Khabarovsk

“ Settlers who went out to seek fortune in the Far East, were beginning to arrive at Khabarovsk. Thirty families of emigrants, coming from the south of Russia, are quartered in barracks a few miles from the town. My husband wants to stock with inhabitants the outskirts of Khabarovsk, flattering himself with the hope that they will supply the town with provisions. In spring portions of ground will be distributed to them. In Russia the peasants receive one acre of land and in this country they will get forty acres of good land. ”

“ The inhabitants presented us wine in bottles entwined with branches of grapes. I remained on deck till midnight, admiring the large river on which the full moon reflected its opal glimmer.
Sept. 10th.—The wind that had risen in the night brought rain. We intended pushing on to Khabarovsk for the night, but the fog being very dense, we dropped anchor before Kasakevitchi, a large village scattered on a hillock.
Sept. 11th.—We are passing the most shallow part of the “Oussouri.” The water is so shallow that we advance with great difficulty. We dropped anchor five miles off Khabarovsk. ”

“ Sergy wanted to follow their example, and send me away, but I would not part with him now, and announced positively that I should not move from here.
The Chinese inhabitants of Khabarovsk, fearing the invasion of the Japs, sell their houses, their furniture, their shops. The Bishop performed a Te Deum on the square before the cathedral to the troops quartered at Khabarovsk. When the service was over, my husband said a few words to the soldiers concerning the war that was going to break out. Our brave warriors shouted in chorus “We are ready to fight to the last drop of our blood!” ”

“ OUR VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD
August 24th.—The day for leaving Khabarovsk came at last. We started this afternoon for the Land of Desire, to St. Petersburg, darling place. Colonel Serebriakoff, his wife and Mr. Shaniavski, accompanied us on our long voyage.
There was a great crowd on the quay to see us off and wish us a pleasant journey. We embarked on the ship Neptune to Iman, from where we take the train to Vladivostock. We hasten to say our good-byes. The flying-bridge is taken off, the last whistle is blown, and we are off to Europe. ”

“ The car appeared to be empty except for us, till morning, when we found a Japanese captain and his orderly in the next compartment.
At Nikolsk, on the way to Khabarovsk, and at Vladivostok, there were American officers in the stations, members of the so-called Russian Railway Service, known at home as the Stevens Commission. All were expert railroad men, and telegraph operators, and their presence in stations made travel simple enough. But after leaving Khabarovsk, I found the stations in charge of the regular Russian staffs, and a Japanese staff, the latter with their own telegraphic service. ”

“ Only far echoes come of what is going on in the world outside. I hadn’t got the patience to read the belated accounts that arrive by post weeks after the events. Here is an example of how long it takes for news from the civilised world to reach Khabarovsk. Captain Olsoufieff, Baron Korff’s aide-de-camp, had been sent by the Baron on business to a remote part of Siberia, and has learnt only now, on returning to Khabarovsk, that Baron Korff is dead, and that my husband was his successor! In October the rivers began to freeze, and the mails were delayed for some weeks. ”

“ In 1916 there were about 400 steamers and several thousand barges on the Amur and its navigable tributaries. Practically all the vessels were Russian, although Chinese vessels have equal rights down to Khabarovsk. On the Sungari, the Manchurian tributary of the Amur, there is Chinese and Japanese shipping. The Ussun is navigable throughout its length. Steamers ascend the Ussuri and Sungacha to Kamen- Ribolov, on Lake Khanka, 500 m. from Khabarovsk. Navigation on Lake Baikal has become less important since the construction of the railway round the southern end. ”

“ So although Khabarovsk was accustomed to a large Russian garrison in normal times, and had already become accustomed to the American doughboy, our column attracted considerable attention. And I was sorry that transportation had not been arranged for the men’s heavy bags, which they packed on their shoulders in addition to their regular marching kits, for six hundred men bent under baggage, struggling up the hilly roads, do not present an inspiring spectacle.
We Americans in foreign parts do not seem to [43] care anything for the psychology of the land in which we are operating ”

“ Next to our Asiatic section stands the pavilion of Polar Russia. The morose Siberian nature is such a contrast with our bright Turkestan. The panels on the walls represent a seal-chase; all sorts of stuffed polar animals fill the big halls, as well as an ethnographic collection of manikins, which represents in a very life-like manner, different types of the inhabitants of Siberia. The model of a sledge, harnessed with a team of dogs, reminded me vividly of our drive on the frozen Amour during carnival-week at Khabarovsk. ”

“ By these means the convicts and Chinese servants can easily be supplanted.
The richest shop at Khabarovsk, situated in a street called “Straight,” which isn’t straight at all, belongs to a rich Chinese merchant named Tifountai, where you can buy everything necessary and desirable, beginning with clothes down to furniture, and all sort of provisions which are of a fabulous price here, milk products especially: a pint of cream costs two roubles (four shillings.) We had to buy three cows and grow vegetables ourselves in hot-houses, and have thus vegetables all the year round. ”

“ After the last exchange of salutes with a Japanese man-of-war, on which the sailors, ranged in rows, rendered military honours to my husband, who was standing on the captain’s bridge, we left the bay on our way to the Japanese Sea. The troops lined the shore for several miles. We began to put on steam, and Vladivostock soon disappeared from view.
The Khabarovsk was built in England. It is lighted all over with electricity. We are the only passengers on board, except two American travellers to whom Sergy gave permission to take passage with us. ”

“ With their aid, I was able to make such a favourable impression on the Khabarovsk Soviet that I was permitted to proceed to Vladivostok, where I arrived about the middle of April, 1918, with five roubles and seventy kopecks in my purse.
The Soviet in Vladivostok kept a close watch over all the people who were arriving and departing. As soon as Nadia and I reached a lodging house, our documents were demanded in order that they might be sent to the Soviet for inspection. Nadia had a regular passport, while I made use of the paper from the Moscow Soldiers’ Section. ”

“ Many officers and engineers accompanied us as far as Iman, where we shall take the boat to Khabarovsk.
August 2nd.—The rain is falling all the time, transforming the roads into liquid mud. We met with an accident this morning. The last car of our train ran off the track, and we had to stop in the middle of a field, and it was two hours before we could continue our journey. Everybody had to descend. Chinese coolies, who were working on the railway line, brought a long narrow plank on which we crossed to the other side of the road, balancing like dancers on the cord. ”

“ The service of the post leaves very much to be desired. We have received a letter from Russia dated six months ago; the missive had arrived first at Khabarovsk, but as at that time there was no communication between these two towns, on account of the bad state of the roads, this letter had returned to Russia to be sent back again to Vladivostock via Japan.
The admirals and the commander of the Nakhimoff came to ask me to fix a day for the ball that they wanted to give at the marine club in my honour. ”

“ They had been forced to take refuge in an Arabian port, and thus the ship can’t be due at Vladivostock before October, when the roads are blocked for weeks, and all communication stopped between Vladivostock and Khabarovsk.
Mrs. Unterberger is awfully nice to me, and full of kind attentions. She proposes drives and boat-parties, but it was only Mme. Beurgier who profited by them. She went one day to lay a wreath of flowers on the tomb of a young officer of the French navy, who had been murdered recently in the outskirts of Vladivostock by a convict, who profited by his uniform to run away. ”

“ Who says an army is not supposed to think? Our army does—our doughboys in Siberia could have given pointers to statesmen at home. It is a good thing to bear in mind.
Somebody asked where we were to be quartered, and we learned that we had better remain aboard the transport till quarters could be arranged. Of course, the officers with troops went to the nearby stations with their commands, some being sent to the Suchan Mines, some to Khabarovsk, where were the headquarters of the Twenty-seventh Infantry, and others distributed to units stationed along the railroad. ”

“ Mariinsk (13,000) , a mining centre on the railway and Achinsk (10,000) a little farther east. In eastern Siberia other important towns are: the great port of Vladivostok (95,000) ; the two Amur ports and agricultural centres, Blagovyeshchensk (76,000) and Khabarovsk (53,500) ; Chita (73,000) with growing agricultural and commercial interests; Krasnoyavsk (73,000) , the chief river and railway port of the Yenisei; Nikolsk-Ussuriski (34,700) , a rising industrial and railway centre 70 m. from Vladivostok; Nikolaevsk (12,500) , the port at the Amur mouth ”

“ By appearing stupid, and so making fools of the smart Americanskys, they prove their superiority to us, according to their Asiatic style of reasoning. They would rather pocket our money than to show to us something in the nature of human intelligence.
But my missing Major Miller was not vital, except in so far as I was concerned with the element of time. We got our baggage out of the car, and faced the prospect of spending the night and most of the next day in the primitive little station, waiting for the single train running daily, which would take us back toward Khabarovsk. ”

“ Habarovsk itself had developed from the insignificant hamlet of Habàrovka into an important town which is now the residence of the Governor-General of the Amur province. It is situated at the junction of the Amur with the Ussur, and stands in a most picturesque position on a steep and lofty cliff around whose base flow the two mighty rivers. But this chief town of a vast and fertile country is itself like nothing but a great barrack; nearly all the houses have the appearance of official buildings, and one meets soldiers in the streets at every turn. ”

“ TRANSBAIKALIA (Zabaikahkaya Oblast) , a province of Eastern Siberia, to the east of Lake Baikal, has Irkutsk on the west, Yakutsk on the north, the province of Amur on the east, and Mongolia on the south. Its area (240,780 square miles) is about as great as that of Austria-Hungary, but its population is under half a million. With regions of a purely Siberian character on the one hand, and including on the other the outer borders of the Mongolian steppes and the upper basin of the Amur, Transbaikalia forms an intermediate link between Siberia, Mongolia, and the northern Pacific littoral. ”

“ Irkutsk, which in former times was the capital, is now only a large provincial city. The grand old Siberian hospitality is disappearing rapidly, and there are not wanting, even in Siberia, old-fashioned people who curse the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is destined sooner or later to revolutionize the manners and customs of Northern Asia. ”

“ Timour brought back thousands of Russian slaves after his conquests, and Russia lay under the yoke of the Tartars. The Empire of Asia lasted only a little while in the hands of the dynasty of Tamerlane, and the Uzbek and the Kirghiz Cossacks appeared, waging a holy war for Islam. At the present moment there are one million Uzbeks in the province of Bokhara, three hundred and fifty thousand in Khiva, and five hundred thousand spread over the rest of Russian Turkestan, and a sprinkling in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks formed three kingdoms, Bokhara, Khiva, and Kokand. ”

“ There are no hotels. In early days in the conquest of Turkestan, when the Kazalinsk road served as the only line of communication with European Russia, the town became a busy mart for Orenburg, Tashkent, Khiva and Bokhara; even now the Kirghiz in the district possess 770,000 head of cattle. Trade was obliterated by the advent of the Central Asian railway; but it is hoped that now the Orenburg-Tashkent line has been opened to traffic it may revive. ”

“ It was not long before they were allowed to reside in the larger towns, and once there, they soon built for themselves elegant houses in such places as Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Yeniseisk, where they lived openly and in comparative comfort, and took up their natural position as the élite of society. ”

“ Better almost to be buried alive! When, however, instead of to an out-of-the-way village, he is consigned to a biggish town like Yeniseisk or Krasnoiarsk, his fate is certainly not so hard. He is allowed to live how and where he pleases; if he has money of his own he is permitted to receive it; and if he is a sociable man he will [115] soon find that he is not treated as an outcast, even by the officials, who, at any rate at Yeniseisk, are, I hear, the very embodiment of courtesy and politeness, though I believe it to be the same all over Siberia ”

“ The Khan seemed to have made no use whatever of the many inclosed gardens in the vicinity of the city during the Russian advance, as, if he had, and firmly contested each yard of soil, I much doubt whether the Tsar's troops could have ever entered the city.
It is difficult to estimate the population of an Oriental city by simply riding round its walls; so many houses are uninhabited, and others again are densely packed with inhabitants. However, I should say, as a mere guess, that there are about 25,000 human beings within the walls of Khiva. ”