“Oh,” said the servant, “I rubbed my hands over my face and arms and pointed toward the bath-room.”
On the morning after my arrival the proprietor of the house asked for my passport; when it returned it bore the visa of the chief of police. There is a regulation throughout Russia that every hotel keeper or other householder shall register his patrons with the police. By this means the authorities can trace the movements of ‘suspects’ and prevent unlicensed travel. In Siberia the plan is particularly valuable in keeping exiles on the spots assigned them.
At St. Petersburg and Moscow the police keep a directory and hold it open to the public. When I reached the capital and wished to find some friends who arrived a few days before me, I obtained their address from this directory. Those who sought my whereabouts found me in the same way.
The weather was steadily cold—about zero Fahrenheit—and was called mild for the season by the residents of Irkutsk. I brought from New York a heavy overcoat that braved the storms of Broadway the winter before my departure. My Russian friends pronounced it nechevo (nothing,) and advised me to procure a ‘shooba,’ or cloak lined with fur. The shooba reaches nearly to one’s feet, and is better adapted to riding than walking. It can be lined according to the means and liberality of the wearer. Sable is most expensive, and sheepskin the least. Both accomplish the same end, as they contain about equal quantities of heat.
The streets of Irkutsk are of good width and generally intersect at right angles. Most of the buildings are of wood, and usually large and well built. The best houses are of stone, or of brick covered with plaster to resemble stone. Very few dwellings are entered directly from the street, the outer doors opening into yards according to the Russian custom. To visit a person you pass into an enclosure through a strong gateway, generally open by day but closed at night. A ‘dvornik’ (doorkeeper) has the control of this gate, and is responsible for everything within it. Storehouses and all other buildings of the establishment open upon the enclosure, and frequently two or more houses have one gate in common.
The stores or magazines are numerous, and well supplied with European goods. Some of the stocks are very large, and must require heavy capital or excellent credit to manage them. Tailors and milliners are abundant, and bring their modes from Paris. Occasionally they paint their signs in French, and display the latest novelties from the center of fashion. Bakers are numerous and well patronized. ‘Frantsooski kleb,’ (French bread,) which is simply white bread made into rolls, is popular and largely sold in Irkutsk.
One of my daily exercises in Russian was to spell the signs upon the stores. In riding I could rarely get more than half through a word before I was whisked out of sight. I never before knew how convenient are symbolic signs to a man who cannot read. A picture of a hat, a glove, or a loaf of bread was far more expressive to my eye than the word shapka, perchatki, or kleb, printed in Russian letters.
The Russians smoke a great deal of tobacco in paper cigarettes or ‘papiros.’ Everywhere east of Lake Baikal the papiros of Irkutsk is in demand, and the manufacture there is quite extensive. In Irkutsk and to the westward the brand of Moscow is preferred. The consumption of tobacco in this form throughout the empire must be something enormous. I have known a party of half a dozen persons to smoke a hundred cigarettes in an afternoon and evening. Many ladies indulge in smoking, but the practice is not universal. I do not remember any unmarried lady addicted to it.
Irkutsk was founded in 1680, and has at present a population of twenty-eight or thirty thousand. About four thousand gold miners spend the winter and their money in the city. Geographically it is in Latitude 52° 40′ north, and Longitude 104° 20′ east from Greenwich. Little wind blows there, and storms are less frequent than at Moscow or St. Petersburg. The snows are not abundant, the quantity that falls being smaller than in Boston and very much less than in Montreal or Quebec. In summer or winter the panorama of Irkutsk and its surroundings is one of great beauty.
