CHAPTER XI.
TOMSK.
The city of Tomsk, which is situated on the river Tom, a branch of the Obi, contains over 40,000 inhabitants. Though scarcely as large as Irkoutsk, it is a more imposing place at first sight. The streets are broad and, though unpaved, in good order, notwithstanding the incessant stream of caravan traffic that pours through them in the tea season. The public buildings are fine, even handsome (of two, three, and four stories high), without the draggled, unfinished appearance of those at Irkoutsk and Krasnoiarsk, and there are shop-windows to enliven the appearance of the principal thoroughfares.
The steamer was not to leave for two days, a time we devoted to unpacking and overhauling our clothes. We found them in a sorry plight, while the leather portmanteaus were swollen like drowned dogs after the pitiless storms of rain. We also took the opportunity of writing home to announce our safe arrival so far. Posting letters in Siberia is somewhat wearisome. It took us nearly half an hour to despatch them, and then only by the aid of a Polish interpreter called in by the landlord of the Hotel. I signed my name at least six times before the necessary formalities were completed. Then, would I have them sent with one stamp or two? If the latter and the letter were lost, I might claim ten roubles from the Government, said the hotel-keeper, “Which you probably wouldn’t get,” added the Pole; so I trusted to Providence and sent them with one. All were opened several times by the authorities, one reaching London with no less than five different seals upon it.
Tomsk is built in two parts. The lower portion of the town, consisting nearly exclusively of merchants’ offices, shops, and warehouses, while on the heights overlooking them are the Governor’s palace, Government offices, and private residences of the better class of merchants. But although, as I have said, Tomsk is less depressing than other Siberian cities, the absence of trees or gardens gives the place the usual bare, cheerless appearance. The surrounding country is flat and marshy, and a fruitful cause of malaria and fever during spring and autumn. The summer is the busy season, when the tea from China and Trans-Baikalian merchandise is unloaded from the small carts which have brought it from Irkoutsk, Kiakhta, Stratensk, &c., and shipped on the steamers running by the Tom and Obi rivers to Tiumen. Just outside the town is a huge plain cut up in all directions by caravan roads, and at the extremity of which are the wharves where steamers lie to receive their cargoes. A dreary, desolate place it looked, the dull, wintry day we saw it, but in summer the whole place is alive with caravan carts, while in dry weather an eternal dust-cloud hangs like a pall over the huge plain. The railway which is now being projected between Tomsk and Irkoutsk, will do away with all this. This line completed, the tea will be sent to Wladivostok from China by sea, thence to Stratensk by the Amour river, and on by rail from Irkoutsk to Tomsk and European Russia.
The Hôtel d’Europe afforded us very fair accommodation (for Siberia). The cooking was excellent, and we managed to make ourselves comfortable enough. Tomsk is famed for two delicacies, sterlet and caviare. I have seldom tasted anything to equal the former in flavour, and the caviare, fresh from the fish and eaten a couple of hours after it had been taken, was food for the gods, and as unlike the potted abomination sold in England as can well be imagined. In all other respects, however, the hotel was sadly deficient. Our room swarmed with vermin, and there was not a bath to be had in the place for love or money; the only washing appliance in the hotel being a small tin vessel nailed up against the wall of the corridor, and holding about a pint, a small tap turning on a tiny, trickling stream of water, which ran over one’s hands and on to the floor. I asked our host why he did not provide wash-hand basins for his customers. “They are so dirty,” was the reply, “half the time you are washing your hands in dirty water. By our plan it runs over you fresh and clean!”
We attended a performance at the Opera House of “Barbe Bleu,” but it was poorly performed, and the artists very inferior to those of Irkoutsk. The streets of Tomsk are, unlike those of Irkoutsk, fairly safe after dark, for they are well lit by gas and patrolled throughout the night by a strong force of police. Although invited to a public ball the third evening of our stay, we were unable to put in an appearance, having so many arrangements to make, and the steamer leaving at 4 a.m. the following day. With previous experiences of the manners and customs of Siberians after 12 a.m., we determined not to risk losing it. They must be amusing sights, these Siberian dances. It is not customary to walk about a ball-room, even in the intervals of dancing. Each guest moves about with a sort of dancing step, à la Polonaise. Judging from their evening parties, a Siberian ball-room must become a very fair imitation of a beer garden towards the small hours of the morning, and we were perhaps fortunate in having stayed away.
One is struck at Tomsk by the number of well-turned-out carriages and horses in the streets though the “droshki” or public vehicles are rough, uncomfortable things, in shape something like an Irish jaunting car, with a seat about half a yard broad, to hold two persons sitting back to back. They are not built high from the ground, luckily, for the yemstchiks are perfectly indifferent as to whether their passengers fall out or not, and whirl round corners in the most reckless way. Although the male population are of the same sulky, hangdog-looking appearance as we saw at Irkoutsk, the women were distinctly pretty, and the majority extremely well dressed. But few affected the Siberian costume, the long cloak and white head-handkerchief, so much in vogue in Eastern Siberia, but the smart gowns and neat figures encountered in the streets pleasantly recalled one to the fact that we were once more nearing civilization. I saw women in the Grande Rue of Tomsk, who would have been considered pretty and well dressed in Bond Street, but these were only amongst the upper classes. The peasantry, male and female, are, with few exceptions, hideous.
It says little, however, for the intelligence or civilization of the population of both Tomsk and Irkoutsk, that we were unable to procure a single French or German book at either city. We had not had a single book of any kind to read since leaving Pekin, and were naturally anxious to get something to lighten the tedious and weary hours that lay between us and Tiumen, but, search as we might, could discover no French or German, to say nothing of English, work of any kind. A university has since been founded at Tomsk, and matters may have improved in this respect, but it seemed strange that in a population of nearly fifty thousand souls (many of whom spoke German) there should have been nothing but Russian works obtainable. Although art of all kinds is at a low ebb in most of the Siberian towns, there is one thing in which they certainly do excel——in photography. For clearness and finish some of their productions are equal to those of the best photographers in London or Paris, notably those of Bogdanovitch in Irkoutsk. I was told by the latter that the best are taken in winter time, when the clear, rarefied atmosphere and dazzling sunshine offer excellent opportunities for obtaining good negatives.
We were somewhat staggered by the hotel bill presented us by the host of the Hôtel d’Europe, the total amounting to two hundred and seventy roubles (or nearly 30l.) for barely four days’ bed and board. In vain I protested against the enormity of the items (not one of which, by the way, could I read), in vain threatened sooner than be thus swindled, to stop in Tomsk and bring the matter before a court of justice. But the old Jew was inexorable, and only smiled blandly and rubbed his hands, murmuring now and then, “The gospodin must not lose his temper.” He laughed outright at my threat of bringing the matter into court, his amusement being accounted for by the interpreter, who told us that he, being the chief magistrate, would himself have tried the case. To make matters worse, we had that morning sold the old rascal our tarantass for sixty roubles (about one-third of its real value), on the express understanding that he would charge as little as possible for accommodation.
We set out at 4 a.m. on the morning of the 19th of September for the steamer. Our way was fraught with considerable difficulty, for it was as dark as pitch out on the plain, which was covered in places with deep holes and pitfalls. Though only four versts, it took two hours to do the distance, and we were right glad when, a little before daybreak, the green and red lights of the Kazanetse shone out bright and clear, while at the same time her steam whistle sounded for departure, recalling us to the fact that we were now no longer at the mercy of drunken drivers and broken-down axles, but well within reach of Europe by means of that blessed invention, steam!