A CITY OF THE DEAD
EX-TSAR’S PLACE OF EXILE,
A PICTURE OP TOBOLSK,
“A city of the dead.” “A living tomb,” This is how Harry de Windt, the noted traveller, describes in the Manchester Guardian the Siberian town of Tobolsk, to which Nicholas Romanoff, once Tsar of all the Russians, and his family, have been exiled. De Windt writes:
“Tobolsk is the ancient capital of Siberia, and contains 30,000 inhabitants, largely composed before the war of Germans engaged in the leather and tallow trades. It has' been stated that the ex-Tsar was conveyed to his place of exile by special train from Russia, which can hardly be correct, seeing that Tobolsk can be reached only by river. I had to travel there for five days from Moscow via Nij-ni-Vov-gorod, up the River Volga to Perm, thence across the Ural Mountains by rail to Tinmen, and down the Irtysh River. “The province of which Tobolsk is chief town is eight times the size of Great Britain, and is sparsely peopled by Russians, Tartars, and fur-clad Ostiaks and Samoyedes; yet it was once of considerable commercial importance, which, owing to the Trans-Siberian Railway, has now greatly decreased. “On approaching it . from the river, and viewed from a distance, Tobolsk presents an imposing and picturesque appearance, which is quickly dispelled on closer acquaintance, for the place then assumes a listless, lifeless appearance, which sinks into the soul. There is an upper and a lower town, the former being the citadel, which consists of a cluster of whitewashed buildings overlooking the river from the summit of a precipitous limestone cliff.
“It is approached by a steep carriage drive, and here the ex-Imperial Family probably reside, for the citadel comprises the Governor’s palace, Government offices, and a golden-domed cathedral, xvhence there is a line view of the river and crescent-shaped city, which chiefly consists of drab-coloured, weatherbleached, wooden buildings in various stages of decay. BAD STREETS. “Neither they nor the streets are kept in decent repair, and as the latter are paved with rough planks, which have rotted away in places, it, is somewhat risky to drive after dark, for the town is but dimly lit. The constant clatter of traffic along these wooden thoroughfares becomes maddening after a time, for it resembles the incessant rolling of thousands of drums, and is generally prolonged far into the night. The best hotel was old, dirty, and comfortless, and permeated, like many of the streets, with an odor of sewage, for the drainage here is of a very primitive description. “Then.; was a theatre (generally closed),, and a *o-palled cafe chantant, which was unpleasantly suggestive of some low-classed dive in New York or San Francisco. Amusements there were none, by day or night, except the arrival or departure. of a river steamer, which appeared to afford the inhabitants their only relaxation. “Some of the shops were fairly good, especially those for the sale of antique jewellery and silver, where sleeve-links, scarf-pins, and other articles fashioned in the shape of a bell were constantly offered to me. For Tobolsk is as pi’oud of its bell as Lucerne of'its lions or Berne of its bears —‘the Bell of Ouglitch,’ which, for tolling the signal for an insurrection, was banished here by a Tsar in the sixteenth century. “In the Dark Ages Siberian exiles were deprived of their nostrils by means of red-hot pinchers, but this being obviously impossible in the ease of the metal offender, its suspenders were publicly removed in the presence of the Tsar and a huge concourse of people, and this unique exile has now found a resting-place in the local museum.
“Tobolsk presents at all seasons of the year a drab and desolate aspect, especially in summer, when the only trace of greenery is a public garden composed of stunted birch and cedar trees, dusty shrubs, and scentless flowers, intersected by weedy paths and ankle-deep in wet weather.- A dilapidated and deserted band-stand occupies the centre, and near it is a stone obelisk with the inscription, ‘To Yermak,’ the dauntless warrior who, with a liandful of Cossacks, captured Western Siberia three centuries ago from a formidable Tartar force.
“The prison here is the most dis-xnal-looking structure, inside and out, which 1 have ever beheld, yet it is well in keeping with its mournful surroundings, This, in short, is a city of the dead in more ways than one, for Tobolsk has the highest death-rate of any town in Siberia, a fact partly attributable to defective drainage and partly to the extensive and stagnant marshes by which it is surrounded, and which are a fruitful source of every malarial disease. “Looking down from, the citadel on a summer evening on the town below, the view is invariably concealed by a lake of dense, feverladen mist which has crept in at sunset from the neighbouring swamp. Summer is a season of dull, grey skies, incessant rain, and swarms of mosquitoes; winter of intense cold, combined with damp — a climatic combination unknown in other parts of Siberia, which elsewhere is invariably sun-lit, dry, and bracing. Political exiles have told me that they would rather serve a five years’ sentence in the depths of
Russian Asia than reside here in comparative freedom for six months, although it is much nearer Europe.”
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1785, 5 February 1918, Page 4
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882A CITY OF THE DEAD Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1785, 5 February 1918, Page 4
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