THE HIGH STREET, YENISEISK.
[To face [p. 118].
A SWELL.
What, I fancy, astonishes an Englishman most in Siberia for the first time, is the wonderful temperature he finds inside all the houses, from the richest to the poorest—a temperature so equable as to permit of the rarest tropical plants being cultivated with the greatest success. I may say, in fact, that many of the houses of the rich mine-owners present the appearance of conservatories, so crowded are they with exotics of all sorts, from climbing plants trained to grow round the doors to huge palms or plantains, and all in the most perfect condition. An Englishman’s surprise is, therefore, comprehensible. He has heard of the frightful cold of the Siberian winter, so arrives in the country duly armed against it according to English ideas. To his astonishment he finds that, when the thermometer in the street registers 40 deg. of frost (Réaumur) the temperature of his room is still as genial as though it were spring, although there is no stove visible. His thick flannel shirts are naturally very much too warm; he only requires one thin blanket on his bed; and, when he goes out into the open air, his dacha is amply sufficient to keep out the cold. That most complete device for heating a house that was ever imagined, the Russian stove, robs, therefore, the Siberian winter of many of its terrors, and makes a visit to this interesting and little-known country pleasant even during the coldest period of the year.
The High Street of Yeniseisk is not unpicturesque; and the importance of many of the buildings is enough to upset all the previously conceived ideas of Siberian towns. It would astonish most Europeans if they could see the stately mansions owned by some of the millionaire mine-owners and rich exiles; these houses look as if they had been transplanted from the Champs Elysées or the Bois de Boulogne, and in the interior are to be found luxuries with which Paris, rather than Siberia, is generally associated. In my sketch I have, unfortunately, been unable to give any of these palatial residences, as I wanted to show the general effect of the town, with the schools, fire-towers, one of the many churches, and the inevitable telegraph-poles. The two Collegiate schools—one for boys, the other for girls—were founded by one of the merchant princes of the town—Mr. Kitmanoff. They are built in a style which would mark them as striking-looking buildings in any town in the world. They contain a fine laboratory of physical science, well supplied with apparatus, and a drawing-class room, provided with plaster casts and geometrical models; the walls of the rooms and corridors are hung with maps, drawings, and diagrams useful for teaching, and the seats and desks are of the most approved design for schools. There are several European professors of competent attainments in this excellent educational institution. Yeniseisk, though only a place of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, is quite a model abode of civilization.
THE TWO COLLEGIATE SCHOOLS, YENISEISK.