Krasnoyarsk

“ High position does not confer immunity. When the Czarevitch was married, General Korsackoff sent his congratulations by telegraph, and received a response from the Emperor. Both messages were paid for by the sender without reduction or trust.
I found the general features of Krasnoyarsk much like those of Irkutsk. Official and civilian inhabitants dressed, lived, walked, breathed, drank, and gambled like their kindred nearer the east. It happened to be market day, and the public square was densely crowded. I was interested in observing the character and abundance of the fish offered for sale. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Krasnoyarsk is a fairly large town on the River Yenesei. The fine bridge over the river is the point to which the eyes of the revolters are constantly directed. The garrison was composed of one company of the 25th Middlesex Regiment, an Italian battalion recently formed from amongst the Italian prisoners of war and armed by the British, about four hundred Cossacks, and a company of Czechs belonging to the 10th Regiment, who arrived that morning. ”

“ The Krasnoyarsk and the Ussurie movements of the Bolsheviks were under the direction of able officers appointed by the Red Guard Headquarters at Moscow, with whom they were in constant communication.
Passing Irkutsk, we again struck the Baikal—looking more glorious than before. The warm south-west winds had cleared the snow from the western hills and thawed the ice from that half of the sea. The other half was still ice-bound. In the morning sunshine the snow-covered mountains in the east pierced the heavens with the radiance of eternal day. ”

“ The station was at the extreme end of the village; our sleighs were waiting for us, and so were the men who brought them from Krasnoyarsk. There was no snow for the next twenty versts, and consequently the sleighs needed further transportation. Schmidt’s sleigh was dragged empty over the bare ground, but mine, being heavier, was mounted upon wheels.
Other difficulties awaited us. There was but one troika to spare and only one telyaga. We required two vehicles for ourselves and baggage, but the smotretal could not accommodate us. ”

“ This had taken place just a year before our arrival at Krasnoyarsk.
Several attempts have also been made to escape from the halting-stations, but with no greater success. It must be remembered that Siberia is so sparsely populated that every traveller on the road is an object of universal attention, and the authorities are therefore soon made aware of the whereabouts of a runaway, if he be a “political” whom they are anxious to capture. Besides, the fugitives are often forced to come in of themselves. ”

“ We kept ourselves busy trying to get things to rights, and as we had only the light of the stars to work by, we did not get along rapidly.
"We found one of the shafts and also a fender broken; otherwise the vehicle had suffered no material damage. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
"I arranged to leave Irkutsk with some Russian friends who were going to Krasnoyarsk, the next provincial capital. After getting my furs, the next thing was to buy a sleigh, and again I took advice.
"There is a sleigh called a vashok, which is much like a small omnibus. ”

“ With its abundance of beggars Krasnoyarsk can also boast a great many wealthy citizens. The day before my departure one of these Siberian Croesuses died, and another was expected to follow his example before long. A church near the market place was built at the sole expense of this deceased individual. Its cost exceeded seven hundred thousand roubles, and its interior was said to be finely decorated. Among the middle classes in Siberia the erection of churches is, or has been, the fashionable mode of public benefaction. ”

“ It extended from Habarofsk, at the junction of the Amoor and Ussuri rivers, northeast of Peking, to the city of Krasnoyarsk, which at that time was the terminus of the railway which the Russian government is rapidly building from Moscow to the Pacific coast. This route led me through the principal cities of Siberia, and I was able to stop in most of them a few days, and thus to see many places and things of interest. Many of these cities are large and handsome towns ”

“ This naturally involved great material loss and, what was still worse, a huge toll of innocent human life. One train, a fast passenger, accounted for two hundred women and children, besides uncounted men. Fairly large Russian forces were now placed at General Rosanoff's disposal, and by a wide turning movement from Krasnoyarsk in a north-easterly direction, and with a large cavalry force operating towards the north-west from Irkutsk, the whole gang would, it was hoped, be herded towards the centre, and a few weeks would probably liquidate the whole disturbance. ”

“ The magnificent suite of rooms was simply packed with everybody who was anybody here; all officers and Government officials in full uniform, the civilians in evening dress, whilst the many ladies who were also present, dressed in the latest of Parisian fashion, lent additional interest to a scene the like of which I certainly never even dreamt of seeing in the “dreary land of exile.”
Of course Krasnoiarsk, like most places, has its “season,” which lasts during the winter months only ”

“ Towards seven o’clock in the morning we entered Krasnovodsk. Flags flutter on the quay, and a triumphal arch is erected with our initials and “Welcome” written in large letters. All the administrative officials of the town have come to present themselves to my husband, who is greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. We come on land and walk between two lines of lookers-on. Prince Toumanoff, the chief of the Transcaspian provinces, came up to me with a large bouquet, whilst a military band was playing a march.
A special train was waiting on the quay. All the cars are painted white. ”

“ How a murderer who kills his whole family, has a far easier time of it than the unhappy man or woman who ventures to stand up for the people.”
Krasnoiarsk, which stands on a plain fringed by the precipitous cliffs of red earth, from which the town takes its name, is neither picturesque nor interesting. Wooden hovels here, stone palaces there, wooden pavements, oil lamps, open drains by the roadway, deep mud in rainy weather, blinding dust in dry; dirty, greasy men, frowsy, ill-dressed women, Cossack soldiers, and occasional gangs of prisoners; such is the visible population. ”

“ Krasnoiarsk, owing to its [132] sheltered position, is not so cold as Yeniseisk, the average here during the winter months being only 15 deg. below zero (Réaumur) . Every afternoon there is quite a crowd of skaters in the fine public gardens, and the scene is a very picturesque one, for there are usually many officers on the ice, their striking uniforms harmonizing well with the furs of the fair sex.
A TYPICAL SIBERIAN INTERIOR, KRASNOIARSK.
Society in Krasnoiarsk is much gayer than in Yeniseisk. ”

“ On reaching Krasnoiarsk, I was much surprised, and of course pleased, to find quite a decent hotel, where I was accommodated with a couple of really comfortable rooms well furnished, on fairly moderate terms. They would, I fancy, have been considered good anywhere; and when I add that they were fitted with electric bells, that there were sheets and bedding to the bed, and that I had a real “tub” every morning, you will understand that it seemed like getting back to civilization, with the ordinary “comforts” of everyday life once more. Krasnoiarsk is decidedly a picturesque town ”

“ Even the drivers were soldiers, and with their rifles across [141] their knees presented a curious appearance. Last of all came my friend, the officer in charge of the detachment, in a luxurious covered-in sledge. There were no “politicals” with the party.
As I was desirous of seeing for myself all that takes place on the arrival of a gang of convicts at the étape or perasilny of a large town, I returned to Krasnoiarsk at the head of the detachment, and made sketches and photos to my heart’s content of the unsavoury crowd of ruffians following closely behind me. ”

“ For the first time since the encounter with Ivan Ogareff at Omsk, the courier of the Czar felt less uneasy, and began to hope that no fresh obstacle would delay his progress.
The road was good, for that part of it which extends between Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk is considered the best in the whole journey; fewer jolts for travelers, large trees to shade them from the heat of the sun, sometimes forests of pines or cedars covering an extent of a hundred versts. It was no longer the wide steppe with limitless horizon; but the rich country was empty. Everywhere they came upon deserted villages. ”

“ It seemed to me that the inhabitants of this city, having such a fine view of nature before their eyes, ought to be gayer and more inventive than those I had just left behind me, and my expectation in this was not at all deceived. The society of Krasnoiarsk, from another cause, however, might have been thought to be sedate and little disposed to hospitality, since it is composed of Polish exiles having little reason for mirth, and some gold-seekers, to whom anything else than heavy glittering nuggets seemed unworthy to occupy their thoughts. ”

“ I thought of the poor inhabitants of Omsk, who look over the steppe so often with longing eyes. It is not from a love for this immense plain, it struck me at the time, but from some vague instinctive hope, of which they are barely conscious, though sensible, to see beyond in the horizon the dawn of something brighter than this endless uniformity, and perhaps in such a hope they find their happiness.
On approaching Krasnoiarsk, the hills rise higher and higher, and become at last, around the city, imposing mountains. ”

“ In their schemes for the future of the world, Russia's part is that of a gigantic farm, but in their schemes for the immediate future of Russia, their eyes are fixed continually on the nearer object of making her so far self-supporting that, even if Western Europe is unable to help them, they may be able to crawl out of their economic difficulties, as Krassin put it to me before he left Moscow, "if necessary on all fours, but somehow or other, crawl out." ”

“ However, the loyal Cossacks of the government of Tobolsk were advancing by forced marches towards Tomsk, in the hope of cutting off the Tartar columns.
At midnight the town of Novo-Saimsk was reached; and the travelers now left behind them the country broken by tree-covered hills, the last remains of the Urals.
Here began the regular Siberian steppe which extends to the neighborhood of Krasnoiarsk. It is a boundless plain, a vast grassy desert; earth and sky here form a circle as distinct as that traced by a sweep of the compasses. ”

“ It is easy to understand the amount of labour and care it requires, and yet it must pay, considering the number of Danish families which come yearly to settle down in Siberia. For some time Krasnoyark has been the terminus of the Western Siberian line, and it derives its present importance partly from this fact. Udinsk is growing rapidly too, and is the centre of a vast area. Around its station I saw an enormous encampment of small Russian tarantas, or cars, heavily laden with piles of sacks. ”

“ Krassin, who once managed the great Putilov [Pg 205] factory and was considered one of the most able engineers in Russia, is now pretty generally conceded the strongest man next to Lenin. As a force for stability and reconstruction he is immensely valuable to the Soviets. He has maintained a mental equilibrium which many of the other Commissars have lost. Contact with men of different political opinions is a great dissolver of mental cobwebs. Krassin’s continual coming and going has probably helped him to maintain his perspective. ”

“ In everlasting succession on each frontier arises a new enemy—Tatars of Kazan and of Crimea, Khirgiz of the Volga, Cossacks of the Steppe, Turks, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Swedes, towards the south and the west—the external peril has never ceased. ”

“ Unlike those which disgrace so many English towns, it is a highly successful effort to blend the ornamental with the useful. The trains which leave Krasnovodsk for the heart of Central Asia twice a week are made up of second and third-class carriages on the corridor system. They are warmed in the abominable fashion peculiar to Russia, by air heated in a roaring stove, and their lavatories are on the most primitive model. ”

“ Cards, dice, and drink, with dreams of frontier affrays, which may bring him decorations and promotion, are the only means which the average Russian officer possesses for killing time in those barren steppes in which his lot may be cast, and he is content to be but a simple atom in the fateful and irresponsible Russian advance which has hitherto borne down in Central Asia all attempts at resistance by the sheer weight of overwhelming numbers and of mysterious prestige. ”

“ Nature is mute. Save for the incessant flogging of the wind-broken and lacerated horses there are no sounds. With growing nearness more is revealed. In the glades of the forest, parallel to the French columns, columns of Russians are seen to be moving. And when the French presently reach Krasnoye they are surrounded by packs of cloaked Cossacks, bearing lances like huge needles a dozen feet long. The fore-part of the French army gets through the town; the rear is assaulted by infantry and artillery. ”