Sport in the Crimea and Caucasus

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

My inspection of the fair was here cut short by the arrival of my driver, announcing the horses ready to proceed. I remarked that he seemed anxious and mysterious in his manner, so followed him quietly, and asked for explanations when we got outside the town. Then he confessed that lately two or three highway murders had been committed near Krimsky; that the presence of such a collection of roughs of every race as the fair contained was not calculated to increase the safety of the road, and that his reason for hurrying me out of the fair was that he wished to leave unnoticed before dark. From the time I left Krimsky to the time that I reached Ekaterinodar I heard of nothing but robberies and murders, several of which I believe were substantially true, though that many of them were exaggerated is only natural. But it is hardly to be wondered at that there should be a good deal of this kind of crime in such an uncivilised, semi-settled district as the Caucasus, while in the Crimea, which is far more civilised and under the hand of the law, highway murders and burglaries are not unknown even in the precincts of the towns. The worst part of these highway robberies on the Russian post-roads is that you can never feel sure that your yemstchik is not in league with the highwaymen; in fact, I have heard Russians say that that was almost invariably the case.

However, we reached our journey’s end unmolested; grateful as far as I was concerned for the only accident that occurred, as helping us more rapidly on our way. This was merely a chase given us by some infuriated moujiks, whose cart we ran into and considerably damaged, when, as usual in such cases, my yemstchik returned their curses and sought safety in flight. Such a jolting I never had before; but I forgave the cart even that, as it got me into Ekaterinodar half an hour earlier than I should have otherwise arrived.

To give some notion of the inexpensive nature of travelling here, I may say that the sum I paid the peasant for driving me the 114 versts from Novorossisk was fourteen roubles, and this at the then rate of exchange (ten roubles to the pound sterling) would be 1l. 8s. in English money. A meal which I had on the way at the ‘duchan’ of a small village we passed through, consisting of soup, chicken, black bread and tea ad libitum, for my man and myself, together with hay for the horses, cost fifty-five copecks, i.e. about 1s. 1d. Had I travelled by post from Novorossisk, I should have paid one-third less for my horses and travelled faster, owing to the fact that I should have had relays of horses and not the same pair the whole way; but then I could not have gone out of the direct course, or stopped where I liked.

Arrived at Ekaterinodar, I found myself in a hot-bed of political discussion at the table-d’hôte, where, amongst others, I met a certain Loris Melikoff, a planter in the Caucasus, and brother, I believe, to the dictator. Remembering Prince Vorontzoff’s kindly advice, I carefully avoided being drawn into the conversation as long as politics were the subject, although some of the things these half-educated officers were pleased to say of England and her Premier (Lord Beaconsfield) were hard to leave unanswered. They could not, however, have paid him a greater compliment than they involuntarily did by the hatred which they expressed; and consoling myself with this thought, I ate my dinner with an appetite unmarred by the contempt which they were pleased to express for a nation ruled by ‘a Jew.’ This was everywhere the phrase which they hurled at my head, considering it in our case a bitter disgrace that our Prime Minister should be an alien, and totally forgetting that not one officer of state only, but two-thirds of their highest officials—in fact, almost the entire brain of their country—are alien, and principally of the race they most affect to hate, viz. the Germans.

It may be readily imagined that I soon tired of the society at the Petersburg Hotel, Ekaterinodar, and indeed, early on the morning after my arrival, I was at the treasury (‘kasnochest’) applying for a travelling ticket. Of course I had to wait over half an hour, while half a sheet of paper was being filled in with a few signatures and my own name, and during that time I had an opportunity of observing some of the noticeable features in this public office. Most of the clerks were smoking cigarettes (those who were not had probably no tobacco); none of them used blotting-paper, but instead either blotted their manuscript on the white-washed walls or sprinkled it with sand from one of the many old sardine-boxes, supplied apparently by a frugal government to contain that valuable commodity. All expectorated with the freedom and frequency, if not with the accuracy, of the proverbial Yankee. Almost every clerk had some decoration, and all were in uniform.

But the ‘podorojna’ was ready at last, and armed with it I started once more for Kertch. On the road the relays of horses were scarcer than usual, and in one place I was warned that at the next station there was only one relay, and congratulated by the postmaster (an old acquaintance) on being in time to get it. As he spoke, a Russian officer with a similar pass to mine and having heard the same story from the yemstchiks, made vigorous efforts to get off first and secure it. In this he failed, and I started with a lead of half a verst or more. But in a short time he came in sight, and to my horror I found he had, by paying extra, obtained another horse, thus driving four to my three, a serious advantage over these fearfully heavy roads.

The course was a long one, nearly twenty versts, and by promising my driver a large ‘pour-boire’ if we were in first, I so roused him that before ten versts were done our rival was again out of sight. As darkness had set in, I made myself as cozy as I could on my bundle of straw, and thanks to long practice slept none the worse for the jolting.

I woke with a start. Those confounded bells that the horses wear seemed to surround me; for whilst my own horses were shaking them furiously in front in a last desperate struggle to keep the lead, my rival’s four-in-hand was jingling them triumphantly just behind, as he momentarily gained on us. It was no good, our horses were dead beat, and every effort they made almost pulled the wheels off in the heavy clay. The four passed us in the darkness with a jeer from their yemstchik. But they too had had enough of it, and as the lights of the post-station were now in sight, they were content to keep just in front of us, going like ourselves almost at a foot pace.

A bright idea struck me. The first ‘podorojna’ presented gets the team, if both ‘podorojnas’ are of equal urgency, and there is only one team to have. We were now not many hundred yards from the station. Touching my driver on the back, I told him to take no notice of me: so ridding myself of my wraps, with the travelling ticket in my hand, I slipped off the tarantasse into the mud, and making a considerable detour to escape observation—which, owing to the darkness and the triumphant security of the others, was not difficult—I ran my best, and arriving considerably before the Russian officer, handed in my ‘podorojna,’ and had the yemstchik out after the fresh team before my rival entered the office. When he met me coming out his face was good to behold; but when I had explained how I had done him, he took his beating like a man, and invited me to share his basket of provisions and a bottle of wine before parting company. I hope he had not long to wait for horses.

On the steamer which took me from Taman to Kertch was a cargo of fish for the Kertch bazaar, caught in the lake between Taman and Tumerūk. They were for the most part carp, huge fellows weighing from 25 to 30 lbs., and one of the fishermen told me they were frequently caught up to 40 lbs. in weight. There were sturgeon too, from the mouth of the Kuban, caught, so they said, in snares, something after the fashion of our ordinary rabbit snares, as they routed with their noses pig-like along the bottom of the stream. There were too ‘sudak’ (Sandre), an excellent fish for the table, and the hideous ‘som’ (Silurus)—largest, I believe, of Caucasian fresh-water fishes. This whiskered water-fiend plays the part of the pike in the Caucasian lakes and rivers, feeding on all other fish, and anything else in fact that he can find. From what I have seen I should say the pike was rare in the Caucasus, having only once seen one, and that a very small specimen, near the Caspian. The ugliness of the ‘som’ has led the inventive mind of the Russian moujik to create all sorts of legends regarding him, such as his laying hold of the limbs of horses and cattle as they crossed fords near which he was lying; and even of his seizing, and thereby drowning, a man under similar circumstances. They tell too of his growing to vast proportions; one Russian colonel, whose home is in the Red Forest, claiming, and being commonly reported, to have shot one with his rifle while basking in the Kuban, where it passes through the Crasnoi Lais, which weighed over 200 lbs. I fear this sounds very much like fisherman’s weight. What other wonderful stories of the monsters of lake and river I might not have heard, I cannot tell, for here the steamer was made fast to the Kertch jetty, and amongst the hearty congratulations of half a dozen friends, my second tour in the Caucasus came to a happy end.