In Northern Siberia

By S. W. Cuttriss.

(Read before the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, January 25th, 1910.)

Siberia! The very name makes one shudder, conjuring up visions of a snow-clad land, the home of ravenous wolves, across whose barren wastes fettered convicts clank their weary way to a lingering death!  Have not all of us been taught to think of Siberia only as a land to be shunned?  And I am sorry to say that even in these days of enlightenment, this false impression is still fostered by the fiction of a sensational press.  Whatever may have been Russia’s errors in the past she is now doing her best to atone for them.  The emancipation of the serfs, the establishment of the Douma, the abolition of transportation of criminals to Siberia, the rapid improvement of transport throughout her vast domains and the desire to foster the development of the untold wealth of her natural resources, all these are quietly but surely working together for the good of the people and the elevation of the once despised country to a position of honour and commercial importance among the nations of the world.

From childhood Siberia^[1] has always had a strong fascination for me and I gladly availed myself of an opportunity which occurred about twelve months ago to take part in an expedition to Sukorinsk in what is practically an unknown part of the country bordering on the Northern Urals, and 4,550 miles from London.  My friends were not slow in pointing out the possible dangers of such a journey and cheeringly prophesied for me a death from frostbite or at the hands of the garrotter.

Two of our party had been in the same district the previous year and now took the parts of leader and interpreter respectively.  We had intended to make the journey overland in the winter by sledges, but after arriving at Ekaterinbourg by train unexpected delays occurred, and as we could not then reach our destination before the thaw commenced, when land travelling is practically impossible, we had to wait until the rivers opened, and complete the journey by way of the river Ob and its tributaries.

I had read many books of travel relating to the country and they all spoke in disparaging terms of the Ural Mountains as mere gentle swellings of such slight elevation that it was difficult to tell when they were being traversed.  Such is certainly not my impression, and, in fact, the country between Perm and Ekaterinbourg is not unlike our own northern Pennines, but on a far wider scale.  Many a black ravine is crossed and rounded hill top passed as the train slowly creeps up the inclines, or rushes at express speed, (36 miles an hour), down the corresponding descents.  The further we travelled inland the lower fell the temperature and on our arrival at Ekaterinbourg the thermometer stood at 20 degrees below zero, (Fahr).  But what delightful weather!  For weeks we had clean crisp snow underfoot, a cloudless sky above and no damp wind to make the teeth chatter.

With the exception of important buildings in the large towns, the houses in Siberia are constructed entirely of wood, generally unpainted, but with brightly coloured ornamental casings round the doors and windows, tin waterspouts terminating in dragon’s heads and other fanciful designs.  The peasant’s house usually consists of one room, of which the most prominent feature is a huge brick oven, which serves for heating the house and baking the bread, and during the long winter nights furnishes a warm sleeping place upon the top.  It can be used, on occasion, to provide the weekly steam bath, by the bather lying down inside and throwing water on the hot bricks.  The Siberian woman is fond of house plants and their bright flowers and green leaves adorn every window sill, lending attraction to the outside as well as the inside of the most humble dwelling.  Among the first objects to attract attention are the ever present gilt ikons or holy pictures.  The strongest trait in the Russian character is his intense religious sentiment, and it is surprising that the men are generally more punctilious in their observance of the prescribed formalities than the women.  It is a mark of respect to recognise the sacred ikon on entering a building and this custom is so universal that in all public buildings, stores, banks, etc., the men invariably uncover their heads while transacting business.

The Government of Tobolsk occupies the central and northern portions of the basin of the Ob, and has an area of 440,000 square miles.  The central portion, occupying the intervening space between the Irtish and Ob rivers, is a vast morass covered with immense forests, which in winter can be traversed over the frozen soil, but in summer is practically impassable.  The southern portion of the Government, however, possesses some of the finest agricultural land in the world.  The climate is extreme, varying from 95 degs. F. in summer to 50 degs. F. below zero in winter.  In the southern portion the rivers freeze early in November and remain closed until the beginning of May.  When the thaw once commences the change is very rapid, the unpaved roads become quagmires and as there exists little or no system of drainage or scavenging, the result, after five months frost, is not very salubrious, to put it mildly.  As the lower reaches of the rivers still remain icebound, the water cannot get away, and the country is flooded for miles around, and the rivers are in many places more like large inland seas, a line of bushes or trees, and here and there a partially submerged hut or village, being the only indication of the course of the river.  For scores of miles the same unvarying landscape is passed, and although the monotony soon becomes tedious, there remains an undefinable fascination, which keeps one perpetually pacing the deck as the steamer slowly makes its way down the river.  In autumn the river banks stand twenty to thirty feet above the water and the effect is like sailing along a deep cut canal.  Dredges are constantly at work keeping a fair way open for the steamers, and the channel is indicated by red and white buoys.

The only certainty about steamer travelling in Siberia is its uncertainty.  You never know when a steamer will arrive or how long it will stop, and, while you may have to wait for several days, you must be prepared to embark at any moment of the day or night.  After a fortnight’s, waiting we left Tobolsk on board the first steamer going down the Irtish to Samarawa and the far north.  In addition to the ordinary passengers we had eighty “Politicals” (i.e. exiles) on board.  They were mostly of the peasant class and seemed quite happy – singing, dancing, and playing games most of the daytime.  The promenade deck was free to all classes, and we were constantly in their company, but as a matter of policy thought it better not to have any conversation with them.  Transportation is now confined to political and religious offenders, and ordinary criminals are retained in the Russian prisons, except murderers, who are still sent to the island of Sakhalin for the remainder of their lives.  To-day the exiles live under conditions much less rigorous than those of ten years ago, and railways and steamboats have removed most of the terrors of the journey.

Travelling with us was a Russian baron who must have been gifted with a strongly developed imaginative faculty, for in reply to some question by a lady, (all Russians are very inquisitive), he informed her I was a learned professor of great renown in England, and the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club badge which I wore was a medal presented to me personally by the King in recognition of my services!

Below Samarawa we entered the mighty Ob in a gale of wind which sent the waves dashing in spray over the bows of the steamer.  Stopping twelve hours at a small Ostyak village to discharge flour and vodka, we made our first acquaintance with that nomad race.  They are allied to the Finns, and are small in stature, with a Mongolian type of face.  In the southern portion of their territory they have adopted settled life, but further north they are still nomadic, supporting life by fishing in summer and hunting in winter.  They are very skilful in carving wood and bone, in the tanning of leather and the manufacture of artistic utensils from birch bark.  They still hunt with bows and arrows, but these weapons are gradually being superseded by firearms.  Their religion, so far as it exists at all, is mainly Shammanistic, in which sorcery and witchcraft play a leading part, with some survivals of ancestral worship.  One of these survivals is bear-worship, which is connected with the idea that the spirits of the deceased are re-incarnated in bears, and they celebrate the slaughter of a bear with worship and feasting.  While we were in Sukorinsk a bear was killed, and we saw its head in one of the Ostyak huts, gaily decorated with coloured ribbons and rags, and the festivities were kept up for a couple of days without ceasing.

As we made our way slowly northward down the river, the days gradually lengthened until the nights were lost in the golden glow of a continuous twilight from sunset to sunrise, and for hours I used to pace the deck, watching the glorious play of colour on water, trees and sky.  As the brilliant orb sank slowly behind the firs they looked blacker by reason of the contrast, while the golden rays of the sun glinting through their higher branches, struck the tops of the opposing birches, clothed in their mantles of young green leaves.  We did not cross the Arctic Circle and so were denied a view of the Midnight Sun, but for six weeks the daylight was practically continuous and I was able to photograph at midnight without much difficulty.  This unending daylight has its objections, as one never feels disposed to go to bed, except from sheer fatigue – neither do the mosquitoes – and one is apt to be uncertain at times whether to-day is yesterday or to-morrow.

Saram-paool at last! After weeks and months of uncertain waiting and slow travelling, we had arrived at the base of our operations, the most northerly goldfield in the world, if we except Klondike, which is little, if any, further north.  Many people are surprised to learn that Siberia is one of the largest gold producing countries in the World, despite the fact that the methods of extracting the precious metal are mostly of a very primitive character.  But it is no exaggeration to assert that gold is found practically everywhere and in every form in Siberia, in fact the very name “Altai Mountains” means “Gold Mountains.” The principal source of the gold worked at present is the auriferous gravel taken from the bottom and banks of the rivers, but in North Eastern Siberia, where the ground is perpetually frozen for several hundreds of feet in depth, the work is carried out by mining, and wood fires are employed to thaw the ground.

While approaching the village, we caught sight of the snow covered tops of the Northern Urals, and at once my heart went out to them with an intense longing, but as they were some forty or fifty miles away, through trackless forests, I had little hope of being able to set foot on their untrodden summits.  True they are not giant peaks, the highest not being much over 5,000 feet, but they are still strangers to the ice-axe and nailed boots of the mountaineer, and when we consider the difficulty of approach through primeval forests, along swift rivers and in an uninhabited country, they will no doubt afford as many opportunities for persevering effort and mountaineering skill as many a more majestic and forbidding looking mountain range.  I had, later, an opportunity of travelling through the foot-hills and reaching the base of the main chain, but Father Time was inexorable and insisted on our return when probably a couple more days would have allowed me to bag a peak for the honour of the Club.

Natives at Sukorinsk Village, N. W. Siberia by S. W. Cuttriss

Finding that Sukorinsk, a small village three miles up the river Sukoria and the last inhabited ground towards the mountains, would be a more convenient centre from which to work, we packed our belongings on to two boats and rowed up to that village, and pitched our tents on the open ground on the river bank.  The natives soon gathered round and were greatly astonished at the speed with which the tents were erected.  We had brought with us a good supply of eggs and butter, but in the morning when we looked forward to poached eggs for breakfast, we found both eggs and butter had disappeared and one of the numerous half-starved dogs was suspiciously licking his lips.  The lesson was not lost and none of the canine inhabitants again indulged in a free meal at our expense.  After a few days we rented some of the native houses and I was installed in a comfortable log cabin containing the usual large brick oven at one side.  I carefully placed the bedstead which I had made well clear of the walls and surrounded the feet with a good sprinkling of Keating’s, but both here and throughout the journey I experienced remarkably little annoyance from Cimex Lectularius. A more prevalent form of insect life were the Tarakans, a species of small brown cockroach, very rapid in movement, which tickle but do not bite, at least they did not trouble me in that way.  It is a common occurrence to see them running about the walls and even over the table while at meals.  The Siberians, in fact, rather like them and I have heard it stated that when a peasant moves into a new house he takes a handful of the interesting little creatures with him for luck.  We English are evidently too fastidious!

Group of Natives at Sukaria River, N. W. Siberia by S. W. Cuttriss

The inhabitants of the village consist of two distinct races, Ostyaks, already described, and Ziryains.  The latter are said to be allied to the Finns, but are more like the Russian peasant in many ways, though their language is quite distinct.  They are decidedly shrewd, have a keen regard for the kopeks, and are exceedingly expert in the use of the axe; but this is characteristic of Russians as well as natives.  The Ziryain women are active, strong and willing workpeople, and for real hard work under trying circumstances can give points to an ordinary English labourer.  They will work all day in heavy rain, sleep in their wet clothes at night, protected only by a bit of canvas, and turn up smiling in the morning.  No wonder they look old and wizened at an early age.

A camp was established some seven miles up the river, where good prospects of gold had been found the previous year, and two sluice boxes were erected to make a practical test of the gold bearing value of the gravel.  Our workpeople were chiefly Ziryain women and girls, but , as there was also a Samoyed girl with them, there were five distinct languages spoken-English, Russian, Ziryain, Ostyak and Samoyed.  Between the lot I had a busy time endeavouring to make myself understood.

It was a three hours hard row to the camp by water, but a short cut through the forest could be made on foot in a little over an hour, which involved crossing what we imagined to be a tributary of the river and it had either to be forded on horseback or crossed in one of the Ostyak canoes.  It is about as difficult for the tyro to maintain equilibrium in one of these canoes as it is to walk along a greasy pole, but the natives are quite expert at it and I have seen them racing at full speed while standing up; in fact, they generally assume that attitude when paddling.  My companions had all gone away on other business and I was left in charge of everything during their absence.  At first I tried the journey to the camp on horseback, but found that owing to the dense undergrowth and tangle of fallen timber I could do it more comfortably on foot.  It was with some trepidation that I made my first attempt to negotiate the river in the canoe, but beyond a partial upset as I was getting out, I had no mishap.  On one occasion, when the river was swift and flooded after heavy rain, I did not care to trust my own lack of expertness, so engaged an Ostyak to go with me and take me across.  After a wet and roundabout journey through the flooded forest, where we had several times to make precarious bridges with fallen timber over water-logged gullies, we reached the canoe, but to my surprise, instead of making for the opposite bank of the river, the native paddled off up stream.  At first I thought he was merely looking for a convenient landing place, but as he took no notice of my persistent indications of a desire to land and only said “Lardna! Lardna!” meaning “All right ! ” I accepted the situation and awaited developments.  At times it was with the greatest difficulty that progress could be made against the current and more than once we were carried back some distance.  The only reason I could think of for this apparently strange conduct was that we were ascending a branch of the Sukoria river and not a tributary, and that the camp was really on an island, and this proved correct, as we ultimately reached the main river and floated down to the camp.  Owing to persistent floods the camp had eventually to be abandoned, and the ground was under a foot and a half of water when we left.

Another man and myself were told off later on to make a trip up the Mania river on a rapid surveying and exploring expedition of about sixteen days.  This was the opportunity I had been ardently wishing for, as it would enable me to make a closer acquaintance with the mountains I so much desired to set foot on.  We took with us three Ziryain natives, one boat and a small canoe, and as we were going into an entirely uninhabited district, where no food could be obtained, we had to take sufficient provisions to last throughout the journey.  The rivers were still in flood when we started and there was a constant stream of drift wood and spume floating down.  The natives jocularly called the large trees parahods i.e. steamers.  On turning into the Mania itself we soon found it impossible to make any progress by rowing against the swift current and had to pull ourselves along by the overhanging branches of the trees and laboriously thread our way through the undergrowth of the submerged land.  Occasionally, where the banks allowed, the men would get out and tow the boats by a line attached to the top of the mast provided for that purpose, and at one place we were able to save two miles of hard work by forcing the boats through the flooded forest for about 200 yards and thereby cut off a long loop of the river.  On the fifth day we neared the foot-hills and although the river decreased in volume it became more impetuous and began to form rapids.  It was now altogether a matter of towing, and it repeatedly demanded the utmost energy of two men on the line, with two others poling and one steering, to make any progress at all.  “Now!”  “Again!”  “There she moves a foot!” “Again!”  Snap goes the line, the boat swings round with the current, and we fly to the oars and pull for dear life to bring her to the bank again, at the same time shipping a lot of water and wetting the food and bedding! “Twice did this occur before a suitable camping ground was reached.  After dinner I took a short walk by the river, and the low hills reminded me more of dear old Yorkshire than anything I had yet seen.  For the seventh day my diary entry is brief but to the point; “Led towing all day, boots given out, foot-sore, tired.”  On the tenth day the water became too shallow for the boat, so we left it and, continued on foot, only taking with us the surveying apparatus, a sleeping bag and sufficient food to last until we reached the boat again.  Late at night on the second day of walking we arrived at the base of the main range of the Northern Urals, wet through and thoroughly tired out.  Although anxious to continue, we could not afford another day and started after midnight on the homeward journey, floundering through bogs and tripping up over invisible stones in the darkness, until after several hours tramping we reached our previous camping ground.  A cheerful fire was soon burning, and getting into the sleeping sack in my wet clothes, with a rucksack (not unknown to certain members of the Club) for a pillow, and mosquito net over all, I enjoyed several hours refreshing sleep.  Oh! those mosquitoes; they never gave us any peace, day or night.  Upon reaching the boats again we found our remaining stock of provisions unpleasantly scanty, and to make matters worse, the loaves of bread on which we principally relied had become a mass of blue mould, and we were only able to save a few fragments, which we made passably eatable by toasting.  Fortunately the Ziryains found plenty of mush- rooms, and for several days we lived on those delectable fungi and dried bread-rings, rice and cocoa.  We noticed several bear tracks and one of our men saw a bear cross the river a little lower down, and we followed its track for some distance, armed with several weapons of offence, and possibly of defence, but were not successful in obtaining an interview.  The return journey down the rapids was our most exciting experience, and considering the frequent bumps we got on the submerged boulders and the heaps of water we shipped, we were fortunate in getting through without mishap.  The way Pankalay, one of our Ziryains, shot the canoe down the seething waters was wonderful.  On the fifteenth day we had to abandon the survey and had a glorious run down to Sukorinsk, doing in ten hours the journey which had taken us eight days hard work coming up.

The Northern Urals from Mania River by S. W. Cuttriss

Home!  That was our next objective, in fact it was that which made our return from the Mania by a given date necessary.  The only steamer likely to visit Sarampaool again that season was a small Government boat, the ” Ostyak,” which was supposed to call once a month with the mail; I say “supposed” advisedly, as the result was not always in accordance with anticipation.  The steamer was expected within a couple of days of our return, so everything was packed up in readiness and I went down to Saram-paool to be able to send word to the others on the first intimation of the steamer’s approach.  After a considerable wait some natives arrived in a canoe bringing the mail, together with word that the steamer was not coming at all, having been ordered to Obdorsk.  Here was a pretty plight! We were not prepared to stop the winter, and it was 330 miles to Berezoff on the Ob, the nearest place where we should be likely to catch a steamer returning from the fishing grounds at the mouth of the river.  Our only course was to row down to that village in a small boat and wait.  Accordingly we secured the most suitable boat we could find, covered over the middle with a roof made out of part of one of the tents and supported on birch branches, and there stowed our baggage and food, just leaving sufficient room for two men at a time to crawl under and sleep.  A couple of natives were engaged to assist in rowing and act as pilots, and by taking spells of four hours each at the oars and eight hours steering, we kept going both day and night, and did the journey in four days.

On the way down we made a short call at the fishing station of a Russian, Alexander Ivanovitch Trontheim by name, who had been of great service to several Arctic expeditions, notably Nansen’s, and had procured for that explorer all the sledge dogs used by him.  The fishing season had been a failure owing to the abnormal floods, and he was anxious to dispense with one of his men, a “Political,” for whom he had no further use; and he pressed us so persistently that at last we agreed to take the man, although we did not really need extra help; but we found him useful and trustworthy.  When we came within a few miles of Berezoff, late at night, we saw the lights of a steamer coming towards us, apparently bound for Saram-paool.  The river at that point is very difficult, being a network of channels between wooded islands, and as we were anxious to hail the steamer, a long game of hide and seek in the darkness followed.  In the end, just as we were giving up the chase, we found the vessel in an inlet, with her lights out and busy loading wood for fuel.  To our surprise she turned out to be the “Ostyak ” bound for Samarawa, half way to Tobolsk.  This suited us exactly and although there was no passenger accommodation, the captain agreed to take us on board, so we bundled all our baggage on the fore deck, paid off our men and congratulated ourselves on our good luck.

It did not take us half an hour after the steamer was under weigh to discover we were in for a lively time.  The first officer was in charge, and he was still under the influence of – well, say frequent “leave takings” at Berezoff, with the natural result that he soon had the vessel aground in one of the shallow channels.  This difficulty overcome, he forthwith vented his spleen on our ‘Political,’ whom he probably regarded as the Jonah of the party, and an appeal to the captain, who was below, suffering from neuralgia, resulted in orders for the man to be put ashore at the first stopping place.  But this the man refused to do, saying he was our servant and was going on with us; and as we at once appointed him cook, nothing more was heard of the matter.  His first dish was distinctly original and I christened it “Ob Pot “; the recipe was:- Take such scraps of meat as can be collected and place in a large pan, add a sprinkling of preserved vegetables together with rice, macaroni, dried milk and eggs, fill up with water and stew over a slow fire for two hours.  Serve hot with breadrings.

There was no accommodation below and we had to eat and sleep among our baggage on deck, and as the weather was very boisterous with thunderstorms almost every day, our journey up the river was not particularly cheerful.  The boat was under-engined and top-heavy, and to keep her in trim, an anchor and large coil of rope had to be constantly moved from one side of the deck to the other; when the wind was particularly strong everyone had in like manner to help to trim the boat by the addition of their own weight.  It was not surprising that under such circumstances we were two days behind time in arriving at Samarawa, where we hoped to pick up another steamer bound for Tobolsk, and had the mortification of hearing that a steamer had left only a few hours before.  “Nichevo!”  “It is nothing, another will arrive tomorrow, or the day after, at the latest,” we were assured, “What need had we to be troubled about a trifling delay like that?” “Zavtra,” i.e. tomorrow, is a very convenient word in Russia, and was thoroughly impressed on our memory before we got away again.  Day succeeded day without any sign of the expected vessel, until on the night of the eleventh day we were awakened by the whistle of the s.s. “Evan Colchin.”  Then followed two hours of scurry, as all our baggage had to be carried a third of a mile to the steamer, mostly over mud, and at last we were off.  The vessel was crowded and we had to content ourselves with third class accommodation, which may be considered equivalent to steerage, and bad at that.  Men, women and children were all huddled indiscriminately together on double tiers of wooden benches between decks, the utter darkness being barely dispelled by the light of a few flickering candles.  The sailors rigged up some forms for us in a corner where we could sleep and eat, so we managed very well, especially as the captain’s cook took us under her charge and provided most unlooked for sumptous meals.  In three days we were in Tobolsk and felt as if we had reached home, although that longed for haven was still over 3,000 miles distant.