Before taking leave of the Ostiaks, we will still tarry a moment at the small town of Obdorsk, which may be considered as the capital of their country, and entirely owes its existence to the trade carried on between them and the Russians. Formerly the merchants from Beresow and Tobolsk used merely to visit the spot, but the difficulties of the journey soon compelled them to establish permanent dwellings in that dreary region. A certain number of exiles serves to increase the scanty population, which consists of a strange medley of various nations, among whom Castrén found a Calmuck, a Kirghis, and a Polish cook, who bitterly complained that he had but few opportunities of showing his skill in a town where people lived à la Ostiak. In fact, most of the Russian inhabitants of the place have in so far adopted the Ostiak mode of life, as to deem the cooking of their victuals superfluous. When Castrén, on his arrival at Obdorsk, paid a visit to a Tobolsk merchant, who had been for some time settled in the place, he found the whole family lying on the floor, regaling on raw fish, and the most civilized person he met with told him that he had tasted neither boiled nor roast flesh or fish for half a year. Yet fine shawls and dresses, and now no doubt the crinoline and the chignon, are found amidst all this barbarism. Edifices with the least pretensions to architectural beauty it would of course be vain to look for in Obdorsk. The houses of the better sort of Russian settlers are two-storied, or consisting of a ground-floor and garrets; but as they are built of wood, and are by no means wind-tight, the half-famished Ostiaks, who have settled in the town, are probably more comfortably housed in their low turf-huts than the prosperous Russian inhabitants of the place. The latter make it their chief occupation to cheat the Ostiaks in every possible way; some of them, however, add to this profitable, if not praiseworthy occupation, the keeping of reindeer herds, or even of cows and sheep.
The fair lasts from the beginning of winter to February, and during this time the Ostiaks who assemble at Obdorsk pitch their bark-tents about the town. With their arrival a new life begins to stir in the wretched place. Groups of the wild sons and daughters of the tundra, clothed in heavy skins, make their appearance, and stroll slowly through the streets, admiring the high wooden houses, which to them seem palaces. But nothing is to be seen of the animation and activity which usually characterize a fair. Concealing some costly fur under his wide skin mantle, the savage pays his cautious visit to the trader, and makes his bargain amidst copious libations of brandy. He is well aware that this underhand way of dealing is detrimental to his interests; that his timorous disposition shrinks from public sales, and frequently he is not even in the situation to profit by competition; for among the thousands that flock to the fair, there are but very few who do not owe to the traders of Obdorsk much more than they possess, or can ever hope to repay. Woe to the poor Ostiak whose creditor should find him dealing with some other trader!—for the seizure of all his movable property, of his tent and household utensils, would be the least punishment which the wretch turned adrift into the naked desert would have to expect. The fair is not opened before Government has received the furs which are due to it, or at least a guarantee for the amount from the merchants of the place. Then the magazines of the traders gradually fill with furs—with clothes of reindeer skin ready made, with feathers, reindeer flesh, frozen sturgeon, mammoth tusks, etc. For these goods the Ostiaks receive flour, baked bread, tobacco, pots, kettles, knives, needles, brass buttons and rings, glass pearls, and other trifling articles. An open trade in spirits is not allowed; but brandy may be sold as a medicine, and thus many an Ostiak takes advantage of the fair for undergoing a cure the reverse of that which is recommended by hydropathic doctors.
Towards the end of February, when the Ostiaks have retired into the woods—where they hunt or tend their reindeer herds until the opening of the fishing-season recalls them to the Obi—the trader prepares for his journey to Irbit, where he hopes to dispose of his furs at an enormous profit, and Obdorsk is once more left until the following winter to its death-like solitude.
79. TAGILSK.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONQUEST OF SIBERIA BY THE RUSSIANS—THEIR VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY ALONG THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA.
Ivan the Terrible.—Strogonoff.—Yermak, the Robber and Conqueror.—His Expeditions to Siberia.—Battle of Tobolsk.—Yermak’s Death.—Progress of the Russians to Ochotsk.—Semen Deshnew.—Condition of the Siberian Natives under the Russian Yoke.—Voyages of Discovery in the Reign of the Empress Anna.—Prontschischtschew.—Chariton and Demetrius Laptew.—An Arctic Heroine.—Schalaurow.—Discoveries in the Sea of Bering and in the Pacific Ocean.—The Lächow Islands.—Fossil Ivory.—New Siberia.—The wooden Mountains.—The past Ages of Siberia.
In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the now huge Empire of Russia was confined to part of her present European possessions, and divided into several independent principalities, the scene of disunion and almost perpetual warfare. Thus when the country was invaded, in 1236, by the Tartars, under Baaty Khan, a grandson of the famous Gengis Khan, it fell an easy prey to its conquerors. The miseries of a foreign yoke, aggravated by intestine discord, lasted about 250 years, until Ivan Wasiljewitsch I. (1462–1505) became the deliverer of his country, and laid the foundations of her future greatness. This able prince subdued, in 1470, the Great Novgorod, a city until then so powerful as to have maintained its independence, both against the Russian grand princes and the Tartar khans; and, ten years later, he not only threw off the yoke of the Khans of Khipsack, but destroyed their empire. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks placed the spiritual diadem of the ancient Cæsars on his head, and caused him, as chief of the Greek orthodox Church, to exchange his old title of Grand Prince for the more significant and imposing one of Czar.
His grandson, Ivan Wasiljewitsch II., a cruel but energetic monarch, conquered Kasan in 1552, and thus completely and permanently overthrew the dominion of the Tartars. Two years later he subdued Astrakhan, and planted the Greek cross on the borders of the Caspian Sea, where until then only the Crescent had been seen.