Considerable patience is certainly needed on these Siberian journeys, for the roads are often appallingly bad, especially when the inundations set in after a thaw, when even the bridges are carried off by the torrents. Then, again, what is particularly exasperating is the passive air of resignation assumed by all concerned, postmaster and coachman, and even by one’s travelling companions. Accustomed as these people are to live in a climate in which the forces of Nature defy the ingenuity of man, they are very apt, especially as they have nothing on earth else to do, to shrug their shoulders at the inevitable, and to avoid with supreme skill troubling themselves about the ways and means of bettering things. I remember on one occasion, after having been assured at Kiakhta and Chita that if I persisted in continuing my journey I was exposing my life, being landed in a ford into which one of the wheels of the tarantass stuck. To extricate it, we had to work for over an hour in the cold water and in the dim dawn, and even then we were only able to do so with the help of two Buriats who were passing that way, and who lent us their horses to assist us in getting out of this unpleasant fix. With the sole exception of this mishap I had very little to complain of. It is in the post-stations, however, that one’s patience is put to the test and that one realizes the force of a truism made by a certain English author, who began a book on Siberia with the following singular aphorism: ‘In Siberia time is not money.’ One crosses the threshold of these rather doleful-looking houses, which become more and more lugubrious as one advances eastward, with a feeling akin to dread.
The postmaster is almost invariably to be found seated in front of a very dirty register, and generally grunts out his answers to your inquiries as to whether he has any horses ready, ‘You will have to wait two or three hours, possibly until the next morning,’ after which pleasant piece of information you pass into the common waiting-room, usually furnished with a few chairs, two or three tables and one or two old sofas. On the wall hang an ikon or so, the inevitable portraits of their Majesties, and a few frames with the usual printed instructions and regulations. Then comes a sort of glorified bill-of-fare, from a perusal of which you learn the names of a number of succulent dishes, but, unfortunately, the last line informs you that the postmaster is only obliged to supply you with black bread and hot water, the last article being intended to make tea, with which, together with sugar, every traveller supplies himself before starting. Nearly always, however, one finds excellent eggs and milk. It is wise in travelling in Trans-Baikalia to take a supply of preserves, which you can procure in any large Siberian town.
The travellers, however, whom one meets in these resorts are generally exceedingly friendly, very willing and even eager to share their provisions. Seated round the great copper samovar, conversation becomes cordial and intimate, everybody calling each other, regardless of age or sex, by their Christian names, ‘Nicholas Petrovitch,’ ‘Paul Ivanovitch,’ ‘Elisabeth Alexandrovna,’ and so forth. Constantly, when on the journey, one often falls in with the same people, and thus acquaintance soon ripens into intimacy. But, although these gatherings round the samovar are very agreeable, and enable one to study the pleasanter qualities of the Russian people, it is not advisable to pass the night in any of the hostelries along the road, for all the insecticide powders ever invented will not insure a quiet night.
However interesting, therefore, a cross-country journey through Siberia may be, it is not exactly of the kind one would recommend for a pleasure trip, although many Russian ladies, even of the highest rank, frequently undertake it, but I do not recommend it to delicate people. When supplied with a podorojne and the weather is fine the journey is pleasant enough, but it must not be forgotten that it takes seven weeks to go from the Ural to Vladivostok. In winter the journey by sleigh from the Volga takes two months, but if it takes so long for a traveller, what must it be for merchandise! Commerce, therefore, on account of the backward condition of the land routes, is obliged in Siberia to make use of the splendid watercourses, but even these are paralyzed during seven months of the year by thick coatings of ice, and, what is still worse, they all flow towards an ocean eternally blocked by icebergs.
Recently some very hardy experiments, crowned so far with partial success, have been made to penetrate to the heart of Siberia by the Polar Sea when navigation is free during certain weeks of the year. It will be remembered that it was by the White Sea that European commerce, represented by an Englishman named Chancellor, first entered Russia in the sixteenth century. It is therefore not to be wondered at that attempts have been made to penetrate into Siberia by the mouths of the Obi and the Yenissei, which are situated at no greater distance than 1,000 to 1,200 miles from the northernmost part of Norway, where the sea is always free from ice. M. Sidorov, a Russian gentleman of ample fortune, in the middle of the present century, devoted himself to carrying out this scheme, and notwithstanding that he was discouraged by the leading scientists of the day, who considered it impracticable, he promised a very ample reward to the captain of the first ship which should enter the Yenissei. Two expeditions, attempted in 1862 and 1869, failed; but in 1874 an Englishman named Wiggins, captain of the Diana, succeeded in passing the Straits of Kara, which separate Novaya Zemlya from the continent, on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, and thus was able to effect a passage into the estuary of the Yenissei. More successful attempts were made in the following years, and in 1878 iron, groceries, machinery, and other articles, were landed at the mouths of the Obi and the Yenissei. In 1887 an English company was formed to carry on a regular service at the close of each summer between England and the North of Siberia, but unfortunately the first year was not successful, the goods not being of a profitable character. On the succeeding voyage the vessel could not pass the Straits of Kara, and had to return home. Subsequently a new company was formed, but with disastrous results. These ineffectual attempts, however, did not discourage the English, and the scheme for navigating the Arctic Ocean was reassumed on a larger basis in 1896, when three steamers entered the Yenissei and ascended that river to Turukhansk, about 600 miles from its estuary, where their goods were transferred to large barges and conveyed to Krasnoyarsk. The merchandise, which included seven steam-engines, was sold for a fair profit. This English company has now installed an agency at Krasnoyarsk, and the Russian Government, in consideration of the great services which it has rendered at great risk in attempting to create a regular service through the Arctic Ocean into Western and Central Siberia, has reduced the customs duties on all goods introduced by it by one-half, and indeed has completely abandoned its claims on a number of articles such as grocery and machinery. Moreover, so pleased has the Russian Government been by this courageous attempt that it has granted some very valuable mining concessions on this river. In 1897 six English steamers returned to Turukhansk, and quite a fleet of them was directed to the mouth of the Obi, hitherto somewhat neglected on account of the shallowness of the water. Moreover, an attempt has recently been made to create an export trade between Siberia and England, and a cargo of corn brought by the company’s barges to the point where their ships are anchored was soon afterwards happily transported to Europe. In 1898 the same company met with identical success. Thus far this enterprise has been very fortunate. Needless to say, the Kara Sea and the straits which border upon it are, up to the beginning of August, blocked with ice, concentrated there by the different currents, and the season during which navigation is possible lasts only from six weeks to two months, between August and September. The ships used in this particular service must leave Europe a little beforehand, so as to await at the Straits of Kara a favourable opportunity to penetrate to the mouth of the rivers, ascend them, discharge and recharge, and start again as quickly as possible. The time is exceedingly limited during which the barges can transport their cargoes into the interior and reascend the Siberian rivers ere these are frozen over, and this especially is the case on the Yenissei, whose currents, even at Krasnoyarsk, are not more than six miles an hour, attaining, however, twelve miles between Krasnoyarsk and Yenissei. Therefore it is impossible to perform more than seventy to eighty miles a day, and it must be remembered that between Turukhansk and Krasnoyarsk the distance is about 1,000 miles, and that in the beginning of October navigation is suspended. Under these conditions it is not likely that more than one service a year can ever be organized, although possibly, when the peculiarities of the icy regions of the Kara Sea are better known, it might be otherwise. It should also be mentioned that the vessels engaged in this particular trade have not been built expressly for it, but are ordinary cargo-boats, which can be engaged during the rest of the year trading in pleasanter climes. If the present company establishes itself definitely it will be extremely fortunate, not only for the town of Krasnoyarsk, but for the whole of Siberia, which will thus be able to export, by a very cheap route, the excess of its harvests and perhaps also some of its superb wood, and receive in exchange from Western Europe manufactured articles and machinery, hitherto exclusively supplied from Moscow. Therefore the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway, combined with the passage of navigation through the Arctic Sea, will necessarily benefit Asiatic Russia very considerably, and help that country to obtain freer communication with the rest of the world, and thereby enable it eventually to become completely modernized.
CHAPTER IX
THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY
Origin of the Trans-Siberian Railway—At first considered only from the strategic and political point of view—Completion of the Ural Railway—Project of utilizing the navigable routes to unite Russia to the Amur—Difficulties encountered owing to the severity of the climate—Alexander III. in 1891 decides to lay a line between the Ural and the Pacific, and determines the conditions of its construction—The various sections of the line and its deviations across Manchuria—Condition of the works in 1892, and the speed with which it has been constructed—Russia now possesses (1900) a line of mixed communication by train and boat passing from the Ural to the Pacific, and in 1904 a complete line will pass directly from the Ural to Port Arthur, a distance of over 4,130 miles—The monster ferry-boats in course of construction to convey passengers across Lake Baikal—The success of the enterprise.
The idea of making an overland road from Russia to the Far East and the Pacific probably germinated in the fertile brain of Voltaire, who, in a letter to Count Schuvarof, dated Ferney, June 11, 1761, said ‘that it ought to be possible to travel from Russia direct to China without having to cross any considerable mountain pass, just as one can go from St. Petersburg to Paris without leaving the plain.’ The matter was even more practically defined, nearer our own time, by Count Mouravief-Amurski, who, after he had annexed the province of the Amur to Russia, favoured the idea of building a Trans-Siberian railway, and, in the meantime, encouraged the creation of a postal highroad from the Urals to the Amur, which, he considered, would greatly strengthen Russian prestige on the shores of the Pacific.
The Trans-Siberian Railway, it may be remarked, was not originally designed merely in the interests of Siberia, but as a means of uniting Europe with the rich countries of the Far East, in such a manner as to avoid the necessity of passing any length of time in the rude and sparsely-peopled intermediary territories. Even after the project was definitely accepted by Alexander III., the political and strategical considerations of the problem were deemed of far greater importance than the commercial; but presently it transpired that Siberia was not quite the forlorn country hitherto imagined, but that it possessed certain resources of great value, which might easily be developed, provided rapid communication with the rest of the empire was organized.
The first step in the right direction was the construction of the Ural Railway, opened in 1880, which united Perm on the Kama with Tiumen on the Tobol, a river flowing into the Irtysh. The increasing necessity of developing the important gold and iron mines in the Urals was doubtless the principal motive why this line was completed; but presently it proved to be of vast importance to the rest of Siberia, since, by combining the river with the land routes, it became possible, at least during five or six months of the year, to reach Tomsk in a relatively short period.