Once we met a family of Jews—husband, wife and two children—in a tarantass, with a Cossack with bayonet fixed alongside. We stopped to change horses with them, as we were then midway between post-stations. The man, a bright, intelligent, middle-aged fellow, addressed us in French, and said he had been a wealthy fur merchant in Nijni Novgorod, but was exiled to the Yenisei country simply because he was a Jew. His eyes were clouded with regret at the bitter consciousness of his captivity. Four thousand of his townsmen had, he said, emigrated to England and America, and then pointing to his pretty, delicate wife and two chubby children, the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he faltered out: “Siberie!” Poor fellow!
That word had all the import of a hell to many—many more than him.
The distance between relays on the Great Post Road was, we found, from sixteen to thirty versts, and the speed of fresh horses about ten versts an hour.
Vasilli, the ugly bearded yamshick who had lost one eye, we had engaged in Tiumen, and he had contracted to drive me during the whole of my journey. He was a sullen fellow, who said little, but on finding that I was travelling with an Imperial permit, his chief delight was to hustle up the master of each post-station and threaten to report to the Governor of the province if I, the Excellency, were kept waiting for a single instant.
Usually, changing operations at the stations occupied anything from forty minutes to two hours, according to the temper or trickishness of the post-horse keeper and his grooms, for they were about the meanest set of knaves and rogues on the face of Asia. Yet sight of my permit caused them all to tremble and cringe and hustle, and I certainly could not complain of any undue delay.
We had set out in a tarantass from Tiumen—the town from which the Imperial courier had despatched the order to the various Governors—but as soon as the snow came I purchased a big sledge, and in this we managed to travel with far greater comfort over the snow than by cart over the deeply-rutted road.
None can know the terrible monotony of Siberian travel save those who have endured it.
Nowadays one can cover Siberia from the frontier to far Vladivostock in fifteen days in a luxurious drawing-room car, with restaurant and sleeping-berth, a bath-room and a piano, the line running for the most part near the Old Post Road. But leave the railway and strike north or south, and the same terrible greyness and monotony will grip your senses and depress you as perhaps no other journey in the world can do.
It was dusk when at last we sped, our runners hissing over the frozen snow, into the wood-built town of Tomsk, and alighted at the Hotel Million, a dismal place with corridors long and dark, and bedroom doors fastened by big iron padlocks and hasps! The full-bearded proprietor wandered along with an enormous bunch of keys, opening the doors and exhibiting his uninviting apartments; and at first I actually believed that Vasilli had mistaken my order and driven to a Siberian prison instead of conducting me to a hotel.
Upstairs, however, the rooms were much better. But there were no washing arrangements whatever, or mattresses or bedding; for every traveller in Siberia is expected to carry his own pillows and bedclothes. Here, however, we put up and ate our evening meal in true Siberian style—a single tough beefsteak—simply that and nothing more.