From Paris to New York by Land

by Harry De Windt

The day following our arrival a lunch was given in our honour by the Governor at the Palace, a ramshackle old building, comfortably furnished, but with no attempt at ostentation. The household was more like that of an English country house, and there was none of the stateliness and ceremony here which characterised the Governor's Palace at Irkutsk. Nor was I sorry for it, for in this land of hunger and long distances man can well dispense with formality and etiquette. We sat down over a score to lunch, including half a dozen ladies, one, at least, of whom was young and attractive, and as daintily gowned as though she had just returned from a drive in the Bois de Boulogne. But Madame V—— the bride of a Government official had arrived here too recently to acquire the mildewed appearance (I can use no other term), which every woman seems to acquire after a prolonged residence in Yakutsk. The meal was a merry one and was followed by music and dancing until nightfall, when another repast was served. By the way, although the pangs of hunger had often assailed us on the road, the frequency of meals here was our greatest trial. For they seemed to continue at short intervals throughout the twenty-four hours. The house of our host, the Chief of Police, was, for Yakutsk, an extremely quiet and orderly one, and yet I never once succeeded in getting to bed before 4 o'clock in the morning, chiefly because the principal meal of the day was only served at midnight. Breakfast at 9 A.M. consisted of such dainties as black bread, smoked fish, and cheese! This was followed at mid-day by a heavier meal, where wines, beer, and fiery vodka played an important part. At 3 P.M. a dinner of several courses was discussed, and at 8 P.M. tea (accompanied by sweets and cakes) was again partaken of. The midnight supper aforementioned wound up the day. A sideboard in the dining-room was laid out with salt fish, ham, caviar, raw cucumber, &c., for snacks at odd moments! There was seldom more than about three or four hours sleep, but a siesta was generally indulged in from 4 to 7 P.M., and a stay of ten days here convinced me of the wisdom of this arrangement. Most of the men passed their evenings in gambling at cards, but the women appeared to have absolutely no occupation of a rational kind. The entire city only boasted of three pianos, but nearly every house possessed a gramophone, which generally provided the music after dinner, when the ladies would sit in a silent circle and listen to the ruthless assassination of Massénet and Mascagni, while the men played cards or walked up and down the room chatting and smoking, and frequently adjourning to the buffet, which in Yakutsk is seldom far distant. Once a month an amateur performance is given at the club, and we attended one of these entertainments, which was of a wearisome description, commencing at about 6 P.M. and lasting till long after midnight. Of course there was, as usual, plenty to eat and drink between the acts.[19]

[19] The Russian Admiral Von Wrangell (who visited Yakutsk in 1820) wrote: "The inhabitants are not in an advanced state of intellectual cultivation. They pass much of their super-abundant leisure in somewhat noisy assemblages where eating and drinking play a principal part. After dinner, which is a very substantial meal, and at which nalivka, a liquor made of brandy, berries, and sugar, is not spared, the gentlemen pass the afternoon with cards and punch, and the ladies gather round the tea-table."

As sometimes happens in this world men here are far better off than women, for the former are occupied during the day with their professional duties, and, if so inclined, they can obtain excellent fishing and shooting within a day's journey. The Verkhoyansk mountains can be reached in under a week, and here there are elk, wild sheep, and other big game, but for the unfortunate fair sex life is one eternal round of hopeless monotony. There is not even a regiment to enliven the dreariness of existence, for the garrison consists of about one hundred and fifty Cossacks, with only a couple of officers in command. Nor is there a newspaper; only a dry official journal printed once a month, while the telegrams received by the Governor are sent round to subscribers of one rouble per month. In summer it is possible to walk or drive about, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, but in spring or winter-time the women here are often kept indoors for days together by the floods or piercing cold. No wonder that physical strength is soon impaired by an idle life, stimulants, and the eternal cigarette, or that moral laxity should follow the daily contamination of spicy scandal and pernicious French literature. I have heard Siberians assert that Yakutsk is the most immoral city in the world, and (with a mental reservation regarding Bucharest) I felt bound to agree with them. For if only one-half of the tales which I heard concerning the gay doings of the élite here were true, then must the wicked little Roumanian capital "take" (to use a slang expression) "a back seat." Apparently this state of affairs has existed for some time, for when Admiral Melville, of the Jeannette, was here twenty years ago, searching the coast for his unfortunate shipmates, he attended a reception given on New Year's Eve by the Lieutenant-Governor, and was told by the latter that, "on that night, as on no other, every man had his own wife at his side instead of some other man's."[20]

[20] "In the Lena Delta," by G. W. Melville.

At the time of our visit Yakutsk contained under a score of political exiles, who seemed to be no worse off, socially, than any one else, for they moved freely about in society and were constantly favoured guests of the Chief of Police. The exiles, however, were not permitted to take part in the private theatricals I have mentioned, a restriction which caused them great annoyance. Their loud and unfavourable criticisms from the stalls on the evening in question were certainly not in the best of taste, and, to my surprise, they were not resented by the Governor's staff. This incident will show that, in Yakutsk at any rate, the "politicals" are treated not only with leniency but with a friendly courtesy, which on this occasion was certainly abused. Mr. Olenin, an exile whose term of banishment was expiring, told me that he had no fault whatever to find with Yakutsk as a place of exile, so much so that he had resolved not to return to Russia at the end of his sentence, but to remain here and complete an ethnological work upon which he was engaged. As will presently be seen (in the eighth chapter), I do not in any way hold a brief for the Russian Government, although I have occasionally been accused (in the English Press) of painting its prisons in couleur de rose for my own private ends. I simply state what I saw on this and subsequent occasions, and am glad to say that in Yakutsk the condition of the political exiles was as satisfactory as it could possibly be made in such a rigorous climate and amidst such cheerless surroundings.

I obtained from Mr. Olenin a plain and unvarnished account of the Yakutsk prison revolt, and subsequent "massacre," which aroused such indignation in England a few years ago. It was then reported that the political exiles here were subjected to such cruelty while in prison that they unsuccessfully tried to starve themselves and then mutinied, upon which both men and women were mercilessly butchered. As a matter of fact, at the commencement of the incident the exiles were not confined in prison at all, but were living in provisional liberty. What really happened was this. A party (numbering about half a dozen of both sexes), which was bound for Verkhoyansk, carried more baggage than usual, and the season being far advanced, the Governor of Yakutsk directed that the exiles should start forthwith without their belongings, which should be sent after them as soon as possible. Otherwise, he explained, the politicals might not reach their destination before the break-up of the roads, which would probably mean death from starvation or by drowning in the floods. But an angry discussion followed this edict, and as the politicals were assembling in the open street for departure a young student lost his temper and fired his revolver, killing a policeman. A general mêlée ensued, during which several persons were accidentally killed and wounded, for a large crowd had been attracted by the sound of firearms. The exiles, Füff, Minor, and Pik, were shot dead on the spot. A young woman, Madame Gouriévitch, about to become a mother, was bayoneted, and died in great agony. Finally, after a hard struggle, the culprits were secured and confined in the prison, where some of them did undoubtedly try to starve themselves in order to escape execution. The case was tried at Petersburg, and three of the ringleaders, Zotoff, Haussmann, and Bernstein, were duly hanged in the Yakutsk gaol. Zotoff, who had been badly wounded during the fight, had to be carried on his bed to the scaffold. The other exiles received long terms of imprisonment at the political prison at Akatui, where I saw and conversed with them in 1894.[21] The women were sent to Viluisk, but have since been liberated.

[21] For further details of this prison see "The New Siberia," by Harry de Windt. Chatto and Windus, London. 1896.

Criminal convicts here are also well cared for, although the prison, which contained about ninety inmates, was old and dilapidated, like almost every other building in the place. But the wards appeared to be fairly clean and well warmed, a comfortable infirmary adjoined the building, and also a home maintained by private subscriptions for the children of prisoners. Enforced idleness seemed to be the chief complaint from which the convicts were suffering, for during the long winter months it is naturally difficult to find them employment.

Being aware that Russian officials are seldom overpaid, the lavish style in which they entertained us astonished me, for provisions of all kinds must, I imagined, always be at famine prices in a town within measurable distance of the Arctic regions. But inquiry proved that I was entirely wrong, and that living here is as cheap, if not cheaper, than in Irkutsk. It used not to be so when, in former days, Yakutsk was surrounded by vast marshes, often submerged, and apparently quite useless for the purposes of cultivation.[22] But these are now converted into fertile plains of grain and pasture, this innovation being entirely due to the "Skoptsi," a religious sect exiled from European Russia, who, by dint of thrift and industry, have raised a flourishing colony on the outskirts of the city.[23] Cultivation was formerly deemed impossible in this inclement region, but now the Skopt exile amasses wealth while the Russian emigrant gazes disconsolately at the former's rich fields and sleek cattle, and wonders how it is all done. For the Skoptsi are up-to-date farmers, employing modern American machinery, which they import into the country viâ Vladivostok. And their efforts have been amply repaid, for in 1902 the sale of corn and barley, formerly unknown here, realised the sum of over a million roubles. Thirty years ago this district contained but few herds of cattle, and now nearly two million roubles' worth of frozen meat is annually exported to the various settlements up and down the river. The inhabitants of Yakutsk are also indebted to these industrious exiles for the fact that their markets are now provided with vegetables of most kinds, although only the potato was procurable some years ago. Now cabbages, beetroot, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, and lettuce are to be had in season at a reasonable price, to say nothing of delicious water-melons in August, but I could not find that any other kind of garden-fruit was grown here, although wild berries are both numerous and delicious.

[22] The explorer Dobell wrote: "In the autumn of 1813 I found that agriculture had advanced no further than Olekma (Olekminsk), 600 versts above Yakutsk."