Russia | Page 7

whom I expressed my
gratitude in the preface and notes of the early editions, only three
survive--Mme. de Novikoff, M. E. I. Yakushkin, and Dr. Asher. To the
numerous friends who have kindly assisted me in the present edition I
must express my thanks collectively, but there are two who stand out
from the group so prominently that I may be allowed to mention them
personally: these are Prince Alexander Grigorievitch Stcherbatof, who
supplied me with voluminous materials regarding the agrarian question
generally and the present condition of the peasantry in particular, and
M. Albert Brockhaus, who placed at my disposal the gigantic Russian
Encyclopaedia recently published by his firm (Entsiklopeditcheski
Slovar, Leipzig and St. Petersburg, 1890-1904). This monumental work,
in forty-one volumes, is an inexhaustible storehouse of accurate and
well-digested information on all subjects connected with the Russian
Empire, and it has often been of great use to me in matters of detail.
With regard to the last chapter of this edition I must claim the reader's
indulgence, because the meaning of the title, "the present situation,"
changes from day to day, and I cannot foresee what further changes
may occur before the work reaches the hands of the public.
LONDON, 22nd May, 1905.

RUSSIA

CHAPTER I
TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA
Railways--State Interference--River Communications--Russian "Grand
Tour"--The Volga--Kazan--Zhigulinskiya Gori--Finns and Tartars--The
Don--Difficulties of Navigation--Discomforts--Rats--Hotels and Their
Peculiar Customs--Roads--Hibernian Phraseology Explained--
Bridges--Posting--A Tarantass--Requisites for Travelling-- Travelling
in Winter--Frostbitten--Disagreeable Episodes--Scene at a Post-Station.
Of course travelling in Russia is no longer what it was. During the last
half century a vast network of railways has been constructed, and one
can now travel in a comfortable first-class carriage from Berlin to St.
Petersburg or Moscow, and thence to Odessa, Sebastopol, the Lower
Volga, the Caucasus, Central Asia, or Eastern Siberia. Until the
outbreak of the war there was a train twice a week, with through
carriages, from Moscow to Port Arthur. And it must be admitted that on
the main lines the passengers have not much to complain of. The
carriages are decidedly better than in England, and in winter they are
kept warm by small iron stoves, assisted by double windows and
double doors--a very necessary precaution in a land where the
thermometer often descends to 30 degrees below zero. The train never
attains, it is true, a high rate of speed--so at least English and
Americans think--but then we must remember that Russians are rarely
in a hurry, and like to have frequent opportunities of eating and
drinking. In Russia time is not money; if it were, nearly all the subjects
of the Tsar would always have a large stock of ready money on hand,
and would often have great difficulty in spending it. In reality, be it
parenthetically remarked, a Russian with a superabundance of ready
money is a phenomenon rarely met with in real life.
In conveying passengers at the rate of from fifteen to thirty miles an
hour, the railway companies do at least all that they promise; but in one
very important respect they do not always strictly fulfil their

engagements. The traveller takes a ticket for a certain town, and on
arriving at what he imagines to be his destination, he may find merely a
railway-station surrounded by fields. On making inquiries, he discovers,
to his disappointment, that the station is by no means identical with the
town bearing the same name, and that the railway has fallen several
miles short of fulfilling the bargain, as he understood the terms of the
contract. Indeed, it might almost be said that as a general rule railways
in Russia, like camel-drivers in certain Eastern countries, studiously
avoid the towns. This seems at first a strange fact. It is possible to
conceive that the Bedouin is so enamoured of tent life and nomadic
habits that he shuns a town as he would a man-trap; but surely civil
engineers and railway contractors have no such dread of brick and
mortar. The true reason, I suspect, is that land within or immediately
beyond the municipal barrier is relatively dear, and that the railways,
being completely beyond the invigorating influence of healthy
competition, can afford to look upon the comfort and convenience of
passengers as a secondary consideration. Gradually, it is true, this state
of things is being improved by private initiative. As the railways refuse
to come to the towns, the towns are extending towards the railways,
and already some prophets are found bold enough to predict that in the
course of time those long, new, straggling streets, without an inhabited
hinterland, which at present try so severely the springs of the ricketty
droshkis, will be properly paved and kept in decent repair. For my own
part, I confess I am a little sceptical with regard to this prediction, and I
can only