The town of Kiakhta is divided into two parts, Kiakhta, the town proper, where the governor or frontier commissioner lives, and where are situated most of the tea-warehouses and offices, and Troitzkosavsk, a suburb about half a mile distant, almost entirely composed of private houses belonging to the merchants. The population of Kiakhta, with Troitzkosavsk, is a little under six thousand, but this does not include the Chinese settlement of Maimachin, containing four thousand souls, all of whom are men. There is not a woman or child in the place, the Chinese law forbidding wives to accompany their husbands beyond the Great Wall of China. We visited Maimachin, and found it far cleaner than most Chinese towns. There were but eight streets, all wide and well-drained. The houses are of wood and brick, and some of them gorgeously decorated with vermilion and gold. Many of the population spoke Russian, and all the wealthier merchants. I visited the house of one while he was employed in “tasting tea,” by driving a hollow piece of metal into the chest like a cheese scoop, and drawing out a small sample.
Our hotel was situate in the main street of Troitzkosavsk, which is a sad, dreary-looking place. Most of the houses are of unpainted wood, which give it a sombre look; though the college, church, and principal merchants’ houses are built of whitewashed brick, with bright green roofs, and detract somewhat from the depressing aspect around. Kiakhta is a terrible place for bells. They were eternally going, morning, noon, and night——not a lively, cheery peal, but a slow, solemn tolling, like a continual passing-bell. But for this Troitzkosavsk is the sleepiest and most dead-alive town imaginable. Except, towards evening, when the population turn out en masse for a breath of fresh air, there is seldom a sound to break the dead silence that reigns in the unpaved, dusty street that constitutes its main thoroughfare, from morning till night.
Kiakhta is not unhealthy. It is not subject to the violent and sudden changes of temperature found further south in Mongolia. It seldom rains, and never snows. Travellers in winter have to drive out a distance of eight or ten miles before they can get into the sleigh which is to bear them to Irkoutsk, Tomsk, Yakoutzk, and other parts of Siberia. The coldest and hottest weather experienced in Kiakhta summer and winter are 95° and 33° below zero respectively, figures that may sound startling to the reader, but nothing compared to Yakoutzk, where in mid-winter it sometimes exceeds 58° below zero. The earth at the latter place is said to be always frozen below the surface to a depth of over thirty feet, summer and winter.
Five o’clock in the afternoon is the busiest part of the day in the frontier-city. Then it is that the whole population turns out, the wealthier part for its evening drive, the poorer to listen to the military band which plays every day throughout the summer in the public gardens. Had it not been for the motley crowd of Russians, Chinese, Mongolians, Bouriattes, and other queer races in their bright, gaudy costumes, one might have been in the gardens of some garrison-town in France or Germany, so civilized were all but the human surroundings. It was amusing to watch the female élite of Kiakhta, the wives and daughters of wealthy tea-merchants, dressed in the latest Paris fashions, flirting, talking scandal, and ruining their neighbours’ reputations, just like their more civilized sisters ten thousand miles away in London or Paris. Equally interesting was it to stroll about among the crowd of Cossack officers, resplendent in white and gold, Mongol Tartars, in rags and silk, Siberian peasants in Russian dress, Chinese soldiers from Maimachin, Russian soldiers from Kiakhta, nursemaids with children and perambulators, and men in frock-coats and tall hats. The gardens at Kiakhta were a sight worth seeing. It was hard to realize that the desert of Gobi is but a stone’s throw from this scene of almost European civilization.
We took an affectionate farewell of Jee Boo two days after our arrival. The carts were returning to Kalgan, and as Chinamen have an innate horror of crossing the desert with strange Mongols, he had determined to go with them, though we offered him a good round sum if he would wait and see us out of Kiakhta, for I knew but a few words of Russian, certainly not enough to complete the purchase of our tarantass or travelling-carriage satisfactorily. He was obdurate, however, also the Mongols, so we had to make the best of it, trusting to find some one who could speak a few words of English, though that seemed improbable enough in Kiakhta.
But we found a friend in need, and when we least expected it. The town of Troitzkosavsk boasts a college, established and maintained by a private individual——an enormously wealthy gold-miner. One must have lived in a place where not a soul understands your native language to appreciate our delight when we met Professor R————, a German by birth, but professor of English at the college, who had, by the way, only just arrived here, and who greeted us in our own tongue, one morning with a familiar “Good morning, gentlemen. I think I am addressing the two travellers from Pekin.” Never did the English tongue sound so sweet to my ears, for we were now out of our dilemma, and accepting the professor’s invitation, followed him home to his rooms for breakfast.
The world is small indeed, for Professor R———— and we had many mutual friends, whose names sounded odd in the mouth of a stranger at what might well be called the uttermost ends of the earth. Our new acquaintance had had a strange career before drifting to this remote part of Asia. By birth a German, and a gentleman’s son, he had left home when a lad, and enlisted in the 22nd Regiment, where he was promoted to the rank of sergeant. Leaving the service in 1870, he was appointed teacher of the German language at Southsea Naval College, a post he afterwards left to assist Mr. F————, of Storrington, Sussex, a well-known private tutor. Professor R———— had left Storrington to take up an appointment as professor of German at the Royal Naval College, Petersburg, from whence he had been promoted to Senior Professor of English at the College of Kiakhta. A born linguist, Herr R———— was proficient in English, French, Russian, Italian, and last, but not least, Mongolian. The latter, however, he had only taken up for a few months, and was compelled to admit that the mastering of it was hardly worth the candle.
“We will go for a walk after breakfast,” said our host. “But I must first introduce you to the lions of Kiakhta, after which we will see about the tarantass.” Breakfast over, we set out with our friend for a ramble round the place.
The professor was, like all Germans, no friend of Russia. “What are they but pigs, these Siberians?” said he, as we walked down to Kiakhta. “The men are all thieves, do nothing all day but smoke, drink, and play cards. As for the women, you can easily imagine what becomes of them under such circumstances. There is no rational amusement of any kind here, no sport among the men, no music or dancing among the women, nothing but vodka, vodka, vodka, cards, cards, cards, all day long. “Ah! mon cher, n’en parlons plus. Ce sont des canailles!” I then thought our friend was a little hard upon the good people of Kiakhta, but had good cause, afterwards, to alter my opinion.
The cathedral, which was entirely built by tea-merchants, is a beautiful building of Byzantine architecture. The cost is said to have been 150,000l. sterling, and after seeing the gorgeous decorations of the interior, one had no difficulty in believing this. The altar alone, of solid gold, silver, and platinum, cost 30,000l., while the principal doors of the building are of solid silver, and weigh 200 lbs. A huge candlestick and chandelier studded with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds, and several beautifully executed oil paintings from Europe, together with some Ikons or sacred pictures, thickly encrusted with precious stones, completed the decoration of the interior of the building, which though, like most Russian churches, of a florid style, was exceedingly beautiful. A peal of eight bells, made in Moscow, and of great weight, must have added not a little to the general cost, for they had to be dragged two thousand miles through the deep, muddy roads of Siberia. There are two smaller churches in Kiakhta besides a large cemetery, lying between that town and Troitzkosavsk.