The southern agricultural region of Siberia, in contradistinction to the frozen zone to the north, is mainly inhabited by European settlers. The proportion of these over the native population is greatest in the west, and decreases towards the east, where, however, it still remains superior by about two-thirds, so that we need not hesitate to conclude that out of the 5,000,000 people living on this long strip of land, more than four million and a half are of European origin. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the indigenous Mongol and Turki population, which is immensely superior to the poor tribes of fishermen and hunters who wander about the northern zone, does not diminish, but continues to increase, much less rapidly, however, than the Russians, who are constantly being reinforced by emigration. Fortunately the feeling between these two distinct elements is excellent; the Russians, being of Oriental extraction, do not hold those racial prejudices which are so marked among the Anglo-Saxons. The religious question, which is of course an obstacle to any attempt at a fusion between the Orthodox and the Buddhist population, is also not very intense or intricate. The Russian is essentially tolerant, in opposition to his Government, which is the reverse. The Orthodox emigrants have no objection to a Pagoda or a Lamasery being erected alongside of their own churches and monasteries. I remember seeing, while travelling, from Cheliabinsk to Omsk, the Metropolitan of the last-named town, who happened to be in the train, get out at a certain station to visit a church which was being built, and to bestow his benediction upon a crowd of Mujiks who had assembled for the purpose of receiving it. Whilst the ceremony was in progress, a few feet further on five Tatar travellers had stretched their carpets, and, with their faces turned Meccawards, were going through the elaborate gymnastics connected with Mussulman devotion. The Mujiks, who were crowding forward to kiss their priest’s hand, never dreamt of disturbing the Mohammedan worshippers, but watched them quite respectfully. I doubt very much whether in any part of Europe three centuries ago, when the populace was not more developed in the intellectual sense than are these poor Mujiks, such a scene of tolerance could ever have been witnessed. The Russian Government accords the utmost liberty to its subjects in Asia in matters of religion. The origin of Russian official intolerance in Europe is in the main purely political, and if it considers Buddhists and Mussulmans in Siberia less objectionable than Catholics and Protestants, it is simply because the followers of these divergent creeds are the representatives of former and very dangerous enemies, and are, moreover, perpetually endeavouring to impose their doctrine upon anyone with whom they come into contact.
The Russian colonization of Siberia has been carried out without the aid of any other European nationality. There are only a few hundred other Europeans settled in the country, the greater number of whom are French people. I was much amused at the little station at Sokur, about nine leagues from the Obi, to find a buffet kept by a Frenchwoman, a peasant who had married a Bessarabian, and who had only been in Siberia a year, after having, however, spent several in Southern Russia. Her buffet was arranged with a greater degree of taste and comfort than those in charge of the Russians, who, however, keep everything scrupulously neat and clean. The worthy lady had forgotten her fluent French, but had not yet acquired fluent Russian. At Tomsk I fell in with another Frenchwoman, who kept a bookshop, and in nearly all the towns along the great post-road at Irkutsk, Blagovyeshchensk, Khabarofsk, and Vladivostok, I found French shopkeepers, some of whom had been thirty years in the country. They seemed to entertain a distinct preference for photography.
Now that Siberia is at last thrown open to civilization, foreigners will, of course, become much more numerous, and already many engineers are to be found in various parts of the mining districts; but for all this, I do not think that at any period the Russian colony will be greatly influenced thereby.
We may, therefore, conclude that, from the ethnological point of view, as well as from the geographical, Siberia is merely a prolongation of Russian Europe, or of what is known as Greater Russia. It is true that a few heterogeneous elements exist of the same sort as those to be met with in Russia itself: Poles and Germans from the Baltic provinces, and the descendants of exiles, or even exiles themselves; and thus it comes to pass that in all the larger towns, at Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, Catholic and Lutheran churches abound. On the other hand, there are synagogues in nearly all the secondary towns. Israel is fully represented in Siberia, and the little town of Kainsk between the Omsk and the Obi is popularly known as the Jerusalem of Siberia. There are also about 100,000 Raskolniks, followers of a reform which took place in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century. This, however, is, needless to say, a purely Russian contingent. The Raskolniks exist in every part of Siberia, but in the province of the Amur they form about a tenth of the population, and are also very numerous in Trans-Baikalia. They are mainly the descendants of people belonging to this particular sect, who were originally exiled from Russia in the eighteenth century. Their chief peculiarity consists in their love of temperance and horror of every sort of innovation. Nothing would induce them to take even a cup of coffee or tea. In our time the members of certain curious sects, that of the Eunuchs, for instance, are exiled into Siberia, and confined to a village in the territory of the Yakutsk, in the Tundra Zone. According to the belief of these eccentric persons, Napoleon I. was a reincarnation of the Messiah, and they believe he rests in the sleep of death on the shores of Lake Baikal until a time when an angel shall awaken him and place him at the head of an amazing host destined to establish the reign of God in all parts of the world. The Raskolniks, owing to their temperate habits and their industry, are generally considered to be a very valuable element in the population of the country.
CHAPTER III
AGRICULTURAL SIBERIA AND THE RURAL POPULATION
Enormous preponderance of the rural and peasant population in Siberia—Siberian Mujiks—Their rude and primitive manner of life—Excellent quality of the land, and backward methods of cultivating it—Mediocre and irregular manner of raising cereals—The necessity and difficulty of improving agricultural operations—The absence of large and enterprising ownership in Siberia a disadvantage.
Siberia resembles Russia not only in the matter of its immensity, its loneliness, the duration of its winters, monotonous expanse of its plains and enormous forest lands, but also in the leading characteristics of its peasantry; but in Asia and Russia these seem accentuated, possibly by reason of the peculiarity of the surroundings among which they are compelled to live. Even more than in Russia is this class of the people essentially rural; the exploitation of the gold-mines is the only other industry of any importance, and it employs relatively few people in comparison with its yield.
In Siberia great landlords are conspicuous by their absence. The only nobles mentioned by the official statistics are a few functionaries whose lands will be found on the other side of the Ural, and the only rich people in the country are the merchants residing in the towns, who occasionally add to their incomes, mainly derived from trade, by a certain interest in mining speculations. Some of these worthy people build themselves handsome country houses, but they do not take much interest in agriculture. A few concessions of land were made in the middle of the century, but they have long since passed out of the hands of their original owners into those of the Mujiks, to whom they have been ‘let,’ but these do not appear to care about their prosperity. All the rest of the land belongs either to the Government or to small farmers, who rent it from the Crown.
The Siberian peasant lives exactly as do his brethren in Russia, in villages or hamlets. Isolated houses are rare, the agglomeration of dwellings being an absolute necessity of the conditions of that collective and communal proprietorship which prevails throughout the Tsar’s dominions. A Siberian village is, therefore, a reproduction of a Russian village. On either side of the road is a succession of low, one-story houses built of dark wood, and separated from each other by yards, at the back of which are the stables. The appearance of these dwellings is exceedingly dreary, for they are invariably built of rough wood, blackened by age. Occasionally, however, some few planks are painted a vivid white. The usual doleful aspect of these villages is sometimes enlivened, especially in the larger ones, by the presence of a brick church, with cupolas painted a vivid green. In the hamlets these chapels are only outwardly distinguished from the rest of the isbas by an iron cross.
If anything, the general appearance of these Siberian villages is even more dreary and depressing than that of their counterparts in European Russia, where the houses are often gaily painted. Here they are built entirely of unhewn wood, like the log-huts of the Far West. Then, the few domestic animals to be seen wandering about the roadway are not reassuring, for the dogs look like wolves, and the enormous black pigs like wild boars. Nevertheless, I am of opinion that the Siberian peasant is better off than his Russian brother. His isbas are certainly more spacious, although, to be sure, six, seven, and even ten, persons are usually crowded into two or three tiny rooms, the immense stove in the centre of which, in winter, is usually used as a bedstead by the entire family, whereby whatever air otherwise might be admitted is hermetically excluded. For all that, I have never seen in Siberia any of those miserable hovels to be found in Russia, but undoubtedly the manners and customs of the Siberian peasants are even more primitive than those of the Russians. They possess less knowledge of hygiene and cleanliness, and are absolutely ignorant of everything calculated to render life in the least degree agreeable or rational. During the six winter months the Siberian keeps his house rigorously shut, excluding even a breath of air; in summer he does the same, for the double windows of the two or three very small sleeping-rooms are never opened on any pretext. These Siberian peasants are, moreover, astonishingly lazy and apathetic. Their only pleasure in life consists in dreaming away the time whilst smoking their pipes, and in drinking vodka, not to enliven themselves, but simply to get dead-drunk. Whilst the men are at the public-house the women stand by their open doors, listless and gossiping, indolently watching their fair-haired children, who, with only a red shirt on, fabricate the time-honoured dirt-pies of universal childhood in the mud or else roll about in the dust. Work is limited to what is absolutely indispensable, and the Siberian peasant is much happier doing nothing than in working to obtain what his fellows in other countries would consider the necessaries of life, but which he looks upon as ludicrously superfluous. Every village possesses a herd of cows, which you may watch in the early morning hours straggling off to the pastures, driven along by two or three old men or urchins, and although you can always get excellent milk, butter is very scarce, and cheese unknown. As to a garden, even for the cultivation of necessary vegetables, I have never seen one in the hundred villages I have visited, excepting, indeed, in Trans-Baikalia, where I perceived one or two attached to the stanitsas belonging to some Cossacks. It is not because vegetables will not grow, but because the peasants will not cultivate them. In the towns in the Amur district, such as Blagovyeshchensk, Khabarofsk, and a few others, vegetables are to be obtained, but even these are brought over by the Chinese from the opposite bank of the river.