File:Siberia and the exile system (1891) (14743003726).jpg

Identifier: siberiaexilesyst02kennuoft (find matches)
Title: Siberia and the exile system
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Kennan, George, 1845-1924
Subjects: Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
Publisher: new York : Century
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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d logbuildings of the Russian type, with chimneys, brick ovens,and double glass windows, and the inhabitants looked verymuch like American Indians that had abandoned theirhereditary pursuits and dress, accepted the yoke of civili-zation, and settled down as petty farmers in the neighbor-hood of a frontier village or agency. Here and there onemight see a yurt, whose octagon form and conical barkroof suggested a Kirghis kibitka, and indicated that thebuilders ancestors had been dwellers in tents; but withthis exception there was nothing in or about the settlementto distinguish it from hundreds of Russian villages of thesame class and type. Under the guidance of Mr. Sananof,who was well acquainted with all of these Tatars, we enteredand examined two or three of the low octagonal yurts andone of the gable-roofed houses, but found in them little thatwas of interest. Russian furniture, Russian dishes, Rus-sian trunks, and Russian samovars had taken the places of OUR LAST DAYS IN SIBERIA 399
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A YOliT OF THE KACHINSKI TATARS. the corresponding native articles, and I could find nothingthat seemed to be an expression of Tatar taste, or a survivalfrom the Tatar past, except a childs cradle shaped like asmall Eskimo dog-sledge with transverse instead of longi- 400 SIBERIA tudinal runners, and a primitive domestic still. The latter,which was used to distil an intoxicating liquor known asarrack, consisted of a large copper kettle, mounted on a tri-pod and furnished with a tight-fitting cover, out of the topof which projected a curving wooden tube intended to serveas a condenser, or worm. The whole apparatus was of therudest possible construction, and the thin, acrid, unpleas-ant-looking, and vile-tasting liquor made in it was probablyas intoxicating and deadly as the poison-toadstool cordialof the wandering Koraks. The interior of every Tatarhabitation that we inspected was so cheerless, gloomy, anddirty that we decided to take our lunch out of doors on thesnow; and while we ate

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