A SIBERIAN CITY OF CHURCHES

As the feeble and halting train that brought us from Lake Baikal, following the meanderings of the swift Angara River, drew near to Irkutsk, the capital of Central Siberia, we received the impression of a small city dominated by a score of great churches. And this impression was not dissipated when we crossed the Angara on the bridge of boats that links the city with the railway on the other side and found ourselves within the city precincts.

You cannot look up without seeing a beautiful dome or spire. In the waters of the Angara the great cathedral is reflected, flanked by two other churches which in any other city of its size would be considered marvels. The principal street of the city seems to lead up to and terminate in another lofty and imposing church, while every section of the town has its own ecclesiastical buildings of lesser magnitude. Brooklyn must look out for its laurels as the City of Churches when it comes in competition with Irkutsk.

The interior of the churches is quite equal to their exterior, and they blaze with sacred pictures and icons, framed and matted in gold, so that the chief impression one gets is of walls of solid gold, chased and fretted and highly ornamented, with the face of Christ or the Virgin or some Oriental saint peering out between the shining plates.

The Russians are evidently an extremely devout and religious people. This is evidenced by their churches, which are always, both metaphorically and literally, higher than the chimneys of their factories. In the small towns along the line of the railway the church is always the one conspicuous object. The village may be, it probably is, built entirely of logs, without a single frame or brick house within its border. But the church, with its glittering dome and blue and green towers, always lifts its Greek cross skyward, and reminds the poor Moujiks that there is another world above the flat plains of Siberia.

The unabashed devoutness of the peasants tells the same story as their churches. Our fellow-travellers in the fourth-class cars from Stretinsk never omitted their morning devotions, their ablutions being an entirely secondary matter. The poorest boatman would always cross himself and bless his crust of black bread before he ate it. The soldiers with whom we journeyed for hundreds of versts, undismayed by the presence of their comrades, would every morning face the rising sun, and though they could secure no possible privacy, would, with genuine devoutness, pray for ten minutes at a time, standing bare-headed and reverential in the crowded railway car in which they were travelling. Such genuine devotion speaks well for the church which fosters it, and for the country that is peopled and defended by faithful devotees, for no nation without a religion which took strong hold of the hearts of the common people ever greatly influenced the destinies of the world.

Distance lends considerable enchantment to Irkutsk, and nearer approach does not bear out the remoter promise of its beautiful churches. The streets are poorly paved and extremely dusty, and the wooden sidewalks are frequently man-traps for the unwary passenger. Still it is no mean city to be found in the heart of Siberia, three thousand five hundred miles from the nearest European capital.

Irkutsk has had time enough to grow, for it was founded thirty years after the _Mayflower_ sailed into Plymouth harbor, and is about ready to celebrate its quarter millennial. Founded originally as a military post to withstand the attacks of wandering Tartars, its naturally advantageous situation has made it the metropolis of Siberia. It is now the seat of government of the province of Eastern Siberia, and contains something over fifty thousand inhabitants. It contains twenty-five Greek churches, substantial Catholic and Lutheran churches, and two synagogues. There are no less than forty schools, among which are seminaries for girls, military and technical schools of various kinds, so that the young idea of Irkutsk has no excuse for not learning how to shoot.

The city has lost something of its ancient importance since the region of the Amour has been erected into a separate province, independent of Irkutsk, and since the rise of Vladivostock as a point of departure on the Pacific for Odessa and America. Nevertheless, it will always be an important centre, owing to its situation near the head-waters of the Angara, which starts from Lake Baikal, forty miles away, and continues its majestic and ever-widening way for three thousand miles until, as the Yenisei, the fourth greatest river in the world, it empties into the Arctic Ocean. It is a centre for the shipment of gold, and in a single year no less than twenty-one thousand pounds weight avoirdupois of the precious metal passed through Irkutsk on its way to St. Petersburg.

It may make the geography of Siberia a little more plain if I here explain that Siberia, for governmental purposes, is divided into six provinces: First, starting from the Ural Mountains, Western Siberia, that borders on Europe, and in a rough way embraces the basin of the Obi. Next, Eastern Siberia, which stretches a thousand miles farther east and embraces the basin of the Yenisei and its tributaries. In this province Irkutsk is situated. Then comes the Trans-Baikal, the province that lies east of the beautiful lake of that name, and through which we made our slow and toilsome way as described in the last chapter. Then, east of that, the great province of the Amour, embracing the basin of the Amour and Ussuri. Last of all, bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and including the convict island of Saghalien, is the province called in Russian Primorskaia. The province of the Steppes lies south of Western Siberia, but with that our new way around the old world has nothing to do, for the railway barely grazes its edge, and does not fairly enter its territory. During the twenty-nine days of rail and river travel which I have already described, we had traversed in succession Primorskaia, Amourskaia, and Zabaikalskaia and had reached the eastern edge of Eastern Siberia.

During these twenty-nine days we had travelled nearly twenty-seven hundred miles, and, between us and Moscow, there still lay more than thirty-three hundred miles to be traversed. But the peculiar hardships of the journey were nearly over, for a _train de luxe_ starts from Irkutsk for Moscow every Friday afternoon, and we were just in season to get our tickets, and secure our berths, and replenish our seedy wardrobes, and take passage on the most famous train in all the world, which, without a single change of cars, runs a distance considerably greater than from Boston to San Francisco.

We were happy enough to board this train, as can be imagined, after the bare boards and filth of the uncertain train which had carried us from Stretinsk, and were in a fit frame of mind to enjoy its luxuries and to overlook its defects. Nor were we sorry to leave Irkutsk, for though it is a remarkable place to be found so far from the confines of civilization, yet it has few attractions to long beguile the traveller; and the stifling dust of the streets, which never seem to be watered, obscure the attractions it does possess.

Shortly before our arrival news had come of the serious disturbances in China, and troops were being enrolled and equipped and hurried to the eastern coast in feverish haste. The whole square in front of the Hôtel de Russie was filled with peasants in their red blouses and top-boots, each with his tea-kettle and little bag of poor belongings. These peasants were to be shipped off that day as food for Chinese powder, if so be the Celestials have any powder left by the time these Moujiks reach Blagavestchensk or, later, Port Arthur. The whole city was full of rumors of war, and, though we could not read the Russian papers, or know the extent of the trouble, the air seemed vibrant with battle.

We were told that the train we had taken over the Trans-Baikal road would be the last passenger train that would be allowed to go through for six weeks. How we blessed our fortunate stars that we were not stranded in Stretinsk for six times seven days! We were told also that between Omsk and Irkutsk were twelve trains loaded with soldiers, bound for Manchuria, and that no private telegram to Vladivostock could be delivered within a week, so hot were the wires with government despatches.

Some of these reports were true and some were exaggerated, but evidently China’s last days had come, we thought, as we boarded the _train de luxe_, and Russia intends to be in at the death.