The railway to Mount Ararat begins at Tiflis and creeps around through the mountains for a distance of 278 miles, climbing as high as 4,200 feet and making the journey in seventeen hours, which seems too long for the distance, but trains go very slowly and stop a long time at every station. The first-class cars are luxurious. They are divided into compartments for the accommodation of two and four people, with the seats running from side to side, and are arranged so that the back, which is upholstered, can be lifted to a horizontal position like an upper berth in one of our Pullman cars. Thus a day coach may be transformed into a sleeper without extra charge, although passengers, if they would be comfortable, must carry their own sheets, pillows, blankets, and towels and make up their own beds. Therefore practically every traveller carries a roll of bedding with him, as is done in India, although the Russian cars are infinitely more comfortable in every respect. The second-class passengers all over Russia are taken care of much better than the first-class on the India railways. Their accommodations are almost as good as those in the first-class carriages. The only reason for taking the latter is to avoid the crowd and be a little more exclusive. No seats or compartments are reserved, hence there is a rush for the vacant places whenever the train stops at a station, and if you happen to get into one of the four-berth compartments you cannot choose your company. But these petty annoyances are forgotten a few hours after the journey is over.
The scenery along the line is sublime. Every now and then you can catch a glimpse of a snow-clad peak with noble outlines. The mountain sides are covered with forests, notwithstanding the fact that this is the oldest part of the world, and you can scarcely realize that some of the towns at which the train stops have been standing since the flood. Most of the people at the stations are farmers, who make a good living cultivating the soil and raising sheep and goats, and the women of their households work up the wool with old-fashioned looms into rugs and felt.
Since the Romanoffs brought their expansion policy down that way so far as to include a part of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, they have rebuilt the Turkish town of Gumri and have re-christened it Alexandropol in honour of one of their emperors. It is a purely modern military station at a strategic point, with barracks for four thousand troops, arsenals, armouries, large warehouses filled with military supplies, and everything necessary to equip an army at short notice. Such posts have been located all along the southern borders of the Russian empire overlooking Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, India, China, and other Asiatic neighbours.
All Russian towns are built on the same model, with wide, well-shaded streets, substantial residences, good shops, electric lights, and, if the patronage will justify it, a line of street cars. There is always an imposing church, under the care of a group of priests who are doing secular missionary work laid out for them by the holy synod at St. Petersburg—Russofying the natives, if that word may be used; conducting a political rather than an evangelical propaganda. Their policy is never to interfere with the religions or the customs of the people they conquer, but to assimilate them quietly and gradually by educating the children in Russian schools, teaching them the language first and then lessons in patriotism and loyalty.
The population of Alexandropol was almost exclusively Armenian until the Russians came. Now it is about half and half. The Armenians have a handsome church, dedicated to St. Gregory “the Enlightener”; they keep the shops and do the mechanical work and are infinitely better off since Russian occupation than they ever were before. Russian Armenia is peaceful and prosperous and in a degree progressive—much more so than any other section of the ancient Armenian kingdom at any period of its history. The construction of the railway has given the farmers an outlet for their produce; the large expenditures for maintaining troops have brought much money into communities that scarcely ever knew what money was during Turkish domination, and have provided a permanent and profitable market for everything the people produce. The construction of barracks, fortifications, roads, and other such public works has furnished employment for thousands and has provided a permanent and steady income for the labouring classes.
Alexandropol is 4,850 feet above the sea and almost surrounded by snow-covered peaks. The highest is Alaghez, 15,000 feet; and Ararat, 17,260 feet high, may often be seen in the distance.
On the eastern side of Alaghez is a wonderful lake called Goktcha, occupying the crater of a volcano 6,337 feet above the sea. The lake is forty-three miles long and an average of twenty miles wide and receives the drainage of a very large area. The mountains that encircle it rise like a wall between 4,000 and 5,000 feet and most of them are entirely covered with timber. The water is very deep, clear, and cold, and abounds with fish, which furnish employment for many people. They ship their catch daily by train to Tiflis, which is a limited but a profitable market. The choicest fish is a salmon trout similar to that found in the streams and lakes of the Rocky Mountains.
In ancient times, if we are to believe the legends, the fish in Lake Goktcha were never seen between Christmas Day and Lent, but on Ash Wednesday used to come to the surface in large schools and permit themselves to be caught daily until Easter Sunday. This practice, as I understand, has become obsolete, and they behave like other fish in these degenerate days.
On an island in the lake is a picturesque Armenian monastery called after St. Sevan, alleged to have been founded by Tiridates, the most famous of all the kings of Armenia, only three hundred years after the crucifixion.
Below Alexandropol, a branch of the railway runs up to the city of Kars, another point of great strategic importance in case Russia and Turkey should ever come to blows again, as they have so many times in the past, for it commands all northern Armenia. The Russians intend to annex the rest of Armenia to their dominions sooner or later, and then they will have Persia practically surrounded. This is the second time they have occupied Kars. They captured it during the Crimean war, but were compelled to give it up. In 1877 they took it again, and the following year it was definitely assigned to them by the Powers of Europe in the treaty of Berlin. The improvements since that time have been purely military, like everything else that Russia does down there. The old town remains just as it was in Turkish times, and the new town is like Alexandropol and other places I have described.