The Future of Siberia Author(s): Harald Swayne Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Mar., 1918), pp. 149-159 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1779375 Accessed: 26-06-2016 04:41 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley, The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 157.89.65.129 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:41:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FUTURE OF SIBERIA 149 square miles?and on the other side the Central Powers have occupied some? thing less than a quarter of that great amount. The position of Turkey at the end of what she is pleased to consider a victorious war seems to me to be deplorable; she has not only lost one hundred thousand square miles of territory in Arabia, but has parted with her greatest centres of faith and com- merce: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Erzerum and Trebizond. And it is pleasant to recall that the valiant Belgian army, to whom we owed so much at the commencement of the war, now occupies territory in German East Africa nearly seven times as great as the Germans are occupying in Belgium. These are great results, and they are not to be lightly set aside, as we have just heard so eloquently said by the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Walter Long. We cannot ignore them, for they will inevitably in the future, in the good time when the settlement comes, be trump cards in the hands of England. Those of us who have travelled, particularly in East Africa, must be well aware of the conditions that obtain there, and the opportunities for coloniza- tion of which General Smuts has spoken. There is possibly not much room for white colonization, and it is for this Society to collect all the evidence that can be obtained regarding the extent 'of colonizable country and the people best suited for it. But there are vast numbers of native people through? out all the darker parts of Africa to whom there can be no possible idea or vision of self-government. Such people must necessarily be educated; they must by slow degrees be taught, first of all, the rudiments of civilization, and finally be brought to something like a national sense of responsibility; and when we consider who is to undertake that education we can well feel the weight of responsibility which probably rests with us. We may at least hope that the education of these peoples will fall into the hands of those who, by tradition and long experience, are best able to adapt a rule based on fair play, justice, sympathy, and humanity. I will now ask you by your acclamation to join in thanking General Smuts for his kindness in coming here and giving us such an admirable address. THE FUTURE OF SIBERIA Colonel Harald Swayne, C.M.G., R.E. Read at the Meeting of the Society, 10 December 1917. MY sportsman personal knowledgein 1903, when of Siberia I left thearises railway from andtwo river-steamersvisits, first as a and covered 800 miles of trail away from both; and secondly, as a visitor to the Siberian Railway just before the outbreak of war, up to the middle of July 1914. Without claiming in any way to be an authority on the country, I can, I think,fshow you what the south looks like in summer and what is going on there. If excuse were needed I have another for coming before you : that having spent the whole of my working life in the East, and at any time in thirty-two years having travelled on hunting trails or on duty to such regions as Tibet, Ladak, Baltistan, Gilgit, and the Chin- Lushai Hills of Upper Burma, I have approached Siberian questions with some knowledge of Asia and its great mountain barriers/and with an ever- This content downloaded from 157.89.65.129 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:41:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 15? THE FUTURE OF SIBERIA present curiosity to see what was beyond. I ask you to share with me this attitude of mind as we travel across a green sector of the Earth which had lain for centuries unoccupied, except by nomad tribes who would together amount only to the population of four or five good-sized English towns. I will first give you my impressions of the Altai region, visited by com- paratively few strangers from this country, and that chiefly for sport. Siberia has already lost its old terrors, and we now know that there is a north and south. The most living memory the word "Siberia" brings back to me is of harvest: five o'clock in the morning of what turned out to be a broiling day in June, near Cherga in the Altai; when, going along a very ordinary road, I met a long string of country carts and of farm horses, ridden by men, women, and children, all mixed up astride the horses in twos and threes, going to their work; harvest scents and wild flowers every where. Again, a June morning on the slopes falling to a lake, masses of flowers stretching across a valley in mile-long sweeps, surpassing the wild flowers even of Switzerland and Kashmir at their best. Perhaps my first introduction to Siberia, shortly before the Russo- Japanese War, left all the more vivid impressions because I had come from, and had been living for some years in, crowded tropical countries. I came suddenly to Russian colonization with food of the best. At every post-house were turkeys, geese, fresh butter, and excellent tea, with the samovar of hot water available at any time of the day. Outside at the edge of the forest, engaged in sawing timber, would be the owner of the farm and his two sons, all broad-shouldered fellows over six feet. They owned no man as master, save perhaps the police. The hut was tidily carpentered of well-cut planks, with double windows, well-fitting shutters, and doors which really shut; dry moss or felt was stuffed between the joints of the logs or planks. The occupants can keep warm, for fuel is cheap, growing at the doors of most settlements in the Siberian Altai. Lots of children paddled about the house with the geese; and round the Altai home I am describing were beautiful forest-covered hills. Wheat was growing in patches in the valleys, wherever the ground was level enough for it. The huts were generally of two rooms with a large brick stove, with a flat, broad top for the family to sleep on in winter, and there were fixed plank beds round the walls, all good and plain. In 1903 my objective?wild-sheep ground of the Mongolian Altai? was approached by the Chuiski road, then nearing completion as a cart- track. The distance by steamer and trail is 750 miles from Novo- Nikolaevsk, otherwise called Ob station, where the great railway crosses the Ob, to Kosh-agach, the last Russian police post within 30 miles or so of the Chinese-Mongolian border. Of this journey the distance from Novo-Nikolaevsk to Bisk, with a few hours' halt on the way to Barnaul, is done now by river-steamer, 400 miles; then from Bisk to Kosh-agach 350 miles by tarantass, with a troika team of three horses. At that time- This content downloaded from 157.89.65.129 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:41:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FUTURE OF SIBERIA 151 This content downloaded from 157.89.65.129 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 04:41:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms *5* THE FUTURE OF SIBERIA about half had to be ridden, with baggage on pack-ponies, and it took you, from London to the Mongolian border, about twenty-seven days. I think Major Cumberland and, later, Mr. Littledale were the first British sportsmen to visit the Altai; there is a good description of the latter's journey in Prince Demidov's book. I only followed in their footsteps. This track by the Katun and the Chuya gorges gives access to some of the best scenery. The whole district was the private property of the Tsar, administered by the Imperial Cabinet. In 1903 the wooden town at Ob railway station, Novo-Nikolaevsk, was a primitive place with wide unmetalled roads, mere open spaces, dusty, and very dark at night; on the outskirts of the town grew low fir woods; and near the fine railway bridge spanning the Ob was a landing- stage for the steamers. At that time fortunes had already been made by the coming of the railway. Wooden townships were springing up; incomers who had been needy peasants in Russia were already prosperous and had taken to trade or become hotel-keepers, and acquired education mean- while. The town, in addition to its Mongolian trade, exported large quantities of butter to Denmark and England.