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Up to the present time the Russian Government has been amply justified in regarding Siberia as one vast prison, whose natural conditions offer more insuperable obstacles to escape than do iron bars, high walls, or any number of guards. But this is only to the “politicals,” to whom the forest ways are strange. The criminals, as I have said, are quite at home in the wild woods; and it is easily conceivable that to many of us the thought has occurred of making common cause with these people, and escaping in their company. Such attempts, however, have more than once had a fatal ending. The rascals are always ready to murder for the sake of gain; a “political’s” money, and even his clothes, are quite sufficient bait. In this manner it is supposed that Ladislas Isbitsky came by his death in the year 1880. He had successfully negotiated a “swop,” had escaped as an ordinary criminal—and then disappeared for ever, probably murdered by the tramps to whose guidance he had entrusted himself.
Another instance of this kind was related to me by a political exile, who, when himself a fugitive in company with some convict-tramps, chanced to overhear them planning to murder him in his sleep. For weeks he was obliged to feign sleep at night while really remaining awake—a terrible task, as may readily be imagined.
These criminals do not, indeed, even trust one another when on the road; and it is said that when two of them have to enter a narrow path, there will be a sharp dispute as to who is to go first, the one in front never feeling safe from an attack in the rear by the companion of his march.
Other dangers also lie in wait for the wanderer. Our comrade Vlastòpoulo, sentenced to penal servitude for life, narrowly escaped being devoured by a bear, during his flight in company with Kòziriov (another revolutionist condemned to penal servitude). He described to me how the bear came so suddenly upon them that they had no time to fly, and could only back against a tree, supposing their last hour had come. Bruin, however, must have had a full meal, for he trotted quietly by, apparently without noticing them! These two fugitives suffered terribly from hunger and thirst during their wanderings through the woods.
Although we had had no personal experience of these various dangers, most of us were so well aware of them that no plan of escape during the journey entered into our calculations; but two of our comrades could not resist the temptation to weave schemes of the kind. These were Maria Kalyùshnaya and the student Yordan—the former condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude, and the latter “administratively” exiled to Eastern Siberia for five years. They were both young, barely twenty, and their longing for freedom was overpowering. None of their projects of flight were practicable, however, and they did not attempt to carry them into execution. Both these young creatures died in prison; Maria Kalyùshnaya’s story, which I shall have to relate further on, being a specially sad one.
We had many opportunities, during our long march, of becoming acquainted with the people whose dwellings are beside the great highway. A certain air of comfort and well-being was often visible about them, and some of the larger settlements had the pleasant appearance of a Russian provincial town. Roomy, well-built houses, occasionally of more than one story, decorated with carving and provided with tidy hedges and gates, lined the road sometimes for several versts. Curtains and flower-pots showed in the windows; the rooms were often carpeted and furnished comfortably, sometimes even exhibiting the luxury of Austrian bentwood furniture. The cattle, so far as we could see, were finer and better kept than is usual among the Russian peasantry.
This well-to-do appearance was only in part to be ascribed to the productiveness of the husbandry in these regions. Trade and the conduct of traffic were the principal resources of the inhabitants; for this road was the only means of communication by land between Europe and the northern parts of Asia. Caravans in lengthy processions, sometimes in such numbers that the road was practically blocked, travelled along the great highway; and the country people found employment in the transport of both goods and passengers. The regular posting-stations were often unequal to the demands made upon them, and travellers—merchants especially—were obliged to hire private vehicles and pay dearly for them. Besides these legitimate industries, the inhabitants had another extremely lucrative source of gain. Many villages had won for themselves an evil name in this connection, and were known as “thieves’ towns,” because no caravan ever passed through them without paying toll of its wares; sometimes a chest of tea would be stolen, sometimes a horse, and so on. It was asserted that in some of these places the inhabitants made raids on travellers by night, and lived by highway robbery. It is characteristic of the country that this reputation lowered no man in public estimation. Anyone was received in “good society” if he were rich, no matter whether he were well known to have robberies by the score upon his conscience; he might, indeed, even be asked to fill the most honourable offices—such as churchwarden, mayor, or head of the commune. Later, when I was living in a Siberian town as an exile released from prison under police surveillance, I was frequently told by trustworthy persons, with every detail, how such and such a citizen, universally respected and esteemed, had made his fortune by cheating and robbery, or even by downright murder. There were numbers of people whose past could not bear inspection; and many of them, even after becoming possessed of wealth in superfluity, could not quite give up their old practices. It so fell out, for example, at the end of the eighties, that General Barabash the military governor of Tchita (the capital of the Transbaikalian Government), gave a banquet, to which all the notabilities of the place were invited, and that the highly respectable merchant and mayor Alexèiev broke off in the middle of the feasting and went straight from table to waylay the passing night-mail. This worthy citizen, with one of his friends, galloped after the mail-coach, murdered the driver, seriously wounded the guard, seized the bag containing the registered letters, and made off. The guard, however, whom they had left for dead, was rescued; and as an unusually energetic magistrate took the matter in hand, the whole story came out, and could not be hushed up in the customary manner. The case was brought before a court-martial, and the highway robbers were condemned to death.
These colonies by the great road had had very diverse origins, and were sharply differentiated from each other in character. There were more or less pure Russian villages, neighboured by barbaric Buriat settlements; and there were also villages inhabited exclusively by members of various sects, exiled from Russia and forcibly established there as a punishment for their daring to fall away from the Orthodox State religion. Those that I found specially interesting were the villages of the so-called Subòtniki (Sabbatarians). The members of this sect are Russian by nationality, yet their religion is the Mosaic in its strictest form.
It was curious in the extreme to find these typical representatives of the Slav race considering themselves Jews by virtue of their religion, and still stranger to hear them boasting of the prerogatives of their Israelitish faith. In their manner of life and occupations they differ in no way from ordinary Russian peasants; although in decency and prosperity their villages are far above those of their Christian neighbours.