithful to the soil receives from it more than he needs, and if any one forsakes it for some of the other occupations customary in the country, he can earn quite as much by the honest work of his hands as he could have reaped from the soil itself. Thus do the present conditions of life appear to one who studies them with unprejudiced eyes.
I have honestly striven to form an unbiassed judgment on the present conditions of life among the inhabitants of the parts of Siberia through which we travelled. I have descended into the depths of misery, and have sunned myself on the heights of prosperity, I have associated with murderers, highwaymen, incendiaries, thieves, swindlers, sharpers, vagabonds, scoundrels, insurgents and conspirators, as well as with fishermen and huntsmen, shepherds and peasants, merchants and tradesmen, officials and magistrates, with masters and servants, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, contented and discontented, so that I might confirm my observations, widen my knowledge, test my conclusions, and correct erroneous impressions; I have begged the police officers to describe the exiles’ lot to me, and have questioned the exiles themselves; I have sought out criminals in their prisons, and have observed them outside of these; I have conversed with peasants, trades-people, and colonists generally, whenever and wherever it was possible, and have compared the statements made to me by these people with the detailed communications made to me by the government officials: I may therefore believe that I gathered as much information as was possible, taking into account the speed and shortness of our journey. In any case, I have collected so much material that I may confine myself solely to the results of my own investigations in attempting to give a rapid sketch of the life of exiles in Siberia. My description will not be free from errors, but it will certainly be a just estimate of the state of affairs.
With the exception of government officials, soldiers, and enterprising trades-people, chiefly merchants, the stream of emigrants from Russia to Siberia was made up, until 1861, solely of those who went under compulsion: serfs of the Czar who worked in his own mines, and criminals who were sent, chiefly, to those of the state. With the suppression of serfdom, which had a deeper influence on the state of society than was supposed, or than is even now recognized, the emigration of the former class ceased at once. Millions of men were set free by a word from their mild and large-hearted ruler; thousands of them forsook the mines and turned their attention to the fruitful soil, which their relatives had already been cultivating; the Czar’s mines were almost depopulated, and even now they have scarcely recovered from the effects of the blow. But the great imperial or crown-estate of the Altai gained, instead of its former colonists, a new element which it had lacked, a free peasantry, not indeed possessing heritable property, but yet at full liberty to cultivate the rich soil. The suppression of serfdom also altered the condition of those tracts of country which had been chiefly colonized by convict exiles, for there, too, it became possible to establish a free peasantry. But here the continuous emigration-stream proves rather a hindrance than an advantage; for in most cases the convicts who are exiled to parts of the country already peopled introduce an element of disquiet among the settled inhabitants, and prevent such hopeful and prosperous colonization as in the crown-estate of the Altai, which has never been used as a convict settlement, and never will be so used as long as it remains the property of the Czar. On the other hand, many voluntary emigrants make their way to the Altai, and on that account the population increases more rapidly there than in the rest of Siberia.
It is a magnificent tract of country this crown-estate of the Altai, and, as a landed property, it is also remarkable as being the largest which can be found anywhere. For its superficial area may be stated in round numbers at 400,000 square versts, or about 176,000 English square miles. It includes within itself mountain ranges and plains, hill chains and table-lands; it lies between navigable rivers, and contains others which could be made navigable without special difficulty; it still contains vast and utilizable forests, and wealth immeasurable above and beneath the ground. Ores of various kinds have been discovered at no fewer than eight hundred and thirty different places within its boundaries, without taking into account other two hundred and seventy spots at which it has been found, but which have never been thoroughly examined. In the Altai, one literally walks upon silver and gold; for auriferous silver-ore as well as lead, copper, and iron intersect the mountains in veins, more or less rich, but usually worth working; and the rivers flowing from them carry down golden sand. A stratum of coal, whose extent has not yet been determined, but in which a depth of seven or eight yards has been proved in various places, underlies such an extensive tract, that, judging from the composition of the exposed masses of rock, one is justified in concluding that the whole northern portion of the estate stands above a great coal-basin.[86] And yet the real wealth of the estate of the Altai lies, not in its subterranean treasures, but in its rich black soil, which spreads over mountain slopes and plains, and is swept together in river-basins and hollows, so that it covers them to the depth of a yard and a half. Beautiful, often grand, mountain districts alternate with pleasing hilly tracts of arable land, and gently-undulating plains, which the farmer prefers above all else, steppe-like landscapes with fruitful valleys watered by a brook or river, forests of luxuriantly sprouting trees, low and tall, with groves or park-like shrubbery. The climate, though not mild, is by no means intolerable, and nowhere hinders profitable cultivation of the exceedingly fertile, and, for the most part, virgin soil. Four months of hot, almost unvarying summer, four months of severe continuous winter, two months of damp, cold, and changeable spring, and a similar autumn, make up the year, and though the mean warmth of the best half of the year is not sufficient to mature the grape, it ripens all the kinds of grain which we grow in Northern and Central Germany; and in all the southern portions of the crown property the temperature is high enough to admit of melon culture.
Such is the character of the land which has been free, for more than two generations, from exiled criminals, and which now harbours such colonists as, within certain limits, one would like to see throughout the whole remaining and not less rich and fertile southern portion of Siberia. Of course these farmers of the Altai cannot be compared with our peasants who inherit their land; but they compare favourably with any ordinary Russian peasants. One can see that their fathers and grandfathers have been serfs of the greatest and most exalted Lord of the Empire, not half-slaves of a master who, powerless himself, demands the most absolute subjection; one can also assure oneself in many ways that the lack of landed property has in no wise hindered them from becoming prosperous, that is, from earning more than enough to supply their necessities.
From the time that the Altai was declared the property of the Czar, the lot of its inhabitants was comparatively fortunate, not to say happy. Until their release from serfdom, they had all been employed either in mining, or in some work connected therewith. Those who were not actually in the mines were occupied, some with the felling and charring of trees, others with conveying of the charcoal to the smelting-houses, and others again with the transport of the metal. With the increase of the population the burden of compulsory service became lighter. In the fifties, there were so many able-bodied men available, that the compulsory service to their lord, the Czar, was limited to one month in the year, with the condition, however, that each serf-workman should furnish a horse. The distance which a workman had to cover with his horse was taken into account according to its length. As compensation for absence from home, each serf-workman received 75½ kopeks for the period of his work, but, in addition to this nominal pay, he had the right to cultivate as much of the Czar’s land as he could, and to till it as he pleased, as well as to cut down as much wood in the Czar’s forests as he required for building his house, and for fuel, and he was burdened with no taxes or tribute whatever. The number of workmen which a village was obliged to furnish was in proportion to the number of its inhabitants; the distribution of the burden of service among the different heads of families was left to the members of the community themselves.
The work of the miners was less easy. They were drawn from the towns and villages of the crown-estate, instead of the soldiers levied elsewhere, were treated like soldiers in every respect, and were only freed after twenty-five years of service. They were divided into two classes: the miners proper, who worked in regular relays, and the workers connected with the mine, who were obliged to perform a certain prescribed amount of work each year, the time being left to their own choice. The latter were engaged in charcoal-burning, felling trees, making bricks, transport, and the like, and they received 14 roubles yearly. Having yielded the required service, they were free for the rest of the year, and might do as they pleased. Those who worked in the mines, on the other hand, were compelled to give their services year in, year out. They worked in twelve-hour relays, one week by day, the next by night, and every third week they were free. Each miner received, according to his capability, from six to twelve roubles a year for such necessaries as had to be paid for in money, but in addition he was allowed two pood (72 lbs.) of flour a month for himself, two pood for his wife, and one pood for each of his children. He was also at liberty to till as much land, and breed and keep as many cattle as he could. Each of his sons was obliged to attend school from his seventh to his twelfth year; from his twelfth to his eighteenth he was engaged as an apprentice, and rewarded at first with one, later with two roubles a year. At the age of eighteen his compulsory service in the mines began.
On the first of March, 1861, the day of the emancipation of all the serfs in the Russian Empire, there were in the crown property of the Altai 145,639 males, of whom 25,267 were at work in the mines or smelting works. All these were released from their compulsory service, not indeed in a single day, but within two years. No fewer than 12,626 of them forsook the mines, returned to their native villages and began to till the soil; the rest remained in the mines as hired labourers.
Fig. 74.—Miners in the Altai returning from Work.
I do not think I am mistaken in referring the more comfortable conditions of life on the crown-property of the Altai, as compared with the rest of West Siberia, back to its own past. The parents and forefathers of the present inhabitants, notwithstanding their bondage, never felt oppressed. They were serfs, but of the lord and ruler of the vast land in which the cradle of their fathers stood. They were obliged to labour for their master, and to yield up their sons for nearly a generation to his service; but this master was the Czar, a being in their eyes almost divine. In return, the Czar maintained them, freed them from all the obligations of citizenship, permitted them to wrest from his land what it would yield, placed no hindrances in the way of their prosperity, protected them, as far as possible, from the oppressions of unjust officials, and was, besides, a benefactor to their children in that he compelled at least some of them to attend school. The officials under whose superintendence they were, stood far above the majority of the servants of the crown as regards culture; nearly all had studied in Germany, not a few were even of German extraction, and brought, if not German customs, at least widened views into the country over which they ruled in the name of the Czar. Even now, Barnaul, the capital of the crown-lands, is a centre of culture such as can be found nowhere else in Siberia; and, while the mining industry was at its best, it was the undisputed intellectual capital of Northern and Central Asia, and the light emanating from it shone the more brilliantly because it found in every mining centre a focus which helped to spread it more widely. Thus the royal domain of the Altai has always held a prominent position among the districts of Siberia.
It was probably never the intention of the administration of the Altai to specially favour the peasant class. Until the suppression of serfdom, at all events, the class was regarded much as a necessary adjunct to the working of the mines. But times have changed. From the day on which the serfs were emancipated, mining has retrograded as steadily as agriculture has advanced. The authorities have not yet been able to make up their minds to abandon the old routine of work, but they have to pay such high sums to get it carried on that the net profit from the mines is now inconsiderable. Throwing open the mines freely to energetic workers, probably the only thorough means of improving the present state of things, has been proposed in some districts, but is still far from being an accomplished fact. The free use of the soil, as far as the plough penetrates, has been customary so long that it has become, to a certain extent, a prescriptive right. To be sure, as I have already pointed out, no one owns the land he tills, not even the spot on which his house stands, but, in the peasants’ eyes, what belongs to the Czar belongs to the “good Lord God”, and the latter willingly permits every believer to make use of it. As a matter of fact, the administration of the crown-lands levies forty kopeks of annual rent on every hektar of land (2½ acres) which is brought under the plough; but it is not particularly strict in the matter, and the peasant on his side does not feel it at all incumbent on him to be very precise. Thus each peasant, in reality, cultivates as much as he can, and chooses it wherever he pleases.
It is doing the peasant of to-day on the crown-lands no more than justice to describe him as well-built, wide-awake, handy, skilful, intelligent, hospitable, good-natured and warm-hearted, and it is not too much to say that his prosperity has given him considerable self-esteem and a certain appreciation of freedom. His bearing is freer and less depressed than that of the Russian peasants. He is polite and obliging, submissive, and therefore easily managed; but he is not servile, cringing or abject, and the impression he makes on a stranger is by no means unfavourable. But he possesses all the qualities which we call loutishness in a high degree, and several others as well, which are calculated to weaken the first impression. Although he has had more educational advantages than any others of his class in Siberia, he is anything but in love with school. He is strictly religious and ready to give up what he possesses to the Church, but he looks upon school as an institution which spoils men rather than educates them. With a lasting recollection of a former state of things, when the old discharged soldiers, who held the educational sceptre in the times of his fathers, did not scruple to send the scholars for “schnaps”, and even to maltreat them while under its influence, he is exceedingly suspicious of everything connected with “education”. He also clings, peasant-like, to whatever has been in the past, and imagines that more knowledge than he himself possesses will be injurious to his children, and it is by no means easy to convert him from this opinion. The state of education is thus very low. It is only exceptionally that he has acquired the art of writing, and he invariably regards books as entirely superfluous articles. But he clings, on that account, so much the more firmly to the superstition which his Church countenances and promulgates. He rarely knows the names of the months, but can always tell off the names of the saints and their festivals on his fingers: God and the saints, archangel and devil, death, heaven, and hell occupy his mind more than all else. He cannot be described as easily satisfied, yet he is perfectly contented. He does not wish for more than the necessaries of life, and therefore only works as much as he absolutely must. But neither his farm premises nor the fields which he calls his can be too large, neither his family nor his flock too numerous.
“How is it with you here?” I asked, through an interpreter, one of the heads of a village whom we picked up on the way.
“God still bears with our sins,” was the answer.
“Are your wives good, faithful, kindly, and helpful to you?”
“There are good and bad.”
“Are your children obedient, and do they cause you joy?”
“We have nothing to complain of in regard to them.”
“Is the land you till fruitful; does it yield you a rich harvest?”
“If it yields us corn tenfold, we are content.”
“Do your cattle thrive?”
“We are content.”
“How many horses have you?”
“Thirty-two; there may perhaps be thirty-five.”
“And how many of these do you require for your work?”
“Eight, ten, and sometimes twelve.”
“Then you bring up the rest to sell?”
“I may perhaps sell one of them some day.”
“And what shall you do with the others?”
“Nitschewo.”
“How many cows and sheep have you?”
“I do not know. My wife takes charge of the cows, sheep, and pigs.”
“Have you heavy taxes to pay?”
“I am content.”
“Have you anything to complain of?”
“I am content.”
“So you have no complaints whatever to make; everything is quite satisfactory?”
“No, not everything; I have one complaint.”
“What is that?”
“The land is becoming uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable; what does that mean?”
“Why, it is getting too small for us.”
“Too small; in what way?”
“Oh, the villages are springing up everywhere like mushrooms from the soil. One has scarcely room to turn now, and does not know where to lay out one’s fields. If I had not been too old I should have left this part.”
“The villages spring up like mushrooms from the soil? But where? I see none. How far is the next village from yours?”
“Fifteen versts” (ten miles).
Thus does the peasant of the crown estate speak and think. The vast land is not spacious enough for him, and yet the twentieth part of what he has at his disposal would suffice for him if he would cultivate it. For the land is so fertile that it richly rewards even a very small amount of labour. But if it does once fail, if the harvest does not turn out as well as usual, if the peasant suffers from want instead of from superfluity, he regards this not as the natural consequence of his own laziness, but as a dispensation of God, as a punishment laid upon him for his sins.
In reality, however, he is very comfortable in spite of his sins and their punishment, and has more reason to talk of his reward. For not scarcity but superfluity troubles him. The government allows each peasant fifteen hektars of the best land, usually at his own choice, for every male member of his family; but of the 400,000 square versts of the crown-estate, only 234,000 had been taken up till 1876, so it does not matter much even now whether a peasant restricts himself to what he has a right to or not. Some families use not less than twelve or fifteen hundred hektars, and to these it is certainly a matter of indifference whether they keep only the number of horses necessary for their work, or twenty or thirty more. In reality, it often happens that the superfluous animals relieve the peasants from a heavy care—that of turning to account the over-abundant harvest which the extremely deficient means of transport prevent his converting into money. In a country in whose capital, under ordinary circumstances, the pood or thirty-six pounds of rye-meal is sold at sixpence, of wheat-meal at ninepence, of beef in winter at about one shilling and twopence at most; where a sheep costs four shillings, a weaned calf ten, a pig eight, and an excellent horse seldom more than five pounds of English money, an unusually good season lowers prices so far that the too-abundant harvest becomes a burden. When the peasant, who in any case works only when he must, can only get about one shilling and twopence for about two hundredweights of grain, the flail becomes too heavy in his hand, and the harvest, according to his limited ideas, becomes a curse.
These conditions, which apply to the present day, explain most of the vices as well as many of the virtues of our colonist: his laziness, his incorrigible contentment, his indifference to losses, his liberality to the needy, his compassion for the unfortunate. They also explain the intense desire, innate in all Siberians, to increase the population. The vast land is hungry for inhabitants, if I may so speak. Therefore even now the Siberian looks with pride on a numerous family; and there is no foundling asylum in the whole country. Why should there be? Every woman who cannot bring up the child she has borne, or who wants to be rid of it, finds someone willing and anxious to take the little creature off her hands. “Give it to me,” says the peasant to the faithless mother: “I will bring it up;” and he looks as pleased as if a foal had just been added to his stock. In former times, when the population was considerably less than it is now, children were married while still immature, or scarcely mature, so that they might become parents as soon as possible and gain other hands to help them; now youths do not usually marry until the beginning of their eighteenth year, but they frequently wed older women who give promise of early child-bearing, and the designs of such women upon marriageable youths are not only winked at but encouraged by the bridegroom’s parents.
In order that romance may not be altogether awanting, I may mention that elopements of young girls with love-struck youths, and secret marriages, are by no means rare occurrences among the peasants of the Altai. But the great majority of these elopements take place with the consent of all concerned, thus also of the parents of both bride and bridegroom—to avoid the customary entertaining of the whole village at a meal, simple in itself, but accompanied by a great deal of brandy. As may be imagined, however, love overcomes all obstacles, particularly the disapproval of parents, on the crown-lands as elsewhere. The maiden, like every other on the round earth, is soon won over by the youth who desires to run away with her; a holy servant of the Church can also be procured at all times by the payment of an exorbitantly high fee; but the angry parents are not so easily reconciled. The mother curses her daughter, the father his son; both swear by all the saints never to see their depraved children again.
“And Heaven, full of kindness,
Is patient with man’s blindness.”
But it is not from above that the reconciliation comes; that is brought about by a magic power beyond compare, known as schnaps among the races who inhabit German territory, as vodki among those living on the sacred soil of Russia. As soon as the father-in-law drinks, the young bridegroom has gained the day; for the mother-in-law drinks too, and the luscious nectar softens her inflexible heart also. If some friends arrive, as if by chance, to assist at the reconciliation festival, they are not denied admittance, for the cost of entertaining them is much less than if the whole village had assembled, and, drinking fervently, had called down the blessing of Heaven upon the newly-united pair. Who can deny after this that love, pure, holy love, makes even a peasant youth of the Altai inventive?
The bride of the Altai receives no dowry; her mother, on the other hand, expects a gift from the bridegroom, and sometimes demands it with much storming, weeping and howling, after the manner of women. Only under special circumstances, as, for instance, when, on the morning after the wedding, the nuptial linen does not fulfil the expectations of the assembled guests, the contrary takes place. The intelligent and experienced father-in-law makes use of the magic means already mentioned, produces an inspiriting number of bottles thoughtfully laid in beforehand, promises the indignant, or at any rate downcast son-in-law a foal, an ox, a sucking-pig, and the like; the minds of all are made easy again, and the reconciliation is effected.
And why should the bridegroom be angry for ever? Others have fared no better, and the future will equalize much. Paternal joys often blossom even under irregular circumstances, and they are paternal joys all the same. For even the poorest couple have no cares about their household expenses, if they will use their hands at all; people are willing to help them with this and that, and if a bountiful Heaven will only be moderate enough for a few years in the outpouring of its blessings, so that the price of grain and stock may not fall too low, a tea-caddy and cups will adorn a corner table, and silk coverlets the big double-bed, shining images the right-hand corner, and indescribably noble pictorial representations of the hunting of the lion, tiger, bear, wolf, elephant, stag, and crocodile the walls of the cleanly-kept “best room”, which is never awanting in the better class of peasant houses.
A domestic life scarcely differing from that already described beckons to every convict who is exiled to Siberia, to one sooner, to another later, if he wishes to attain to it, if he lives long enough, and is to a certain extent favoured by fortune. While in Siberia I came to have views about exiles and banishment very different from those I had held before visiting the country; but I may remark at the outset that I am not one of those who bestow more sympathy upon a murderer, a robber, an incendiary, a thief, or any other scoundrel, than upon the industrious paterfamilias who strives, in the sweat of his brow, to bring up a numerous family honestly, and that I have never been able to soar to that loftiness of view which seeks to mitigate all punishment and relax all confinement.
On an average, fifteen thousand people are sent from Russia, “verschickt”, as the expression is among the German Russians. Those who have been guilty of grave crimes are sentenced for life, of less serious offences for a number of years. It is not within my province to discuss the severities or deficiencies of the Russian penal code; but the fact that the penalty of death is imposed only for the gravest and rarest of all crimes does not suggest too great severity. But it is undoubtedly a hardship that exiles sentenced for political causes should be treated on the way to Siberia, and often when there, exactly like common criminals.
Condemned exiles are first transferred from the prison in the district town to that in the capital of the government, and thence transported by rail or by the ordinary peasant-wagon to Nijni-Novgorod, Kasan, or Perm. Whether criminals are still forced to march in chains, two abreast, and thus to carry their fetters for the whole journey, I do not know; I have never seen this, and I am firmly convinced that the well-known mildness of the late Czar would never have suffered this barbarous proceeding. In the towns already mentioned, as well as in Tjumen and Tomsk, there are spacious prisons, and, at intervals along such routes as have not been deserted because of the railway, there are less roomy buildings for the safe housing of the exiles during night. Whenever it can be avoided, the exiles are not compelled to travel on foot, but are conveyed to their destination by rail, by the wagons already referred to, or by regularly plying steamers: thus from Nijni-Novgorod or Kasan to Perm, from Tjumen via Thura, Tobolsk, Irtish, Ob, and Tom, to Tomsk. The prisons are simple buildings, but thoroughly clean; the hospitals connected with, but sufficiently far apart from them, are model institutions; the river-boats are unusually long, two-decked vessels, which may best be described as gigantic floating cages, for the whole upper portion above the deck is latticed after the fashion of a bird-cage. Each of these boats, which is towed by a steamer, affords the necessary accommodation for six hundred persons, and contains also a large kitchen, a sick-room, a small dispensary, quarters for the accompanying soldiers and for the crew. Between Perm and Tjumen run wagons, which also resemble bird-cages, and which serve for the transport of dangerous criminals.
Every exile receives from government a cloak of heavy gray woollen material, in the middle of the back of which is fastened a diamond-shaped piece of cloth of colours varying with the length of the sentence, so that the soldiers in charge may be acquainted with it as far as is necessary. For procuring food on the journey, ten, or in the case of “unfortunates” of higher social standing, fifteen kopeks a day are allowed to each; but during a prolonged stay in prison the rate is seven and fifteen respectively. This sum is so liberal that, if spent with care, it suffices to procure all the necessaries of life, although every day, except during Lent, three-quarters of a pound of meat are served out to each. If wife and children accompany a condemned criminal, each of these receives a similar sum. Additional earning is permitted, and money gained by work or begging flows, though perhaps not quite untaxed, into the pockets of the condemned himself, or down his throat in the form of vodki.
Fig. 75.—Exiles on the Way to Siberia.
I said that everyone was at liberty to take his wife and children with him into exile, and I may add that he usually does so. A long sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime is a ground of divorce even in Russia; every married woman is, therefore, free to choose whether she will accompany her husband into exile, or remain in her native land. Even children who have attained their fourteenth year have the right to decide for themselves whether they will leave Russia for Siberia with their parents or not. But the government prefer that wife and children should accompany the criminal, and they encourage it in every possible way, therefore they give much consideration to the question of how far it is practicable to lessen the difficulties and disagreeablenesses of the journey.
That it is oppressive under all circumstances cannot be denied; but the journey of the exiles is by no means so indescribably dreadful as it has been depicted. Only those convicted of the gravest crimes are conducted to their destination in chains; the rest enjoy more freedom than our convicts. The portion of the journey which has to be performed in the steamers or the boats they tow is the worst. Here all the exiles and their families are cooped up together, and excesses of all descriptions are committed by the most degraded criminals, who are only, or can only, be kept under sufficient restraint in rare cases. The expert thief steals from the bungler in the same disreputable calling, the more violent overpowers the weaker, or takes the soles off the boots of a sleeper to possess himself of the bank-notes supposed to be hidden there; the incorrigible shakes the resolution of the penitent, or destroys utterly those who had previously given ground for hopes of improvement. Male and female criminals are now separated from each other, but the members of a family remain with their head, and the wife and daughters of an exile are always in danger during the journey, no matter what attempts are made to avoid this. On the other hand, the steamer shortens the journey tenfold, and thus removes those who are not irretrievably ruined, and those who are not criminals, so much the sooner from evil influences. More difficult, certainly, yet less dangerous to the more hopeful criminals, is the journey by land. Driving along Russian roads in a Russian peasant-wagon drawn by galloping Russian horses is certainly a species of torture according to our ideas; but it is not so to those who have, from their youth upwards, been accustomed to no better conveyances or smoother roads. To be sure, the exiles are more closely packed in a wagon holding six or eight people than the peasant packs his when he drives with his family; the driver or the accompanying soldier is in no way more comfortable than the convicts, with the exception of the worst criminals, whose chains jar more uncomfortably than usual on such a journey. An exile belonging to a cultured family, and convicted, for instance, on political grounds, cries out under the torture of such a journey, and is fully justified in depicting it in the blackest possible colours from his own point of view; but if we take into account the local conditions, and the customs of the country, we must at least acquit the directors of these forced journeyings from the charge of cruelty under which they lie. And as for the journeys on foot, these never take place in winter, it is only strong and able men who are forced to make them, not more than forty versts a day are traversed, and every third day is spent in resting at one of the prisons on the way. The soldiers in charge walk too, they must keep constant watch over the prisoners for whom they are responsible, and must therefore exert themselves much more; for if the murderer has to drag his chains, the soldier has to carry his weapon, baggage, and ammunition. He, however, is the irreproachable servant of the state, the other an outcast from society!
But it is certainly unjust that an exile of higher social position who has been convicted of a common crime should, if he has still means at his disposal, or can obtain them, be treated otherwise than one of lower degree, who is sentenced for the same crime. The former is permitted to travel to his place of banishment at his own time, and with every comfort, guarded only by two Cossacks, whom he must pay for the double journey.
While every unbiassed Russian or Siberian admits this injustice frankly, officials and exiles alike deny that there is cruelty on the part of the escorting soldiers, or of any other persons, whether of high or inferior rank, who are intrusted with the guardianship and government of the convicts. It does happen that mutinous exiles are shot or killed in some way on the journey; but such events occur very rarely, and only when all other means of quelling insubordination have failed. The Russian is not cruel like the Spaniard, the Turk, the Greek, or the Southern Slav; on the contrary, a mistaken compassionateness and sluggishness makes him mild and considerate rather than severe and harsh; he may force men and animals to exert themselves to the utmost, but he does not torture them in order to gloat over their torments. Even the name “unfortunate”, by which it is customary to describe all exiles, originates in a feeling deeply rooted among the people, and this feeling of compassion is shared by everyone, including soldiers and police-officers, and the inspectors and warders of the prisons. That even the most long-suffering and lamblike patience may now and again be excited to angry rage by one or more miscreants is intelligible enough; that miserable wretches at the convict stations levy tax even on misfortune in order to gain more money than the state promises them in salary, I was informed by some of the exiles; that the rebels who were sentenced to exile after the last Polish rebellion were treated by the accompanying soldiers more harshly than other exiles, indeed with pitiless severity, was the complaint of a former gendarme who told me the story of his life through a German-Russian interpreter. But to make the present government responsible for such excesses, to reproach them with constant barbarity, to persist in talking about the knout, which was abolished years ago, and in general to represent our Eastern neighbours as incorrigible barbarians, is simply senseless, because in every respect untrue.
All the laws, regulations, and arrangements in force at present prove that the government takes all possible thought for the exiles, and strives to render their lot less hard, and moreover gives to each an opportunity of sooner or later improving his lot. To treat exiles with unjust severity is strictly forbidden and heavily punished; to take anything unjustly away from them is looked upon as a grave offence. Everywhere there reigns the desire to lessen the severity of the punishment if it can be done, to give the convict back to human society, if that be possible. But it is only those who really deserve help that receive it, not those who pretend improvement. For they do not make hypocrites in Siberia as we do in our prisons. The mania for making prisoners canting hypocrites, which is too often seen among us, is unknown among the Russians, for they take it for granted that everyone honours and reveres the Church and the “dear saints”, fasts at the proper season, and generally performs what little is demanded by a church which is based wholly upon external forms. On the other hand, they deal with evil in the right way, and they achieve results which we might, nay, must envy.
Of the fifteen thousand banished, scarcely one thousand are sent to work in the mines each year; the rest are distributed among the different governments, being, as it is called, exiled to become colonists. In the larger prisons not only are men and women separately confined, but Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews are kept apart, and religion is taken into consideration in distributing the colonists. Whenever the convict sentenced to one of the lighter penalties has reached the place of his destination, he is presented, on behalf of the government, with a certificate of permission to reside there, and is thenceforward free to pursue any lawful calling; but he may not leave his district, or even his village, without the permission of the authorities, and he is under the constant surveillance of the police. About the reason for his banishment, or about his earlier life, he is never questioned, at least never with malevolent intentions, for “in the house of the hanged one does not speak of the hangman”. The people among whom he lives are, or have been, themselves unfortunates, or are descended from exiles; the few free settlers adopt the manners and customs of the other Siberians. The “unfortunates” are helped in every justifiable way. Even in the prisons on the way there are workshops where industrious prisoners may earn a little; schools also are established to prevent the ruin of the rising generation, and the orphans of criminals are brought up at such an expenditure of time and money that only the wilfully blind can fail to see this gleam of light, only the maliciously dumb refrain from speaking of it. In the prison at Tjumen we visited the prison school, in which a young priest imparted instruction to Christian, Jewish, and Tartar children alike, and it was a good face, a veritable head of Christ, that this long-haired and bearded, though still youthful ecclesiastic showed us. To be sure, the Jewish and Tartar boys had to read and repeat the catechism of the Orthodox Church as well as the Christian children, and a quiet hope of winning one or another of the former to Christianity may perhaps have lived in the breast of the priest; but what harm could priest or catechism do compared with the advantage gained? The boys learned to read Russian by means of the catechism, and they learned writing and arithmetic as well; that was the main thing. In the same place we visited an orphan asylum founded, built, and for the most part maintained and conducted, by a wealthy lady, and destined for the children of exiles who died on the journey or in the town prisons. It was a model institution in the best sense of the term, with happy child-faces, beautiful school-rooms and dormitories, workshops and play-rooms, a little theatre with all the necessary appurtenances, the whole a work of mercy whose value cannot be gainsaid. But we were to learn more than this.
Fig. 76.—Interior of a Siberian Peasant’s Dwelling.
In Tjumen, Omsk, Tobolsk, and not only in the towns, but throughout the various governments, we lived among and had constant intercourse with exiles who had for the most part been convicted of lighter offences, thieves, cheats, sharpers, tramps, and vagabonds, as well as with seditious Poles and other rebels. The bank director who received us hospitably was a Polish rebel sentenced to twelve years’ banishment, and the joiner who made us some boxes had robbed the post; the coachman who drove us had been guilty of a serious theft; the waiter who served us had picked the pocket of a guest in an inn; the friendly man from Riga who helped us to cross the Irtish had forged a document; Goldmacher, our Jewish valet, had sold little Russian girls to Turkish harems; the maid who cleaned our room had killed her child; the chemist in Omsk was said to have dealt in poisons with no good intentions. After a time we looked at every one in the light of the crime or misdemeanour which he might have committed, and we had only to inquire of the superintendent of police about some worthy men, among whom were merchants, notaries, photographers, actors, to hear of false coining, embezzlement, fraud, and so on. Yet all these people earned their daily bread, and something over, and many a one who wished to remain unknown would not have suffered inquiries as to his past to go unpunished, because he had completely broken with it.
That an exile who has been a criminal can thus break with his past is due entirely to his fellow-citizens and the government, who strive, by every means in their power, to further all honest endeavours to begin a new life. Those who desire work get it without mistrust; they are taken into service without anxiety; the former thief is employed as groom, coachman, or cook; the child-murderess is hired to wait upon children; the convict artisan plies his own trade when his services are required. And we are assured that those who employ them have seldom reason to regret it. Thus many a criminal is gradually restored to society as a respectable citizen, and his sins are not visited upon his children to the fourth, indeed scarcely to the second generation. What is practically impossible with us is quite possible in Siberia—to transform a criminal into an honest man. That this does not always succeed, that there are incorrigibles in Russia as well as among us, is freely admitted by the Siberians themselves; but it is a noteworthy fact that the idler who is cast off by his community in Siberia falls into crime much more readily than the criminal who has suffered punishment relapses into his former habits.
While the class of exiles whom we have hitherto considered are allowed to follow any occupation they may choose, those who have committed graver crimes are compelled to labour in the mines. With regard to Nertschinsk, in which on an average four thousand of these unfortunate exiles work, I have obtained through General von Eichwald, the present superintendent of the mines on the crown-lands, the most precise information, and what I learned about the convicts themselves may be shortly related as follows:—
All the criminals who are condemned to the mines are brought thither in chains, and are obliged to perform the same amount of work in their fetters as the miners who are free. The intelligent overseer of the mine, under whose command and surveillance they are, treats them well if only to secure his own life and the lives of his family, for he has not sufficient forces at his disposal to quell an insurrection should one arise. The crime of each convict is made known to him; so he asks no questions of the convict himself with regard to his past. But after some time the great majority pour out their hearts to him and beg for a mitigation of punishment. The families of a criminal condemned to the mines are also allowed to follow him, or he is not prevented from forming family ties. If he is bound to humanity in this way, he often, very often, becomes penitent, and with repentance awakens the hope that the past may be forgotten, followed by the endeavour to make it so. He works one, two years in chains, conducts himself well, and thus awakens confidence. His superior orders his fetters to be removed. He remains true to his resolutions, continues to work diligently, and begins to take thought for his family. This binds him fast to the land he had dreaded so unspeakably at first; it turns out not so bad as he had expected, and he begins to grow contented. Now is the time to restore him to society. The overseer gives him permission to till the soil. Years have passed since his crime was committed; he only remembers it like an evil dream. Before him he sees a growing peasant-estate, behind him his chains. His native land seems strange to him now, and he has become reconciled to the foreign one. He becomes a peasant, works, earns money, and dies a reformed man. With his death the bondage of his children ceases, and they continue as free Siberian subjects to till the piece of land with which the government presents them. This is no invention, but reality.
Fig. 77.—Types of Siberian Convicts—“Condemned to the Mines”.
Not every criminal, however, thus submits to his fate. Full of resentment against it and against all mankind, discontented with everything and everyone, tired of work, perhaps also tortured by home-sickness, or at least pining for freedom, one finds out another in similar mood, and both, or several, resolve on flight. For weeks and months, perhaps for years, they watch for a favourable opportunity; one relates to the other over and over again the story of his life, describes to him in the most minute detail his native village, the locality and the house in which he spent his childhood, teaches him the names of his relations, of the people in the village, of the neighbouring villages and the nearest towns, omitting nothing, and impressing it all deeply on the mind of his comrade, who does the same to him, for they intend to exchange names and histories to render identification less easy in case of capture. A smith is bribed, won, persuaded to flight, and a tool to break the fetters is found, or, if need be, stolen. Spring has become a reality, the day of flight has come, and escaping without much probability of being missed for a few hours is very easy under the present system in the mines. If the fugitives reach the forests they are safe from recapture, but by no means from other dangers. For a wandering native Yakoot or Tungus hunting in the forest may be tempted by the sight of a fur-coat better than his own, and for its sake his sure bullet remorselessly ends a human life. Apart from such misadventures, the fugitive meets with scarcely any hindrance. For every Siberian, from innate good-nature, or compassion wrongly bestowed, perhaps also from fear or laziness, is more ready to help a fugitive than to hinder his flight. In all, or at any rate in many of the villages on the route, the villagers place a can of milk, a large piece of bread, and perhaps even a piece of meat behind an open window to furnish the fugitive who may pass through their village by night with food, and thus to prevent his stealing. So long as the fugitive takes only what is freely offered to him, so long as he begs for what he needs, refrains from seizing things forcibly, and neither steals nor robs, even the district-governor shuts an eye when unknown people travel by night through his village, appropriate the food intended for unfortunates, and seek and find a night’s rest in the baths, which are always warm, and always stand apart from the other buildings. And though an “unfortunate” should beg in broad daylight, no one will betray him; should the same “unfortunate” beg for a bridle, no one will refuse it who has one to spare. What he wants the bridle for they know well enough. Outside of the village the horses are grazing, untended by anyone notwithstanding wolves and bears. The fugitive walks up to the herd, throws the bridle over the head of a capable stallion, swings himself up on its broad back, and trots comfortably away.
“Nikolai Alexandrovitch,” someone announces to the owner of the horse, “an unfortunate has just seized hold of your best black horse, and ridden away towards Romanowskaja; shall we follow him?”
“Nitschewo,” answers Nikolai, “the little horse will come back; it is probably an unfortunate. Let him ride.”
And the little horse does come back; for in the meadow behind Romanowskaja the “unfortunate” had exchanged it for a fresh one on which to continue his journey, while the black horse trots complacently home along the familiar road.
Fig. 78.—Flight of an Exile in Siberia.
Thus aided and abetted, ninety out of a hundred fugitive exiles reach Tjumen, Perm, and even Kasan. If they were more experienced in travel, or had some idea of geography, if they did not always keep to the same routes by which they travelled from Russia, very many, if not most of them, would reach their goal in safety. But in Tjumen, Perm, or Kasan nearly all are recaptured. And even if those who have exchanged names do not forget their rôle; or if others answer only “I don’t know” to every question, neither exchange of name nor obstinate ignorance will save them ultimately from the sentence to return to Siberia, nor from the strokes of the rod which are meted out to every recaptured fugitive. The captive has to traverse a second time the penal route, possibly only to make another attempt at escape shortly after his arrival. I am told that many exiles have travelled thus four, five, even six times through the greater part of Siberia.
Fugitives who yield to the temptation to steal or commit some other crime on the way, come to an untimely end. In such cases the good-nature of the peasant-villagers is transformed into revengeful anger. If he is taken, nothing will save him from an agonizing death. Then a corpse is found on which no marks of violence are noticed. The body is buried, and the finding and burial are duly notified to the magistrates, who inform the governor, and he, in his turn, communicates with the governor-general, but the unhappy victim of popular fury has rotted in his grave before the government medical officer could reach the spot, even if he wished to do so. Upon whom this vengeance has fallen no one knows. In this way, but not by order of the government, an exile may disappear, and no one can tell what has befallen him, no authorities are able to give any information. But every exile who is sent to Siberia knows what awaits him if he should steal or commit any crime when a fugitive. And for this reason it is possible to live here, in the midst of thousands of criminals, as securely as anywhere else, perhaps more securely than in our great towns which contain the scum of humanity.
I have attempted to give a faithful picture of the conditions which hold now, or which held in 1876.[87] It has not been my intention to soften or embellish. Banishment to Siberia is in all cases a severe punishment. It is more severe in proportion to the culture of the person on whom it falls, and in the eyes of an educated man it must always seem terrible. But banishment to Siberia was never meant to be other than a punishment, and it was meant to fall more heavily on the educated than on the uneducated. The justice of such a principle may be disputed, but it cannot be entirely denied. It is only possible, however, to form a fair idea of the lot of exiles in Siberia when we compare it with that of our own criminals.
What becomes of the unhappy beings who people our prisons? What becomes of their families, their wives, their children? What fate awaits the prisoners when their time of imprisonment has expired; what have their families to look forward to?
Answers to these questions can be given by all who are acquainted with our penal institutions.
If the unhappy lot of our criminals be compared, honestly and without prejudice, with that of the exiles in Siberia, the result will not be doubtful. Every true friend of humanity must echo the wish which came to me in the distant East, and which has never since left me:
“If only we had a Siberia too: it would be better for our criminals, and better for ourselves”.