Abused Russia
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Title: Abused Russia

Author: Charles Christian Young

Release date: July 27, 2026 [eBook #79195]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Devin-Adair Company, 1915

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79195

Credits: Alan, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABUSED RUSSIA ***

ABUSED RUSSIA

His Excellency A. S. Yermeloff

To whom the book is dedicated

ABUSED RUSSIA

BY

Dr. C. C. YOUNG

NEW YORK

THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY

437 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1915, by

THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY

Dedicated

TO ONE OF RUSSIA’S GREAT MEN, HIS EXCELLENCY A. S.
YERMOLOFF, LIFE MEMBER OF HIS MAJESTY’S COUNCIL,
TO WHOM I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL FOR THE
NUMEROUS COURTESIES SHOWN ME WHILE
TRAVELING IN RUSSIA, AND FOR HIS INTEREST
IN SUBMITTING MY ARTICLES TO
HIS GRACIOUS EMPEROR,
NICHOLAS II

CONTENTS

| PAGE
Preface | 11
Chapter I |
Some False Impressions | 17
Chapter II |
A Bit of Early Russian History | 31
Chapter III |
The Russian Temperament | 41
Chapter IV |
The Religious View of the Russian | 47
Chapter V |
The Cossack | 53
Chapter VI |
The Passport System | 57
Chapter VII |
Regarding a New Treaty with Russia | 66
Chapter VIII |
The Russian Jews | 70
Chapter IX |
Asiatic Possessions | 83
Note | 101

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

| FACING PAGE
His Excellency A. S. Yermeloff | Frontispiece

A Russian Danceuse in the National Costume
of a Tadjick Woman of Bokhara

17

The Church of Resurrection of Petrograd | 18

His Excellency, Acting Governor-General
Galkin of West Turkestan

20

Cathedral of St. Basil | 22

The “Tzar Kolokol” or Monarch of Bells,
Moscow

24

Village Authorities in South Russia | 28
Tadjick Justice of Peace of Bokhara | 30

Afghan “Ishan” Collecting Money in the
Name of Allah

32

Turcomans | 34
Heir to the Throne of Afghanistan | 36
Typical Peasants of Great Russia | 38
Typical “White” Russians | 40
A Little Russian Girl-Milkmaid of Kiev | 42
Ivan Ivanovitch | 44
Preparing for the “Shachse Wachse” Celebration | 47
The “Shachse Wachse” Celebration | 48
The “Kremlin,” Moscow | 50

Registan Square in Front of Mechet Shir Dor
in Samarkand

53

Karavan of Afghans Crossing the Amu Daria
River at Kerki

57

Dr. C. C. Young in Kara Kum Desert | 60

His Majesty the Khan of Khiva, West Turkestan,
Central Asia

64

Komrat Real School | 71
Mr. Konstantin Aleksandrovitch Mimi | 72
A Hebrew Woman of Bokhara | 76
“Gorodovoy”—Russian Policeman | 78
The “Pristav”—District Chief of Police | 80
Acting Governor Karaul Begi | 82
The Atachadja Mirachur | 82
Two Afghan Soldiers | 84
Treacherous Daghas of Afghanistan | 84
Author’s Father, Mr. Christian Young, Sr. | 86
Guri-Mir, Mausoleum of Timur | 88
Karakul Ewe and Lamb | 90
The Famous “Arba” of West Turkestan | 92
The Inhabitants of Khiva, West Turkestan | 94
Interior of the Summer Palace of the Emir | 96
A Tekin Wedding | 98

The Minaret, the Tower of Death, in Old
Bokhara City

100

Entrance to Old Fort of Old Palace | 102
Khirgiz Women and Children in West Turkestan | 106
High-Class, Veiled, Sart Woman | 108

PREFACE

When, in 1907, I began my travels in Russia, I was honored with a personal letter of introduction from Theodore Roosevelt, and I take this opportunity to express my gratitude for his invaluable assistance. It was this letter which enabled me to make the acquaintance of former United States Ambassador to Russia, Hon. John Riddle, through whom I met some of Russia’s Ministers and other men of prominence in public life, including His Excellency A. S. Yermoloff.

In 1912 it was the Hon. J. A. Tawney, of Minnesota, who prevailed on ex-President William Taft to speak a good word for me to Mr. Guild, our Ambassador to St. Petersburg, who was at the time on a visit to the United States. In 1913, I was again put under great obligations to Mr. Tawney for securing for me a personal letter from His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, Governor General of Canada, to Lord Buchanan, the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, to whom I owe a debt of thanks for the many kindnesses extended me.

The most courteous Morris Sheppard, United States Senator from Texas, interested President Wilson in behalf of my last Central Asiatic expedition, so that when I came to St. Petersburg the beginning of last year, I was most warmly received by our chargé d’affaires, Mr. Wilson.

My associate, Mr. Joseph Simonson, of Middlewater, Texas, a warm friend of Dr. Osborne, our well-known Assistant Secretary of State, prompted the latter to introduce me to the Russian Ambassador, Mr. Bakhmeteff, who wrote a letter in my behalf to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sazonoff, for which I am more than thankful. To Russia’s great railway Minister, Mr. Ruchloff, who saw fit to give me an annual pass over every railway in the empire during 1912, 1913 and 1914, I owe no small debt of gratitude. Never in my life will I forget the exceptional courtesy shown me by Russia’s Secretary of War, General Suchomlinoff, who received me in his home, and honored me with a personal letter to the Military Governor General of West Turkestan, Mr. Samsonoff, to whom I also owe my appreciation. I am obligated for numerous favors received from the Russian Embassy at New Bokhara, Khanate of Bokhara, West Turkestan, Central Asia, who had received special instructions about my visit to the northern border of Afghanistan from Mr. Klem, Director of the Asiatic Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Connor, until very recently United States Consul to St. Petersburg, furnished me with most of the data in reference to certain points dealing with our treaty with Russia.

For some of the facts contained in this book, I have made reference to the Russian historians Kostomaroff, Karamzim and Ivanoff.

Mr. B. P. Egert, of St. Petersburg, author of the book “The Conflict Between the United States and Russia,” placed me under great obligations by his kindness. I have found the books of D. M. Lagofet, a member of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, of great help, as also those of the English writer, Maurice Baring.

Dr. C. C. Young.

REFERENCES

The articles to which I would like to refer the reader are as follows:

“Some Foreigners from Oversea,” Harper’s Magazine, February, 1908.

“Why Russia is Misunderstood,” Taylor & Trotwood Magazine, November, 1908.

“Russia Waking up Under Third Douma,” New York Times, August 16, 1908.

“Is Russia Ripe for a Constitutional Form of Government?” Dallas (Texas) Morning News, Sunday Magazine Edition, September 26, October 3, October 10 and October 17, 1909.

“A Glimpse into the Heart of New Russia,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, September 25, 1910.

“West Turkestan and Bokhara,” New York Times, Sunday, January 18, 1914.

Chicago Sunday Tribune, August 21, 1910.

Columbus (Ohio) Evening Despatch, February 3, 1911.

St. Louis Post Despatch, September 10, 1911.

New York Herald, September 10, 1911.

Literary Digest, September 30, 1911.

New York Herald, April 20, 1913.

The Journal of Heredity (Washington, D. C.), October, 1914.

The Field, Illustrated, November, 1914, etc., etc.

A Russian Danceuse in the National Costume of a Tadjick Woman
of Bokhara

ABUSED RUSSIA

CHAPTER I

SOME FALSE IMPRESSIONS

In my travels over European and Asiatic Russia, I have often been asked by apparently intelligent Russian people whether, in view of the Indian and negro admixture, it will ever be possible to civilize the American masses. My own sister anxiously asked me what was the ratio of white people in such Indian cities as New York and Chicago. I couldn’t help laughing at such questions, and often answered by telling my curious Russian friends that there are practically only Indians in this country of expectation and promise—white Indians!

Further discussion of American topics often brought out the fact that having learned that mob violence occurred in the United States and that negroes were burned at stake, my friends came to the conclusion that a people displaying such barbarism could only be the progeny of inferior Indian and negro admixture. For this reason, they believed one could find white people only in certain parts of the country and that yellow or swarthy hybrids filled the other sections.

The Church of Resurrection of Petrograd

Built on the spot where Alexander II was killed

On one occasion a Russian Countess, who lived in the interior of one of the Black Belt provinces, and had a national reputation as a philanthropist and social worker, hotly and rudely retorted to a remark of mine, that the lynchings of the United States ought to be stopped by the well-drilled soldiers of Europe, that the President ought to be executed for not exercising his power to stop these inhuman and outrageous death penalties, which proved conclusively that the Americans were not entitled to be called a civilized people. It did require some explanation indeed to convince her that our President could hardly be held responsible for mob violence, that it was discountenanced by all good American citizens as well as by the major portion of the press. To further free the mind of the Countess from these erroneous impressions, I reminded her that even in her own Russia men have been known to take the law into their own hands under pressure of circumstances, and cited a case, then in the public eye, of a certain Count of Crimea who was killed by his nephew for having compromised the wife of the latter, and that a jury of twelve representative Russian gentlemen adjudged the culprit “not guilty,” and that, too, when the Count had been one of Russia’s richest and most influential noblemen, and a member of the Emperor’s Council. But the Countess would not be wholly persuaded. “If your President,” she persisted, “should not be held accountable for these horrible lynchings—of which we read pages and pages—why do you Americans hold our gracious Emperor responsible for the deeds of criminals—deeds which often make us blush for our country—and this when your own United States seem to have their share of the lawless and unrestrained!”

“Is not the excuse for such degeneracy greater with the Russians,” continued she, “since we have been the slaves of the barbarous Mongol-Tartars for three hundred years and it has been our hard lot to have had to assume the responsibility of educating fifty-three millions of peasants, slaves for three hundred years, and who were only liberated about the time your negroes became free men? Then, too, some of our best people had become hybridized by the injection of the dreadful Mongolian Tartar blood, the demoralizing influence of which can be only likened to the awful effect of wolf blood when introduced into a Scotch collie. To this day still applies the French proverb ‘Gratez le russe et vous trouvez le tartar’ (Scratch the skin of the Russian and you will find the Tartar).”

Of a similar trend was the opinion of Prince Khilkoff, who, in order to learn railroading, spent twelve years in America. “Instead of having practically every race on earth to contend with,” he had stated, “your people are rather homogeneous. They have not had to fight Asiatic hordes of Mongols and Malays for nearly a thousand years. They are not shut off from the world as we are by the jealousy of Europe, which has denied us an outlet. We have no access to the Atlantic Ocean—and that is practically true of the Pacific, and little can be gained by sailing on the frozen Arctic seas. Why do your people,” he asked, “insult our Emperor, who is the kindest-hearted man in the world, and who suffers more than any other Russian when mob law becomes rampant in certain communities? Moreover,” the Prince continued, “having been the Minister of Railways during the Japanese-Russian war, and having had entrée into the court of our ruler, I know how he suffered because the war with Japan could not be averted. The senseless attacks made upon him by the all-powerful Semitic newspapers in the United States were certainly uncalled for, and what especially pained me was the fact that these papers were able to turn the entire country against our government and our nation, all of which we resented and which cost your people millions in loss of trade.”

His Excellency Acting Governor-General Galkin of West Turkestan

Such, then, are some of the ideas current in Russia concerning America and Americans. Are the conceptions of Russia and the Russians given credence in the United States as true or just?

To the American who has made no special study of Russian conditions, Russia is a country without a summer, with frozen landscapes, midnight sun, and everywhere a covering of snow. He pictures the sleigh with its troika as the mode of transportation, the wolves chasing behind; buildings in wild and gaudy colors, terminating in bulb-like steeples, resembling Mohammedan mechets; private houses, barbarously decorated inside and out. The people of Russia, in his mind, are divided into several highly dramatic types: diplomats hiding behind tapestry to hear the state secrets of unsuspecting foreigners, crooked generals who can be bribed for a dollar, gendarmes and Nihilists, poor, starving peasants, who are always being knutted, robbed by the police or the Russian priests, cigarette-smoking Nihilist princesses, who have sacrificed themselves to secure liberty for the peasants. And if his mind goes beyond this, the American layman fills in the picture with gendarmes of the Ochrana constantly plotting against peaceful citizens and arranging for their deportation to Siberia, without giving them even a trial; with dreaded Cossacks, who, in conjunction with the police, delight in chopping Jews to pieces or knocking them senseless with knotted wire whips called “knuts”; with brilliantly dressed Tartars, swooping down upon the people and gouging out their eyes. And these divers classes are supposed to be ruled by a bloodthirsty Tzar, who lives somewhere in dreaded Russia, and who is in perpetual fear of being transported to another sphere by way of a Nihilistic bomb.

Cathedral of St. Basil

Built in 1554 by Tzar Ivan IV, and at that time said to have been
the most beautiful in the world

These are some of the mistaken impressions of Russia prevailing in this country. To trace their origin, we must bear in mind that all peoples have a love of the sensational and will more readily accept as true a highly colored tale of adventure than a calm, dispassionate statement of facts. Then, too, a certain element of the press delights in pandering to the appetite for the marvelous.

Some six years ago, I had an experience which vividly illustrated this point. I was in Odessa at the time, and that city was then considered one of the quietest in Europe. I remember being amused by reading in the Paris edition of the New York Herald an Associated Press despatch announcing another dreadful Jewish massacre in that city. On the night of the supposed massacre, I had been with a party of friends, motoring through Odessa, until three o’clock in the morning, and we had been aware of no disturbance of any kind, nor saw nor heard anything that might have been construed as a commotion. When, later, we showed the paper to Governor Tolmatchoff, he laughingly remarked that if we stayed long enough in Odessa, we would have a chance to read more such despatches, as they were being sent to New York from time to time, and from there cabled back to Paris, by a certain class of anarchistically inclined Hebrews, to stir up the minds of the better class of their own people and of the Gentiles, and open a channel of revenue, supposedly for the cause of the downtrodden Jews. The means so obtained, the Governor told us, seldom reached the people for whom they were intended, and generally went to further the ends of the anarchists and revolutionists and, he laughingly concluded, to contradict these false reports would consume the entire Russian budget!

Practically everything written on the subject frightfully exaggerates the worst conditions of Russia and projects those false impressions into intelligent American thought. Even Tolstoy, the most popular Russian author in America, has not helped the American people to get an unbiased view of the Russians, and many there are who do not realize that the social evils he so ably depicts in his books are universal maladies—alike in one way or another in all countries.

The “Tzar Kolokol” or Monarch of Bells, Moscow

Its weight is 440,000 pounds. It is 20 feet in height and 60 feet in circumference. The value of the metal in the bell is estimated at $2,000,000. Originally it hung in a tower, which was burned in 1737, and now it lies at the foot of the “Tower of Veliky,” built in 1600 by Ivan the Terrible

The truth of the situation was well expressed by the English girl who said she greatly preferred English stories of Russia to Russian stories because the Russian accounts lacked local color, while the English tales of Russia were so much more Russian.

Careful observers have noticed that in the past twenty years, England, Germany and France have tried in every possible way to influence our people in favor of their countries. Their ambassadors delivered numerous lectures, never missed a national convention, and inspired many newspaper and magazine articles to turn the trend of public opinion in the United States their way. We cannot say the Russian representatives made many efforts to defend their country, nor have Russian writers done even as much.

It seems deplorable that the Russian Department of Foreign Affairs has not always exercised the best judgment in the selection of its consuls, and has sent men to represent her here whom it would have been best not to introduce to the American public. This fact has been brought to the attention of the chief officials, but since the United States showed a hostile attitude toward Russia in the Japanese war, and in various other ways have expressed their unfriendliness, it seemed to them that Russia’s efforts to cope with the situation here were futile, and even should she send her most capable diplomats to America, the press would hear no word in her defense, thanks mostly to a certain hostile Hebrew influence. Only this year, one of the principal directors of the Ministry told me that he was assured by some of the men who had in the past represented the Department in America, that nobody could say anything in favor of Russia on account of the attitude of the press. I did not hesitate to produce numerous articles, written by my friends and myself, and published by some of the largest newspapers in the country in defense of Russia, and proved that some of the consuls had apparently tried to hide their criminal inactivity by making false statements.

It is only fair, however, to mention the fact that at present Russia is very fortunate in having such representatives at Washington as Mr. Bakhmeteff and Mr. Scherbatskoi. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to be congratulated not only for this wise selection, but for that of Mr. Oustinoff, as consul general at New York, and for that of his able assistant, the courteous Mr. de Routsky. Through these worthy gentlemen, it seems Russia is at last bestirring herself and trying to make an effort to explain to us her many and intricate problems, and to right the wrong beliefs and prejudices fostered in the American mind by misrepresentations and falsehoods.

It would be greatly to Russia’s benefit should she be able to deflect the stream of travel over the eastern continent, and obtain for herself the enormous amounts spent annually by American tourists to see countries no more interesting than her own. To one who knows Russia, it is pleasant to recall some typical country scene. The level land divided into narrow strips, sown with barley, rye, wheat, corn and flax, presents a veritable checkerboard appearance, here and there interspersed with low-housed villages. In southern Russia, these generally consist of squat one-story adobe houses, gorgeously painted in all the shades of blue, vermilion, red and yellow, and often pure white, while in northern Russia, the dwellings are quite presentable frame houses. In the center of the hamlet is the church with its five or more bulb-shaped cupolas crowned with the Greek Catholic cross resting on the crescent, and this edifice, like the “isbas” or peasant huts, is beautifully decorated in and outside. Near the church stand the two most pretentious houses of the village, one for the school-teacher, the other for the priest of the “derevnia,” as the village is termed. Beyond, is the laundry place for the inhabitants. Here the women sing joyously as they work. Close by is the bathing place, a shallow pool in the river, where with the utter unselfconsciousness of children, men and women sometimes bathe together in Nature’s costume. And over all, hovers the beautiful calm—the peace which comes to minds innocent of the thousand conflicting, complicating circumstances of city life. Shakespeare could have spoken as truly of this country as he did of the Forest of Arden, when he made Duke Senior say,

“Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And this life exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Russia has thousands upon thousands of such hamlets, yet what a totally different picture of her peasant life is maliciously projected into the minds of those unacquainted with her!

Village Authorities in South Russia

From left to right: (1) The “starosta,” or village elder. (2) Village secretary. (3) Village school teacher. (4) The “Uriadnick,” or chief of village police. (5) The “Schits,” or town crier. Only the “Uriadnick” is a full-blooded Russian Slav. The others are of Teutonic origin

No less applicable to Russia than to any other nation is the truism that the physical characteristics of a country more than anything else determine the occupation and character of its inhabitants. The two most important features of Russia in this respect are its uniformity of surface and its absence of sea front free from ice. These two characteristics present the keynote to the history of the Russian nation, and to the character of the Russian people. The uniformity of surface and the similarity of surroundings have always given impulse to immigration and expansion.

From the point of view of production, Russia may be divided into four zones of uneven extent: (1) the great forests of the north; (2) the black land of the central provinces; (3) the zone of arable steppes; (4) the deserts of the south and southeast. The largest of these belts is that of the forests, which extends from the center of Russia to the frozen marshes of the north. The so-called “chernoziem” or black belt stretches from the banks of the river Prut to the Black Sea and is a region of wonderful fertility, and forms a wheat-growing section larger by one-third than the State of Texas. It was from this very part of the country that Athens once drew her grain supply. Southeast of this great section is the region of the arable steppes, the prairie home of the Cossack or Russian soldier cowboy, and beyond, lie the great deserts of West Turkestan.

Owing to the level character of the country, the climate of Russia presents great contrasts in temperature. In winter the land is ice-bound from the Arctic more or less to the Black Sea, and in summer, in certain parts, it is too hot to go about in the day-time. Such, then, is the plain of Russia, “mountain begirdled,” as the Tartar puts it; the great plain into which have poured Novgorodians, Laps, Finns, Esthonians, Letts, Lithuanians, Votishs, Tartars, Poles, Kalmucks, Armenians, Circassians, Georgians, Mongolians and countless others; the plain which comprises one-seventh of the world’s area and is the home of a hundred and eighty million souls.

Tadjick Justice of Peace of Bokhara, Decorated with Medals by
Russian Governor

CHAPTER II

A BIT OF EARLY RUSSIAN HISTORY

The history of Russia is the history of so many diverse races and governments that it is impossible here even to touch upon many events of the greatest import. Of two phases of Russian history, however, we must get a glimpse in order to understand her problems: first, of the ancient Republic of Novgorod, and, second, of Russia’s long struggle for the supremacy of the white race.

Over a thousand years ago, when the great Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races were still barbarians, there existed in northern Russia a wonderful republic, with a constitution that causes men of modern times to marvel, a constitution that could have been formed only by a people supersaturated with the spirit of liberty and dominated by an unshakable belief in the equality of mankind. This wonderful republic was known as Novgorod. It was governed by the Vietche (Congress) elected by the people, which, in turn, elected its head, or “Posadnik.” This chief was looked upon as a servant of the people amenable to the constitution of the republic.

The people of this ancient free country were of Scythian origin, from whom all Slavic races have descended, and who migrated from some Asiatic region into eastern Europe about twenty-four hundred years ago. The inhabitants of Novgorod showed wonderful commercial tendencies, their trading extending into Greece, Persia, and even the East Indies. The republic was so rich and powerful that all the nations around it became subservient to it, until eventually there was coined a phrase, “Who dares to oppose God and the Mighty Novgorod!” The fabulous wealth of this mighty republic became known to the Mongolians, who made repeated attempts to overrun Novgorod. In time the Novgorodians became surrounded by Asiatics of Mongolian origin, such as Finns, Khozars, Tartars, and others, and instead of being able to follow their commercial and agricultural pursuits, they were forced to defend themselves against the hordes pouring down upon them from Asia.

Afghan “Ishan” Collecting Money in the Name of Allah

Taken at Samarkand. Note in background Sarts, Tadjicks and Uzbecks all wearing the “chalma”

As to-day, so then the Aryans of western Europe could not see the danger threatening the white race, and instead of banding with the Novgorodians and helping them drive the Mongolians back to the place from which they had come, they too made war upon them. When, in the ninth century, the Novgorodians received as their grand prince, Rurik, a descendant of the Variags (forefathers of the Scandinavians), it was on condition that he be amenable to the constitution of Novgorod. But finally, the downfall of that wonderful Republic came, the Tartars fell upon the land like wolves upon prey. At length there was nothing left of the mighty Novgorod, whose power had been likened unto that of the Almighty. The divided sovereignties were again and again overrun by the Tartars, who destroyed everything and carried back with them thousands of Russian women to become inmates of their harems. Eventually, worn out by the long struggle with the Tartars, weakened by internal dissensions, and depleted by a plague, the republic of the people, for the people and by the people disappeared from the earth.

Three hundred years of Tartar yoke brought to Russia even a worse calamity than the downfall of the republic—namely, the degradation of the Russian character. The famous Tartar, Genghis Khan, appeared with his vast armies, and sweeping all before him, subjected Russia to the horrors of the darkest forms of slavery. It was not until the reign of Catherine II, in 1783, that the last Tartar, Khan Shagin Gherei, was deposed. That year, which saw the birth of the American nation, found Russia getting rid of the last of the merciless invaders. No people have ever been compelled to suffer the soul-racking tortures and cruelties, the continual plunder and pillage, that fell to the lot of the Russian people. The tyranny which the Tartars visited upon them during this three-hundred-year period justified all efforts on the part of the Russians to escape from it. Infamy no longer brought shame in its train, and punishment was no longer the accompaniment of crime. Honor disappeared, and only fear—great, overmastering fear—held the Russians in its grip, brutalizing the natures of all. The Tartar crushed every bit of pride from the haughty Russian heart, vice and avarice became the leading characteristics of the nation, and might became stronger than right. There was danger for travelers on the roads, and families had no security against the desecration of their homes. Tartars destroyed all the cities, first pillaging and then burning them.

Turcomans

The most dreaded of robbers of the Kara Kum Desert, Transcaspia, Central Asia. After the terrible battle with the Russians at Geok-Tepe, they were practically subdued. They are related to the Tartars

Russian history shows that prior to the Tartar invasion the Russians were very thrifty, generous, law-abiding citizens, and that they possessed, to a high degree, gentle and mild characteristics. When other European countries indulged in all forms of tortures and inhuman barbarities in punishment of political or religious offenders, it was an unknown thing to them to mutilate or torture even the worst criminal, political or otherwise. In 1113, Vladimir Monomachus abolished capital punishment, saying, “Put not even an enemy to death, for the soul of a Christian is sacred.” It was not again instituted until a long time after the Tartar conquest, when the no less noble Dimitri Donskoi (who administered a crushing blow to the Tartars in 1380) was compelled to reinstate it owing to the then changed disposition of the Russian people.

To the Russians of the early eleventh century blows were unknown even in the heat of a quarrel. It was the Tartar yoke that was responsible for the introduction of corporal punishment. The Tartars, too, introduced the practice of branding a culprit, and during the reign of Vassili the Blind flogging with the knut was practiced, and even inflicted upon persons of noble station. Thus the Tartar brought about the “falling from its high estate” of the Russian character, and this corruption was consummated by the infiltration of Mongolian blood.

I often wonder what would be the result if the fourteen million negroes living in the United States to-day were unqualifiedly permitted to intermarry with the white people, and if to that were added the Mongolian and Malay strains, which predominate in the Indians, Mexicans, Filipinos and Latin Americans. It is certain that it would spell the end of the white race in America, for history supports the assertion that intermarriage of a superior with an inferior race has always resulted in the reduction of the superior to the level of the inferior. Not in a single instance has the inferior race been elevated one iota. We have, for example, Spain, who early adopted in all her colonies the policy of racial intermarriage. And where is Spain to-day? In this same way, some liberty-loving Russians, excellent types of the Aryan race, were gradually changed into hybrids with despotic tendencies. Fortunately, the ruling class was mostly affected, the peasants in general retaining their white skins, blond hair and blue eyes. Think how the descendants of those Novgorodians must have degenerated to submit to a quasi-aristocrat such as the stern half-Tartar, Boris Godunov, brother-in-law of the weak Tzar Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible, making serfs and slaves of them, when in the days of Novgorod all men were considered equal. Let us hope this almost indelible imprint in the Russian trait of character will be obliterated by time, for even to-day, to a slight extent, the debasing strain of the barbarous Mongol makes itself evident.

Heir to the Throne of Afghanistan

Of Turco-Mongolian origin

From the background of later Russian history three figures stand out pre-eminently—Peter the Great, Katherine the Great, and Alexander II. It is said that Peter the Great did not merely develop Russia—he created Russia! This statement is largely true, for it is in great measure owing to his shrewd foresight, his almost superhuman energy, and his dogged persistence, in both military and constructive undertakings, that Russia owes her place among the nations. Peter obtained for Russia sea course upon the Baltic, he founded St. Petersburg, and there established a new national capital where before had been only a swampy marsh, he built a navy; he founded schools, he forced upon his subjects the civilization of western Europe.

The reign of Katherine the Great, from 1762 to 1796, was likewise full of important movements and developments for the strengthening of the Russian Empire. During her reign large territories were acquired in the east from the Tartars and the Turks and all the Polish territory east of the Bug and Niemen Rivers was gained. Katherine was also a patron of literature, art and science. She gave the large towns charters, with the right to choose mayors and magistrates, and formed the nobles of such provinces into corporate bodies, with the right to elect judges and various minor offices. She even made an attempt to establish a national parliament. Katherine corresponded with Voltaire, and he had a great admiration for the quality of her mind. Speaking of her, he said, “Light comes now from the North.”

Typical Peasants of Great Russia

Note shoes made of birch bark

The reign of Alexander II was a time of great forward strides in the life of Russia. The working of coal beds and oil wells was encouraged, and railroad and telegraph lines were greatly extended. But the greatest achievement of the reign of Alexander was the emancipation in 1861 of all the serfs in the empire, comprising some fifty-three million souls, then almost half of the entire population; and the establishment of a system by which the serfs in the country districts could acquire the lands that they cultivated. After the war with Turkey, the Emperor formed still larger designs for the improvement of conditions within the empire. There is little doubt he would have made a great change for the better had he been permitted to carry out his plans. But during his reign, there was formed a class of discontented theorists, the Nihilists, who became a dangerous element in Russia. They were too hot-headed to give Alexander time to carry out the plans he so earnestly desired for the good of the people, and they assassinated him in March, 1881. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander III, father of the present Tzar.

The genuine Russians are divided into three classes: Great Russia, with a population of forty millions, occupying the northern section of European Russia; White Russia, occupying the province of Mogilev, Vitepsk, Grodno and Minsk; and Little Russia, in the southern part of the country. The Great and the White Russians strikingly resemble the Scandinavians. They are of colossal stature, and have blond hair and blue eyes, excepting a small proportion where the Tartar influence has crept in. Then the yellow pigment becomes dominant, the hair straight, coarse and black, and the cheekbones quite prominent. The White Russians are probably the least contaminated, but there are only from three to four millions of them.

Typical “White” Russians

CHAPTER III

THE RUSSIAN TEMPERAMENT

The Russian presents what would seem to an American peculiarly diverse traits. Generally, he is peaceable, malleable and docile, has great capacity for assimilation and imitation, but lacks initiative and will power. A Russian is very sympathetic, and often finds it hard to control his tears. Sometimes a whole group of men will be found together crying over the troubles that might have befallen one of their number, such as the death of a friend or the loss of an animal by theft or death, a crop failure, or some similar misfortune. Russians dearly love music and dancing. The most popular folk song is “Down on Mother Volga.” The most popular folk dance is the Cossack Dance, where men and women whirl about by themselves, and it is a most wild and inspiring sight indeed.

Though on the whole peasants are very dirty, yet every village has its public bath house, frequented every week even during the winter time, and in the summer bathing is the great sport of the peasant.

In no country in the world are the women more carefully brought up than in Russia. Of course, I refer to the intelligent classes. As for the peasants, they grow up exactly as the peasants of the European countries, excepting that they are probably better Christians. And it is the fear of God that makes the percentage of virtuous women among them exceptionally high. Weddings and Easters are the chief fiestas in the life of the peasant. A wedding often lasts for two weeks, every participant consuming a great deal of vodka. It is considered a shame to leave a wedding sober. In fact, a peasant drinks when he has sorrow, and he drinks when he has joy; he drinks when he has a good crop, and drinks when he has a poor crop to drown his sorrow; he drinks when there is a death or a birth in the family; he drinks at a wedding, a baptism, an engagement; at the closing of a trade, and if he can find no other reason, he will drink to the saints and to the health of our Saviour Himself. I am not a teetotaler, but here say that the ruination of the Russian peasant does not lie in his not enjoying the liberties of a republican form of government, for which he is at present not ready, nor in the bleeding to which he has been subjected for years by a certain class of Hebrews, but vodka is his ruin, and poor as the peasant is, about $1,000,000,000 are paid annually for this poison. While it is realized that under the present system the Russian budget would be wiped out if the government stopped the manufacture and sale of vodka, it seems that some other way could be found for the government to support its huge army, so necessary to hold the conflicting elements of that vast empire together, and to protect life and property. Great efforts are now being made in Russia to abolish the drink evil, thanks to the personal interest of the Emperor in the matter. We know how difficult is the solution of the problem in this country, and we must give Russia time for the abolition of alcohol.

A Little Russian Girl-Milkmaid of Kiev

She carries all her belongings with her and brings fresh milk from the country to the people in Kiev

The Russians are the most hospitable people in the world. They never refuse a beggar alms. It is no more possible to escape the beggars of Russia than death itself. When entering churches, business places, or walking in the streets, you are trailed by a score of beggars. When you reproach Russian officials for permitting this, they tell you Russia is a free country, and any one may beg who wishes.

The Russian is essentially a democrat, but with a very loose plan on how to maintain his democracy. He has a perverted conception of what comprises personal liberty, and a queer idea of what constitutes decency, although his family relations are doubtless on firmer grounds than the American. A hotel in Russia where one cannot live for months or years with a woman who is not his wife is unknown, notwithstanding the fact that the passport is always certain proof to the proprietor of a couple’s living together illegally. I have often wondered why the government permits such indecency, but it seems to be a custom. Of course, a large percentage of Russian women disapprove of this. A certain class in Russian society, pretending to be progressives, was incensed at the time the Russian writer, Maxim Gorki, was ousted from one of New York’s respectable hotels, since the proprietor did not fancy Gorki’s living there with his soul mate.

Ivan Ivanovitch

Smoking a cigarette; his friend, and barefooted wife, all “taking it easy,” as is generally the case with the peasants. Those of South and Central Russia are far more active than the peasants of North Russia

That we Americans should enforce prohibition, clean out our red-light districts, arrest drunken men and women, see to it that the motion pictures are not demoralizing, make it an offense for a man to live with a woman unless he is married to her, punish people trafficking in white slavery, stop the betting on horse races, and fine Sabbath breakers, causes some educated Russians who have traveled in the United States to return and speak of us as tyrannical disciplinarians. Few Russians understand that political liberty cannot exist without discipline, even if it should involve what some consider to be a sacrifice of individual liberty. Until Russians come to understand the wisdom of self-restraint, they can never be governed otherwise than by the hand of a military autocrat. In my opinion, this must continue for some years to come; otherwise Russia may suffer not unlike Mexico, although I do not intend to convey the impression that the open-hearted, faithful Russian has any of the despicable, treacherous characteristics of the Mexican.

When a section of the United States demanded autonomy, the government put down the rebellion by a long, bloody war. In Russia to-day some of the Finns, Tartars, Armenians, Gruzins, Sarts, Kalmicks and Khirgis, and even a few Little Russians think they can govern themselves and establish a nation for themselves, and they resent the idea of the government interfering with the carrying on of their propaganda. If the Douma in Russia were independent of a certain conservative class, and of the Tzar, and of the army, it would likely vote the disintegration of Russia to-morrow. Until the Russians have some idea of what self-government means, they need a Diaz as much as Mexico does, instead of a too kind-hearted man like the Tzar. It is astonishing to note the ignorance of a certain race which has in the past years represented the Emperor as a tyrant.

Preparing for the “Shachse Wachse” celebration

The pious Sheit Mohammedans beat their heads and backs with chains until all sensation is gone and the flesh looks like black-and-blue pulp. They then stick knives into the mutilated parts of their bodies until they fall exhausted from hemorrhages ensuing, when they are picked up and carried into the Sacred Bath Houses. (This photograph was taken at Baku, Caucasus.)

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS VIEW OF THE RUSSIAN

In spite of prevailing opinions to the contrary, no people show more religious tolerance than the Russians. In no other country would such sects be allowed to flourish as the Christian Skoptsi, who mutilate themselves and their children in order to go to heaven; nor the Duchobortsi, with whom Canada knows not what to do. The same is true of the Sheit Mohammedan sect, who beat their bodies blue with chains and thrust knives into themselves, even on the streets where every one must see them. This so-called “Schachse Wachse” would positively not be tolerated in any other civilized country on the globe. Imagine, in the streets of a big city, where every one must pass, a Moslem spreading his prayer rug and, his face turned to Mecca, beating the ground with his forehead, shrieking weird monosyllables in Arabic, asking Allah to stand by those of the true faith. Of the hundreds of nationalities in Russia, each appears robed in its own fantastic costume. Should a person appear upon our streets in some such garb, he would be stoned by the newsboys, as certain Greek Catholic priests learned to their astonishment. Yet a Russian never molests anybody, and shows great reverence for all worshippers of God, no matter how or where. To say that he hates the Jew because of his faith is an abominable lie.

The “Shachse Wachse” Celebration

The less pious Sheits, who have not cut themselves so badly, giving the photographer a chance. The “Shachse Wachse” celebration is rarely ever permitted to be photographed. (Taken at Baku, Caucasus)

The Greek Catholic clergy (Russian included) is not governed by one head, as is the case with the Roman Catholic clergy, but is ruled by several patriarchs, one of whom now lives in Constantinople, the other in Antioch, in Syria, the third in Jerusalem, and the fourth in Alexandria, and up to the time of Peter the Great, there also was a Russian patriarch. All questions of either dogma or order are decided by them working together. The moral influence of the patriarchs over the religious Russian people has always been great, and at times the patriarch has been a more powerful man than the Emperor. Previous to the reign of Peter the Great, all laws had to have the signature of the Emperor and of the patriarch. It happened that the patriarch of Moscow during Peter’s sovereignty was not so strong a man as his predecessors, and Peter purposely spoke of him in derision as a man who imbibed too freely. As Peter did not like the idea of a divine interfering with his temporal power, he stopped the election of a new, after the death of the last patriarch of Moscow, and vested the power in a conclave of bishops constituting the Holy Synod. Since that time the Synod is presided over by a bishop, who happens to be the Metropolitan of Petrograd. When a new rule is created by the Holy Synod, it is submitted to the procurator, a kind of hard-worked hyphen between the state and the Church, who, in turn, submits it to the Emperor, to be approved, with alterations or without. For reasons of state, the Emperor has a right to unfrock, through the Synod, any bishop guilty of treason. In the history of Russia, this has happened but once.

Like the English king, the Emperor has the right to appoint bishops to this or that province or city, but not as an ecclesiastic dignitary, for he cannot consecrate bishops nor ordain priests. So much is the Russian Church like the old Episcopal Church of England that Episcopal ministers and bishops may take part in the divine services in the Russian cathedrals, and are admitted behind the altar screen, where only priests in vestment may stand.

Like the Roman Church, the Russian Church has seven sacraments. Little and Big Lent are obligatory, and for forty days no meat or milk is allowed, though fish, lobsters, oysters and clams may be eaten. The priests must marry, except monks, before they are consecrated, but can marry only once, and once married a priest can never become a bishop, unless as a widower he takes the monastic vows. Then the degree of Archimandrite is conferred upon him. After serving in that capacity he may be consecrated a bishop.

The liturgy is very similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church, but instead of Latin being used, they confine themselves for the most part to the old Slavic and Greek tongues. From the former is derived the language of the Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Servians, Croatians, Dalmatians and Bohemians.

The “Kremlin,” Moscow

A triangle two miles in perimeter, located in center of the city. Within its boundaries are palaces, churches, an arsenal and museums. The Old Kremlin was partially destroyed in 1812 and rebuilt during the reign of Nicholas I

The worshipping of ikons, as is the case with Roman Catholics in Poland, is greatly in vogue, and, strange to say, the touching of the ground with the forehead while kneeling reminds one of similar Mohammedan salaams, the difference being that the Mussulmans have absolutely no articles of worship in their temples, nor will they tolerate the paintings of saints or even of Mohammed himself. It is a curious sight to see hundreds of people kneeling in front of the Iver-ikon of God’s mother at the entrance of one of the gates of the Moscow Kremlin, kissing the frame which holds the miracle-performing image. This, and the kissing of myriads of crosses and other ikons seems a most unsanitary mode of worship. No doubt, it is the remnant of those early days of Christianity, when external impressions had a more forceful effect upon the mind filled with superstitions than they would have upon the developed mentality of to-day. Since the imprint on our minds would vary in significance were we looking at a statue of Venus or at a Crucifix, the truth of the foregoing statement is too obvious to need further comment.

Peter the Great created the Synod. A Greek Orthodox recognizes the Emperor only as the temporal defender and guardian of the Church, for in question of dogma the Emperor has no more authority than the humblest peasant, and though he occupies a certain position of honor in the church, he submits to all its rules—fasting, kneeling, confessing, and kissing of ikons and crosses—so that while the Emperor may represent the highest power in the temporal affairs of the church, the highest spiritual power belongs to patriarchs and Synod. As to the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, of which the Russian Church is a part, Christ, the Saviour, is its only head.

Registan Square in Front of Mechet Shir Dor in Samarkand

Built by the terrible Timur. Every Friday (Mohammedan Sunday) the natives spread their rugs on the grounds of the square and pray for hours, all of which does not seem to hinder them from being cruel to their wives and animals nor from acts of immorality that are indescribable

CHAPTER V

THE COSSACK

Cossack is a Tartar word. In the sixteenth century the term was used all over Russia to designate floating labor—the kind that has no definite occupation nor permanent abode. During the kingdom of Moscow mercenary soldiers were called Cossacks. In southwestern Russia, Little Russians made serfs by the Polish gentry known as Shliachta escaped into the steppes to the so-called Ukraina. Here they organized into bands to fight the invading Tartars, and here originated the Little Russian Cossack.

At the end of the fifteenth century, hunters from Kiev went south into the steppes to “Cossack,” that is, to trade in fish and game. These hunters made most of their money by inciting raids against the Tartars and the Turks, and this incensed these races against Poland. Poland wished to make soldiers of the Cossacks in time of war, and workmen in time of peace. But that displeased the unbridled Cossacks. They established a center of their own called Zaporojie, which means “Beyond the Rapids.” These rapids are on the River Dnieper, and there a camp of armed traders was formed. Their number was greatly augmented by the Cossacks of the Ukraina, when they felt the yoke of the Poles intolerable. Eventually any malcontent or adventurer was received by the Cossacks regardless of race or creed. There was no conception of nationality among them. They regarded Turkey, Moldavia, and even Moscow as sources of plunder, and they considered the Polish gentry their worst enemies. They offered their services to the Emperor of Germany against the Turks, to Turkey against Moscow, and had no scruples in siding with Moscow and Crimea against the Poles.

In the Seventeenth Century the Cossacks learned that an alliance had been entered into by the Polish king with the Polish pans (gentry) and the Jews, and that they were all preparing to make war upon the Church of Russia. Thereby the Cossacks, being also orthodox, were drawn into a religious war with the Poles. In 1625, the Metropolitan of Kiev called upon the Cossacks to defend the Russian Church.

In the middle of the Seventeenth Century the Cossack commander, Bogdan Chmelnitzky, decided to rid his country of the Polish yoke and forever free the Ukraina, the real home of the Little Russian. He instigated an attack against the Poles through the Khan of Crimea, and marched into Poland with the Crimean Tartars and Cossacks. Poland was defeated, but the Little Russians could not rid themselves of the Poles completely. So they appealed to the Russian Tzar Alexis, and begged him to receive Little Russia under his protection, and asked that all Little Russians be accepted as his subjects. In case the Tzar would refuse, they threatened to form an alliance with the Sultan of Turkey.

Upon Alexis taking in the Cossacks, there followed a war with Poland. At first the Russians were successful and took Smolensk and Lithuania, but in the second war (1664) the Russians lost because of a previous five years’ exhausting war with the Swedes.

When Nicholas I parcelled off to the Cossacks of the Ukraina certain lands, and told them to farm them, a great many became dissatisfied, saying they were warriors, not tillers of the soil. So they became the warrior population, guarding the southern and eastern frontiers of their country; hence the Kuban Cossacks, the Don Cossacks, the Ural Cossacks, etc. They retained the privilege of electing their own ataman, or chief, who appointed all officers, and at first they took orders from him only, and not even the Russian War Minister had power to dictate to them. All commands were given directly by the Tzar to the ataman, and his subordinates executed the orders.

The Cossacks constitute the most loyal body of men the Emperor has to this day. It was told in the last revolution that an ultimatum was sent to the Jews by the Cossacks to the effect that if they did not discontinue their agitation against the Tzar, the Cossacks would march against them five hundred thousand strong, and annihilate them. This declaration had its effect, and while some few soldiers mutinied, no Cossack was found wanting. The Cossacks are the backbone of Russia; take them away and she will go to pieces.

Socially, the Cossacks are delightful, big-hearted people, very hospitable and jolly. In many ways they resemble the cowboys as they were twenty years ago in the West. Like the cowboys, they are excellent shots, even better riders, though they cannot handle the lasso at all.

Karavan of Afghans Crossing the Amu Daria River at Kerki

As no foreigner is allowed in Kerki, I risked my liberty for daring to enter this forbidden military zone

CHAPTER VI

THE PASSPORT SYSTEM

The passport system existed in the countries of western Europe long before the Russians appropriated it during the reign of Nicholas I. From the middle of the seventeenth century there had been employed what was termed a “boundary passport” for the use of official persons traveling to foreign countries for governmental purposes, and for foreigners arriving in Russia with a like intent. When the Dekabrists (derived from the Russian “Dekaber,” meaning December) mutinied for the purpose of enforcing a constitutional government, it was considered dangerous for the Russian advanced classes to make journeys into foreign countries, inasmuch as the leaders of the Dekabrist party consisted mostly of officers of the Imperial Guard, who while hobnobbing through other domains had become acquainted with the constitutional form of government, for which Russia was by no means prepared.

Upon the death of Alexander I, the crown descended to Constantine, but he refused it and withdrew in favor of his younger brother, Nicholas. The leaders of the Dekabrist party, in order to gain an advantage, purposely confused the soldiers of the Guard with the words “Constantine” and “Constitution,” and stated that they were making war for the defense of Constantine, who had been illegally deprived of the throne by his brother, when in truth their object was to force a constitution upon Russia.

During the reign of Nicholas I, the present passport system was inaugurated, mostly for the purpose of preventing the entrance of undesirable aliens, especially anarchists, criminals and fugitives from justice.

All foreigners entering Russia must have passports from their own country, and these must be visaed by some Russian consul. Anarchists are not granted this vise. Only such Jews as represent large firms, or are professionals, and those known to the consul to belong to no revolutionary class, are granted entrance right. The Russian Government confines Jews to a certain pale of settlement, but in order to evade military service, some of them escape and become citizens of the United States without permission, which is a criminal offense. For her to admit this class when they return as American citizens, and to permit them to live anywhere in her kingdom, would be to show great injustice against those Jews who reside permanently in Russia and submit to military service.

Roman Catholic clergymen, especially those of Polish origin, are not readily admitted. It is claimed by the Church that they proselyte among Russians, and collect money for themselves. Absolutely no hindrance is given to Protestant clergy. Roman Catholic priests must have special permission from the Home Department, and Russian priests must have a special permit from the Holy Synod.

On the whole, the Russian passport system is one to be condemned, and I have received assurance from the most influential members of the Russian Douma and from the Department of Foreign Affairs that the days of the passport system are numbered. But while it is in force, we must realize that under the sanction of international comity each nation exercises the right to vise its own passports with the words, “good in the language of the country where used.” In the American passport, the Secretary of State does “hereby request all whom it may concern to permit........safely and freely to pass, and in case of need to give him all lawful aid and protection.” Please observe the limitations of the passport. It is merely a request by the Secretary of State that the bearer be allowed to pass, and that he be given all lawful aid and protection. It is addressed to no one in particular; but certainly the word “lawful” contemplates the laws of the country where the holder of the passport happens to be rather than the laws of the United States, though in a smaller measure also the latter, as well as the laws of nations, or international law. Let no one suppose that in going to another country a citizen carries the undiminished sovereignty of his own land with him, no matter how well he may be fortified with a passport. His consul may vise the passport for him to give assurance to foreign officials that everything is in order so far as the passport is concerned; but the local police for good cause may thereafter place him under arrest or conduct him to the frontier. The facts of the case may then become a matter of dispute between himself and the local government, involving the services of his own government; but that is another matter.

Dr. C. C. Young as He Appeared in the Kara Kum Desert,
West Turkestan

The root of the present difficulty is to be found in this: Russia alone of all the great powers has so far refused, or neglected, to conform to international comity in the viseing of passports. This position is manifestly indefensible. Upon what grounds can she seek to justify her practice of requiring her own consuls to vise the passports issued by other nations? How can she deny that it might be regarded as a kind of impertinence for any government to assume the right to say that the passport of a friendly country is not good? However, it would be just as idle to lay this charge against Russia as it would be to lay the same against the United States for interfering in the internal affairs of Russia when she insists, as she has a right, that her citizens shall be treated abroad with becoming respect. Russia has never yielded this point in international comity, which has long been accepted by the other great powers, simply because her right and duty in the matter have never been challenged, and she has thus continued to exercise this unjustifiable audit of foreign passports because it suited her internal administration to do so. At present, as is well known, any one wishing to come to Russia must have his passport visaed by a Russian consul before he reaches the frontier. This, according to Russia, is merely an administrative device to assist the police in excluding undesirable foreigners and in giving timely warning to said foreigners. For this purpose the Russian consuls are provided with lists of proscribed persons, to whom they refuse passport visaes, and such persons are accordingly excluded if they come to the frontier.

Now here is the only legitimate and real ground of contention by the United States—namely, that in adopting this method Russia uses her national administrative machinery to perform a police function, and that, too, in foreign states; and in so doing she ignores the right of other states to pronounce upon the validity of their own passports. She could easily change all this and incidentally remove all ground of complaint by the United States if she would do as follows:

First. Authorize her police on the frontiers to deal with foreign passports just as she now authorizes her consuls all over the world;

Second. Honor the vise of foreign consuls within her own dominions upon the passports of their respective countries; and as a necessary corollary, discontinue the viseing of the same by her own officials.

It is evident by adopting this change Russia can effect what she is now accomplishing with regard to the exclusion of those whom she does not desire; but it would be upon police grounds and would be freed from its international features and consequent complications. To this neither the United States nor any other nation can rightfully object. Nor, indeed, can those Jews who are adversely affected reasonably object; because the United States, acting upon this same right of exclusion, in common with every other government, would eject by her present laws many times more Russian subjects than all the Jews in the world.

While we may consider the Russian passport system a nuisance, we must admit that the entering of aliens into the United States is rather humiliating, for even distinguished foreigners coming here as first- and second-class passengers are often detained for hours, and have to undergo an examination by the government board and answer many embarrassing questions. On coming to the Russian border, a gendarme takes your passport before you leave the train, to ascertain if it is properly visaed by some Russian consul. Porters take your luggage to the custom house and the police will inform you that it is against the law to tip a porter. Nowhere in the world is luggage examined more superficially than in Russia, nor can the custom-house officials be excelled in politeness. Before the train leaves your passport is returned to you, and when registering at a hotel it is given to the manager, who upon a few hours’ notice has it entered into the passport register of the precinct of police. When leaving Russia, the passport must be visaed by the mayor of the town, and all this is attended to by the hotel management. Once the passport is visaed by the Russian consul all trouble is really over.

His Majesty the Khan of Khiva, West Turkestan, Central Asia

The passport serves as the necessary identification in the banks when cashing drafts, in the post-office in case of registered mail and money orders, and before notaries, where the legalization of your signature may be required; and it saves you from being compelled to run around in a strange town imposing on some acquaintance to identify you.

CHAPTER VII

REGARDING A NEW TREATY WITH RUSSIA

When the treaty of eighty years’ standing between two then traditionally friendly powers, the United States and Russia, expired on the last day of the year 1912, it devolved upon that one of the powers which gave notice of abrogation (the United States) to take the initial steps in negotiating a new one.

Since notice of abrogation has been given, attention has been focused upon Russia’s attitude toward the main point at issue—namely, the exclusion of Jews, American or otherwise, from Russian territory. Those most in touch with Russian affairs are impressed with her determination to maintain her present position on this point, inasmuch as she considers it merely a question of her right to regulate her internal affairs unhindered, a right which the United States exercise freely. It is doubtful if the international aspects of the case have appealed to Russians at all, for they often express surprise that Americans, who have a race question at home, should not understand that it is a race question with them, too. Eventually, the United States must submit a proposition which will successfully meet this situation, or otherwise no treaty relations will be possible with Russia.

At first glance this would seem an impossible thing to do without an undignified backdown by the United States, a thing which their national self-respect could not permit them to contemplate. Fortunately, however, the situation is by no means so desperate as that, and it is the purpose here, with all due respect, to submit a way around the difficulty. The suggestion is offered in the belief that both nations are ready and anxious to reassume the traditionally friendly relations which have always existed between them, and will do anything reasonable and consistent with their dignity to remove all misunderstandings. Moreover, now that a controversy has been opened between them, each should seize the opportunity to make more definite and precise its new treaty relations, in order to avoid misapprehensions in the future. All diplomatic treaty negotiations in time of peace are essentially give-and-take transactions, and the things which are yielded may benefit the party yielding no less than the supposed beneficiary. So it is quite conceivable that when the present situation is cleared up, each side may find itself the gainer because of the things it has conceded.

There are a few other matters of minor importance that should receive consideration, now that the subject is open for the readjustment of treaty relations. Instead of the general terms of the earlier treaty, there should be a specific restatement of the rights and duties of consuls in the two countries. This is all the more necessary because of the fact that the bases of Russian and American jurisprudence are quite dissimilar. The personal concern to the consuls signifies but little; what is wanted is a fuller definition of what they may or may not officially do. A comparison in this respect with the treaties of other countries will reveal much to be desired.

The whole case, then, can be summarized thus:

First. Let it be granted by the United States that each nation has a right to regulate its internal affairs unhindered, even to the exclusion of any of its citizens that the foreign country may think fit to exclude;

Second. Let it be granted by Russia that every government has the exclusive right to vise its own passports. Then a slight readjustment of her administrative machinery will leave nothing to which the United States can rightly object.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RUSSIAN JEWS

In regard to the Jews, thousands of them would return to Russia from the States were they permitted, like other foreign citizens, to live outside the pale. In America, crowded together in the ghettoes of the great cities, competition is infinitely more keen than in Russia, where they constitute practically the only portion of the population engaged in commerce. The beginning of a Russian middle class has made itself evident the past twenty years, and in time this class no doubt will make an effort to compete with the Jews.

Komrat Real School

Where the author received his preliminary education. The village of Komrat is about sixty miles from Kishinev, Bessarabia.

If usury, incendiarism and criminal bankruptcy could be made capital offenses, and if the sluggish nobility of Russia would rid itself of its anti-commercial tendencies, and its apathy for everything that has the scent of business, and if the Russian budget could be arranged so as to make available another $50,000,000 annually for the purpose of educating all the peasant children, the friction now existing between Gentiles and Hebrews would remedy itself. In the last four years Russia has appropriated more money for educational purposes than in the hundred years before, and since this is the case, I would like to correct another false impression—namely, that the government is fighting against the education of the peasants. Those circulating such falsehoods in this country dare not confront a man who knows Russia.

There are schools, both for boys and girls, all over Russia, north, south, east and west, where the children of peasants and those just a notch above them, Jews included, can receive their education together with the children of the highest nobility in the land. It was in one of such schools that I received my preliminary education.

Among her bankers, manufacturers, large land-owners, generals, bishops and archbishops, Russia can show many men whose fathers knelt with uncovered heads before the great Alexander, listening to the proclamation which made them free men. Russia’s able and most courteous minister of railroads, Mr. Ruchloff, who, like Prince Khilkoff, is making history for his country, is the son of a peasant; so is Bishop Anatoly, a member of the Douma, and a most distinguished member of the conservative party, and Tshelisheff, the great prohibition advocate. Russia’s task, in the major portion of her European domain, is, of course, easier than ours with the negroes, as her people belong to the white race, but how does our record with our former slaves compare with hers? Again, let us not forget that her people were in bondage six hundred years.

History states that in the time of Vladimir, the Jewish emissaries came to Russia and asked him to compel his people, who at that time were heathens, to embrace the Jewish religion. He listened respectfully, but when they came to relating the rite of circumcision, he spat upon them and drove them from the country. They persistently returned, and in less than no time gained control of the commerce of all Russia. This is true even to-day, for nowhere can the Jews find a more prolific field for the accumulation of wealth than in Russia. It is the knowledge of this fact which draws them there, and, as has been said, thousands of them from everywhere would flock back to Russia, were their indiscriminate entrance permitted.

Mr. Konstantin Aleksandrovitch Mimi

A large land-owner of South Russia, with his family. His wife is Armenian. Mr. Mimi is typical of the more active titled land-owners.

When Vladimir came to Kiev, at the close of the tenth century, the people complained bitterly to him that the Jews were craftily monopolizing all commerce. He called a meeting of the ruling princes of the various Russian provinces, and in this convention it was decided to drive the Jews out of Russia, and, should any of them return secretly, to kill them.

In the days of Sviatoslav (1016), while fighting the dreaded Khozars, the Jews were accused of acting as spies for these Mongols. In 1495 Alexander Jakloutshik, the Lithuanian Grand Duke, prohibited the Jews from accepting any obligatory papers, or any other written acts, and when this did not help matters he ordered the Jews driven out of the country. In the sixteenth century, the writer, Michel Litvin, stated: “To our country have come the Jews, whom we find in all great cities of Podolia and Volynia. These are the worst people that have ever come to us. They are fatalists, sly, dangerous in every way, adulterating our goods, counterfeiting our money, forging signatures and seals, and having no other art except cheating and blackmailing.” Ivan the Terrible refused them the right to live in Russia. “They have poisoned our soul and body,” said he. Even the pious Alexis Michalovitch drove them out of Moscow, accusing them of being very dishonest.

In the bitter struggle between the Poles and the Little Russians the Jews were said to have plotted against the Poles until the Little Russians defeated them, and Kridanos, a chief of the famous Cossack Bogdan Chmelnitsky, wrote the Polish Count Osproshsky advising him to drive the Jews out of the country, as they were responsible for his defeat. During the reign of Peter the Great, Catherine the First, and Elizabeth, edicts were issued banishing the Jews from Russia. During Elizabeth’s reign a law was passed permitting those Jews to remain in Russia who embraced the Greek Catholic faith or any other recognized Christian religion. This senseless law made it possible for converted Jews to live anywhere in the empire, and is in existence to-day. During the time of Catherine the Great the Jews were finally permitted to settle in certain parts of Little Russia and Crimea.

The conquest of Poland added several millions of Hebrews to Russia’s population. After the division of Poland, Catherine allowed the Jews to remain there, but did not permit them to visit the central provinces of Russia. In 1773, Count Kachrosky, Governor of Mogilev, wrote: “The Jews, although a sober people, are very lazy when it comes to any kind of physical work and are sly, dishonest and superstitious. They succeed best where the government is weak and the laws lax; they live entirely by fraud and on the honest toil of peasants; they borrow where they can, and then declare themselves bankrupt; by flattery and giving away free drinks, they corrupt people in all stations of life, and they mock our courts; they are continually working in conjunction with our worst class of robbers, many of whom they started in their lawless careers.”

At the end of the eighteenth century, we find Jews in all the large towns of Great Russia. At first the right of residence had been granted to business men of the first guild. (In Russia, the class to which business men belong is determined by the amount and character of business done annually, and to enter the first guild a business man must, regardless of his race or nationality, pay $7,500 a year into the national treasury.) Later, permission was given to college and university graduates to live outside the pale, and finally this right was extended to artisans, doctors, lawyers, druggists, midwives and prostitutes. (In order to better control venereal diseases, Russia tolerates prostitution.)

During the reign of Alexander II, the era of freedom and emancipation in Russia, the Jews were permitted to have a share in public and national life. They were granted the right to enjoy unrestricted tuition in all schools throughout the empire, to enter the service of the state, to take part in local self-government, to acquire real estate in all places where they resided, and to participate in industrial undertakings of every kind. Everything pointed to the fact that the Russian Government had the fixed intention gradually to place the Jews on a footing of equality with those of its other inhabitants.

Then came the assassination of Alexander II. The conservative, progressive element of Gentiles and Jews suffered alike because of this crime, which must be laid to the doors of the senseless hot heads who called themselves Nihilists, and among whom there appeared more than one nationality.

A Hebrew Woman of Bokhara

Seldom, if ever, seen unveiled

The pale of settlement to which Jews are confined consist of fifteen provinces of west, central and southern Russia, and ten provinces of Polish Russia. The writer has seen practically every section of European and Asiatic Russia, and while the pale constitutes only one-twenty-third part of the Russian Empire, including the uninhabitable deserts of Central Asia, and the dry steppes of the Crimea, Caucasus and South Siberia, it does seem that the pale is the only section of Russia where a white man would really care to live, outside the two or three north Russian provinces, which include Moscow, Novgorod and St. Petersburg. Here only a few privileged Hebrews are supposed to have residential privileges, but a great many of all classes are encountered. In principle, however, it seems an outrage that a white man should be refused residence in any part of the earth where he wishes to live.

That the Jews are permitted to send only seven per cent. of their children to colleges and universities is of course a great hardship, and, in my opinion, a great injustice. If the government fears, as I have often been told, that by contact with the Jewish students the Russian children are weaned from the Church and initiated into all forms of Nihilism, which means political ruin for them and exile, why does not the government force the Jews to build their own schools? The majority of them are not the poor, downtrodden outcasts pictured in this country by crafty revolutionists, but by far the most prosperous people of the land, and many of them would make desirable citizens in any country. Those Russians who see the urgent necessity of protecting the peasants from the exploitations of the more commercially qualified Jew should advocate such stringent laws as we made in the States to protect the Indian, and then there need be no fear for the welfare of the peasants.

“Gorodovoy”—Russian Policeman, in Foreground

At right is a cabman or “izvostshik” on his “droshka”

It is realized that to permit the Jews to own land everywhere in Russia now would mean the reversion of many peasants to serfdom, due largely to the peasant’s insobriety. The same condition is said to exist in Hungary, where the Jews were treated as liberally as in America, with the result that the political supremacy and the land slipped into the hands of the Jews. This compelled many natives to emigrate, for what chance has the shiftless Hun against the hardworking, sober and shrewd Hebrew? Students of political economy say that in New York Gentiles are being gradually driven out of business and forced to go West by the erstwhile Russian Jews.

It is true that Russians as well as Americans when condemning the Jews often do not recognize the fact that among them, as in every race or creed, are grades and classes of individuals. It is true that a great number who swarm to the ghettoes of our big cities are by their presence and questionable business methods a thorn in the side of the nation. Their own co-religionists of the better class—those thoroughly Americanized Hebrews who are among our best citizens—suffer greatly because of this element. There is nothing against the Jew racially, and to hear an American speak of excluding him from this or that club or society indicates a mind not free from ignorant prejudice.

Great responsibility rests with the better Hebrews, for upon them devolves the task of freeing a large percentage of their brethren from those traits which arouse the animosity of the Aryans.

In Russia as elsewhere the better class of the Hebrews will continue to suffer from the wrongdoings of the worse, until they have taken radical steps to instill into the minds of their weaker brethren a proper standard of business morality. Instead of shielding Jewish culprits and putting forward efforts to protect them from the laws they have outraged, they should always refuse the wrong-doers any moral or financial support, decline to tolerate guilt, and see to it that justice was administered to every criminal. Surely, every right-minded Gentile would aid in this work of correction. That the advanced Jews fully recognize their responsibility in this regard I have been assured by the eminent Hebrew, Rabbi Simon, of Washington.

The “Pristav”—District Chief of Police

With such men as Schmakoff, Purishkevitch and other prominent members of the Union of Russian People, there prevails the mistaken idea that to give the Jew equal rights would mean eternal slavery for the peasant. This should not be the case if proper laws are enforced for his protection, and especially if pressure is brought to bear upon the authorities executing the law which regulates the rate of interest for lending money, and if in some way the crookedness of the police and gendarmerie could be bridled, there would be less of Jewish dishonesty. Every member of the Union knows that practically all the money of the country is in the hands of the Hebrews, and though they control its commerce almost entirely, not every peasant is in the clutches of the Hebrew money-lenders.

Just prior to the war, before any one thought of the great conflict, the Tzar returned through Kishinev and Odessa from Constanza, Roumania, where he had met the king of the country and where the finishing touches were put to a previously arranged entente. The simplicity and cordiality of the reception of the Tzar staggered me, and the behavior of the Jews was above reproach. The Hebrews, forming a large majority of the population, lined the streets on both sides, and any one of them desiring to harm the Emperor could easily have done so. I remarked to a friend of mine at Kishinev, known to be an unreasonable Jew-hater, that apparently the Tzar seemed highly pleased with the assistance the Semitics gave the local authorities, and he answered, “If the Jews had always been loyal and had fought their battles by themselves, and had not tried to induce your nation to poke its nose into our internal affairs, they might have gotten what they so greatly coveted long ago.” I resented the insinuation, but felt that there might possibly have been more truth than poetry in the remark.

Everywhere in Russia it is evident that the conduct of the Jews in the past few years has been such as to merit serious consideration by the government of their demands for equal rights. It is to be regretted that their cause received a considerable setback on account of the Beiliss case, which the Jewish press all over the world tried and passed judgment upon before giving the jury at Kiev a chance to render its decision. Doubtless the Jews will soon attain the right they are contending for, if they can subdue the zeal of their co-religionists in other countries, that incites senseless attacks upon the Emperor and the Church.

Acting Governor Karaul Begi

Of the kishlack (town) of Karaul, capital of the district of Karaul, Bokhara, and his staff

The Atachadja Mirachur

Aide-de-camp to His Excellency the Kushbegi, Vice Emir of Bokhara, who drove with me through Old Bokhara City and its vicinity in this very vehicle, imported to Bokhara from Moscow

CHAPTER IX

ASIATIC POSSESSIONS

For many years the people of the United States thought well of Russia. In a critical hour Russia sent her fleet over, and certainly placed the American people under no small obligation, as the American historians and writers of the Civil War period concede. In 1893, during the World’s Fair at Chicago, Russia still was one of our most favored nations. This state of affairs did not exactly please England. She could not forgive Russia’s aggressive policy in Central and Asia Minor and connived against her at every turn. It is no credit to that great nation that through her intrigues in Afghanistan the Emir not only turned out all Russian business men, but actually executed the natives in Bokhara who traded with them. When in the early nineties the Russian Ambassador at Kabul committed suicide, because he was continually harassed by hired assassins who were spending English money, Russia gave up the struggle.

Up to about ten years ago the English press never lost an opportunity to abuse her enemy, and as English sentiment is naturally reflected in our press, the American people gradually began to think less of Russia. But since the English people have come to understand Russia better, they have indeed regretted their former attitude. Public sentiment has changed in England since she has learned that it is to her advantage to work together with Russia (the same holds true of Russia), lest some day Kaiser Wilhelm’s prophecy, made some twenty years ago, come true, and the Asiatics, now ruled more or less through bluff by England and Russia, wake up and drive the intruders into the Atlantic Ocean, unless, as a saucy Mongol remarked to me, “the Christians in time will embrace the Mohammedan faith and amalgamate with us.”

The United States have an all-powerful class of citizens of Semitic origin who felt they were justified in weaning our people away from Russia, and, controlling as they do a large portion of the press of the United States, they took advantage of the events of the Japanese-Russian war to turn public sentiment in this country against the Russians. This same class showed its strength and hostility when our treaty with Russia was abrogated, and caused some of our Congressmen to make speeches which were anything but justified, and nearly brought about a rupture with that country.

Two Afghan Soldiers

Deserters taken at Kosan, Bokhara. They made me pay them $6 for singing one Afghan song, “Sultan Djan”

Treacherous Daghas of Afghanistan

Photographed at Kerki on the border of Afghanistan

That we have not entirely sacrificed our Russian trade, amounting to millions annually, is entirely due to such able representatives as Mr. Guild, of Boston, whom we had in St. Petersburg, and who had to deal individually with every single proposition. The able chargé d’affaires, Mr. Wilson, who is still in St. Petersburg, has also proven himself the right man for the difficult task. Such a state of affairs puts us in a ridiculous position, considering the fact that Russia is the buyer of our products, and that, with the exception of cotton, she can do very nicely without any of our goods. Where in 1911 we sold her the value of $83,000,000, Russia sold us less than $7,000,000 worth of goods. It is not my intention to criticise those Americans who feel that Russia is dealing unfairly with their co-religionists, but it does seem that it should be apparent by this time that we cannot force Russia to run her country to suit us. In the eyes of the leading German, French and English newspapers at the time of the abrogation of the treaty, our government certainly deserved the severe criticism it received. During the Japanese-Russian war, the fact that we lent our moral support to Japan, and made it possible for that country to place its bonds over here, and thus pursue the war (to-day she is our dreaded rival), left a sore that we will find no easy task to heal.

The present situation seemed to me to have been well summed up by a business man of Tashkent, who said, “Once the time comes when we are not only able to do without your cotton, but can compete with you in the markets of the world, then your people will not be so anxious to abrogate treaties with us or seek to meddle with the internal administration of our country.” After discussing the matter with people of all classes in nearly every section of European and Asiatic Russia, I have come to the conclusion that we will sacrifice millions annually in trade unless we try in every tactful way possible to improve our relations with Russia.

Author’s Father
Mr. Christian Young, Sr.

Caretaker of Dr. Young’s
Karakul Sheep

Photographed on Dr. Young’s ranch near El Paso, Texas.

The Tzar rules over one-seventh of the world, and it is his Asiatic possessions that have made up his enormous empire. For lack of time, much cannot be said about the conquering of vast Siberia, but a vital point to us is that the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway through the entire length of Asia has opened up a country fabulously rich in resources. What the chernoziem of central and southern Russia used to be to the world from the standpoint of wheat-raising, Siberia is becoming now, as immense tracts of wheat land are being opened up. What happened in Dakota and in Nebraska twenty years ago, from the point of view of colonization and general development, is taking place to-day in Siberia, no longer a country isolated from everything and used for penal settlers only, but a country as fit for habitation as any of our northwestern States, where one finds the latest agricultural machinery and people up-to-date in every respect. Just as settlers in the West have progressed more rapidly than those of the East, so have the Russians who settle in Siberia left their less fortunate brethren in European Russia far behind.

Siberia is the coming country of Russia, and if we use any judgment, we can develop a market for our goods that will bring us millions annually. But another blunder such as the abrogation of the treaty, and we will have lost forever our chances of doing business with Russia, and Germany, by rattling her saber, will get it all.

The section of Asia that will interest us the most is Turkestan, Central Asia, as it is from here that the beautiful Persian lamb and Astrakhan furs are imported. The country known as West Turkestan, where immense areas of cotton are now planted, lies immediately west of Chinese Turkestan, is bounded on the west by the Caspian Sea, on the south by Persia, and by Afghanistan and Chinese Turkestan on the east. On the north it graduates into the plains of Siberia. This country is one-fourth the size of all Europe. The longitude is the same as that of South France, Italy and the Balkan Peninsula, but the climate is different from that of those countries. Owing to the distances from large bodies of water, the summers are extremely hot and the winters intensely cold.

Guri-Mir, Mausoleum of Timur

The murderous Tartar conqueror, in the city of Old Samarkand

Turkestan can be divided into two parts, the low northwestern part, which comprises two-thirds of the area, and the southeastern section, which is mountainous and takes up one-third of the desert. Occasionally one finds large hollows below the level of the ocean, such as the Sari Kamish, ten thousand square miles in area, and one hundred and thirty-five feet below the sea level. Between Merv and Khiva is a hollow with an area of eighteen thousand square miles, two hundred and thirty feet below the level of the Caspian Sea. In the lower portion of Turkestan are some of the worst deserts in the world, such as the Kara Kum, Kizil Kum, Minunistrum, Sari Tishk, Otran and the Hunger steppe. For thousands of years the storms have blown a fine white sand from the exposed mountains, and together with that carried down by the rivers, enormous piles of sand are formed in these awful deserts, considered by some to be worse than the Sahara.

When traveling on the Transcaspian Railroad from Krasnovodsk east toward Bokhara and Samarkand, one beholds for miles and miles in every direction nothing but the shifting sands, in dunes and hillocks, very much like the choppy waves of the Black Sea. Wave on wave of sand drifts back and forth. Sometimes the wind will sift a mound against the Sacksaul, the only plant of the desert. It resembles the mesquite bushes of Texas, excepting that it has no thorns and furnishes nourishment for camels and for fatrump and Karakul sheep.

Just as in the Dakotas and in north Russia the railroad tracks are protected by high snow fences, so here we find dry bushes arranged for miles in fencelike fashion. In spite of this precaution, traffic is at times tied up for weeks, and the people at stations, dependent upon the trains for their water supply, are left to perish. Where water reaches the clayey soil from the Zaravshan, Sir Daria or Amu Daria rivers, such crops as cotton, corn, alfalfa, wheat, barley, and fruit such as pears, peaches, apricots and plums, will grow. The Bokhara melon is much more delicious than our Rockeford canteloupe and keeps through the entire year. In Turkestan too, are the Pamirs, which constitute the so-called roof of the world, where the average elevation is 14,000 to 16,000 feet. In these mountains are wonderful glaciers, higher than those of the Alps, and one there is thirty miles in length. There are absolutely no trees in the Pamirs, excepting in the Aktsh Valley, near the fort of Shah-Djan, where the brother of the Chief of Andijan, Mr. Bjezitsky, was stationed for three years. He boasts of having planted three trees, the only trees in the Pamirs. Mr. Bjezitsky is the only Russian who has traveled through the entire Pamirs. He has gone as far south as Djilala, the most northern railway station in India, near the River Indus.

Karakul Ewe and Lamb

Note beautiful tight black curls of lamb at birth. After maturity, curls open and the black pigment oxidizes into gray

The principal rivers in Transcaspia are the Murgab and Tedjent, and they furnish considerable water for irrigation purposes. The very ancient kingdoms of Sodigian, Baktria, and Khorezm occupied the rather unprotected sections of Central Asia, and were entirely dependent upon a few rivers for their existence. It was but necessary for a hostile people to interfere with these rivers, and immediate submission followed. It was in this way that Assyria and Babylonia imposed their rule over the people of southwest Turkestan. Persia then occupied this country until the conquest by Alexander of Macedonia, and it is an easy matter now to collect coins here made at the time the Greeks held that country. When the Greeks lost their power, all of Central Asia came under the control of China, and Jian Kian, who one hundred and twenty-six years before Christ, traveled through Khiva, speaks of the grapes, rice, wheat and fruit which grew where the land was watered, and of the vast amount of territory under irrigation. The Chinese began first to trade with Central Asia, then went west as far as Rome, and eventually they made the Aryans of South Turkestan their dependents.

In going from the railway station of Bairam Ali to Merv in Transcaspia, one sees about forty square miles of ruins of the old city of Merv, built by Shachrock, son of Timur, in 1409, after the awful Mongolian invasion. To-day the Russian Emperor irrigates at his own expense an immense area of land at this place, and is having modern methods of agriculture taught to the natives. From time immemorial the Aryan population of Turkestan was subjected to forced hybridization with the Turkish-Mongolians, and has resulted in a people called the Sarts, who occupy Central Turkestan. In the same way were formed the Taranchi, who occupy Chinese and Eastern Turkestan. In the mountains of the districts of Samarkand and Fergana are still found remnants of the old Aryan race.

The Famous “Arba” of West Turkestan

The driver always mounts the horse; the driver here is a Sart

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Turkestan was invaded by Russia, and caravans from Bokhara and Khiva came to Russia. In 1717, Peter the Great tried to get into Khiva, but every man of his was slaughtered. Failure after failure taught the Russians where their weakness lay. Finally Perovsky, Chrutcheiev, Tshernaev, Skobelief, Kauffman and others conquered the country for Russia. The oldest town in West Turkestan is Samarkand, which was founded by Persian kings four thousand years ago. This place has had an interesting history under the various peoples and dynasties that have ruled it. It was taken for Russia by the celebrated Kauffman.

The Khanate of Bokhara is of great interest to Americans, as we spend millions in that country annually. It is from there that we obtain Persian lamb, Astrakhan and Krimmer furs, also beautiful rugs and silks. (See Altman’s collection in New York.)

In 1912, 1913, and some five months this year, I traveled in Bokhara in quest of Karakul sheep, and made three importations to the United States and Canada. Up to September 1, 1914, no one else had ever imported any of these animals. Numerous tests have been made by various breeders and my own associates, and the Department of Agriculture, proving that we can produce the so-called Persian lamb skins and broadtail in America, at no small profit to the breeder, by crossing Karakul rams to our lustrous coarse-wooled long wools, such as Lincolns, Cotswolds, Leicesters, Black Faced Highlands, etc. But to obtain satisfactory results only such Karakul rams as are free from fine wool admixture must be employed, and American breeders are here warned against the purchasing of worthless animals from unscrupulous breeders, to whom some inferior stock has been sold by us with the understanding that none of it must be offered for sale until properly bred up, which they failed to do.

The Inhabitants of Khiva, West Turkestan, Live in Tents
Resembling Those of Our Indians

Summer and winter, they wear fur caps about half a foot in height, which is modest compared to the outrageously high caps of the Turcoman and Tekintzi, which often are twice that length

Even as recently as the reign of Alexander II it was still impossible to penetrate into Bokhara. To cross the Caspian Sea meant certain death, and the Russians had a proverb, “If you don’t wish to die, don’t cross the Caspian.” In the early sixties England sent a representative to Bokhara with a view to making a commercial treaty, but the fanatical natives could not tolerate a non-believer among them, and after frightful torture they killed him. This was the fate of every European who ventured into the forbidden country, and often Russians living on the border were attacked. After cutting women and children into pieces and destroying everything by fire, the wild Turcomans would return to their homes and prepare for other raids. At one time an Italian ventured into the country of the bloodthirsty Sarts in quest of the larva of silkworms. He was imprisoned and tortured and a frightful death awaited him. Frantic efforts were made by the Italian Government to liberate him, and the kind-hearted Alexander II was appealed to. At this time several influential Uzbecks from the capital of Bokhara were in Orenburg trading. The Russian Emperor ordered their detention. Word was sent to the Emir that unless the Italian was released he would order the execution of some five hundred Bokharans, including Karavan Bashi Azis, son of one of the great favorites of the Emir. This resulted in the liberation of the Italian.

When last in Bokhara I enjoyed the hospitality of this very same Azis, the oldest and largest dealer in raw Persian and Astrakhan skins in Bokhara. He is eighty years old and a millionaire. He lives in a house that has no windows on the outside and looks like any common Mexican adobe hut, but in the interior is a veritable oriental palace, whose decorations are most beautiful. Only in the summer palace of the Emir could one see the same character of decorations and rugs. I could not help feeling that American money paid for many of these luxuries, because the States and Canada buy the greater part of the entire output of Karakul skins, known under the trade name of Persian lamb and Astrakhan furs.

Interior of the Summer Palace of the Emir, Three Miles from
the City of Old Bokhara

Here is shown His Majesty’s bed, and chair used by him when receiving foreign guests. The decorations are gorgeous inside the house and outside, and the rugs are among the costliest in the world. The Atachadja Mirachur stated that this was the only photograph ever permitted to be taken of the interior of the palace

I enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Azis and will never forget the “ploff” on which we feasted. We were all seated on rugs, there being no furniture of any kind. A little “taburetka,” a small, low, square table, was placed over a hole in the floor, into which hot charcoal had been poured. The table was then covered with a quilt. This positively constitutes the only furniture in the reception-room of any native, rich or poor, and while it is thus possible to warm one’s feet, the rest of the body freezes, as the quilt seldom reaches farther than the hips, and it certainly does get very cold at times in Bokhara. Green tea was first served in Chinese cups, and then came the “ploff,” consisting of mutton, raisins and rice, and served for all in one dish. No guest ever gets a chance to leave the palace of the Kushbegi (Minister of Interior) or any of the beks (governors) before he has thoroughly stuffed himself with “ploff” and fruit, and he is expected to drink from five to ten cups of green tea.

Though the inhabitants of Transcaspia, who for years were the most dreaded of desert robbers, have become a peaceful people, they are still closely guarded by Cossacks. But civilization does not seem to have affected them in the least in other ways, and they live in their iurtas (felt tents) and mud houses just like the wildest tribes of the North American Indians. They are ideal horsemen, and the Tekin horse is said by some to surpass even Arabian breeds.

The Turcoman women do not always cover their faces as do the Sart, Tadjick, Uzbeck, and Jewish women. When girls are seven to eight years old, they have already been sold for wives, and, provided they are paid for, are delivered by the parents or nearest male relative when twelve to fifteen years old. If only partially paid for, the girl may live a while with her betrothed, but must again return home until the balance is paid. The price now paid for a wife is fixed by the Russian Government at twenty-five hundred rubles, although secretly much higher prices sometimes obtain.

There is less polygamy in Turkestan now than in former days. This is no doubt due to the influence of Russians and others who trade among the natives, and never miss an opportunity to tell them of the financial advantages of monogamy.

Old Bokhara City and Old Samarkand are indescribably filthy. The water holes, known as “gowsy,” are never cleaned, and it seems incredible that a people who perform their daily gluteal ablutions (a religious rite practiced by every Bokharan, from the Emir down to the shepherd in the desert) in these mud holes would also drink out of them! But they do, and as a result about thirty per cent. of them suffer from the dread disease known as “reshta.” Infection due to filth causes the death of many. Is it any wonder that cholera, plague, fatal dysenteries, and the dread “pendinka” are always prevalent?

A Tekin Wedding

Transcaspia, West Turkestan

A European must not touch a morsel of food that has not been boiled for at least fifteen minutes. In spite of the greatest care, in some districts few Europeans escape “pendinka,” which causes wounds to appear all over the body that cannot be healed up with any known medicine. They leave frightful scars; but fortunately after nine months this awful disease cures itself, usually leaving no bad effects, though it sometimes predisposes one to rheumatism, as can be testified to by my own experience.

In her treaty with Bokhara, Russia agreed not to interfere with the Emir in the internal management of affairs, but it seems that His Highness is unable to bring about any reforms whatsoever, and for that reason has refused to reside in Old Bokhara City, preferring to live on his estate, about one hundred miles east of the capital. Only a few years ago, when the old Emir still lived, criminals were hurled from the tower minaret, which is about three hundred feet high; others were chopped to pieces on the square in front of the palace, while the public looked on, apparently enjoying the awful sight. Still others were thrown into a noisome stink hole and there left to die. This hole has never been cleaned and proves the method of punishment most feared by the natives.

It has taken the Russian Government and the Emir several years to do away with some of these awful penalties, but as the Russian Ambassador stated, to bring about other reforms now would mean a bloody war, so by educating the children of the better Sarts in the Russian schools, which have been established in the principal towns, it is hoped that in time the natives may learn to live like human beings.

Russia’s problems with her fifty millions of Asiatic polygamists are of a most serious nature, and she must take every precaution to prevent the Mongol from asserting himself again and ruling the white race, as he has done before. We may thank God that we have no race problems to solve quite as serious as Russia’s.

A Russian prince said to me, “Admit our Asiatics and we will admit all Jews.”

I do not think we want to trade with Russia.

The Minaret, the Tower of Death, in Old Bokhara City

Only a few years ago, a woman found guilty of prostitution was put into a sack and hurled head downward on the Registan Square

NOTE

The last pages of this book were written on the northern border of Afghanistan, and when I parted with the camels in Old Bokhara City, I was already apprised of the possibility of trouble between Russia and Austria. I was not in the least disturbed, but scarcely had I reached my birthplace, one of the German colonies in Bessarabia, when certain events occurred which made war a stern reality. I left Libau three days before the town was bombarded by the Germans, and en route to St. Petersburg came face to face with mobilization. I witnessed the mob which broke up the German Embassy, and saw numerous processions of many nationalities, and it became evident that the Russian people were together in this war. I saw a demonstration by the Hebrews, who carried a picture of the Emperor through the streets, and numerous flags and emblems placarded “Down with the Kaiser,” and I learned subsequently that a handful of Jews in St. Petersburg raised in two days one hundred and forty thousand rubles for the war fund. The leading Russian newspapers stated that all over Russia the Hebrews were collecting money and offering their services to the government. I prophesy that after the termination of this terrible war, whether it ends satisfactorily to the Russians or not, the Jews will win by their loyalty what they most covet—namely, the right to live in any section of the empire, a right to which they were entitled long ago. That the demands of the Polish and Finnish people will be satisfied in every respect is a foregone conclusion.

The great demoralizing effect which vodka has produced among the peasants has already been removed by the Emperor, and I am sure laws will be passed which will make it extremely difficult for the peasants to obtain this life-wrecking poison, responsible for ninety per cent. of all of Russia’s ailments. Until the early fall of 1914, Russians were perishing with drink. Drink was the real obstacle to progress, and more than anything else retarded the manifestations of the many talents of this gifted nation. Yet lo and behold! when people saw that the exigencies of the present war were demanding the utmost self-possession, the coolest brain and the clearest eye, there came a word from the Imperial Throne, half stern command, half earnest supplication: Stop drinking, close the drinking shops, devote sober heads and calm hearts to your country! And drink was stopped. Saloons and houses trading in vodka were closed. People obeyed because they believed the Emperor was right.

Entrance to Old Fort of Old Palace

It was here I was received by His Highness the Kushbegi, Vice Emir of Bokhara in 1912, 1913 and 1914

The Anglican Bishop of London said in a recent address that what especially won his heart to the Russian people (“Our Eastern ally”) was exactly this wonderful, tremendous, self-sacrifice involving an annual revenue to the state of ninety-three millions sterling, let alone the sacrifice of personal habits, which at first, at least to many people, meant sickness and in few cases even death, and the loss of their habitual though factitious psychic equilibrium. The eminent British ecclesiastic added: “When we in England hear of our public houses (saloons) being crowded sometimes even in the early mornings now, I hope that we shall follow the example of our Russian ally.”

The following despatches on this subject are most interesting:

London, January 25, 1915.—A despatch from Petrograd says that Kharitonoff, Secretary of the Russian Treasury, speaking before the Douma Budget Committee to-day, declared that, owing to the great increase in the national savings due to prohibition, the extraordinary outlay occasioned by the war has as yet caused no great suffering in Russia.

As proof of this, Kharitonoff said the national savings in December, 1913, which had amounted to 700,000 rubles, had increased to 29,100,000 rubles in December, 1914. He added that the total savings for 1913 amounted to 34,000,000, as compared with 84,000,000 rubles for 1914.

About vodka, a Petrograd despatch says:

With war and without vodka, Russia is more prosperous than with vodka and without the war.

That the Tzar and all the people are together to-day as they have never been before in the history of the empire is a well-known fact. What is especially gratifying is the knowledge that this war will break the backs of the last remaining bureaucrats, who owe their existence to the old, haughty, aristocratic German barons of the Baltic provinces, who have always been under the influence of Berlin.

The teaching of the Russian language in all of the public schools has been made compulsory. This is a measure which I had been advocating for years, but which had always been met with opposition on the part of my friends, who told me that the Americans must have queer ideas of liberty when they forced the English language upon all their people regardless of nationality. All arguments to the effect that one language and one system of teaching in all public schools in the entire land meant the creation of a homogeneous unit and the obliteration of the spirit of nationality—often a block to the concerted action of a people—were met with ridicule and derision. In view of all nationalities seeming only too eager to support Russia to-day in her terrible war, and seeming ready to sacrifice the last drop of blood for their country, one might be led to believe that the opposition with which I met whenever in the past I discussed the necessity of Russification of all the empire’s people along the same lines as practiced by us in this country, was justified. Yet prior to the war I was confronted with a picture of the various conflicting elements of Russia’s vast domain expending most of their time and efforts to exterminate each other, due mostly to strong feeling entertained by certain nationalities. Every one knows of the great animosity which exists between the Russians and the Jews, the Tartars and the Armenians, the Poles and the Russians, the Sarts and the Persians, the Uzbecks and the Tadjicks, the Osetins and the Liazgins, and known, too, is the attitude of the Teutons of the Russian Empire, who hold their heads high above every other nationality, to give the impression that they are conferring a favor on all the others by condescending to live among them, and who are ever anxious to impose their language and their iron discipline on all of them, feeling that because they educated the Russians along practically every line imaginable, that that entitled them to be the only rulers of the land.

Khirgiz Women and Children in West Turkestan

They are the only Mohammedans who never did veil. Like the Mongolians, and their relatives the Burats, Kalmicks and Jakutsi, they were originally Buddhists

The Douma should discountenance every proposed unreasonable restrictive measure resulting from the war against those Germans who have been Russian citizens for a long time. In this way they will avoid adding to Russia’s already full measure of race problems. I fear that the very recent compulsory introduction of the Russian language into all German schools and throughout the empire has been more the result of revenge upon the millions of Germans living in Russia than the desire to Russianize the hundreds of different nationalities of the empire, but no matter what the motive may have been, I predict that in this case the end will justify the means. With one national ideal, united on all national problems—as she is to-day on the one great question of the war—and ever ready to make sacrifices for a still greater Russia, upholding the motto, “One People, One Country and One Flag,” Russia would become invincible.

Those of Russia’s great men who are doing the thinking for the empire should remember that in order to accomplish what we have in this country—namely, the practical obliteration of all nationalities and subsequent general amalgamation, they must ever bear before them the fact that there should be equal privileges for all and special favors for none. While we in the States have not been entirely successful in carrying out this maxim, the bulk of our people and many of our greatest reformers are working earnestly in that direction.

The great moment has arrived for Russia. All caste distinction and special privileges to the nobility should be eliminated and every nationality put on an equal footing. All people born in Russia, regardless of their nationality, should be honored with the political term “Russians” in the same sense as we in America use the term “Americans,” and religion should not be the only means of classification, for every sane man knows that no child is responsible for a religion which the Russian Government, as has been the case until recently, and Russian parents force upon it. I have never contented myself with the fact that because I am of Teutonic origin and because my parents determined upon my being a Stundist, that I had not the right to consider myself a full-fledged Russian until I saw fit to accept the anointment imposed by the Russian Church, at my request, I must admit, or that because of my German origin I could not consider myself an American when the Constitution of the United States granted me that right.

Every fair-minded Russian must acknowledge that it is an injustice to say that only those of Slavic origin or those having become members of the Greek Orthodox Church are true Russians. Have few people not of Slavic origin and not members of the Greek Orthodox Church helped to make Russia the great empire she is?

High-Class, Veiled, Sart Woman

In Old Tashkent, the capital of Sir Daria Province, West Turkestan, Central Asia, where the Russian Governor General of Turkestan resides. The architecture of the house and the introduction of windows indicate the dawn of civilization

Most Russians resent the idea of Hebrews born in Russia calling themselves Russians—which, biologically speaking, they are not—yet if they are born in Russia and are Russian citizens, I cannot see why they may not apply to themselves the political term “Russians.”

The peasantry should be compelled to remain sober forever, and the necessary protective laws made for the peasants who desire to sell their land, and if the most stringent laws governing the rate of interest are enforced, the laws now on the statutes affecting Hebrews could be repealed, and the same rights granted to them as are accorded to all other nationalities without doing the peasants the slightest injustice.

That the nationalization of all those Russians who are styled foreigners by the true Slavic Russians is most imperative, I am firmly convinced.

I think the Emperor voiced the proper sentiment in this matter when, in appealing to all his people after the declaration of war, he stated, “Let us forget all internal dissension, and let us all be Russians.”

Transcriber’s Notes:

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.

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Table of Contents

- ABUSED RUSSIA
- PREFACE
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- NOTE
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE