Most of the latter commence life as common miners, and gradually rise, more by luck than anything else, to a position of affluence; indeed many of them make colossal fortunes. In summer they live at the mines, working like the very labourers nature intended them to be; but the early part of November sees them back in Irkoutsk or Tomsk, as the case may be. Then commences a life of unbridled debauchery and dissipation, which only ends with the return of the spring.
Vanity and snobbishness are the chief failings of these men, who will not notice you, though you may have dined with them the preceding evening, if you happen to be walking, not driving, in the street, or wearing astrakhan instead of beaver. I asked one why he did not go to St. Petersburg or Paris and enjoy his enormous income instead of burying himself in the wilds of Asia. The reply was characteristic: “Here in Irkoutsk I am a great man, what should I be in Paris or St. Petersburg?” I knew, but did not tell him.
The find of gold is yearly increasing in Siberia. It is found in large quantities at Nertchinsk and Kara in the Trans-Baikal districts, but the most productive mines are those lying around Yeneseisk, Kansk, and the sources of the great Lena River, Yuz and Abakansk in Southern Siberia. Any one (being a Russian subject) may work the gold, but all that is found must be sold to Government only, a private individual discovered with nuggets or gold dust in his possession is severely punished, be he owner or the lowest workman in the mine. At first sight the rent of a mine in Siberia seems absurdly low. For instance the Yuz Gold-field in Southern Siberia, a tract of land five versts long by four broad, is leased to the workers at 300 roubles[[10]] per annum. On the other hand, the royalty is high, and the cost of labour enormous. The commonest miner earns his 1800 to 2000 roubles during the season, which lasts from April to the middle or end of October, according to the severity or mildness of the weather.
But the outlay is well worth it. Two mine-owners round Krasnoiarsk made, in less than ten years, over two million pounds sterling, and there is now in Irkoutsk a M. Trapeznikoff who is worth his four millions at the very least. The latter, a bachelor under fifty years of age, hardly ever leaves his palace at Irkoutsk, except for a few weeks in the summer to visit the mines. He is, unlike the majority of his confrères, an educated man and a gentleman. Here is a chance for mothers with marriageable daughters. The journey to Irkoutsk will be easily made in another year or so by railway from Tomsk.
It seems a pity that millions of money should be thrown away on such savages. Though there is plenty of sport in the immediate neighbourhood, good deer and bear shooting, and excellent salmon fishing in the Angara, they never dream of taking out a gun or rod. The millionaires of Irkoutsk have, with few exceptions, but little idea of real comfort. You call upon one of these Siberian Vanderbilts at 11 a.m., and he will produce champagne, and be offended if you refuse to drink with him. Dine with him, and though you may be raging with thirst, you will only get Kümmel, Chartreuse, or sticky messes of a like nature, to wash down your dinner, though it be prepared by a “Chef” from Paris, in receipt of a higher salary than many an English rector. Stay the night with your host, and you will be shown to a bedroom gorgeously furnished, and a chef-d’œuvre of the upholsterer’s art, replete with every luxury that money can buy, with one exception: you will search in vain for a bed, and must turn in, as you are, clothes and all, on the sofa. Look under the thick Turkey carpets, and you will find the flooring an inch thick with dust, and, behind the curtains, the plate-glass windows coated with dirt; comfort and cleanliness everywhere given up to ostentation and swagger. In one house that I dined at, an enormous gold nugget was placed on the table, and used as an ash-tray, our host announcing in a loud voice that its use in this capacity lost him annually 300l. sterling in interest! We had a couple of introductions to these merchant-princes, but only handed one, fearing that on a second occasion our temper might get the better of our good manners. On our entry into the drawing-room, only the hostess and her daughters favoured us by shaking our hands. The men stood round, made remarks to each other on our personal appearance, and every now and then burst into fits of half-suppressed laughter. I am bound to admit the women looked ashamed of their male relations, as well they might. Be it understood I am now talking of a particular class, for among the Siberian peasantry rudeness is very rare, and we met with nothing but hospitality and kindness. I have already described the manner in which the merchants of Eastern Siberia spend their evenings. There is no difference, except that in some houses the givers of the entertainment do precede their orgies with a hurried meal, eaten standing. The sooner over the better, so that the real business of the evening, drinking, may commence. I only twice assisted at these evening parties in Siberia, once at Kiakhta, and once at Irkoutsk. As I have said, each left the same impression on my mind as a head-feast I once witnessed anions a race of savages in Central Borneo, who after a victory, deliberately got drunk for three days on end. But the “untutored savage” was far less idiotic and revolting on these occasions than the Siberian “Gentleman,” could such an anomaly as the latter exist.
The ladies of Irkoutsk are for the most part lazy, indolent creatures, with no ideas beyond immoral intrigues, dress (on which they spend thousands), and Zola’s novels, which, translated into Russian, have an enormous sale in the towns of Siberia. The greater part of the day is spent in sleeping and smoking cigarettes, for in winter they seldom retire to rest till five or six in the morning. Though most of their houses boast a grand piano, the instrument is solely kept for ornament, and seldom opened. Two schools for girls have, however, lately been established, and many of them now speak French and German, and are well educated in other ways, but morality at Irkoutsk is at a very low ebb. One can scarcely wonder at it, considering the frivolous, excitable lives of the women, and drunkenness and sensuality of the men.
Strange as it may seem, we found the society of the tradespeople in Irkoutsk far more congenial to our taste than that of their so-called superiors. Many of the former are exiles sent to Siberia after the Polish insurrection of 1862, and permitted after their five years of imprisonment at Nertchinsk or Kara to settle and obtain employment in the capital. I met one (a photographer) who had had hotels at Paris and Warsaw and his villa on the Riviera in happier times, a charming old man with an only daughter, a pretty girl of sixteen, who, he used to say with tears in his eyes, would probably never see dear Poland. His wife had died on the road in giving birth to the child, who, in sad memory of those dark days, the old man had named “Kara.”
We had many a laugh together over the vulgar eccentricities of his rich customers. “They are terrible, are they not?” he would say with a shrug of his shoulders, “mais que voulez-vous? What can this cursed country produce but men like that, convicts, bears, and wolves!”
I never could discover who my old friend was, for, like most of his countrymen, he abandoned his name or title the day he crossed the Ourals into Asia. Nor would he ever volunteer any information respecting his past life; but he seemed, on the whole, fairly contented with his lot. Sixteen years of exile had reconciled him more or less to the loss of the home he would never see again.
A common expression among exiles, even of a higher class, when they want to fix the date of any past event is, “It was six months after I left prison.” “It was a year before I got my discharge,” &c. They do not seem the least ashamed of their incarceration; on the contrary, are rather proud of it. The barman of the Moskovskaya Podovorié, who presided over a glittering array of champagne and liqueur bottles, smoked ham, caviare, pickled salmon, and other delicacies, in the café just below our window, had served five years in the Nertchinsk mine. This same café, by the way, was rather a nuisance, for it formed the favourite trysting-place of the Jeunesse Dorée of Irkoutsk at the closing of the theatres, and they sometimes kept it up till four in the morning. Another custom in Siberian towns extremely irritating to those of a wakeful disposition, is the incessant beating together, by the watchman, of two pieces of metal, which produces a sharp, ringing sound. This noise, which goes on in every street without intermission from sunset to sunrise, is made to warn thieves and malefactors that the police are on the alert, a watchman to every street. I could never understand why such pains should be taken to herald their approach, and fancy some of our English burglars would give a good yearly subscription to have the same practice instituted.