Читать книгу The Awakening of the East: Siberia—Japan—China - Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu - Страница 7

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Siberia a prolongation of Russia in Europe—Marked resemblance in scenery and climate between the two countries—Insignificance of the indigenous population, especially towards the West—Facilities of colonization—Preponderance of the Russian element in the agricultural zone—Indigenous elements: Polar tribes diminishing; Mongol population increasing, but much more slowly than the Russian—Asiatic immigration to the east of the cultivable zone—Heterogeneous elements imported from Europe—Jews and Raskolniks.

After crossing the beautifully wooded valleys and the chain of hills known as the Ural Mountains, the traveller arrives at Cheliabinsk, situated in the Great Plain, and can scarcely believe that 1,200 miles of railway separate him from Moscow, so striking is the resemblance between the scenery around him and that of Central Russia, notably in the Governments of Tula and Riazan. In the open spaces rise tufts of delicate verdure, beyond which, here and there, appear the gray outlines of some village, consisting of rows of wooden houses surrounded by fields. The only striking difference between the appearance of this country and Central Russia consists in the predominance of the birch between the Ural and the Obi. For nearly 1,200 miles no other tree shades the absolutely flat country. It is the same with the wild flowers, among which I noticed the Kaborski tchaï, with its long pink spiral blossoms, which recall those of the digitalis. It is not surprising that a Russian territory bearing such a singular resemblance to the mother country should prove attractive to Russian emigrants. The winter here, however, is undoubtedly both longer and colder; the summer is a little hotter, and the mosquitoes much more troublesome; but, on the other hand, land is freer, and the peasant is no longer confined in the very narrow space granted in the old country to his father at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, and which, at his death, he has been obliged to share with his brothers. If one is surprised to notice during the first few days’ journey by the Trans-Siberian Railway so few villages, the reason is not far to find. The line passes a little to the south of the colonized region, and borders the insufficiently-watered steppes where the Kirghiz graze their cattle. From time to time the traveller perceives in the plain the circular huts and even the tents of these nomads, and not unfrequently at the stations he may meet with a number of them, with their beady black eyes, their yellow complexions, and their closely-shaven heads contrasting picturesquely with the fair locks and long yellow beards of the red-shirted Mujiks. A little to the north, after passing the Obi, the Kirghiz disappear, although the town of Tomsk still possesses a mosque, said to be the most northern in the world.

It is estimated that these Tatars do not exceed 90,000. The majority profess Islamism, whilst a few have been converted to the Orthodox faith, and a smaller proportion still remain pagans. Only a fraction dwell in the towns. Besides this Tatar tribe, some 20,000 Mongols, called Kalmucks, inhabit the Altai Mountains. In the north may still be found other aborigines of a very inferior type, known as Ostiaks. They are supposed to be of Finnish origin, and do not exceed 40,000 in number, and are exclusively engaged in hunting and fishing. It is stated that at one time they were fairly civilized, but they have been gradually driven back by the Russians into the Arctic and sterile regions, and have become decimated by drink and other vices, the unfortunate result of contact with a superior race. Further north of the forest-line and the Tundra region wander a few Polar tribes called Samoyeds, who, owing to the extremely arid nature of the soil and the rigour of the climate, have never come into contact with European civilization. There are about 20,000 of them, and owing to the unfavourable social and climatic conditions under which they exist, it is not likely that they will increase. The purely Russian population, to whom the agricultural zone almost exclusively belongs, forms about nineteen-twentieths of the 3,356,000 inhabitants of Western Siberia, which itself contains three-fifths of the population of all Siberia.

The richest section of the Government of Tobolsk consists of a narrow band of land running between the marshes of the northern regions and the sterile steppes of the southern. At Tomsk this cultivable zone widens when it passes the Obi, and the character of the scenery changes to pleasant hills and valleys, in which latter the earth is still sufficiently thick and rich to entirely cover the rocky formation below. The leaf-bearing trees are finer, and are interspersed with splendid specimens of Siberian fir and the extremely picturesque Siberian cedar-tree. Occasionally these trees group themselves together, and form a sort of wood or plantation; at other times they grow singly along the roadside, being thus cultivated in order to supply sleepers for the railway or as superior fuel. The fields are full of beautiful flowers, and the general appearance of the country is that of a fine park, forming a very agreeable contrast to the monotonous Barabinsk Steppe, with its infrequent and stunted birches. The plateau which stretches between the two rivers Tom and Chulym, affluents of the Obi, at a height of between 800 and 900 feet above the level of the plain, is extremely fertile, the vegetation being most varied, and the whole region is vastly superior in point of picturesqueness to any hitherto visited. The valley of the Yenissei, dominated to the east by mountains and traversed by the magnificent river, is extremely beautiful. The water runs rapidly, is remarkably clear, and in more than one place the majestic stream widens to over 1,000 yards.

Once the traveller has passed the Yenissei, he leaves the tedious plains behind him, and finds himself among pleasant hills and valleys, which are rapidly becoming highly cultivated. The post-road, which crosses from the west to the east, from Tiumen, at the foot of the Ural, to Stretensk on the Amur, sometimes follows the course of the rivers, and at others rises to a considerable height above them. On either side rise veritable walls of gigantic Siberian pines, with red trunks, sombre verdure, interspersed by magnificent larches of a lighter shade of green and of more regular shape, and by fir-trees and cedars, whose cones contain those little seeds which the Siberians are so fond of chewing. On the banks of the more important rivers, and at every ten to twenty miles’ distance, the traveller now passes numbers of little towns and villages, surrounded by arable land, which form, however, but very insignificant oases in the midst of these interminable forests. It is, however, along this post-road, in the valley of the Yenissei, and on the banks of two or three other rivers, that almost the entire population of Central Siberia is concentrated. Here, as elsewhere, the Russian element predominates; for out of the 570,000 inhabitants of the government of Yenissei there are not more than 50,000 natives, who, moreover, live principally in the forests to the north.

The population of the Government of Irkutsk includes about 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 100,000 are Buriats, mostly shepherds and farmers. They were originally Mongols, and still practise Buddhism, and live principally on the slopes of the Sayan chain of mountains, which runs close to the Chinese frontier. To the east of the great Lake Baikal, which is 440 miles in length by 30 to 60 in width, and which by reason of its mountainous shores recalls the lakes of Scotland, is a region that contains the only really beautiful scenery in Siberia. This section of the country has always entertained close relations with China. Trans-Baikalia in former times supplied the Emperors at Peking with their finest game. The whole district of the Verkhne-Udinsk, comprising the basin of the Selenga, the principal affluent of the Baikal, is frequently and not inappropriately called Russian Mongolia. On the summit of the Ahmar Dabam, a chain of mountains which dominates Lake Baikal, I perceived for the first time a fetish-tree with its branches bedecked with parti-coloured rags. On the eastern slope I also discovered a Lamasery. The scantily cultivated plateau to the north, which is watered by the Vitim, a tributary of the Lena, was, it appears, not populated at the time of the arrival of the Russians, and even to-day it only contains a few villages peopled by wretched Mujiks. This region before the annexation of the right bank and of the lower valley of the Amur was used as a sort of military encampment. At the present time it is governed by a military régime, whose administration is concentrated in the hands of a Governor, invariably a general in the army. Of the 670,000 inhabitants, one-third are natives, one-third peasants, or inhabitants of its gloomy little towns, and the other third consists of Cossacks, who are only distinguishable from the peasants by wearing a yellow band on their caps and trousers. Instead of paying taxes, they have to submit to certain military obligations. Although they are Cossacks by name and by race, they possess none of the brilliant military qualities which distinguish their European kinsmen. The two territories annexed by Russia in 1858 at the expense of China, the Province of the Amur, and the southern portion of the Littoral Province—the only one which is of the least value—are scarcely inhabited, and were even less peopled at the time of the arrival of the Russians, when they possessed not more than 10,000 Manchus, and about as many natives, engaged in hunting and fishing, and belonging to several declining tribes. The Manchus have remained and are prospering; the other tribes are gradually passing away. Some 20,000 or 30,000 Korean and Chinese emigrants have settled in the neighbourhood of Vladivostok. The Russian immigration, however, forms at least five-sixths of the 112,000 inhabitants of the Province of the Amur, and more than two-thirds of the 214,000 of the coast province, of whom 30,000 natives live in the Arctic regions, where the whites leave them in peace. The newly-acquired Chinese territory includes at least 140,000 Russians out of the 175,000 inhabitants. It must, however, be remembered that this remarkable majority is mainly due to the concentration of troops which has taken place since the Chino-Japanese War, which so profoundly modified the political condition of the Far East.

The following table is formed from official sources—chiefly from the census taken on January 28, 1897, and marks the area and the total population of the nine Siberian provinces:

	Square Miles.	Total Population.	Natives and other Asiatics.	Area of Agricultural Zone, Square Miles.
Tobolsk	536,600	1,438,655	180,000	270,800
Tomsk	328,000	1,917,527
Yenissei	987,400	567,807	45,000	193,400
Irkutsk	280,800	501,237	100,000
Yakutsk	1,535,900	283,954	250,000
Trans-Baikalia	229,800	669,721	200,000	139,200
Amur	172,900	112,396	18,000	104,000
Littoral	741,400	214,940	70,000	147,000
Island of Sakhalin	25,495
Total	4,812,800	5,731,732	863,000	854,400

The southern agricultural region of Siberia, in contradistinction to the frozen zone to the north, is mainly inhabited by European settlers. The proportion of these over the native population is greatest in the west, and decreases towards the east, where, however, it still remains superior by about two-thirds, so that we need not hesitate to conclude that out of the 5,000,000 people living on this long strip of land, more than four million and a half are of European origin. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the indigenous Mongol and Turki population, which is immensely superior to the poor tribes of fishermen and hunters who wander about the northern zone, does not diminish, but continues to increase, much less rapidly, however, than the Russians, who are constantly being reinforced by emigration. Fortunately the feeling between these two distinct elements is excellent; the Russians, being of Oriental extraction, do not hold those racial prejudices which are so marked among the Anglo-Saxons. The religious question, which is of course an obstacle to any attempt at a fusion between the Orthodox and the Buddhist population, is also not very intense or intricate. The Russian is essentially tolerant, in opposition to his Government, which is the reverse. The Orthodox emigrants have no objection to a Pagoda or a Lamasery being erected alongside of their own churches and monasteries. I remember seeing, while travelling, from Cheliabinsk to Omsk, the Metropolitan of the last-named town, who happened to be in the train, get out at a certain station to visit a church which was being built, and to bestow his benediction upon a crowd of Mujiks who had assembled for the purpose of receiving it. Whilst the ceremony was in progress, a few feet further on five Tatar travellers had stretched their carpets, and, with their faces turned Meccawards, were going through the elaborate gymnastics connected with Mussulman devotion. The Mujiks, who were crowding forward to kiss their priest’s hand, never dreamt of disturbing the Mohammedan worshippers, but watched them quite respectfully. I doubt very much whether in any part of Europe three centuries ago, when the populace was not more developed in the intellectual sense than are these poor Mujiks, such a scene of tolerance could ever have been witnessed. The Russian Government accords the utmost liberty to its subjects in Asia in matters of religion. The origin of Russian official intolerance in Europe is in the main purely political, and if it considers Buddhists and Mussulmans in Siberia less objectionable than Catholics and Protestants, it is simply because the followers of these divergent creeds are the representatives of former and very dangerous enemies, and are, moreover, perpetually endeavouring to impose their doctrine upon anyone with whom they come into contact.

The Russian colonization of Siberia has been carried out without the aid of any other European nationality. There are only a few hundred other Europeans settled in the country, the greater number of whom are French people. I was much amused at the little station at Sokur, about nine leagues from the Obi, to find a buffet kept by a Frenchwoman, a peasant who had married a Bessarabian, and who had only been in Siberia a year, after having, however, spent several in Southern Russia. Her buffet was arranged with a greater degree of taste and comfort than those in charge of the Russians, who, however, keep everything scrupulously neat and clean. The worthy lady had forgotten her fluent French, but had not yet acquired fluent Russian. At Tomsk I fell in with another Frenchwoman, who kept a bookshop, and in nearly all the towns along the great post-road at Irkutsk, Blagovyeshchensk, Khabarofsk, and Vladivostok, I found French shopkeepers, some of whom had been thirty years in the country. They seemed to entertain a distinct preference for photography.

Now that Siberia is at last thrown open to civilization, foreigners will, of course, become much more numerous, and already many engineers are to be found in various parts of the mining districts; but for all this, I do not think that at any period the Russian colony will be greatly influenced thereby.

We may, therefore, conclude that, from the ethnological point of view, as well as from the geographical, Siberia is merely a prolongation of Russian Europe, or of what is known as Greater Russia. It is true that a few heterogeneous elements exist of the same sort as those to be met with in Russia itself: Poles and Germans from the Baltic provinces, and the descendants of exiles, or even exiles themselves; and thus it comes to pass that in all the larger towns, at Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, Catholic and Lutheran churches abound. On the other hand, there are synagogues in nearly all the secondary towns. Israel is fully represented in Siberia, and the little town of Kainsk between the Omsk and the Obi is popularly known as the Jerusalem of Siberia. There are also about 100,000 Raskolniks, followers of a reform which took place in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century. This, however, is, needless to say, a purely Russian contingent. The Raskolniks exist in every part of Siberia, but in the province of the Amur they form about a tenth of the population, and are also very numerous in Trans-Baikalia. They are mainly the descendants of people belonging to this particular sect, who were originally exiled from Russia in the eighteenth century. Their chief peculiarity consists in their love of temperance and horror of every sort of innovation. Nothing would induce them to take even a cup of coffee or tea. In our time the members of certain curious sects, that of the Eunuchs, for instance, are exiled into Siberia, and confined to a village in the territory of the Yakutsk, in the Tundra Zone. According to the belief of these eccentric persons, Napoleon I. was a reincarnation of the Messiah, and they believe he rests in the sleep of death on the shores of Lake Baikal until a time when an angel shall awaken him and place him at the head of an amazing host destined to establish the reign of God in all parts of the world. The Raskolniks, owing to their temperate habits and their industry, are generally considered to be a very valuable element in the population of the country.