From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

As far as Nijni-Novgorod we had enjoyed the modern conveniences of travel; thenceforward we were to learn how Russians traverse distances of thousands of kilometres or versts, how they travel in summer and in winter, by day and by night, in furious storm and in smiling sunshine, in splashing rain, icy snow, and dusty drought, in sledges and in wagons. Before us stood a huge and massive travelling sledge, clamped at all its joints, with broadly projecting stays to guard against overturning, with a hood to shelter the travellers from rain and snow, and drawn by three horses on whose yoke a little bell tinkled.

On the 19th of March we began a rapid journey over the frozen surface of the Volga, but it was not without its hindrances. For a thaw had accompanied us from Germany to Russia, and had warned us to hasten from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a thaw remained our constant companion, as if we were heralds of the spring. Holes in the ice filled with water, warning us of the yawning depth beneath, drenched the horses, the sledge, and ourselves, or forced us to make tiresome circuits; the cracking and groaning of the ice made the danger seem worse than it really was, and both drivers and postmasters became so anxious, that after a short journey we were forced to exchange the smooth surface of ice for the as yet unbeaten summer highway. But this highway, traversed by thousands and thousands of freight wagons and by an equal number of exiles to dread Siberia, soon became to us, as to the prisoners, a way of sighs. Loose or slushy snow about three feet deep, covered the road; to right and left rushed little streams, wherever, in fact, they could find a course; the horses, now yoked in a line, one behind the other, strove, in a pitiable way, to keep their footing; with leaps and bounds they would try to keep the tracks of those who had gone in front, and at every false step they would sink up to the breast in the snow or in the icy water. Behind them floundered the sledge, creaking in every joint, as it plunged with a jerk from height to hollow; for hours sometimes it remained stuck in a hole, baffling the most strenuous exertions of the horses. On such occasions the wolf-scaring bell, the gift of the mysterious Faldine, seemed to sound most eerily. In vain the driver threatened, entreated, swore, groaned, yelled, cried, roared, cursed, and whipped; in most cases we did not get under weigh again until other travellers came to our assistance.

Painfully the journey lengthened to four and five times the proper time for the distance. To look out of the sledge to right or left was scarce worth the trouble, for the flat country was dreary and featureless; only in the villages was there anything visible and interesting, and that only to those who knew how to look. For the winter still kept the people in their small, neatly built, but often sadly dilapidated log-huts; only fur-clad boys ran barefoot through the slushy snow and filthy mud which older boys and girls sought to avoid by help of stilts; only some old, white-bearded beggars loafed round the post-houses and taverns, beggars, however, whom every artist must have found as charming as I did. When they asked for alms, and stood in the majesty of old age, with uncovered bald heads and flowing hoary beards, disclosing the filthiness of their body and the raggedness of their clothes, they seemed to me such marvellous pictures and types of world-renouncing saints, that I could not keep myself from giving to them again and again, if only to get in thanks the sign of the cross, repeated from three to nine times in a manner so expressive and devout that only a real saint could equal it.

In the villages we also saw more of the animal life than we did in the fields or even in the forests which we traversed. For in the open country winter still kept its fetters on life and all was quiet and death-like; we saw hardly any birds except the hooded crow and the yellow bunting; and the snow showed scarce any tracks of mammals. In the villages, however, we were welcomed at least by the delightful jackdaws, which adorned the roofs of the log-houses, by the ravens, which with us at home are the shy frequenters of mountain and forest, but are here the most confident companions of the villagers, by magpies and other birds, not to speak of domestic animals, among which the numerous pigs were especially obtrusive.

After an uninterrupted journey of four days, without refreshing sleep, without any real rest, without sufficient food, we felt as if we had been beaten in every limb, and were, indeed, glad to reach Kazan—the old capital of the Tartars. We crossed the Volga on foot, picking our steps over the much-broken ice, and drew near to the city of sixty towers, which we had seen the day before shining in the distance. I fancied myself once more in the East. From the minarets and the spire-like wooden towers I heard again the notes which call every faithful follower of Islam to prayer; dark-eyed women bustled about among the turbaned men, veiling themselves anxiously from their country folk, but unveiling inquisitively before us, and picking their steps, on account of their dainty but not waterproof saffron shoes, along the steps of the houses protected by the overhanging eaves. In the uproar of the bazaar young and old thronged and bustled without restraint. Everything was just as it is in the East. Only the numerous stately churches—among which we saw the convent of “the black Madonna of Kasan not made by human hands”, conspicuous both in site and architecture—were out of keeping with the Eastern picture, though they showed plainly enough that Christians and Mohammedans were here living in mutual tolerance.

On lighter sledges, but over even more unsubstantial highways, we journeyed onwards towards Perm and the Ural. The road led through Tartar and Russian villages and the fields around them, and again through extensive forests. The Tartar villages usually compared favourably with those of the Russians, not only in the absence of swine, which the Tartars hold unclean, but even more in the always well-cared-for cemeteries, usually surrounded by lofty trees. For the Tartar respects the resting-place of his dead, the Russian at most those of his saints. The woodlands, though divided up, are really primeval forests, which rise and flourish, grow old and disappear, without human interference, for they are too far from navigable rivers to be as yet of much commercial value.

Two large rivers, however, the Viatka and the Kama, cross our route. The winter holds them bound, though the approach of spring is beginning to loosen their fetters. The banks are flooded, and the horses of the carriers, who scorn the temporary bridges, are now and then forced to swim and to drag the sledge like a boat behind them.

Before we reached Perm we had to exchange the sledge for the wagon, and in this we trundled along towards the Ural, which separates Europe from Asia. The highway leads over long ranges of hills, with easy slopes, but gradually ascending. The landscape changes; the mountain scenery presents many pictures, which are beautiful if they are not grand. Small woods, with fields and meadows between, remind us of the spurs of the Styrian Alps. Most of the woods are thin and scraggy, like those of Brandenburg, others are more luxuriant and varied, and cover wide areas without interruption. Here they consist of low pines and birches, and there of the same trees mingled with limes, aspens, black and silver poplars, above whose rounded crowns the cypress-like tops of the beautiful pichta or Siberian silver-fir tapers upwards. On an average the villages are larger and the houses more spacious than in the districts previously traversed, but the roads are bad beyond all description. Thousands of freight wagons creep wearily along, or rather in, the deep miry ruts: slowly and painfully we also jog along until, after three days’ journeying, we reach the watershed between the two great basins of the Volga and the Ob, and learn from the milestone, which bears “Europe” on the west side and “Asia” on the east, that we have reached the boundary. Amid the clinking of glasses we think of our loved ones at home.

The pleasant town of Yekaterinburg, with its gold-smelting and gem-cutting industries, could not long detain us in spite of the hospitality of its inhabitants. For the spring was gaining strength, and the bridges of ice on the rivers and streams, which we had to cross on our way to distant Omsk, were melting and crumbling. So we pushed hastily onwards through the Asiatic region of the Perm government till we reached its boundary and entered Western Siberia.