It was a lovely winter morning; there was a sharp frost, and the houses and streets of Moscow were white with newly fallen snow. Our fetters rang clearly in the frosty air, and under our feet the snow crackled, as in a long line we marched away to the gaol. We passed by many of those churches and chapels in which “White Moscow” is so rich; and here most of the convicts uncovered their heads and crossed themselves. On the other hand, there were many streets and market-squares which reminded us “politicals” of historic events that had taken place there, which had much in common with our own experiences. Here the Tsars had brought their enemies to execution. There the suspects had been publicly flogged. And now appears “Butirki,” as the populace nicknamed the Central Prison for exiles about to be deported. It is a mighty stone building, and looks like a gigantic well; a great wall, with a tower at each of the four corners, encloses it. The main building is reserved for ordinary criminals, who are to be transported to Siberia, and contains accommodation for many thousands. In the high towers are lodged the various classes of “politicals.” Those condemned to penal servitude are confined in the Pugatchev tower, which takes its name from the celebrated adversary of Catherine II.; that Pugatchev who wanted to “shake Moscow to its foundations,” and was made a show of in an iron cage, till the Tsaritsa sent him to the scaffold. In the north tower were the “administrative” exiles; in the third, or chapel tower, those still under examination; in the fourth the women belonging to all the different categories.
“BUTIRKI,” THE CENTRAL PRISON AT MOSCOW
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I was well informed as to the conditions prevailing in this giant prison, from which thousands—if not tens of thousands—of persons of all sorts and conditions are despatched yearly into exile. The reports were not exactly unfavourable, but when we arrived at the door and entered the gloomy edifice, a painful feeling seized on me. Since my arrest in Freiburg—that is, during at least eight months—I had come to know three German and six Russian prisons, and in each there was a different régime. However careless one may be of one’s material comfort, one cannot help experiencing an uncomfortable sensation when entering a new place of confinement; knowing that one may be denied the most elementary necessaries, and may perhaps have once more to begin a bitter fight about one’s right to exercise, books, a table, or a bedstead.
In the spacious office there awaited us a man of about sixty, with a long white beard, and spectacles on his nose, dressed in a well-worn military coat with officer’s epaulettes. This was Captain Maltchèvsky, one of the prison governors, specially charged with the supervision of the political prisoners. After we ourselves and our luggage had been searched in the usual way, we were led off to our respective quarters.
I was first taken through a long, narrow court terminating in a doorway. Here the warder rang a bell; another warder appeared, and conducted us through another narrow court, and up an iron spiral staircase till we reached the third floor. We came to a halt on a dimly lighted landing scarcely a yard and a half wide, with five doors round it. One of these was opened, and I found myself in my cell. A rapid glance showed me that it was not exactly luxurious; it was an irregular triangle in shape, so tiny that one could scarcely take three steps across it, and very little light came through the narrow window. However, it contained a bed and other usual furniture.
“And here I shall have to live for six long months,” I thought sadly.
“Good day! Who are you?” said a voice close at hand. It turned out that two prisoners were my neighbours, condemned like me to penal servitude in Siberia. They were concerned in the “trial of the fourteen,” or “Vera Figner Case,” as we usually called it, and had been sentenced at the same time as myself. We introduced ourselves to one another, and talked through the peepholes in our doors, which did not seem at all to disturb the warder, who was on the landing. He soon after took us out for an airing in the little court I had passed through, which was enclosed within high walls; and as he left us alone here, we could talk as much as we liked to the tune of our clanking fetters while we walked up and down.
I now for the first time saw other political convicts like myself, “deprived of all civil rights” and condemned to penal servitude. It was a strange sight. I noted their youthful but worn faces; both of them wore spectacles, and on their heads were round caps with no brims. With their yellow sheepskins and rattling chains my comrades gave one the impression that they could not be real convicts, but were just dressed up for the part—so great was the contrast between their refined faces and behaviour and this uncouth disguise.