CHAPTER XII
THE CIRCASSIANS AND THE COSSACKS
It is seventy-two hours by the fastest train from Vladikavkas to Odessa, which is a practical realization of the size of the Russian Empire, but the fastest trains are very slow when measured by the American standard. The government, which owns and operates all the railways in Russia, charges for extra speed on express trains, and then runs them at twenty miles an hour, with long waits at every station. It seemed unnecessary and unreasonable to delay a train for ten or fifteen minutes every time it stopped, but I thought there must be some reason for it, and I tried to gratify my curiosity by an investigation. Inquiry disclosed the caution of the railway managers. When a train arrives at a station the conductor notifies the man in charge of the station ahead, and also the chief despatcher wherever he may be. He then waits for orders. The telegraph operator at the next station reports to the train despatcher that the track is clear, and the latter then, and not until then, gives orders for the waiting train to move. They take no chances. On a single track road one train only is given the right of way, regardless of side tracks, and everything else is held up until it is reported at the next station.
Type of the old fashioned Circassian
The track traverses the great granary of Russia, which corresponds to Minnesota and the Dakotas in the United States. The land is held in large estates, partly cultivated by tenant farmers, and also by a well organized system under the direction of administrators or stewards, as they call them. Absentee landlordism is the curse of this country, as it was in Ireland, and the profits of the crops are wasted in St. Petersburg and Paris, in gambling and high living, and in all possible forms of extravagance. Very little of the money is left in the country; very little is used to improve the property or the conditions of the tenants, although there are commendable exceptions. Every village is an index to the character of the man who owns it. The peasant farmers and the employés of an estate dwell and govern themselves in communes or mirs, as they are called, and each has a little tract of land for his own use, which he can cultivate at odd times when his services are not needed on the farm. The landlord is supposed to keep the houses of his tenants and employés in order, and is expected to contribute to the support of the poor and afflicted, to build a church and keep it in order, and to exercise a patriarchal protection over everybody who lives on his estates, but this is only theoretical in too many cases. The practice of a majority of the landlords is to squeeze every cent they can get out of their tenants and squander it in pleasure and dissipation.
The Russians are inveterate and reckless gamblers, and in the play of a single night often lose enough money to make their tenants comfortable for a generation. We were told of a Russian landlord of Daghestan who lost $400,000 in a game at the Jockey Club in Vienna in one night.
These big estates, however, are being broken up, under a law passed since Russia has a constitution, and are being divided into small farms among the families who actually till them.
Large towns are few and far between, but the villages are numerous. There are three or four cities of 25,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, markets for the grain and other produce of the country, in a thousand miles, but people there are accustomed to long distances. Rostov is the scene of the commercial transactions of the population for 300 miles or more on both sides of it.
One of the most prosperous towns is called Ekaterinodar, which means “Catherine’s Gift,” and there is a story connected with it. The site was presented to a colony of Cossacks by Catherine the Great as a reward for their loyalty in 1792, and, with the reckless generosity that characterized all the acts of that extraordinary woman, she built their houses and shops and churches for them. It is now a thriving city of 60,000 inhabitants, with a large trade in horses, cattle, sheep, and grain.
At Piatigorski one can get the best view of Elburz, the highest mountain in Europe, which lifts its proud head 18,526 feet above the sea and looks even loftier than it actually is because it rises almost directly from the plains. It is buttressed with other peaks 10,000 feet or more in height, but rises above the rest of the range fully 7,000 feet like a block of Parian marble, pure and spotless and without a flaw, one of the noblest pieces of sculpture ever carved by the Creator’s hands. The native poets have called it the “Snow King’s Citadel,” and it is the abode of Osching Padishah, “Emperor of the Air.” His diadem of snow is eternal. Dikhtau, 16,924 feet in height, Ikhara, 17,278 feet, Koshantan, 17,196 feet, and Kasbek, 16,546, make the finest and grandest group of mountains this side of the Himalayas.