So, I'm not quite done with Russia yet...
I promised you a little bit of railway history. So, now that I've bid farewell to the Trans-Siberian (I feel 'express' may be stretching it a bit), let's talk a bit about how it all started.
As you most probably know, in the latter half of the 19th century, railways became both a means to, as well as a symbol of, power and wealth. They allowed countries to expand their empires, to exploit natural resources and to settle 'wild' territories. Competition grew as to the miles of track laid, and the architectral grandeur of railway stations. Russia, of course, looked eastward into the depths of Siberia and the far-off promise of the Pacific coast, with its possibilities of trade and commerce. Russia was slipping away from this prize; a little late in getting into the industrial revolution, due to being dominated by a fairly useless land-owning aristocracy, in 1857 Tsar Alexander II issued a Railway Decree, and huge amounts of railway track were constructed between 1860 and 1890. However, this was confined mainly to European Russia.
A geological expedition in the 1840s had discovered that the Amur river region had been left unguarded by the Chinese. A new governor-general, the ambitious Nikolai Muravyov, was appointed to Eastern Sibera. He firmly believed that it was Russia's destiny to dvelop Siberia. With a few cossacks to help hin along, he cruised the Amur river, challenging China and establishing new Russian towns. Eventually. afetr a bit of negotiation, he was able to re-draw he border with China, along the amur river in the south and the Ussuri in the east, and added 'Amursky' to his name.
Muravyov-Amursky,as he was now known, pursued his dream of a railway going east, attracting interest from may foreign companies. The government of St. Petersburg however, just weren't interested.
Then a whole host of things happened that triggered the move into Siberia. Famines in the 1880s, caused by population growth and bad weather. lead the government to pursue a policy of migration to western and southern Siberia. To the land-owners, who were suffering the wrath of angry villagers in the form of burning manor houses. this began to seem like an attractive option. An unrest among Siberia's settlers, complaining of their colonial status and comparing themselves unfavourably to the American West, fuelled fears that Siberia might seek independence, led to a general consensus that a crackdown was necessary.
China's empire was declining, and far-eatern shores were open to competition. This made Russia vulnerable - attacks by British and French warships during the Crimean was had already demonstrated this. The opening of the Suez canal and the completion of the Canadian-Pacific railroad allowed the British east access to the area, continuing the ongoing territorial competition - the 'Great Game' - between the two countries. And then, Tsar Aleaxander II was assinated, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III. Whilst Alexander II had been a liberal, modernising force, abolishing serfdom and creating democratic assemblies the 'Tsar reformer', his son was an old=school political reactionary who loved all those old ideological tenets: autocracy, orthoxy, and of course, empire. In short, he was a nationalist who wanted to confirm Russia's status. In 1886 he gave this response to the governor of Irkutsk:
'How many reports from Siberian governors have I not read already, nd I have to admit with shame and grief that until now the government has done nothing to satisfy the requirements of this rich but neglected region. It is time, high time.'
In short, it was time to be build a railway. in March 1891, he officially proclaimed the beginning of construction of a Tran-Siberian railway,s ending his son to lay the first stone in Vladivostok.
Here enters another interesting character, Serge Witte. A ticket-seleer at tye beginnig of russia's railway boom, he quickly rose to stationmaster, and then company director, rising swiftly through the governmantal ranks to become mimister of transport and finance. But he was always an outsider in the court of the tsar. Not that this seemed to matter to him: he shared the Tsar's railway vision, and with his forceful personality, saw himself as an empire builder of grand proportions. As the tsar did not want foreign investment, he was forced to scrape money from the unhealthy economy by any means possible, even printing more roubles, triggering a wave of inflation.
Construction began at Chelyabinsk, in the southern Ural mountains, the railway would run parallel to the old post road (as traveled by Chekhov) as far as Irkutsk, the breaking across the uncharted territories of Baikal, Amur and Ussuri, to Vladivostok. Later, the line was moved futher north towards the influentila mining econmies of towns such as Yekatinerinburg.
As you would imagine, building a railway across Siberia in the late 19th century was not a very easy task. There was very little ready labour. Workers were recruited, or conscripted, from all over the empire. Some were convicts, diverted en-route to Sakhalin island. They worked long hours in appalling conditions, with just shovels and picks, and horses for hauling, with which to create this engineering miracle. It was incredibly hot, and icily cold, and they were prey to many diseases, bandits and even hungry tigers. Maintaining suppy lines of food and building supplies was difficult, to say the least.
As construction continued, both east and west, the engineers faced many problems. Thick forest, mountains, swamps and seemingly endless rivers to name but a few. Through central Siberia, water from the drained bogs collected in stagant pools, bringing clouds of mosquitoes. Continuing around the rocky shores of Lake Baikal, an Italian engineer was enlisted to create an elaborate network of arched supports; as the line moved eastward, torrential rivers and heavy floods washed away newly laid tracks and bridges. Across the Amur river, the final section to be completed, a bridge of almost 2km was required.
But this wasn't enough for Witte. After negotiations with the Chinese, he eventually secured the rights for a Manchurian section in 1894. The flat lands and open valleys must have been a relief to the builders after getting trhough Siberia. However, not all ran smoothly: Chinese nationalism turned into violence; tracks was torn up, stations set on fire, and the Russian army had to intervene. The completed line reduced the journey distance by over 600km.
Finally, in 1898, two years ahead of schedule, (I'm sure Britsh rail could learn a few lessons!), the first train rolled into Irkustk. But it was not until 1900 that the Trans-Siberian was officially unveiled, at the Paris Exhibition. Billed as the ultimate luxury experience, travellers were enticed by exotic landscape pictures and mock dining cars filled with caviar, snd seduced by promises of a musical alson, complete with piano, a smoking car, a library, gymnasium and even a marble and brass bath!
Unsurprisingly, the first Trans-Siberian voyages were not quiote as comfortable as advertised - the train often ran out of food, and the speed with which the line had been constructed lead to a high accient rate (warped rails, buckled bridges and so on), leading to delays that could last days. One passenger wrote:
'A traveller in these far Eastern lands gradually loses his impatience and finally ceases to care whether his train goes fast or slowly, or does not go at all. Certainly we have been two hours at this station for no apparent reason.'
Not much changed there then!
In addition to the first class travellers, the third class compartments were packed full of new immigrants, as part of the government's settlement programme. It cost just 20 roubles (about 40n pence by today's exchange rates) to travel more than 3200km.
In the late 19th century, many new industries sprang up along the line, mills, factories, mines; an engineering and technical school was founded in Tomsk. but they could not keep pace with the insatiable demands the railway brought..
Throughout the 20th century, a number of wars and revolutions were to affect the railway. In turn, it was to play a large part in the chaotic political atmosphere of the coming years. In 1905, anti-tsarist protestors, disgusted by Russia's poor performance in the Russo-Japanese was (in which the railway proved insuficient to meet the demands of war), were shot down outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Among these were the railway workers, who, like the majority of the Russian working population, laboured for bad wages and working conditions. However, they had a special power at their dispensation: by going on strike they coulod paralyse the economy, and eventually created an All-Russia Union of Railroad Workers, calling for higher wages, shorter working hours and the right to strike. In a response to the government's attempts to impose martial law, a nationwide general strike was issued, which was only lifted after the tsar issued the October manifesto, promising to reform the autocracy into a constitutional monarchy.
In 1917, the railway workers took the side of the Bolsheviks, refusing to transport the tsarist troups, and helping to create a successful Revolution. But in 1918, Siberia came under contention again, as returning Czech POWs sided with the White Russians to seize control of the western part of the railway, whilst the Japanese took the easten part. A separatist Siberian republic was formed in Omsk, until it was overthrown by Admiral Kolchak, who proclaimed himself the supreme ruler of Siberia. Another former Tsarist general took over the manchurian section, and Cossacks picked away at the Baikal and Amur regions. The Russian plans for donmination weren't going very well..It took the Bolshevik's more than three years to regain control, and Kolchak was executed.
The Soviet rulers were determined that Siberia would be a place of industrial growth. To do this, they built a new railway track alongside the original one, replaced the original light rails with heaver ones, and wooden supports with iron and steel. Large -scale projects in Siberia brought coal, coke, iron and steel. Workers' conditions didn't improve much but hey, they were shining examples of the new proleteriat. Stalin's forced labour camps helped along the industrial revolution no end.
During the German occupation, the railway was able to carry supplies to the troups at the front, eventually wearind down the Nazis. Then in the 1950s, the discovery of oil and gas in Siberia promoted the development of towns throughout the region. I met a man from Australia on the bus yesterday (the first foreigner i've really spoken to in 2 weeks!) who had spent some time working managing a mine in siberia, north of ulan ude. As you can imagine, he had some pretty crazy stories...combinations of copious amounts of vodka and heavy machinery..He also said that the mine was enver going to actually make much money, due to the impossible tangle of Russian bureacracy.
Afetr Kruschev liberated thousands of labour camp inmates, new incentives were offered to lure skilled workers to the region: military academies flourished in secrecy. by 1920, there were 13 Siberain cities with more than 250, 000 inhabitants.
Other parts of the railway were added later: the trans-Mongolian, in the midst of the chinese -soviet tussle for mongolia: the Turkestan-Siberian, running through ther steppe of Kazakstan, and the wonderful-sounding Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), which passes along the northern shores of lake baikal, through some truly wild and inhospitable terrain, swamps, wide rivers, permafrost and seven mountain ranges, to Sovetskaya Gavan on the northern Pacific shoreline. Work beagan in the 1930s , and was eventually opened in 1991, built by a diverse labour force: Japanese and German POWs, and huge numbers of the communist youth league 'volunteers' from all over the Soviet Union. The final cost of construction was no less than 25 billion dollars. New lines are planned fro th future..korea seems to be next on the agenda.
New separatist movements have recently taken hold of Siberia, and the privatisation of state property had lead to a crazy scramble for material gain, a new kind of adventurer. Regional governors openly defy the powers that be in Moscow. The Mafia, people seem to be in general accordance, have a stranglehold over the region.It could be said Siberia is returning to the 'Wild Wild East' of olden days...
Of course, the Russians were not the first people to live in Siberia. The indigenous cultures were gradually assimilated into the population...one place in which an indiginous society flourishes alongside the Russians is Buryatia (autonomous reoublic of), capital, Ulan Ude. I told you a little about them last time. But let's talk a bit more.
Ulan-Ude was a fascinating place, hot dusty, on a hill looking down to the wide Selenga river, where I sat in the evening watching the sun set and the kids hanging out. it is also full of determined talkative people...I ate dinner in a resturant one evening where some kind of party was going on, full of drunk Buryat women on the dance floor who tried to persuade me to join them. they were like your mum's embarassing friend, but worse, screaming and whooping as they shimmied to the strain of russain pop..There were also a lot of people staggering around the street, and i met my first really drunk and annoying men on public transport on a bus. (one thing I'll say for russian men- they're very polite. I never expeienced any kind of harrassment that I can recall). I don't know why indigenous cultures always seem to have such a high rate of alcoholism, but it's really sad...
I spent my second day entirely in museums, one of which (the truly fantastic Ethnographic museum) was actually in the forest a few km outside U-U; it was lovely to be in the taiga at last after all that time looking at it, smelling the pine trees, listening to the choruses of birds and the rasping of crickets..
This is a little of what i learnt..
There were four main tribes that settled the shores of Lake-Baikal. One of these, the Khari-Buryats, stayed in the SE region. They hunted elk, bear, lynx, wolf, sable and fox, fished, and bred reindeer.
The first non-indigenous settlers in Siberia were the Cossacks, who set up their own self-governing communities, occupying themeselves with horse and cattle breeding and cultivation. I saw some reconstructions of these cossack towns: with houses full of saddles, furs and weapons for hunting, they gace a vivid impression of 'frontier' life. The Russians built wooden forts (Ostrogs), symbols of the Tsrist govermental power, all along the shores of Siberain rivers. Ulan-Ude (Verchneudsky ostrog) was established at the same time that london was burning, 1666. The purpose of the Russian administration here was to fill the Tsar's metaphorical coffers, by collecting 'yasak' - taxes, in the form of 'soft' currency - furs, gold and silver. Tribes also collected from each other - the Buryats paid to the more powerful Mongols, but collected from the south Siberian tribes such as the Tungus. It all sounded a bit like a giant game of monopoly!
In 1702-03, the Khari_Buryats travelled to Moscow on horseback, to ask Peter I ('the Great') for their lands back. It seemd he was not unsympathetic to their plight, and in 1703 he issued a decree; the Siberian settlers must follow his order 'To keep the best lands (rich, fertile soil) for the Buryats'. Sixty years later, four Buryat-Cossack regiments were founded, which must have been a formidable force indeed. At the end of the eighteenth century, a trading centre was established in the town of Kyakhta, on the Mongolian (Chinese) border, allowing the lucrative import of tea, creating a temporary town of millionaires; but when the Suez canal opened up in 1869, a cheaper way to import tea to Europe was found, and it became a ghost town. I travelled through it by bus, and couldn't see much there..yes, I took a bus to Mongolia! I was getting a bit bored with trains, and also the train reputedly can take up to 11 hours at the border! To my surprise, we passes through fairly smoothly, and my russian visa paranoia proved unfounded; the female border guard shouted at me in Russian for a while, then abrubtly stamped it and sent me on my way. In fact, I was quicker than most other people. The man in front of me spent several hours (or so it felt) in conversation about his passport, the weather, the meaning of life, the price of eggs etc. I just don;t understand why transactions in Russian take SO LONG! The Australian explained something that maybe throws a little light on it; he said that russian is such a complicated language that it's very difficult to say anything directly..you have so many possibilities of what you might mean, that you must keep narrowing them down until eventually you both understand the same thing. It would explain a lot....Apart from that, the bus was long, uncomfortable and hot,a and I was cramped into the very back seat. But I was so in thrall at the views of the Mongolian steppe spreading out before me that I almost didn't mind..
In their beliefs the Buryats were both shamanic and Buddhist; in the outdoor museum there was a reconstructed camp, the 'Evenk Shaman Complex'; they looked a bit like teepees, and were full of mysterious and wonderful symbols of shamanic lore. According to the description, the structuires consist of three parts, the shaman house, 'Darpe' the upper world, consisting of the world of good spirits, shamanic helpers such as homekeni bears, and a raft made of taimens (white fish). 'Onan', the lower world, of evil spirits and the dead, represented by figures of wolves and gluttons. The middle world was shown by anthropomorphous pictures and figures of birds; this was the shaman house, the world of the Earth, used to hold the Shamanic ceremonies. It is thought that these ideas spread across the frozen Bering strait, to the place we know as North America...
The type of Buddhism practised in Buryatia is similar to that of Tibet: Mayahana of the Gelukpa school. When it arrived in the 16th century, it borrowed and assimilated many components of Shamanism; the cult of nature, and the cult of ancestors were included in rituals. As Buddhism spread, it influenced much of the social and cultural development of the Buryats; writing, literacy, astronomy, and medicine, architecture, art, traditions, customs...and so on. In 1741 it was proclaimed as the official Buryatian religion byt eh rather wonderfully named Empress Yelizaveta Petrovna. It linked Buryatia with India, Tibet, China and Mongolia, and by the end of the 19th century was a powerful religious and political force. The supreme head was named the Pandido Khambo Lama, who, interestingly, was appointed by Tsarist decree.
In the 1930s and 40s, almost every monastery was tragically destroyed by he stooges of Stalin. About a thousand monks were arrested or murdered. Now, Buddhism is being slowly revived: the Ivolinsky Datsan, outside Ulan ude which sadly, I didn't have time to see, is its only real functioning centre. The historical museum has a beautiful collection of thankas and statues, which must have been collected from their ruined surroundings. I met a man their who was from 'proper' Siberia (the east). He looked exactly as you'd imagine, beard, pitted face. He was obviously keen to practise speaking englsih. 'Do you believe in God?' he asked me. I found this an odd question, especially as we were in the Buddhist section at the time. 'Yes' I said. 'I don't' he said, with some pride. 'oh, so you're an atheist?' I asked. He answered affirmatively, smirking. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. 'Well done, it's what Stalin always wanted' I was tempted to say. But I didn't.
Siberia has long been a shelter for those on the outside of society. While Peter may have had some sympathy for Buryats, he certainly didn't have any for the Old Believers (Semeiskye). In fact, he persecuted them, amking them officially illegal, locking them up in wooden forts or sending them into exile. They were sent, or fled, to Siberia from all over Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania and even Tureky. In 1735 and 1764, the Tsarist government created the first major exile of the 'Polish Semeiskye', to a 'terrible god-forsaken place', around the shores of Baikal. Mind you, they were still expected to develop agriculture and supply the miners with food. I told you of my obsession with them before, and as you can imagine, I was Very Excited to discover a whole strip of homesteads at the ethnological museum. Slightly to my surprise, they were very homely, and full of cloths, patterns and decorations in bright cheery colours, almost gaudy, reminding me of the churches of Kiev. Their traditional costume too, was colourful and pretty, with many adornments and distinctive wide belts. These didn't look like a people full of doom and gloom. I think I would have liked them. They must have been a civilising influence in the 'Wild East'. Of course, there were some very odd ideas, not to mention mass suicides. But full marks for commitment.
They certainly had persistence - despite being banned in 1797, they carried on secret 'typographies' to print books. From the early nineteenth century, they increasingly struggled with the authorities who tried to make them change their ways. Until the end of the 19th century, they did not drink alcohol or smoke, and always worked outdoors and ate healthily. No wonder then, that, despite refusing to use modern medicine, they were statistically far healthier than the rest of the vodka and fat guzzling population. During Soviet times, collectivisation and appropriation of possessions brought suffering, but, used to living communally, the Old Believer kolkhozes (collective farms) were always the most successful.
There's still a few of them around now, of course, living quietly and preserving iron-cast tradition. I wonder where they are
But now..it's midnight (I love these 24 hour internet cafes after writing from russian post offices!) I'm in Mongolia! having arrived in Ulaanbaatar, I went straight to UB guesthouse to ask about tours, expecting it would be some days before I could organise anything..but lo and behold, it just so happened there would be a meeting at 4pm about a trip to the North, which is the part that attracts me the most (forest and mountains and lakes), and ...within hours, it was organised, agrred and paid for (less than 250 dollars for 12 days..incredible..) and i wandered off in a daze to organise things. I was a little nervous to see what my fellow travellers would be like, and I prayed for northern europeans. In my opinion they always make the best travelling companions...and happily, they turned out to be dutch, austrian and latvian, and seem very nice! But I'll let you know! it will be strange and interesting to travel with others for a while..
So it may be some time before you hear from me again, I'm off to Khovsgol to stay with nomads, swim in lakes, ride horses and endure some crazy roads. woo hoo!
This is your asian correspondant, signing out..