The gold “placers” at Kara were generally in deep gravel pits, and the auriferous sand was located beneath a stratum of clay, gravel or stones, in what had once been the bed of the stream. The work consisted in breaking up and removing this overlying stratum, extracting the gold bearing sand and carrying it to the machine, where it was washed in several waters which in flowing away left deposits of black sand and gold particles. Pick and crowbar were in constant use by the convict labourers, working in their leg irons silently and listlessly under the close surveillance of a cordon of Cossack sentries. The average daily task was of ten hours, but much time was lost in going to and fro, and the annual amount washed was some four hundred pounds. A large quantity of gold was stolen by the surreptitious washing of convicts of the free command. They disposed of it to “receivers,” who ran great risks but generally managed to smuggle it across the frontier. This illicit trade flourishes in spite of the fact that it is a penal offence to be in possession of the precious metal or “golden wheat,” as it is technically called. But the great profits accruing outbalance the risks, and small speculators are always to be found who will secretly buy the stolen treasure secured by the convicts at large.
One notorious criminal at Kara living in the free command acquired considerable wealth by illicit trade in “stolen gold.” His name was Lissenko, and his crimes had been many and heinous. In one of his robberies he murdered a whole family, men, women and children. Leo Deutsch came across him and describes him as a man of about sixty years who had still the strength of a giant. He says: “He struck me as being crafty, cunning and reckless, but not a malicious kind of fellow, and he was extremely pious withal. No one who knew him personally could easily believe him to have murdered innocent children.” Deutsch asked him how he could have the heart to kill a child. “Oh, I cried all the time I was doing it,” he replied, “but still I killed them. It was just God’s will.” His questioner then asked, “Well, and would you murder me if you met me in a safe place?” “If I knew you had a lot of money about you I should certainly wring your neck,” said the man, with cheerful frankness. “But there! one doesn’t kill without some good reason.”
The search for gold, belonging really to the government, or more exactly to the Czar, was almost openly practised at Kara. Whole families, both men and women, engaged in it, taking out with them a shovel and wooden vessel to the banks of the neighbouring streams, and often obtaining gold dust to the value of a couple of rubles a day. No one protested, and the authorities hardly interfered, for the officials themselves did not scruple to profit by the illegal trade. Far more gold was obtained by unlawful than lawful means. The middlemen got a good price from the Chinese traders, who could always find a way to pass the gold into China, where it would fetch a higher price than that paid by the imperial exchequer. It is contended that these illicit gold finders have greatly benefited Siberia. Their restless energy in prospecting has led to the discovery of numberless gold mines, which are now being very profitably worked, seldom to the enrichment of the finders, but to that of the middlemen and through them to that of the country.
The glaring shortcomings of Eastern Siberian prisons were gradually recognised by the government, and a commendable, if not extensive, attempt has been made to provide new and improved buildings, both to serve as forwarding prisons, and for the confinement of penal-servitude convicts. A larger scheme was introduced for the penal colonisation of the island of Saghalien by the deportation of exiles thither by sea, of which I shall have much more to say. The best of the new prisons on the mainland are those of Alexandrovsk, forty miles above Irkutsk on the Amgara River, of Gorni Zerentui at the Nertchinsk mines, and of Verkhni Udinsk, fifty miles east of Lake Baikal and six hundred miles from Kara.
The prison of Alexandrovsk, which was visited by the untiring investigator, Kennan, had been originally built to serve as a distillery, but was reconstructed and turned into a great central prison in 1874. When Kennan was there, it held about a thousand prisoners and was deemed to be almost a model prison. It is a large two-storied brick building with a tin roof, standing in a spacious enclosure surrounded by a high, buttressed brick wall. It contains fifty-seven general cells, in each of which from five to seventy-five occupants are locked up; ten cells for separate confinement, and five secret cells for the isolation of the most dangerous and refractory prisoners. The cells, as Kennan found, were large and lofty; the ventilation was good and the air pure; floors and sleeping rooms were kept scrupulously clean, the only fault in the latter being the absence of bedding. The corridors outside the cells were spacious, well lighted, and the air was wholesome. Neatness, cleanliness and good order prevailed in the great kitchen; the food prepared was palatable and good. The daily rations per week consisted of three pounds of rye bread, seven ounces of meat, three ounces of barley, with potatoes and other vegetables occasionally. The prisoners were permitted to purchase tea and sugar out of their own earnings and private funds. A schoolroom, well furnished and supplied, existed in the prison, and there were many citizens’ shops,—carpenters, shoemakers, and tailors,—and two-thirds of the money earned was at the disposal of the handicraftsmen. Other labour intended to be “hard” was enforced at the mills, where rye seed was ground into meal and where the prisoners worked for three or four hours daily. At night the kamera was crowded and dimly lighted; and when visited, was not quite so sweet and odourless as during the daytime, but, on the whole, the prison was infinitely superior to the foul dens already described.
Mr. Foster Fraser, the English traveller, who saw the Alexandrovsk central prison in 1901–2, gives a no less favourable report. He describes it as a great square building, with lofty corridors, colour washed, and with sanded floors, the kameras containing on an average fifty men each. The prisoners, who hailed from all parts of the polyglot and scattered Russian Empire, were criminals of the worst stamp, mostly heavy-jowled, sullen, brutish men, but there were some few young and innocent looking lads. In the cells large numbers lounged away the day in complete idleness, but all asked for employment, and were glad to get it by being taken into the various shops. Some were clever and skilful at particular trades, cabinet-making, tailoring, bookbinding, designing patent locks, watch-mending or making musical instruments. The impression conveyed was that of workshops of well contented artisans. Conversation was general and many were smoking cigarettes. Care was taken to classify prisoners by their religions; Mahometans, Tartars and Caucasians were kept together in one hall; Jews were in another with their synagogue hard by. The desire to brighten the gloomy surroundings was to be seen in the existence of a theatre with stage and scenery, where excellent amateur performances were given, and also musical entertainments, for singing was much cultivated and there was no lack of good voices among the convicts. A large library was kept up, to which free access was permitted for several hours daily to those who could read, by no means a large proportion.
There is a second Alexandrovsk prison, one of the étapes, or forwarding prisons, newly built in 1886–8, and on good lines, but much handicapped by the common blot on all such places, overcrowding. Great numbers, far in excess of available accommodation, were collected here, awaiting distribution to various points. Mr. Fraser’s verdict on this étape prison is unfavourable. “The rooms were overcrowded and the stench almost choked me. The men looked dirty and uncared for. They had no work; they were just huddled together, waiting often six or eight months before they were sent off. Among them were half a dozen young fellows in ordinary clothes, with nothing of the criminal about them, the youngest seventeen, the eldest twenty-one. They were political exiles banished by ‘administrative process’ for rashly joining in some socialistic demonstration, and were on their way to Yakutsk into the frozen depths of the sub-Arctic Circle.”
Verkhni Udinsk is the first halting place after leaving Lake Baikal on the road to Kara, and all exiles to Eastern Siberia passed through it, including the political prisoners. For many years the étape prison there was one of the foulest on the whole route. It is to the credit of the Russian government that this abominable prison has been abolished and replaced (in 1886) by a new forwarding prison constructed on the most approved lines. It is a large building of four stories, built of brick, with a stucco front painted white, and having two spacious wings, a large inner courtyard and separate buildings for political prisoners and military guard. The kameras are even better than those at Alexandrovsk, large, lofty, well ventilated, and each above the basement floor has an extensive view across the surrounding country through at least three large windows. The corridors and imposing staircases, and even the solitary confinement cells, are of large size. It was built to lodge 440, but of course was constantly occupied by a much larger number. When Mr. Kennan expressed his unbounded approval of the very best prison he had seen in Russia, or indeed in any country, his conductor assented, “Yes; if they do not overcrowd it, it will be very comfortable. But as the old prison intended for 140 was often filled with as many as seven hundred, we shall probably be expected to find room for three thousand in this.” I have come across no later information on this point, and it is to be hoped that the substitution of the sea passage to Saghalien has had a beneficial effect in reducing the numbers passing along the land route, and that the Verkhni Udinsk prison has sufficed to meet the demands on its accommodation.
After very considerable delay, a new prison at Gorni Zerentui, to serve for the Nertchinsk mines, was completed in 1888. The crying need for such a prison was first realised in 1872, and in 1874 a committee was appointed to report and submit plans. Seven years later no more progress had been made than the erection of a few log huts and the repair of some older buildings, on which nearly 40,000 dollars had been expended. Constant changes of plan had tended to vexatious delay. Opinions were divided as to whether brick or logs was the most suitable material, but preference was finally given to the latter, because the prison could not be permanent, as the mines were certain to become worked out. But already brick had been employed and the building was far forward, so it was at length completed, and was occupied at the date given.
The advantages offered by the island of Saghalien as a place for penal settlement were very early impressed upon Russian prison administrators. They were rather sentimental than physical, for the island was perhaps as unsuitable for human habitation as any place on the face of the globe. The climate was uncongenial, and worse even than its latitude indicated. Alexandrovsk, the chief town, is in the same latitude as Brighton in England, and yet its mean annual temperature is just below freezing point. No sea current wafted any warmth northward from Chinese waters. On the contrary, a bitterly cold stream swept its eastern coast, issuing from the ice-bound sea of Okhotsk, and the western shores of this narrow elongated island are, so to speak, under an immense refrigerator, the snowy mountain tracts of Siberia, separated from it by only a narrow and shallow channel. Sparse sunlight pierced through the heavy clouds and fogs that enveloped this inhospitable land. The milder season was too brief to allow of great success in the germination of crops, and the long, low valleys between the mountains were too damp and marshy to favour agriculture. Dense forests clothed a large portion of the island, containing poor trees of inferior, stunted growth, with comparatively valueless wood. A scant population of degenerate tribes eked out a wretched existence as fishermen and seal hunters. Few settlers came to it from China or Japan.