Besides free rations, the ordinary wages of a common workman are 15 roubles banco, or 12 shillings a month, but more experienced hands receive 50 or even 60 roubles. The pay dates from the day when the workman makes his appearance at the residence, and thenceforward, also, his rations are served out to him. They consist of a pound of fresh or salt meat, or an equivalent portion of fish on fasting-days, cabbage and groats for soup, besides fresh rye-bread and quas (the favorite national beverage) ad libitum. The whole number of workmen employed in a gold-digging subdivide themselves into separate societies, or artells. Each of these elects a chief, or head-man, to whom the provisions for his artell are weighed out, and to whom all the other common interests are intrusted. The sale of spirituous liquor is strictly forbidden, for its use would render it impossible to maintain order; and, according to law, no gin-shop is allowed to be opened within 60 versts of a digging.
The pay and the liberal rations received would alone be insufficient to allure workmen to the diggings, for, as we have seen, the voyage there and back is extremely irksome, and the labor very fatiguing. An excellent plan has consequently been devised for their encouragement. The contract of each workman distinctly specifies the quantity of his daily work, consisting of a certain number of wheelbarrows of sand—from 100 to 120, according to the distance from the spot where it is dug to the place where it is washed out—each reckoned at three pouds,[11] which one party has to fill, another to convey to the wash-stands, and a third to wash.
The task is generally completed by noon, or early in the afternoon. For the labor they perform during the rest of the day, or on Sundays and holidays, they receive an extra pay of two or three roubles for every solotnik of gold they wash. Every evening the workmen come with the produce of their free labor to the office, the gold is weighed in their presence, and the artell credited for the amount of its share. This free-work is as advantageous for the masters as the laborers. The former enjoy a net profit of eight or ten roubles per solotnik, and all the working expenses are of course put to the charge of the contract labor; and the latter earn a great deal of money, according to their industry or good-luck, for when fortune favors an artell, its share may amount to a considerable sum. During Hofmann’s stay at the Birussa, each workman of a certain artell earned in one afternoon 72 roubles, and the Sunday’s work of another of these associations gave to each of its members 105 roubles, or £4. The artisans—who, though employed in a gold-mine, are not engaged in digging or washing the auriferous sand—are also rewarded from time to time by a day’s free-labor in places which are known to be rich. On one of these occasions a Cossack on the Oktolyk received 300 roubles for his share of the gold that was washed out of 49 wheelbarrows of sand. These of course are extraordinary cases, but they show how much a workman may gain; and being of course exaggerated by report, are the chief inducements which attract the workmen, and keep them to their duty.
If the free-labor is unproductive, many of the workmen desert or give up free-labor altogether, and in both cases the master is a loser. To prevent this, it is customary, in many of the diggings, to pay the workmen a fixed sum for their extra work.
At the end of the season the workmen are paid off, and receive provisions for their home-journey. Generally, the produce of their summer’s labor is spent, in the first villages they reach, in drinking and gambling; so that, to be able to return to their families, they are obliged to bind themselves anew for the next season, and to receive hand-money from the agent, who, knowing their weakness, is generally on the spot to take advantage of it. After spending a long winter full of want and privations, they return to the Taiga in spring, and thus, through their own folly, their life is spent in constant misery and hard labor.
During the winter the digging is deserted, except by an under-overseer and a few workmen, who make the necessary preparations for the next campaign, receive and warehouse the provisions as they arrive, and guard the property against thieves or wanton destruction. The upper-overseer or director, meanwhile, is fully occupied at the residence in forwarding the provisions and stores that have arrived there during the summer to the mine, in making the necessary purchases for the next year, in sending his agents about the country to engage new workmen; and thus the winter is, in fact, his busiest time. With the last sledge transport he returns to the digging, to receive the workmen as they arrive, and to see that all is ready for the summer. As his situation is one of great trust and responsibility, he enjoys a considerable salary. Maesnikow, for instance, paid his chief director 40,000 roubles a year; and 6000 or 8000 roubles, besides free station, and a percentage of the gold produced, is the ordinary emolument.
It is thus evident that the expenses of a Siberian gold-mine are enormous, but when fortune favors the undertaker he is amply rewarded for his outlay; an annual produce of 10, 15, or 20 pouds of gold is by no means uncommon. In the year 1845, 458 workmen employed in the gold-mine of Mariinsk, belonging to Messrs. Golubdow and Kusnezow, produced 81 pouds 19⅓ lbs. of the much-coveted metal; in the year 1843 the mine of Olginsk, belonging to Lieutenant Malewinsky, yielded 82 pouds 37¼ lbs.; and in 1844, the labor of 1014 workmen, employed in the mine of Kresdowosdwishensk, belonging to Messrs. Kusnezow and Schtschegolow, produced no less than 87 pouds 14 lbs. of gold. But even Kresdowosdwishensk has been distanced by the mine of Spasky, situated near the sources of the Peskin, which, in the year 1842, yielded its fortunate possessor, the above-mentioned Counsellor Nikita Maesnikow (one of the few men who were already extremely rich before the Siberian auriferous deposits were discovered), the enormous quantity of 100 pouds of gold! From 1840 to 1845, Maesnikow extracted from this mine no less than 348 pouds 6 lbs. of gold, worth 4,135,174 silver roubles, or about £640,000. Still more recently, in 1860, the Gawrilow mine, belonging to the house of Rjasanow, produced 102½ pouds of pure gold.
But in Siberia, as elsewhere, mining operations are frequently doomed to end in disappointment, particularly if the space destined to be worked in the following summer has not been carefully examined beforehand, as the ore is often very unequally distributed. A speculator, having discovered a gold-mine, examined four or five samples of the sand, which gave a highly satisfactory result. Delighted with his good-fortune, he made his arrangements on a grand scale, and collected provisions for 500 workmen; but when operations began, it was found that he had, unfortunately, hit upon a small patch of auriferous sand, the vicinity of which was totally void of gold, so that his 500 workmen produced no more than a few pounds of ore, and he lost at least £10,000 by his adventure.
The entire gold produce of East Siberia amounted, in 1845, to 848 pouds 36 lbs., and in 1856 to about 1100 pouds; but latterly, in consequence of the increasing wages and dearness of provisions, which has caused many of the less productive mines to be abandoned, it has somewhat diminished. In 1860, 31,796 men, 919 women, and 8751 horses and oxen, were employed in the Siberian gold-mines.
As may easily be imagined, the discovery of these sources of wealth in the desert has caused a great revolution in the social state of Siberia. The riches so suddenly acquired by a few favorites of fortune, have raised luxury to an unexampled height, and encouraged a senseless prodigality. Some sterlets[12] having been offered for 300 roubles to a miner suddenly raised from penury to wealth, “Fool!” said the upstart, with the superb mien of a conquering hero, to the fish-dealer, “wilt thou sell me these excellent sterlets so cheap? Here are a thousand roubles; go, and say that thou hast dealt with me!”