The first of these citizens to whom I was introduced having spoken very favourably of the decree of the emancipation of the serfs, I mentioned to him the conversation I had with the old aristocrat of Kazan. “This gentleman has not told you,” he said, “all the vexatious proceedings that the serfs were constantly obliged to submit to by their lords, and the extortions of which they were the victims. He has not told you that the serfs never had the right to quit the land of their lord, how many cudgellings they may have been made to undergo, and how often the lords gambled away between one another, on the throw of a die, a property consisting of five or six families. He has not said a word about the manœuvre of the lords, who, being obliged every year to abandon to the service of the Emperor a certain number of their vassals, choose, as might be expected, the least vigorous, who, notwithstanding the feeble state of their health, become soldiers for life. Certainly,” he continued, “we do not yet enjoy complete liberty; we cannot quit Russian territory before having complied with the requirements of the military law; we can change neither religion nor country; but after all, every one is treated alike, and the sovereignty of the Emperor is not to be compared with the vexatious seigniory of the lords.”
It will require, certainly, great address for the Czar to introduce, without violent transition or revolution, the necessary liberal reforms. It is to be hoped he may succeed, thanks to the fetishism that surrounds his person. He puts, perhaps, a little too much confidence in the ever-increasing power of the trading class, the possessors of the great wealth of the country, who are still devoted to the Emperor, on account of their hatred to the aristocracy, but who might well turn against their benefactor so soon as they found themselves in a position sufficiently strong.
Another citizen of Omsk entertained me with his views on another subject, not less interesting. It was M. Kroupinikoff, who had been fifteen years among the Kirghiz, as Government official, charged with a difficult duty.
The Kirghiz, whose territory is subjected to the Czar, have, nevertheless, remained in their wild state, and with a longing to recover sooner or later their lost national independence. In order to prevent them from uniting anywhere in great masses, the Government has assigned to each tribe a zone, and they are interdicted from going beyond this limit under penalty of death.
It was M. Kroupinikoff’s duty to take care that every Kirghiz kept within the bounds of his respective territory.
To accomplish this difficult and dangerous task, he had but an insufficient escort. “To give you an instance,” he said, “I was attacked and made a prisoner by these wild people, and I don’t know what would have happened if I had not fortunately made my escape, and, indeed, without horse and almost without anything to eat. This enterprise, probably, is much more hazardous for me than another to sojourn among the Kirghiz, whose character on the whole is not ferocious. What they detested in me was the functionary, and not the man.
“For a period of fourteen days and fourteen nights, I was exposed to the rigorous cold on the steppe, wandering on foot, amid deep snow. I was suffering from hunger, and yet hardly dared to touch a morsel of the food I had succeeded in bringing with me, for fear the last crumb should disappear long before I should be able to drag myself as far as Omsk. But I arrived in a state painful even to remember; for it was in this adventure that I was seized with the malady with which, you see, I am now tormented, without a hope of ever being cured.” This poor man, indeed, had a nervous trembling from head to foot, that did not allow him a moment’s repose, the bare contemplation of which was sufficient at the first glance to make one shudder.
“If you like, monsieur,” he politely offered, “I will take you to see a Kirghiz encampment I know, not very far from here; I shall be most happy to have a little excursion in your company; that will recall my old occupations.” I accepted his proposal gladly, and early the following morning we left in a sledge, and took our way towards the south.
The Kirghiz anciently formed a part of the great Mohammedan family, and roved along the flowery banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is not exactly known at what epoch, and in what disaster, they were defeated by the Turks, and subsequently driven from their old haunts into the great Tartar steppe. They tried many times to reconquer their ancient land, but only in vain. One expedition of the Kirghiz is mentioned, that penetrated, in 1738, as far as Tashkend.
Müller gives us an account of some of the institutions of these people during the period preceding their final submission to the Russians. When war was declared, the chief named those who were to enlist, and assigned them the quota of arms and horses they were to furnish to the army.