Chapter III: Part VI: Statistics (1)

Present Conditions
_E. S._

ILLUSTRATIONS

MOSCOW
ARCHANGEL
REVEL
SIBERIAN NATIVES
SAMOJEDES OF NOVA ZEMBLA
ROOM OF THE TSAR MICHAILOWITCH, MOSCOW
CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION
A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION, KOLA
SHRINE IN THE CONVENT SOLOVETSKII, KOLA
ST. PETERSBURG
THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG
HELSINGFORS, FINLAND
REINDEER TRAVELLING
MOSCOW
THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW
VASSILI--BLAGENNOI (ST. BASIL THE BLESSED), MOSCOW
NOWO ZJAZD STREET, WARSAW
HOTEL DEVILLE, WARSAW
THE DNIEPER AT KIEF
LA LAVRA, KIEF
NIJNI--NOVGOROD (BRIDGE OF THE FAIR)
FROM THE RAMPARTS OF THE KREMLIN, NIJNI--NOVGOROD
PLACE TUREMNAJA, ODESSA
SEBASTOPOL
KHARKOFF
TIFLIS
THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG
RUSSIAN FARM SCENE
THE TSAR'S DINING-ROOM, MOSCOW
ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL, ST. PETERSBURG
ST. ANNE RESTAURANT, WIBORG
THE RED SQUARE, MOSCOW
CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, MOSCOW
STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT AND THE ADMIRALTY PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG
THE THEATRE, ODESSA
THE LIBRARY, ODESSA
THE TSAR NICHOLAS
THE TSARINA
KALKSTRASSE AND PROMENADE, RIGA

_THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE_

_PRINCE KROPOTKINE_

The Russian Empire is a very extensive territory in eastern Europe and northern Asia, with an area exceeding 8,500,000 square miles, or one-sixth of the land surface of the globe (one twenty-third of its whole superficies). It is, however, but thinly peopled on the average, including only one-fourteenth of the inhabitants of the earth. It is almost entirely confined to the cold and temperate zones. In Nova Zembla (Novaya Zemlya) and the Taimir peninsula, it projects within the Arctic Circle as far as 77° 2' and 77° 40' N. latitude; while its southern extremities reach 38° 50' in Armenia, about 35° on the Afghan frontier, and 42° 30' on the coasts of the Pacific. To the West it advances as far as 20° 40' E. longitude in Lapland, 18° 32' in Poland, and 29° 42' on the Black Sea; and its eastern limit--East Cape in the Bering Strait--extends to 191° E. longitude.

The Arctic Ocean--comprising the White, Barents, and Kara Seas--and the northern Pacific, that is the Seas of Bering, Okhotsk, and Japan, bound it on the north and east. The Baltic, with its two deep indentations, the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, limits it on the north-west; and two sinuous lines of frontier separate it respectively from Sweden and Norway on the north-west, and from Prussia, Austria and Roumania on the west. The southern frontier is still unsettled. In Asia beyond the Caspian, the southern boundary of the empire remains vague; the advance into the Turcoman Steppes and Afghan Turkestan, and on the Pamir plateau is still in progress. Bokhara and Khiva, though represented as vassal khanates, are in reality mere dependencies of Russia. An approximately settled frontier-line begins only farther east, where the Russian and Chinese empires meet on the borders of eastern Turkestan, Mongolia and Manchuria.

Russia has no oceanic possessions, and has abandoned those she owned in the last century; her islands are mere appendages of the mainland to which they belong. Such are the Aland archipelago, Hochland, Tütters, Dagö and Osel in the Baltic Sea; Nova Zembla, with Kolgueff and Vaigatch, in the Barents Sea; the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea; the New Siberian archipelago and the small group of the Medvyezhii Islands off the Siberian coast; the Commandor Islands off Kamchatka; the Shantar Islands and Saghalin in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Aleutian archipelago was sold to the United States in 1867, together with Alaska, and in 1874 the Kurile Islands were ceded to Japan.

A vast variety of physical features is obviously to be expected in a territory like this, which comprises on the one side the cotton and silk regions of Turkestan and Trans-caucasia, and on the other the moss and lichen-clothed Arctic _tundras_ and the Verkhoyansk Siberian pole of cold--the dry Transcaspian deserts and the regions watered by the monsoons on the coasts of the Sea of Japan. Still, if the border regions, that is, two narrow belts in the north and south, be left out of account, a striking uniformity of physical feature prevails. High plateaus, like those of Pamir (the "Roof of the World") or of Armenia, and high mountain chains like the snow-clad summits of the Caucasus, the Alay, the Thian-Shan, the Sayan, are met with only on the outskirts of the empire.

Viewed broadly by the physical geographer, it appears as occupying the territories to the north-west of that great plateau-belt of the old continent--the backbone of Asia--which spreads with decreasing height and width from the high table-land of Tibet and Pamir to the lower plateaus of Mongolia, and thence north-eastwards through the Vitim region to the furthest extremity of Asia. It may be said to consist of the immense plains and flat-lands which extend between the plateau-belt and the Arctic Ocean, including all the series of parallel chains and hilly spurs which skirt the plateau-belt on the north-west. It extends over the plateau itself, and crosses it beyond Lake Baikal only.

A broad belt of hilly tracts--in every respect Alpine in character, and displaying the same variety of climate and organic life as Alpine tracts usually do--skirts the plateau-belt throughout its length on the north and north-west, forming an intermediate region between the plateaus and the plains. The Caucasus, the Elburz, the Kopetdagh, and Paropamisus, the intricate and imperfectly known network of mountains west of the Pamir, the Thian-Shan and Ala-tau mountain regions, and farther north-east the Altai, the still unnamed complex of Minusinsk mountains, the intricate mountain-chains of Sayan, with those of the Olekma, Vitim, and Aldan, all of which are ranged _en échelon_,--the former from north-west to south-east, and the others from south-west to north-east--all these belong to one immense Alpine belt bordering that of the plateaus. These have long been known to Russian colonists, who, seeking to escape religious persecutions and exactions by the state, early penetrated into and rapidly pushed their small settlements up the better valleys of these tracts, and continued to spread everywhere as long as they found no obstacles in the shape of a former population or in unfavourable climatic conditions.

As for the flat-lands which extend from the Alpine hill-foots to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and assume the character either of dry deserts in the Aral-Caspian depression, or of low table-lands in central Russia and eastern Siberia, of lake-regions in north-west Russia and Finland, or of marshy prairies in western Siberia, and of _tundras_ in the north,--their monotonous surfaces are diversified by only a few, and these for the most part low, hilly tracts.

As to the picturesque Bureya mountains on the Amur, the forest-clothed Sikhota-alin on the Pacific, and the volcanic chains of Kamchatka, they belong to quite another orographical world; they are the border-ridges of the terraces by which the great plateau-belt descends to the depths of the Pacific Ocean. It is owing to these leading orographical features--divined by Carl Ritter, but only within the present day revealed by geographical research--that so many of the great rivers of the old continent are comprised within the limits of the Russian empire. Taking rise on the plateau-belt, or in its Alpine outskirts, they flow first, like the upper Rhone and Rhine, along high longitudinal valleys formerly filled up with great lakes; next they find their way through the rocky walls; and finally they enter the lowlands, where they become navigable, and, describing great curves to avoid here and there the minor plateaus and hilly tracts, they bring into water-communication with one another places thousands of miles apart. The double river-systems of the Volga and Kama, the Obi and Irtish, the Angara and Yenisei, the Lena and Vitim on the Arctic slope, the Amur and Sungari on the Pacific slope, are instances. They were the true channels of Russian colonization.

A broad depression--the Aral-Caspian desert--has arisen where the plateau-belt has reached its greatest height and suddenly changes its direction from a north-western into a north-eastern one; this desert is now filled only to a small extent by the salt waters of the Caspian, Aral and Balkash inland seas; but it bears unmistakable traces of having been during Post-Pliocene times an immense inland basin. There the Volga, the Ural, the Sir Daria, and the Oxus discharge their waters without reaching the ocean, but continue to bring life to the rapidly drying Transcaspian Steppes, or connect by their river network, as the Volga does, the most remote parts of European Russia.

The above-described features of the physical geography of the empire explain the relative uniformity of this wide territory, in conjunction with the variety of physical features on the outskirts. They explain also the rapidity of the expansion of Sclavonic colonization over these thinly-peopled regions; and they also throw light upon the internal cohesion of the empire, which cannot fail to strike the traveller as he crosses this immense territory, and finds everywhere the same dominating race, the same features of life. In fact, as their advance from the basins of the Volkhoff and Dnieper to the foot of the Altai and Sayan mountains, that is, along nearly a quarter of the earth's circumference, the Russian colonizers could always find the same physical conditions, the same forest and prairies as they had left at home, the same facilities for agriculture, only modified somewhat by minor topographical features. New conditions of climate and soil, and consequently new cultures and civilizations, the Russians met with, in their expansion towards the south and east, only beyond the Caucasus in the Aral-Caspian region, and in the basin of the Usuri on the Pacific coast. Favoured by these conditions, the Russians not only conquered northern Asia--they colonized it.

The Russian Empire falls into two great subdivisions, the European and the Asiatic, the latter of which, representing an aggregate of nearly 6,500,000 square miles, with a population of only sixteen million inhabitants may be considered as held by colonies. The European dominions comprise European Russia, Finland, which is, in fact, a separate nationality treated to some extent as an allied state, and Poland, whose very name has been erased from official documents, but which nevertheless continues to pursue its own development. The Asiatic dominions comprise the following great subdivisions:--Caucasia, under a separate governor-general; the Transcaspian region, which is under the governor-general of Caucasus; the Kirghiz Steppes; Turkestan under separate governors-general, Western Siberia and Eastern Siberia; and the Amur region, which last comprises also the Pacific coast region and Kamchatka.

_Climate of Russia in Europe_.--Notwithstanding the fact that Russia extends from north to south through twenty-six degrees of latitude, the climate of its different portions, apart from the Crimea and the Caucasus, presents a striking uniformity. The aerial currents--cyclones, anti-cyclones and dry south-east winds--extend over wide surfaces and cross the flat plains freely. Everywhere we find a cold winter and a hot summer, both varying in their duration, but differing little in the extremes of temperature recorded.

Throughout Russia the winter is of long continuance. The last days of frost are experienced for the most part in April, but also in May to the north of fifty-five degrees. The spring is exceptionally beautiful in central Russia; late as it usually is, it sets in with vigour and develops with a rapidity which gives to this season in Russia a special charm, unknown in warmer climates; and the rapid melting of snow at the same time raises the rivers, and renders a great many minor streams navigable for a few weeks. But a return of cold weather, injurious to vegetation, is observed throughout central and eastern Russia between May 18 and 24, so that it is only in June that warm weather sets in definitely, reaching its maximum in the first half of July (or of August on the Black Sea coast). The summer is much warmer than might be supposed; in south-eastern Russia it is much warmer than in the corresponding latitudes of France, and really hot weather is experienced everywhere. It does not, however, prevail for long, and in the first half of September the first frosts begin to be experienced on the middle Urals; they reach western and southern Russia in the first days of October, and are felt on the Caucasus about the middle of November. The temperature descends so rapidly that a month later, about October 10 on the middle Urals and November 15 throughout Russia the thermometer ceases to rise above the freezing-point. The rivers rapidly freeze; towards November 20 all the streams of the White Sea basin are covered with ice, and so remain for an average of 167 days; those of the Baltic, Black Sea, and Caspian basins freeze later, but about December 20 nearly all the rivers of the country are highways for sledges. The Volga remains frozen for a period varying between 150 days in the north and 90 days at Astrakhan, the Don for 100 to 110 days, and the Dneiper for 83 to 122 days. On the Dwina ice prevents navigation for 125 days and even the Vistula at Warsaw remains frozen for 77 days. The lowest temperatures are experienced in January, in which month the average is as low as 20° to 5° Fahr. throughout Russia; in the west only does it rise above 22°.

_The flora and fauna of Russia_.--The flora of Russia, which represents an intermediate link between those of Germany and Siberia, is strikingly uniform over a very large area. Though not poor at any given place, it appears so if the space occupied by Russia be taken into account, only 3,300 species of phanerogams and ferns being known. Four great regions may be distinguished:--the Arctic, the Forest, the Steppe, and the Circum-Mediterranean.

The _Arctic Region_ comprises the _tundras_ of the Arctic littoral beyond the northern limit of forests, which last closely follows the coast-line with bends towards the north in the river valleys (70° N. lat. in Finland, on the Arctic Circle about Archangel, 68° N. on the Urals, 71° on West Siberia). The shortness of summer, the deficiency of drainage and the thickness of the layer of soil which is frozen through in winter are the elements which go to the making of the characteristic features of the _tundras_. Their flora is far nearer those of northern Siberia and North America than that of central Europe. Mosses and lichens cover them, as also the birch, the dwarf willow, and a variety of shrubs; but where the soil is drier, and humus has been able to accumulate, a variety of herbaceous flowering plants, some of which are familiar also in western Europe, make their appearance.

The _Forest Region_ of the Russian botanists occupies the greater part of the country, from the Arctic _tundras_ to the Steppes, and it maintains over this immense surface a remarkable uniformity of character. Viewed as a whole, the flora of the forest region must be regarded as European-Siberian; and though certain species disappear towards the east, while new ones make their appearance, it maintains, on the whole, the same characters throughout from Poland to Kamchatka. Thus the beech, a characteristic tree of western Europe, is unable to face the continental climate of Russia, and does not penetrate beyond Poland and the south-western provinces, reappearing again in the Crimea. The silver fir does not extend over Russia, and the oak does not cross the Urals. On the other hand, several Asiatic species (Siberian pine, larch, cedar) grow freely in the north-east, while several shrubs and herbaceous plants, originally from the Asiatic Steppes, have spread into the south-east. But all these do not greatly alter the general character of the vegetation.

The _Region of the Steppes_, which covers all Southern Russia, may be subdivided into two zones--an intermediate zone and that of the Steppes proper. The Ante-Steppe of the preceding region and the intermediate zone of the Steppes include those tracts where the West-European climate struggles with the Asiatic, and where a struggle is being carried on between the forest and the Steppe.

The Steppes proper are very fertile elevated plains, slightly undulated, and intersected by numerous ravines which are dry in summer. The undulations are scarcely apparent to the eye as it takes in a wide prospect under a blazing sun and with a deep-blue sky overhead. Not a tree is to be seen, the few woods and thickets being hidden in the depressions and deep valleys of the rivers. On the thick sheet of black earth by which the Steppe is covered a luxuriant vegetation develops in spring; after the old grass has been burned a bright green covers immense stretches, but this rapidly disappears under the burning rays of the sun and the hot easterly winds. The colouring of the Steppe changes as if by magic, and only the silvery plumes of the _kovyl_ (_Stipa pennata_) wave under the wind, giving the Steppe the aspect of a bright, yellow sea. For days together the traveller sees no other vegetation; even this, however, disappears as he nears the regions recently left dry from the Caspian, where salted clays covered with a few _Salsolace_, or mere sands, take the place of the black earth. Here begins the Aral-Caspian desert. The Steppe, however, is not so devoid of trees as at first sight appears. Innumerable clusters of wild cherries, wild apricots, and other deep-rooted shrubs grow in the depressions of the surface, and on the slopes of the ravines, giving the Steppe that charm which manifests itself in popular poetry. Unfortunately, the spread of cultivation is fatal to these oases (they are often called "islands" by the inhabitants); the axe and the plough ruthlessly destroy them. The vegetation of the _poimy_ and _zaimischas_ in the marshy bottoms of the ravines, and in the valleys of streams and rivers, is totally different. The moist soil gives free development to thickets of various willows, bordered with dense walls of worm-wood and needle-bearing _Composita_, and interspersed with rich but not extensive prairies harbouring a great variety of herbaceous plants; while in the deltas of the Black Sea rivers impenetrable masses of rush shelter a forest fauna. But cultivation rapidly changes the physiognomy of the Steppe. The prairies are superseded by wheat-fields, and flocks of sheep destroy the true steppe-grass (_Stipa-pennata_), which retires farther east.

The _Circum-Mediterranean Region_ is represented by a narrow strip of land on the south coast of the Crimea, where a climate similar to that of the Mediterranean coast has permitted the development of a flora closely resembling that of the valley of the Arno.

The fauna of European Russia does not very materially differ from that of western Europe. In the forests not many animals which have disappeared from western Europe have held their ground; while in the Urals only a few--now Siberian, but formerly also European--are met with. On the whole, Russia belongs to the same zoo-geographical region as central Europe and northern Asia, the same fauna extending in Siberia as far as the Yenisei and Lena. In south-eastern Russia, however, towards the Caspian, we find a notable admixture of Asiatic species, the deserts of that part of Russia belonging in reality rather to the Aral-Caspian depression than to Europe.

For the zoo-geographer only three separate sub-regions appear on the East-European plains--the _tundras_, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the Ante-Steppe and Steppes of the black-earth region. The Ural mountains might be distinguished as a fourth sub-region, while the south-coast of the Crimea and Caucasus, as well as the Caspian deserts, have their own individuality.

As for the adjoining seas, the fauna of the Arctic Ocean off the Norwegian coast corresponds, in its western parts at least, to that of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream. The White Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the east of Svyatoi Nos belong to a separate zoological region connected with, and hardly separable from, that part of the Arctic Ocean which extends along the Siberian coast as far as to about the Lena. The Black Sea, of which the fauna was formerly little known but now appears to be very rich, belongs to the Mediterranean region, slightly modified, while the Caspian partakes of the characteristic fauna inhabiting the lakes and seas of the Aral-Caspian depression.

In the region of the _tundras_ life has to contend with such unfavourable conditions that it cannot be abundant. Still the reindeer frequents it for its lichens, and on the drier slopes of the moraine deposits four species of lemming, hunted by the _Canis lagopus_, find quarters. Two species of the white partridge, the lark, one _Plectrophanes_, two or three species of _Sylvia_, one _Phylloscopus_, and the _Motacilla_ must be added. Numberless aquatic birds, however, visit it for breeding purposes. Ducks, divers, geese, gulls, all the Russian species of snipes and sandpipers, etc., cover the marshes of the _tundras_, or the crags of the Lapland coast.

The forest region, and especially its coniferous portion, though it has lost some of its representatives within historic times, is still rich. The reindeer, rapidly disappearing, is now met with only in Olonetz and Vologda; the _Cervus pygargus_ is found everywhere, and reaches Novgorod. The weasel, the fox and the hare are exceedingly common, as also the wolf and the bear in the north; but the glutton, the lynx, and even the elk are rapidly disappearing. The wild boar is confined to the basin of the Dwina, and the _Bison eropea_ to the Bielovyezha forests. The sable has quite disappeared, being found only on the Urals; the beaver is found at a few places in Minsk, and the otter is very rare. On the other hand, the hare and also the grey partridge, the hedgehog, the quail, the lark, the rook, and the stork find their way into the coniferous region as the forests are cleared. The avifauna is very rich; it includes all the forest and garden birds which are known in western Europe, as well as a very great variety of aquatic birds. Hunting and shooting give occupation to a great number of persons. The reptiles are few. As for fishes, all those of western Europe, except the carp, are met with in the lakes and rivers in immense quantities, the characteristic feature of the region being its wealth in _Coregoni_ and in _Salmonid_ generally.

In the Ante-Steppe the forest species proper, such as _Pteromys volans_ and _Tamias striatus_, disappear, but the common squirrel, the weasel, and the bear are still met with in the forests. The hare is increasing rapidly, as well as the fox. The avifauna, of course, becomes poorer; nevertheless the woods of the Steppe, and still more the forests of the Ante-Steppe, give refuge to many birds, even to the hazel-hen, the woodcock and the black-grouse. The fauna of the thickets at the bottom of the river-valleys is decidedly, rich and includes aquatic birds. The destruction of the forests and the advance of wheat into the prairies are rapidly impoverishing the Steppe fauna. The various species of rapacious animals are disappearing, together with the colonies of marmots; the insectivores are also becoming scarce in consequence of the destruction of insects, while vermin, such as the suslik (_Spermophilus_), become a real plague, as also the destructive insects which have been a scourge to agriculture during recent years. The absence of _Coregoni_ is a characteristic feature of the fish-fauna of the Steppes; the carp, on the contrary, reappears, and the rivers are rich in sturgeons. On the Volga below Nijni Novgorod the sturgeon, and others of the same family, as also a very great variety of ganoids and _Teleostei_, appear in such quantities that they give occupation to nearly 100,000 people. The mouths of the Caspian rivers are especially celebrated for their wealth of fish.

_SIBERIA_

_JEAN JACQUES ÉLISÉE RECLUS_

Siberia is emphatically the "Land of the North." Its name has by some etymologists been identified with "Severia," a term formerly applied to various northern regions of European Russia. The city of Sibir, which has given its name to the whole of North Asia, was so called only by the Russians, its native name being Isker. The Cossacks, coming from the south and centre of Russia, may have naturally regarded as pre-eminently the "Northern Land" those cold regions of the Ob basin lying beyond the snowy mountains which form the "girdle of the world."

Long before the conquest of Sibir by the Cossacks, this region was known to the Arab traders and missionaries. The Tatars of Sibir were Mahommedans and this town was the centre of the great fur trade. The Russians themselves had constant relations with the inhabitants of the Asiatic slopes of the Urals, and the Novgorodians were acquainted with the regions stretching "beyond the portages." Early in the Sixteenth Century the Moscow Tsars, heirs of the Novgorod power, called themselves lords of Obdoria and Kondina; that is of all the Lower Ob basin between the Konda and the Irtish confluence, and the station of Obdorsk, under the Arctic Circle. Their possessions--that is, the hunting grounds visited by the Russian agents of the Strogonov family--consequently skirted the great river for a distance of 600 miles. But the Slav power was destined soon to be consolidated by conquest, and such is the respect inspired by force that the successful expedition of a Cossack brigand, on whose head a price had been set, was supposed to have led to the discovery of Siberia, although really preceded by many visits of a peaceful character. Even still the conquering Yermak is often regarded as a sort of explorer of the lands beyond the Urals. But he merely establishes himself as a master where the Strogonov traders had been received as guests. Maps of the Ob and of the Ostiak country had already been published by Sebastian Munster and by Herberstein a generation before the Cossacks entered Sibir. The very name of this town is marked on Munster's map.

In 1579, Yermak began the second plundering expedition, which in two years resulted in the capture of the Tatar kingdom. When the conquerors entered Sibir they had been reduced from over 800 to about 400 men. But this handful represented the power of the Tsars and Yermak could sue for pardon, with the offer of a kingdom as his ransom. Before the close of the Sixteenth Century the land had been finally subdued. Sibir itself, which stood on a high bluff on the right bank of the Irtish, exists no more, having probably been swept away by the erosions of the stream. But ten miles farther down another capital, Tobolsk, arose, also on the right bank, and the whole of the north was gradually added to the Tsar's dominions. The fur trappers, more even than the soldiers, were the real conquerors of Siberia. Nevertheless, many battles had to be fought down to the middle of the Seventeenth Century. The Buriats of the Angora basin, the Koriaks, and other tribes long held out; but most of the land was peacefully acquired, and permanently secured by the forts erected by the Cossacks at the junction of the rivers, at the entrance of the mountain passes, and other strategic points. History records no other instance of such a vast dominion so rapidly acquired, and with such slender means, by a handful of men acting mostly on their own impulse, without chiefs or instructions from the centre of authority.

Even China allowed the Cossacks to settle on the banks of the Amur, though the treaty of Nerchinsk required the Russians to withdraw from that basin in 1689. But during the present century they have been again attracted to this region, and the Government of St. Petersburg is now fully alive to the advantages of a free access by a large navigable stream to the Pacific seaboard. Hence, in 1851, Muraviov established the factory of Nikolaievsk, near the mouth of the Amur, and those of Mariinsk and Alexandrovsk at either end of the portage connecting that river with the Bay of Castries. During the Crimean war its left bank was definitely secured by a line of fortified posts, and in 1859 a ukase confirmed the possession of a territory torn from China in time of peace. Lastly, in 1860, while the Anglo-French forces were entering Pekin, Russia obtained without a blow the cession of the region south of the Amur and east of the Ussuri, stretching along the coast to the Corean frontier.

And thus was completed the reduction of the whole of North Asia, a territory of itself alone far more extensive than the European continent. In other respects there is, of course, no point of comparison between these two regions. This Siberian world, where vast wildernesses still remain to be explored, has a foreign trade surpassed by that of many a third-rate European seaport, such as Dover or Boulogne. Embracing a thirteenth part of the dry land on the surface of the globe, its population falls short of that of London alone; it is even more sparsely peopled than Caucasia and Turkestan, having little over one inhabitant to 1,000 acres.

Accurate surveys of the physical features and frontier-lines are still far from complete. Only quite recently the first circumnavigation of the Old World round the northern shores of Siberia has been accomplished by the Swedish explorer, Nordenskjöld. The early attempts made by Willoughby, Chancellor, and Burrough failed even to reach the Siberian coast. Hoping later on to reach China by ascending the Ob to the imaginary Lake Kitaï--that is, Kathay, or China--the English renewed their efforts to discover the "north-east passage," and in 1580 two vessels, commanded by Arthur Ket and Charles Jackman, sailed for the Arctic Ocean; but they never got beyond the Kara Sea. The Dutch succeeded no better, none of the voyages undertaken by Barents and others between 1594 and 1597 reaching farther than the Spitzbergen and Novaya Zembla waters. Nor were these limits exceeded by Hendrick Hudson in 1608. This was the last attempt made by the navigators of West Europe; but the Russian traders and fishers of the White Sea were familiar with the routes to the Ob and Yenisei Gulfs, as is evident from a map published in 1600 by Boris Godunov. However, sixteen years afterwards the navigation of these waters was interdicted under pain of death, lest foreigners should discover the way to the Siberian coast.

The exploration of this seaboard had thus to be prosecuted in Siberia itself by means of vessels built for the river navigation. In 1648, the Cossack Dejnev sailed with a flotilla of small craft from the Kolîma round the north-east extremity of Asia, passing long before the birth of Bering through the strait which now bears the name of that navigator. Stadukhin also explored these eastern seas in search of the islands full of fossil ivory, of which he had heard from the natives. In 1735, Pronchishchev and Lasinius embarked at Yakutsk and sailed down the Lena, exploring its delta and neighbouring coasts. Pronchishchev reached a point east of the Taimir peninsula, but failed to double the headlands between the Lena and the Yenisei estuaries. The expedition begun by Laptiev in 1739, after suffering shipwreck, was continued overland, resulting in the exploration of the Taimir peninsula and the discovery of the North Cape of the Old World, Pliny's Tabin, and the Cheluskin of modern maps, so named from the pilot who accompanied Pronchishchev and Laptiev. The western seaboard between the Yenisei and Ob estuaries had already been surveyed by Ovtzin and Minin in 1737-9.

But the problem was already being attacked from the side of the Pacific Ocean. In 1728, the Danish navigator, Bering, in the service of Russia, crossed Siberia overland to the Pacific, whence he sailed through the strait now named from him, and by him first revealed to the West, though known to the Siberian Cossacks eighty years previously. Even Bering himself, hugging the Asiatic coast, had not descried the opposite shores of America, and was uncertain as to the exact position of the strait. This point was not cleared up till Cook's voyage of 1778, and even after that the Sakhalin, Yezo and Kurile waters still remained to be explored. The shores of the mainland and islands were first traced by La Pérouse, who determined the insular character of Sakhalin, and ascertained the existence of a strait connecting the Japanese Sea with that of Okhotsk. This completed the general survey of the whole Siberian seaboard.

The scientific exploration of the interior began in the Eighteenth Century with Messerschmidt, followed by Gmelin, Müller, and Delisle de la Croyère, who determined many important physical points between the years 1733 and 1742. The region stretching beyond Lake Baikal was explored by Pallas and his associates in 1770-3. The expeditions, interrupted by the great wars following on the French Revolution, were resumed in 1828 by the Norwegian Hansteen, whose memorable expedition in company with Erman had such important results for the study of terrestrial magnetism. While Hansteen and Erman were still prosecuting their labours in every branch of natural science, Alexander von Humboldt, Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose made a short visit to Siberia, which, however, remained one of the most important in the history of science. Middendorff's journeys to North and East Siberia had also some very valuable results, and were soon followed, in 1854, by the "expedition to Siberia" undertaken by Schwartz, Schmidt, Glehn, Usoltzev, and associates, extending over the whole region of the Trans-baikal to the Lena and northern tributaries of the Amur. Thus began the uninterrupted series of modern journeys, which are now being systematically continued in every part of Siberia, and which promise soon to leave no blanks on the chart of that region.

The work of geographical discovery, properly so called, may be said to have been brought to a close by Nordenskjöld's recent determination of the north-east passage, vainly attempted by Willoughby, Barents, and so many other illustrious navigators.

Such a vast region as Siberia, affected in the west by Atlantic, in the east by Pacific influences, and stretching north and south across 29° of latitude, must obviously present great diversities of climate. Even this bleak land has its temperate zones, which the Slav colonists are fond of calling their "Italies." Nevertheless as compared with Europe, Siberia may, on the whole, be regarded as a country of extreme temperatures--relatively great heats, and, above all, intense colds. The very term "Siberian" has justly become synonymous with a land of winds, frosts, and snows. The mean annual temperature in this region comprised between the rivers Anabara and Indigirka is 20° Fahr. below freezing point. The pole of cold, oscillating diversely with the force of the lateral pressure from Yakutsk to the Lena estuary, is the meteorological centre round which the atmosphere revolves. Here are to a large extent prepared the elements of the climate of West Europe.

Travellers speak of the Siberian winters with mingled feelings of terror and rapture. An infinite silence broods over the land--all is buried in deep sleep. The animals hibernate in their dens, the streams have ceased to flow, disappearing beneath the ice and snow; the earth, of a dazzling whiteness in the centre of the landscape, but grey in the distance, nowhere offers a single object to arrest the gaze. The monotony of endless space is broken by no abrupt lines or vivid tints. The only contrast with the dull expanse of land is the everlasting azure sky, along which the sun creeps at a few degrees only above the horizon. In these intensely cold latitudes it rises and sets with hard outlines, unsoftened by the ruddy haze elsewhere encircling it on the edge of the horizon. Yet such is the strength of its rays that the snow melts on the housetop exposed to its glare, while in the shade the temperature is 40° to 50° below freezing point. At night, when the firmament is not aglow with the many-tinted lights and silent coruscations of the aurora borealis, the zodiacal light and the stars still shine with intense brightness.

To this severe winter, which fissures the surface and rends the rocks of the rivers into regular basalt-like columns, there succeeds a sudden and delightful spring. So instantaneous is the change that nature seems as if taken by surprise and rudely awakened. The delicate green of the opening leaf, the fragrance of the budding flowers, the intoxicating balm of the atmosphere, the radiant brightness of the heavens, all combine to impart to mere existence a voluptuous gladness. To Siberians visiting the temperate climes of Western Europe, spring seems to be unknown beyond their lands. But these first days of new life are followed by a chill, gusty and changeful interval, arising from the atmospheric disturbances caused by the thawing of the vast snowy wastes. A relapse is then experienced analogous to that too often produced in England by late east winds. The apple blossom is now nipped by the night frosts falling in the latter part of May. Hence no apples can be had in East Siberia, although the summer heats are otherwise amply sufficient for the ripening of fruit. After the fleeting summer, winter weather again sets in. It will often freeze at night in the middle of July; and after the 10th of August the sear leaf begins to fall, and in a few days all are gone, except perhaps the foliage of the larch. The snow will even sometimes settle early in August on the still leafy branches, bending and breaking them with its weight. Below the surface of the ground, winter reigns uninterrupted even by the hottest summers.

With its vast extent and varied climate, Siberia naturally embraces several vegetable zones, differing more from each other even than those of Europe. The southern Steppes have a characteristic and well-marked flora, forming a continuation of that of the Aral, Caspian and Volga plains. The treeless northern _tundras_ also constitute a vegetable domain as sharply defined as the desert itself, while between these two zones of Steppe and _tundra_ the forest region of Europe stretches, with many subdivisions, west and east right across the continent. Of these subdivisions the chief are those of the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, and Amur basins.

Beyond the northern _tundras_ and southern Steppes by far the greatest space is occupied by the forest zone. From the Urals to Kamchatka the dense _taiga_, or woodlands are interrupted only by the streams, a few natural glades and some tracts under cultivation. The term _taiga_ is used in a general way for all lands under timber, but east of the Altai it is applied more especially to the moist and spongy region overgrown with tangled roots and thickets, where the _mari_, or peat bogs, and marshes alternate with the _padi_, or narrow ravines. The miners call by this name the wooded mountains where they go in search of auriferous sands. But everywhere the _taiga_ is the same dreary forest, without grass, birds, or insects, gloomy and lifeless, and noiseless but for the soughing of the wind and crackling of the branches.

The most common tree in the _taiga_ is the larch, which best resists the winter frost and summer chills. But the Siberian woodlands also include most of the trees common to temperate Europe--the linden, alder, juniper, service, willow, aspen, poplar, birch, cherry, apricot--whose areas are regulated according to the nature of the soil, the elevation or aspect of the land. Towards the south-east, on the Chinese frontier, the birch is encroaching on the indigenous species, and the natives regard this as a sure prognostic of the approaching rule of the "White Tsar."

Conflagrations are very frequent in the Siberian forests, caused either by lightning, the woodmen, or hunters, and sometimes spreading over vast spaces till arrested by rivers, lakes or morasses. One of the pleasures of Siberian travelling is the faint odour of the woods burning in the distance.

The native flora is extremely rich in berries of every kind, supplying food for men and animals.

The extreme eastern regions of the Amur basin and Russian Manchuria, being warmer, more humid and fertile, also abound more in animal life than the other parts of Asiatic Russia. On the other hand, the Siberian bear, deer, roebuck, hare, squirrel, marmot and mole are about one-third larger, and often half as heavy again as their European congeners. This is doubtless due partly to the greater abundance of nourishment along the rivers and shores of Siberia, and partly to the fact that for ages the western species have been more preyed upon by man, living in a constant state of fear, and mostly perishing before attaining their full development.

The Arctic Seas abound probably as much as the Pacific Ocean with marine animals. Nordenskjöld found the Siberian waters very rich in molluscs and other lower organisms, implying a corresponding abundance of larger animals. Hence fishing, perhaps more than navigation, will be the future industry of the Siberian coast populations. Cetacea, fishes, molluscs, and other marine organisms are cast up in such quantities along both sides of Bering Strait that the bears and other omnivorous creatures have here become very choice as to their food. But on some parts of the coast in the Chukchi country whales are never stranded, and since the arrival of the Russians certain species threaten to disappear altogether. The _Rhytina stelleri_, a species of walrus formerly frequenting Bering Strait in millions, was completely exterminated between the years 1741-68. Many of the fur-bearing animals, which attracted the Cossacks from the Urals to the Sea of Okhotsk, and which were the true cause of the conquest of Siberia, have become extremely rare. Their skins are distinguished, above all others, for their great softness, warmth, lightness, and bright colours. The more Alpine or continental the climate, the more beautiful and highly prized become the furs, which diminish in gloss towards the coast and in West Siberia, where the south-west winds prevail. The sables of the North Urals are of small value, while those of the Upper Lena, fifteen degrees farther south, are worth a king's ransom. Many species assume a white coat in winter, whereby they are difficult to be distinguished from the surrounding snows. Amongst these are the polar hare and fox, the ermine, the campagnol, often even the wolf and reindeer, besides the owl, yellow-hammer, and some other birds. Those which retain their brown or black colour are mostly such as do not show themselves in winter. The fur of the squirrels also varies with the surrounding foliage, those of the pine forests being ruddy, those of the cedar, _taiga_, and firs inclining to brown, and all varying in intensity of colour with that of the vegetation.

Other species besides the peltry-bearing animals have diminished in numbers since the arrival of the Russian hunters. The reindeer, which frequented the South Siberian highlands, and whose domain encroached on that of the camel, is now found only in the domestic state amongst the Soyotes of the Upper Yenisei and is met with in the wild state only in the dwarf forests and _tundras_ of the far north. The argali has withdrawn to Mongolia from the Siberian mountains and plains, where he was still very common at the end of the last century. On the other hand, cold and want of food yearly drive great numbers of antelopes and wild horses from the Gobi Steppes towards the Siberian lowlands, tigers, wolves and other beasts of prey following in their track, and returning with them in the early spring. Several new species of animals have been introduced by man and modified by crossings in the domestic state. In the north, the Samoyeds, Chukchis, and Kamchadales have the reindeer and dog, while the horse and ox are everywhere the companions of man in the peopled regions of Siberia. The yak has been tamed by the Soyotes of the Upper Yenisei, and the camel, typical of a distinctly Eastern civilization, follows the nomads of the Kirghiz and Mongolian Steppes. All these domesticated animals seem to have acquired special qualities and habits from the various indigenous or Russian peoples of Siberia.

_THE RUSSIAN RACES_

_W. R. MORFILL_

The vast Empire of Russia, as may be readily imagined, is peopled by many different races. These may ethnologically be catalogued as follows:

I. Sclavonic races, the most important in numbers and culture. Under this head may be classified:--

(1) The Great Russians, or Russians properly so called, especially occupying the Governments round about Moscow, and from thence scattered in the north to Novgorod and Vologda, on the south to Kiev and to Voronezh, on the east to Penza, Simbirsk, and Viatka, and on the west to the Baltic provinces. Moreover, the Great Russians, as the ruling race, are to be found in small numbers in all quarters of the Empire. They amount to about 40,000,000.

(2) Little Russians (Malorossiani), dwelling south of the Russians, upon the shores of the Black Sea. These, together with the Rusniaks, amount to 16,370,000.

The Cossacks come under these two races.

To the great Russians belong the Don Cossacks, with those sprung from them--the Kouban, Stavropol, Khoperski, Volga, Mosdok, Kizlarski and Grebenski.

To the Little Russian: the Malorossiiski, with those sprung from them--the Zaporoghian, Black Sea (Chernomorski), and those of Azov and of the Danube.

(3) The White Russians, inhabiting the Western Governments. Their number amounts to 4,000,000.

(4) Poles, living in the former Kingdom of Poland and the Western Governments of the Empire. Their number amounts to 5,000,000.

(5) Servians, Bulgarians, and other Slavs, inhabiting especially Bessarabia and the country called New Russia. Their number reaches 150,000.

II. The Non-Sclavonic races comprise either original inhabitants of the country who have been subdued by the Russians, or later comers. Among races originally inhabiting the country, and subjugated by the Russians, are included--the Lithuanians and Letts, the Finns, the Samoyeds, the Mongol-Manzhurians, the races of eastern Siberia, the Turko-Tartar, the Caucasian, the German, and the Hebrew.

1. The Lithu-Lettish race inhabits the country between the western Dwina and the Nieman. In numbers they do not amount to more than 3,000,000. The Lithu-Lettish population is divided into the two following branches:--

(a) The Lithuanians properly so called (including the Samogitans or Zhmudes), who inhabit the Governments of Vilno, Kovno, Courland, and the northern parts of those of Augustovo and Grodno (1,900,000).

(b) The Letts, who inhabit the Governments of Courland, Vitebsk, Livonia, Kovno, Pskov, and St. Petersburg (1,100,000).

2. The Finnish race--known in the old Sclavonic chronicles under the name of Chouds--at one time inhabited all the north-eastern part of Russia. The Finns, according to the place of their habitation, are divided into four groups:--the Baltic Finns, the Finns in the Governments of the Volga, the Cis-Oural and the Trans-Oural Finns.

(a) The Baltic Finns: the Chouds (in the Governments of Novgorod and Olonetz); the Livonians (in Courland); the Esthonians (in the Governments of Esthonia, Livonia, Vitebsk, Pskov, and St. Petersburg); the Lopari (in northern Finland and in the Government of Archangel); the Corelians (in the Government of Archangel, Novgorod, Olonetz, St. Petersburg, Tver, and Jaroslav); Evremeiseti (in the Governments of Novgorod and St. Petersburg), Savakoti, Vod, and Izhora.

(b) To the Finns of the Governments of the Volga, who have become almost lost in the Russians, belong the Cheremisians (in the Governments of Kazan, Viatka, Kostroma, Nijni-Novgorod, Orenburg and Perm).

(c) To the Cis-Uralian Finns, who occupy the country from the borders of Finland to the Oural, belong the Permiaks (in the Governments of Viatka and Perm); Zîranians (in the Governments of Archangel and Vologda); Votiaks (in the Governments of Viatka and Kazan); and Vogoulichi (in the Governments of Perm).

(d) Among the Trans-Oural Finns are also to be numbered the Zîranians and Vogoulichi (the first in the Government of Tobolsk, and the second in the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk); and the Ostiaks, who, according to the places of their habitation, are called Obski and Berezovski.

The Finns amount altogether to 2,100,000.

3. The Samoyeds, in number 70,000, live in the territory extending from the White Sea to the Yenesei; to these belong the Samoyeds properly so called, the Narîmski and the Yenesei Ostiaks, the Olennie Choukchi, etc.

4. The Mongolo-Manzhourian race amounting to 400,000. Among this race may be remarked the Mongolians properly so called, on the Selenga; the Kalmucks, a nomad people in the Government of Astrakhan, as also in Tomsk, in the country of the Don Cossacks, and partly in the Government of Stavropol. The Kalmucks appeared first on the eastern confines of Russia in the year 1630. About a century later we find them become the regular subjects of the Tsar. They seem, however, to have found the Russian yoke irksome, and resolved to return to their original home on the coasts of Lake Balkach, and at the foot of the Altai Mountains. Nearly the whole nation, amounting to almost 300,000 persons, began their march in the winter of 1770-71. The passage of this vast horde lasted for weeks, but the rear were prevented from escaping by the Kirghiz and Cossacks, who intercepted them. They were compelled to remain in Russia, where their territory was more accurately defined than had been done previously. The Kalmucks are obliged to serve with the Cossack troops, but their duties are mostly confined to looking after the cattle and horses which accompany the army. Their religion is Buddhism, and a conspicuous object in the aouls, or temporary villages which they construct, is the pagoda. Their personal appearance is by no means prepossessing--small eyes and high cheekbones, with scanty hair of a very coarse texture. In every sense of the word they are still strictly nomads; their children and tents are carried by camels, and in a few hours their temporary village, or oulous, is established. To these also belong the Bouriats, by Lake Baikal; the Toungusians from the Yenesei to the Amur; the Lamorets, by the Sea of Okhotsk; and the Olentzi, in the Government of Irkutsk.

5. Races of eastern Siberia: the Koriaks, living in the north-eastern corner of Siberia; the Youkagirs, in the territory of Yakutsk; the Kamchadales, in Kamchatka. Their number amounts to 500,000.

6. The Turko-Tartar race amount in number to 3,000,000. To their branch belong the Chouvashes, in the governments of Orenburg, Simbursk, Saratov and Samaria; the Mordvinians, in the same governments as the Chouvashes,[1] and in those of Tambov, Penza, and Nijni-Novgorod; the Tartars of the Crimea and Kazan; the Nagais, on the Kouban and Don; the Mestcheriaki, in the governments of Orenburg, Perm, Saratov, and Viatka; Koumki, in the Caucasus; Kirghizi, Yakouti, on the Lena; Troukhmentzi and Khivintzi; Karakalpaks (lit. Black Caps), Teleoûti, in the government of Tomsk, Siberia.

[Footnote 1: Some writers consider the Chouvashes to belong to the Finnish race.]

7. The Caucasian races inhabiting Georgia, the valleys and defiles of the Caucasian Mountains have different appellations and different origins. Among them may be noticed the Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, Abkhasians, Lesghians, Osetintzi, Chechentzi, Kistentzi, Toushi, and others. Their number is about 2,000,000.

The languages of the Caucasus must be regarded as a group distinct both from the Aryan and Semitic families. They are agglutinative, and are divided into two branches.

(a) The Northern Division, extending along the northern slopes of the Caucasus, between the Caspian and the northern shores of the Black Sea, as far as the Straits of Yenikale; its subdivisions are Lesghian, Kistian, and Circassian, each with its dialects. Formerly the Circassians numbered about 500,000, but large numbers of them emigrated to European Turkey, where they were dexterously planted by the government to impede the social progress of their Bulgarian and Greek subjects.

(b) The Southern Division, comprising Georgian, Suanian, Mingrelian, and Lazian.

8. The German race, in number about 1,000,000. The Germans are chiefly in the Baltic provinces, in the government of St. Petersburg, in the Grand Duchy of Finland, and the colonies, especially those on the lower Volga, the Don, the Crimea, and New Russia. The Germans have acquired great influence throughout the country; they are represented in the court, in the army, and in the administration. Here also may be mentioned the Swedes, amounting to 286,000.

9. The Jews inhabit especially the former Kingdom of Poland, the Western Governments, and the Crimea. Their number amounts to 3,000,000. Among the Jews the Karaimite are noticeable, living in the governments of Vilno, Volinia, Kovno, Kherson, and the Taurida. Among the Europeans and Asiatics who have come in later times to settle in Russia, are Greeks, amounting to 75,000, in the governments of New Russia and Chernigov; French, Italians, and Englishmen, in the capitals and chief commercial towns; Wallachians or Moldavians (now generally included under the name of Roumanians), in Bessarabia; Albanians; Gipsies, especially in the territory of Bessarabia, amounting to 50,000; Persians, to 10,000, etc.

_THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA_

_W. R. MORFILL_

I shall follow the divisions given in his first volume by Oustrialov. He divides Russian history into two great parts, the ancient and modern.

I. Ancient history from the commencement of Russia to the time of Peter the Great (862-1689).

This first period is subdivided into (_a_) the foundation of Russia and the combination of the Sclavonians into a political unity under the leadership of the Normans and by means of the Christian Faith under Vladimir and the legislation of Yaroslav.

According to the theory commonly received at the present day, the foundation of the Russian Empire was laid by Rurik at Novgorod. The name Russian seems to be best explained as meaning "the seamen" from the Finnish name for the Swedes or Norsemen, Ruotsi, which itself is a corruption of a Scandinavian word. It has been shown by Thomsen, that all the names mentioned in early Russian history admit of a Scandinavian explanation; thus Ingar becomes Igor, and Helga, Oleg. In a few generations the Scandinavian origin of the settlers was forgotten. The grandson of Rurik, Sviatoslav, has a purely Sclavonic name.

Christianity was introduced into the country by Vladimir, and the first code of Russian laws was promulgated by Yaroslav, called Rousskaia Pravda, of which a transcript was found among the chronicles of Novgorod.