The previous installment, with links to earlier ones:
Into Central Siberia.
As this installment begins, Khvostov and Davydov have found someone to repair their carts at Tomsk, and they can now make their way to Irkutsk. From Davydov’s description, you will see that Irkutsk was the wealthiest city in Siberia, and such splendor as might be found anywhere in that vast country was there. Some called Irkutsk, with a characteristically Russian blend of truth and irony, the “Paris of Siberia.”
Irkutsk drew its wealth from the fur trade between Siberia and China. In 1802, this trade, which brought to Russia porcelains, silks, textiles, paper, and especially tea in exchange for the furs that were the Russian-American Company’s raison d’etre, took place almost entirely at Kyakhta, a trading post on the Siberia-Mongolia frontier, perhaps 150 miles from Irkutsk, on the other side of Lake Baikal. Irkutsk was home and headquarters to most of the merchants who conducted the Russian side of the trade.
The surface area of Lake Baikal is between that of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan in extent, but Baikal is so deep that it contains more freshwater than the five Great Lakes combined. The fastest way to travel between Irkutsk and Kyakhta was to cross Lake Baikal when it was frozen in winter.
Davydov gives unflattering descriptions of some of the indigenous Siberians he meets. Rather than apologize, I’ll note that these descriptions sound a lot like many European explorers’ descriptions of indigenous peoples in other parts of the world at around the same time, reflecting European attitudes toward the peoples they encountered.
DAVYDOV’S NARRATIVE (Cont’d)
1 June.
We arrived in the morning at Tomsk. It was a holiday, so nobody wanted to repair the carts, and to our extreme displeasure we had to stay here longer than expected.
Tomsk is fairly large. Its streets are not especially clean, and there are not very many clean buildings. There are 3 stone houses. The city is one of the most important trading centers in Siberia, and is populated by a number of merchants. It lies on the Tom River, which has abundant fish. Among the various species, they can catch hefty sterlets, though the best and largest of these are the sought-after Narymskie. I happened to see some of these more than a pood in weight, and they say that sometimes they catch in Narym [maybe 300 miles NW, and downstream, of Tomsk] even much bigger ones.
Through Tomsk runs another small river, Ushaika. The city has 2400 houses, but not more than 5000 inhabitants. The numbers of houses and inhabitants are out of proportion, and many houses stand empty.
The wagon having been repaired, we continued on from Tomsk. Near the former city of Achinsk, [150 mi or so E of Tomsk] we had to cross by ferry the Chulym River, which flows into the Ob. From here begin the highlands and mountains, covered with larch and birch – also an extremely bad road. 7 versts before the Black River is a mountain called Larch.
From the Black River station to little Pearl, that is for 73 versts, the road goes through mountains and wetlands, where there are so many bridges, large and small, that you’re almost constantly crossing them.
This installment’s track is in green.
7 June.
On 7 June we reached Krasnoyarsk, 550 versts from Tomsk. On the place where this city was built, the Kach Tatars lived until 1621, but when Ermak [the sort of quasi-mythical hero of the conquest of Siberia] led the way in the conquest of Siberia, then the Cossacks, wandering in places unknown to them, built a winter hut here, where they sheltered from the cold and from the raids of the barbaric peoples who were hitherto owners of this land. Then the Tobolsk Council, seeing the advantage of the place, sent Ataman Dubenskas 300 Cossacks, who in 1628 laid the foundation of the city called Krasnoyarsk, from the Krasnaya Yar, or bank of red clay located here.
The location of this city is beautiful: it lies on a wide ravine. To one side flows the swift Yenisei, which is around 2 versts wide here, and on the other the river Kacha: they meet at the end of the city and present verdant views. On the other side of the river rise mountains surrounding almost the whole city: in the gorges and on the tops of them snow almost never goes away.
The Krasnoyarsk district [this is an old Russian word uyezd (уездъ), which roughly translates as county, but may be closer to the term riding, still in use in Canada to denote parliamentary districts] is very fertile, and produces many medicinal herbs and roots; and the rhubarb, they say, is hardly inferior to the Chinese. But all the conveniences and beauty of the location cannot, because of the harshness of the climate, bring much pleasure, for in winter there are great colds, and in summer, from June, the heat almost suddenly begins, and with it clouds of midges appear, from which it is not easy to leave the house without a net on your face. Local residents highly praise the climate of the places that lie about 500 miles up the Yenisei, where the Tatars now live.
No more than 500 versts from Krasnoyarsk along the high road lies the city of Nizhneudinsk on the banks of the Uda River [This is a pretty typical place name. The prefix nizhne- means lower, and the suffix -insk indicates some sort of association. So Nizheudinsk is located on the lower part of the Uda River. -JT.] In it are 40 houses and around 200 people living; in another settlement on the other side of the river, around 500 souls.
A bit more than 70 versts from Irkutsk, not much to one side, a salt factory is located near the Angara River. The river splits into various branches, making many islands, on one of which are two saltworks. There are two more on another island, and two on the banks of the Angara. The best salt springs are on the islands: they are noticeable in the river itself by its white color, but salt does not come from all of them. A salt mine gives from 100 to 150 poods of salt per day, but the whole factory does not produce more than 100,000 poods per year, because the salt mines cannot work continuously but it takes quite a while to cool the boiled salt and clean the chirins, that is, large quadrangular boxes made of thick sheet iron, in which the salt is boiled, from which there is always a kind of cinder or shard, sticking firmly to the bottom of the chirins. This deposit is usually cleaned after 20 days, and then the chirins are also repaired.
The factory employs exiles, settled in houses in the same place. There are more than 200 people and all are paid ten kopeks per day, except the saltworkers and woodcutters, to whom they give a little more. All these people are noticeably unhealthy, from the heat at which they constantly work, for the fire under the chirins lasts a full day after the salt is already allowed to settle, and when it gets cold, they take it out. The salt on top is always blacker.
17 June.
17 June at 9am we crossed the rivers Irkut and Angara by ferry, and entered the city of Irkutsk, which may be called the main city of Siberia, because after the conclusion with China of the Treaty of Kyakhta, its importance has increased. Tobolsk ceased to be the focus of trade among Russia, China, and Siberia, as it happens. Irkutsk includes in it around 3000 houses and 25,000 inhabitants. Among this number are many merchants, some of whom are very rich, and do extensive trading. All Chinese goods, all soft goods [furs – JT.] brought from eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, and America, and all foreign and Russian goods going to Kyakhta, eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, and America pass inevitably through Irkutsk, which brings great benefit to this city. The Irkutsk merchant is enterprising and knowledgeable in his business affairs; he conducts these in a better way than the nonresident Russian merchant. Arriving here you will immediately notice the difference between Russian and Siberian merchants, for the latter never bargain. In general, we can say about the inhabitants of Siberia that although most of them come as exiles sent to settlements, the peasants who have settled down here for a long time are not at all like their great-grandfathers. Siberian peasants, especially in the Tobolsk province, are generally very prosperous, honest and hospitable. They are even more enlightened than Russians.
The city of Irkutsk stands on the bank of the river Angara, descending from Lake Baikal and flowing with great swiftness: the water is very cold. At the city itself the river Irkut flows into the Angara. The location of Irkutsk, built on a plain, is rather good, for the mountains surrounding it and two rivers, make a very pleasant variation in views. It is beginning to be adorned with many substantial buildings and, despite the distance from the capital, in time it must become even more important for Russia.
In a hurry to continue our journey, we stayed in this city as briefly as possible, and left it on 22 June, early in the morning. The population surrounding Irkutsk is very large, for the land is very fertile in the whole district of this name. Between the city and the river Lena lies the Buryatskaya steppe named for the Buryats inhabiting it, or simply called here Bratsks.
The Buryats descend from the Mongols, and are similar to them in language and customs. Some of them have been baptized, but the greater portion have continued in their idolatry. They fear devils more than they worship God, and these they try to propitiate first by sacrifices, by hanging slaughtered dogs and sheep. Buryat shamans or sorcerers have a great power of decision over the people, who, thinking that they are acquainted with the devils, in all cases call them for advice. The shaman usually, for his own benefit, begins with a sacrifice, saying that to tame the devil he fed him meat and wine. When a Buryat moves into a new house, the Shaman usually gives him two images of a clean and unclean spirit put in a bag.
The Buryats live extremely untidily, always stained with grease and soot from smoke, even eating from the same trough with the dogs. However, they are all rich, because the expanse of the lands they occupy allows them to breed many horses, cattle and sheep. They are not so much engaged in farming as Russian peasants.
The face of the Buryat is unpleasant: its color is naturally dark, and becomes more so partly from their untidiness, partly from being outdoors almost all the time, and partly from sitting by the fire. Their hair is black, their cheeks are sunken, their beard comes to a sharp downward point, like the Hottentots, and in general there is something disgusting and brutal in their face. The dress of the Buryat is very singular, moreover, they all wear long braids, at the ends of which many wear amber and colorful beads.
Buryats are accustomed to riding on horseback and teach their children to do this from an early age. Their babies mostly suck on a piece of fat instead of a bottle. For this, or for some other reason, their children are extremely funny, for they are so round and awkward that they seem to be filled with lard.
236 versts from Irkutsk, on the river Lena, is Kachugskaya pier. From this place, usually, all goods and necessary burdens going to Yakutsk, Okhotsk and further places are sent along the Lena River on barges, pavozks (a kind of half-bark) and doshchenniks (a special kind of river boat with a mast), and the passengers are easily carried by boats.
A 28-foot-long pavozk was prepared for us, covered with pine bark. Travelers by post usually hire at each station a certain number of horses, but instead, those sailing along the Lena get at the stations an equal number of people to row from one station to the next. In Siberia the stations are called stankams, and down the river Lena zaimkams.
The Lena at the head of navigation near the Kachug pier is rather shallow, so that large barges usually sail soon after the ice breaks up, when the water in it from the melting snows is still very high. Those coming up the river do not always reach this pier, and in autumn they can never reach it. The barges are usually sold in Yakutsk for firewood and other needs, and the goods coming from there are sent on doshchenniks.
The peasants in Irkutsk are quite different from the inhabitants of the Tobolsk province, for these latter have long been settled and are what they call old-timers in Siberia, who are all prosperous. In Irkutsk province they are constantly arriving, many coming as exiles. The greater portion of these new settlers are unmarried; they are idle out of laziness or depravity, and serve only to burden those villages to which they are settled. In the summer they carry out thefts and robberies, against which the measures taken by the police of the place are not always sufficient.
Initially, I could not imagine Siberia without horror, but then before my departure for America I heard so many wonderful things about it from people who had been there that I had to doubt the truth of their praises. It is true, that in Tobolsk province there is perfect abundance, but in Irkutsk, it is completely different. Crop failure, the arrival of a large number of settlers (many more die on the way) and other reasons have caused an unheard-of increase in the cost of bread in Irkutsk province. A pood of rye flour has risen from 20-30 kopeks to 2-1/2 or 3 rubles. In other places, especially in the cities, it was impossible to get anything edible. In Nizhie-Udinsk, if the Governor, Lord Alekseev (whom no one can praise enough; residents, because of his kindness and righteousness, and the traveler, because of his hospitality, most pleasant in such a remote place) had not invited us to dinner, it would take a long time for us to find some bread to buy, and perhaps we should have left hungry.
In the next installment: On 28 June, our heroes shove off down the Lena for Yakutsk. Much of Davydov’s account of that journey consists of a listing of the post-stations and streams they pass on the way. You’ll forgive me if I omit those, but if you ever start a research project on early 19th Century travel on the Lena River, give me a shout and I’ll provide the details.