CHAPTER XIII.
GENERAL REMARKS ON NEW RUSSIA—ANTIPATHY BETWEEN THE MUSCOVITES AND MALOROSSIANS—FOREIGN COLONIES—GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, CATTLE, &c.—WANT OF MEANS OF COMMUNICATION—RIVER NAVIGATION; BRIDGES—CHARACTER OF THE MINISTER OF FINANCE—HISTORY OF THE STEAMBOAT ON THE DNIESTR—THE BOARD OF ROADS AND WAYS—ANECDOTE.
New Russia, which we have now traversed in its whole length, from west to east, consists of the three governments of Kherson, Taurid, and Iekaterinoslav. It is bounded on the north by the governments of Podolia, Kiev, Poltava, and Kharkov; on the east by the country of the Don Cossacks, the Sea of Azov, and the Straits of Kertch; on the south by the Black Sea, and on the west by the Dniestr, which divides it from Bessarabia. Its surface may be estimated at 1882 square myriamètres. It contains a population of 1,346,515, which makes about 715 inhabitants to a square myriamètre.
The existing organisation of the three governments dates from the year 1802. Their territory was successively annexed to the empire, by the treaty of Koutchouk Kainardji, the conquest of the Crimea, and the convention concluded at Jassy, in 1791.
The population of these regions is extremely mixed. The Malorossians (Little Russians) formerly known by the appellation of Cossacks of the Ukraine, form its principal nucleus; then come numerous villages of Muscovites (Great Russians) belonging to the crown and to individuals; colonies of Germans, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Bulgarians; the military establishments of Vosnecensk, formed with the Cossacks of the Boug and fugitives from all the neighbouring nations; and lastly the Tatars, who occupy the greater part of the Crimea and the western shores of the Sea of Azov.
Here are certainly very various and heterogeneous elements; nor can there exist between them any religious or political sympathy. The Muscovites and the Malorossians are even very hostile to each other, though professing the same creed and subject to the same laws. In spite of all the efforts of the government, and notwithstanding all the Muscovite colonies disseminated through the country, no blending of the two races has yet been effected. The old ideas of independence of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, are very far from being entirely extinguished, and the Malorossians, who have not forgotten the liberty and the privileges they enjoyed down to the end of the last century, always bear in mind that serfdom was established amongst them only by an imperial ukase of Catherine II. When the Emperor Alexander travelled through the Crimea, in 1820, it is said that he received more than 60,000 petitions from peasants claiming their freedom. Two years afterwards an insurrection broke out at Martinofka, in the environs of Taganrok; but it was speedily put down, and led to nothing but the transportation of some hundreds of unhappy serfs to Siberia.
As for the foreign colonies established in New Russia, the government adapted its regulations at first in strict accordance with their wants. Each of them possessed a constitution in harmony with its manners, its usages, and its state of civilisation, and nothing had been neglected that could prompt the development of their prosperity.
But within the last few years, the principles of political unity have been gaining the upper hand, and all the government measures are tending to assimilate the foreign populations to the free peasants of the crown. It is with this view that the special administrative committees have been suppressed, and the ministry of the domains of the crown has been created. Undoubtedly, as we have already said, when speaking of the German colonies, Russia has an incontestible right to strive to render herself homogeneous; the interests of her policy and her nationality require that she should neglect no means of arriving at a uniform administrative system. Unfortunately, generalisations are still impossible in the empire. Where there are so many conflicting forms of civilisation, the attempt to impose one unvarying system of rule upon so many dissimilar peoples, cannot be unattended with danger, particularly when that system is an exclusive one, and belongs only to one of the least enlightened portions of the population. It is, at this day, quite as impolitic to apply to the German colonists the administrative system practised with the Russian peasants, as it would be absurd to govern the latter like the Germans.
The government would act more wisely if it tried, in the first place, to raise its native subjects to the level of the foreigners, instead of depressing the latter by subjecting them to the same conditions as its 40,000,000 of serfs. The difficulties would no doubt be great; but obstinately to persist in establishing a forced administrative unity by dint of ukases, is nothing short of ruin to those thriving and industrious foreign colonies, which for more than half a century have done so much for the prosperity of the country, by bringing the soil of Southern Russia into productive cultivation; and it is well known, that already, several hundred families have abandoned their settlements and returned to Germany.
The whole of Southern Russia from the banks of the Dniestr to the Sea of Azov, and to the foot of the mountains of the Crimea, consists exclusively of vast plains called steppes, elevated from forty to fifty yards above the level of the sea. The soil is completely bare of forests; it is only in some sheltered localities along the banks of the Dniepr and the other rivers, and in their islands, that we find a few woods of oak, birch, aspen, and willow. The inhabitants of the country are obliged to use for firing, reeds, straw, and the dung of cattle kneaded into little masses like bricks. In Odessa, they import wood from Bessarabia, the Crimea, and the banks of the Danube; but it costs as much as eighty rubles the fathom. English coal is also consumed, and as the merchant vessels carry it as ballast, its cost is very moderate. Within the last few years the native coal from the government of Iekaterinoslav and the Don country, is also beginning to be used throughout Southern Russia.
The growth of wheat and the rearing of cattle, chiefly Merino sheep, are the main sources of wealth in these regions. The best cultivated tracts are, in the first place, those occupied by the German colonies, and next, the environs of Podolia and Khivia. But the most productive soil is, unquestionably, that of the north-east of the government of Iekaterinoslav, where the surface of the country is more varied and better irrigated. Unfortunately, the inhabitants have scarcely any markets for their produce.
The grand want of this part of the empire is, the means of transport. Within the sixty years or thereabouts, during which the Russians have been in possession of these regions, they have founded many towns and erected many edifices to accommodate the public functionaries; but they have completely forgotten the most important thing, the thing without which agriculture and trade can make no progress worth speaking of. There are no causeways anywhere; the roads are mere tracks marked out by two ditches a few inches deep, and a line of posts set up from verst to verst to mark the distance. But usually no account is made of the imperial track, and the wheel-ruts vary laterally over a space of half a league and more. With every fall of rain the course of the road is changed. In winter, when snow-storms and fogs prevail, travelling in New Russia is beset with serious perils. It is then so easy to wander from the route, that travellers are often in danger of losing themselves in the steppes, and dying of cold.
Bridges over the streams and rivers are as rare as causeways, and where any exist they are so defective, that drivers always try to avoid them, and so save their vehicles from the chance of being broken. Whenever the traveller is suddenly roused up from a sound sleep by a violent shock, he may be certain he is passing over a bridge or a fragment of a causeway. Spring and autumn are the seasons when he has most reason to curse the bad management of the Board of Bridges and Roads, for then the roads are impracticable: the smallest gully becomes the bed of a torrent, and communications are often totally interrupted. The consequence is that the transport of goods can only be effected in winter and during four months of summer. Nor must we allow ourselves to imagine that sledging is a very safe mode of carriage; the snow-storms cause great disasters, and if the winter be at all rigorous, an enormous number of draught oxen are lost.
Every one knows what fine rivers nature has bestowed on New Russia. The Dniestr and the Dniepr are two admirable canals, which, after having traversed the central parts of the empire and its most fertile regions, terminate in the Black Sea. Their navigation, if well managed, would certainly compensate largely for the difficulties in the way of constructing roads, and might amply suffice for the wants of the population. But, as we have said in our chapter on the commerce of the Black Sea, every thing in Russia bears deplorable proof of the supineness of the government. It must, however, be owned that it is not to be reproached in every case with want of the will to do better; for recently, upon the enlightened solicitation of Count Voronzof, it was determined to establish on the Donetz, one of the confluents of the Don, a steam-tug to take in tow the coal-barges of the government of Iekaterinoslav.
The two grand obstacles which, in our opinion, impede the accomplishment of useful works in Russia, consist in the self-sufficient incapacity of the ministry of finance, and in the peculation of the functionaries. Count Cancrine[9] may be an excellent bookkeeper; we grant that he possesses no ordinary talent in matters of account; but we believe, and facts demonstrate it, that his administration has greatly diminished the financial resources of the empire. The man possesses not one enlarged idea, no forecast; he sacrifices every thing to the present moment. Every item of expenditure must bring in an immediate profit, or he looks on it as money mis-spent; he can never be brought to understand that all capital expended in promoting agriculture and trade, returns sooner or later to the exchequer with large interest.
In 1840, a landowner, deeply interested in the navigation of the liman of the Dniestr, after many fruitless efforts, at last succeeded by stratagem in inducing him to establish a small steamer on those waters, in order to facilitate the commercial intercourse between Akermann and Ovidiopol. The salt works of Touzla, situated in the vicinity, were to advance the necessary funds to the directory of the steamer, and although that directory was entirely dependent on the government, it was, nevertheless, obliged to enter into an engagement for the repayment of the small sum advanced, within a specified time. The steamboat was set plying; but whether from mismanagement or from other causes, no profit was realised in the first few years; on the contrary, there was some loss. Angry expostulations on the part of the ministry soon followed; and for a while there was an intention of suppressing the new means of communication, though so highly important to both banks. Such is the behaviour of the ministry on all industrial or commercial questions. We shall have many other facts of the same kind to mention, when we come to speak of Bessarabia and the Crimea.
Now for an anecdote exemplifying the proceedings of the Board of Roads and Ways.[10] It was proposed by Count Voronzof in 1838, to have a bridge constructed over a brook that crosses the road from Ovidiopol to Odessa, and which is twice every year converted into a torrent. The chief engineer of the district having estimated the expense at 36,750 rubles, the scheme was discountenanced by the ministry, and the bridge remained unbuilt for four years. In 1841, Count Voronzof visited Bessarabia, and his carriage was near being overturned on the little old bridge by which the brook is crossed. "It is very much to be regretted," said he to M——i, who accompanied him, "that there is not a suitable bridge here; the ministry would not, perhaps, have refused to sanction it, if the engineers had been more moderate in their demands."
Some days afterwards M——i sent for an Italian engineer, and put into his hands a statement of all the measurements on which the government engineers had founded their estimate. The Italian asked at first 8400 rubles, and finally reduced his demand to 6475. M——i hastened to lay his proposal before Count Voronzof, who was amazed, and instantly accepted the terms. The bridge was to be forthwith constructed. It was not long before the chief engineer visited M——i, and beset him with reproaches and remonstrances, to which the former replied thus: "My good sir, I have not slandered you, nor do I bear you the least enmity. I wanted a bridge that I might visit my estate without danger. It is not enough to have a steamer on the liman of the Dniestr, unless one has also the means of making use of it. Your demand for the execution of the works was 36,750 rubles; another person, who has no desire to lose by the job, is content to perform it for 6475. I am sorry you think he has asked too little. Be that as it may, I shall have the bridge, and that was a thing I had set my mind on. Excuse me this once."
We see by this, with what difficulty useful improvements are effected in Russia. The most earnest and laudable purposes are constantly frustrated by the vices of the administrative system. Unhappily there never can be an end to the fatal influence and the tyranny everywhere exercised by the public functionaries, until a radical reform shall have taken place in the social institutions of the empire; but nothing indicates as yet that there is any serious intention of effecting such a system.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] See Appendix, p. 101.
[10] It is needless to say that our remarks do not apply to all the Russian engineers without exception, for we ourselves have known many upright and worthy men amongst them; and these men were the more deserving of esteem, as they always ended by being the victims of their own integrity.