Russian Life To-day

by Bp. Herbert Bury

Another time I should take the opportunity afforded by a pause when changing horses in the night to get a few hours’ sleep in the tarantass in the open air, which would, of course, make all the difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than a notice was sent quickly round, “The bishop has come, and there will be services at the manager’s house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six, and Holy Communion at half-past seven,” yet at half-past seven every one of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager’s two little boys were there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautiful ikon, flowers, and two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own service was over.

This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up, some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is, some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens of the rich ore.

The foreman and his family—two girls and two sons of between twenty and thirty—had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day I left, when that whole family received Communion together. I know what a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to have family unity; and, as she died suddenly before the year was over, I shall always feel that my long journey across the steppes was fully worth while if it were only for the happiness it had brought her in enabling her for once in her life to receive Communion with all the members of her family.

I had another most interesting experience before leaving Spassky and the Akmolinsk Steppes. Some little time before my arrival, two of the staff had lost their lives in the smelting-works and been buried in a little plot of ground with two monuments placed above them. One of the memorials was of pure copper, the other of stone, and there was a wooden railing round the small enclosure. The manager asked me to consecrate this little plot of ground with a larger space added to it, so that they might have their own little God’s acre.

As soon as the Russian priest heard that this was to be done he immediately asked if he and his people might be present and share in the service? And to this, of course, we readily agreed. It was impossible, however, to draw up any joint service, as we were ignorant of each other’s language, so I arranged that he should say a few prayers first and that I should take our own service afterwards. This he was very glad to do, and, robed in his vestments as for the Liturgy, he prayed for the departed, singing with his people, present in great numbers, a touching little litany, and finishing with the offering of incense. As I looked at all those fellow Christians of ours and their priest, and then outside at the great circle of the vast steppes stretching away in all directions, so suggestive of greatness of spirit, I felt most deeply moved as I took the censer from him and, offering the incense as he had done, led the way, censing the boundaries of the new burial-ground marked out by stones. Our little community followed singing, “O God, our help in ages past,” every line of which helped us all to realize a little at least of that large-hearted view of life and of death which no other passage of Scripture gives us with the directness and grandeur of Psalm xc.

The people looked on at this simple little procession with the closest attention and sympathy, and then, after an address—an entirely new experience for them in a religious service—I proceeded to the consecration of the ground. I should fancy it is the only instance, as yet, of clergy of the two Churches actually sharing a service together; and that was especially in my mind as I took the good priest’s censer to offer, just as he had done and from the same censer, “an oblation with great gladness,” feeling to the full “how good and joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” I should say of that service also that it was quite worth while taking that long journey across the steppes to have it.

The prevailing idea of Siberia in this country is, as we all know, that it is a terrible waste of ice and snow, a land of mines and of convicts, ravaged by packs of wolves; and this is not at all an incorrect impression of the greater part of it and for the longest period of the year. All that is wrong in the impression is that it leaves out the five months of the year in which there is the glow and charm of the tropics, with growth and upspringing life and beauty on every hand. The steppes are a paradise of singing birds and blooming flowers and flowing streams, where the air is joyous to breathe, invigorating, quickening, and inspiriting beyond description. These are the Siberian Steppes I have known and traversed and loved, and long and hope to see again.

But I am keenly alive to all the real and ever-present sense of peril which the winter brings with it as soon as it comes, and which it keeps steadily before the mind till it is over for all who have to meet it and struggle against it. I have heard men speak of the terrible blizzards and the appalling cold; of the deadly gloom, when the air is so full of snow that they can hardly see a hand before their faces, and they wander uncertainly for a whole day and night together until they give themselves up for lost, to find after all, when the storm is over, that they are only a few yards away from their own doors, or in the middle of the street from which they had started.

They instantly drop their voices on the Kirghiz Steppes when they begin to speak of winter, and on some faces there comes at once that beaten look which, whenever it appears, is testimony that the man has measured himself against the sterner forces of Nature or of human life, and has failed.