RUSSIA. 



727 



on the Black Sea, was opened to traffic on 

 March 27, 1888. The communications of the 

 Transcaucasus will he greatly improved by the 

 Surain Tunnel, which is nearly completed be- 

 tween Tsipa and Malita. The route of the pro- 

 jected Siberian railroad has been surveyed as 

 far as Irkutsk. It will start from Tomsk, and 

 pass through Marjinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, 

 Verkne, Oudinsk, Chita. Stretensk, and Xikol- 

 skoi. to Vladivostock, on the Pacific coast. A 

 branch line will be constructed to the Trans- 

 baikal province between Lake Baikal and the 

 Chinese frontier. The European connection 

 of the Siberian line will be with a railroad from 

 Samara running through Omsk, which was 

 completed as far as Ufa, in Astrakhan, in Sep- 

 tember, 1888, and is being extended to Sia- 

 tu>k. A private capitalist has undertaken to 

 build a railroad from the river Obi to the Bay 

 of Chainuder, an accessible port in the Arctic 

 Ocean, in order to compete in the. wheat, cat- 

 tle, fish, fur, and timber trades of western 

 Siberia, with the English company that made 

 an unsuccessful attempt in 1888 to take a 

 freighted steamer through the Sea of Kara. 



Post-Offiee. The number of ordinary letters 

 forwarded in 1886 was 150,348,689 ; of postal- 

 cards, 15,333,686; of registered letters, 13,- 

 087,881; of letters containing valuables, 11.- 

 017.635 ; of journals, 103,100,275 ; of sealed 

 packets, 20,986,078. The receipts in 1886 were 

 67,694, 516 francs, and the expenses of the pos- 

 tal and telegraph service 99,852,560 francs. 



Telegraphs. The length of the state tele- 

 graph lines in 1886 was 107,574 kilometres; 

 length of wires, 204,043 kilometres. Including 

 railroad and private lines, the Anglo-Indian 

 line, and military and police lines, there were 

 116,692 kilometres of telegraph lines in the 

 empire, with 267,414 kilometres of wire. The 

 number of internal dispatches in 1886 was 

 8,371,187; international dispatches sent, 559,- 

 754 ; received, 568,815 ; dispatches in transit, 

 130.202; official dispatches, 660,833; total, 

 10,290,791. The receipts in 1886 were 35,869,- 

 680 francs. 



Foreigners in Rns<ii. Statistics compiled by 

 the Ministry of the Interior show that the 

 yearly average of foreigners arriving in Russia 

 has been 800,000, and of those who leave the 

 country 750,000. During the ten years ending 

 with 1881 there were 9,458,132 arrivals nnd 

 8,025,198 departures. Among the number en- 

 tering the countrv were 4,871,571 Germans, 

 1,305,133 Austrian*, 255,207 Persians, 122,- 

 771 French, 70.387 Turks. 41.878 Roumanians, 

 Bulgarians, and Servians, 20,691 English, 17,- 

 359 Italians, 14,885 Greeks, and 120,638 of 

 other nationalities. Stringent passport regula- 

 tions and restrictions on the enterprise of for- 

 eigners have been the rule during the past 

 three years. In 1887 all foreigners were pro- 

 hibited by an imperial nkase from holding or 

 leasing lands. This is a reversal of the policy 

 the Government has followed steadily since 

 the year 1815. 



Unification of the Baltif ProTinees. The Gov- 

 ernment has ordained that instruction in the 

 gymnasia and secondary schools in Revel, Dor- 

 pat, Goldingen, Libau, Birkenruh, and Fellin 

 shall henceforth be given in the Russian, instead 

 of in the German language. When theEstho- 

 nian and Livonian nobility protested against the 

 banishment of their mother-tongue from the 

 schools in which their sons are educated the 

 Minister of Education replied that the only al- 

 ternative would be to abolish the schools and 

 demand the restitution of the sums contributed 

 by the Government to their erection and en- 

 dowment. The Directing Senate in April re- 

 jected a complaint against a decree of the Gov- 

 ernor of Liv<mia according to which no report 

 or document in the German language will be 

 received by the courts or the municipal author- 

 ities. The Senate also decided that no part of 

 the local revenues of the Baltic provinces can 

 henceforth be diverted to ecclesiastical pur- 

 poses, which will deprive many Protestant re- 

 ligious institutions of a considerable portion of 

 their income. A proposition of Count Tolstoi, 

 made at the suggestion of the Procurator of the 

 Holy Synod, whereby the Minister of the Inte- 

 rior shall have the power to remove Evangelical 

 pastors in the Baltic provinces after they have 

 been suspended by the Governor, was approved 

 by the Council of the Empire, bnt encountered 

 such opposition on the part of influential states- 

 men that the Czar ordered the matter to be re- 

 considered, with the result that a majority of 

 28 against 16 voted against the proposition. 

 Afterward the Czar, yielding to Panslavist ar- 

 guments, changed his own mind, and confirmed 

 the decision of the minority. The f-wiss 

 branch of the Evangelical Alliance addressed a 

 petition to the Emperor which was answered 

 by Procurator-General Pobedonostzeff. The 

 reason for clothing the Minister of the Interior 

 with powers that the Czars never assumed in 

 former times is found in the return to the 

 Protestant faith of many of the Letts and Eeths 

 who have lately been induced to enter the 

 Orthodox Church. This movement the Russian 

 Panslavists expect to check by deposing every 

 Protestant pastor who exerts Bimself to nndo 

 the extrordinary proselyting work of the Rus- 

 sian clergy among the Slav peasantry of the 

 German provinces of Russia. 



dosing of the Universities. Toward the close 

 of 1887 students' riots occurred in many of the 

 universities and other educational institutes. 

 The disturbances began in Moscow, where the 

 inspector of the university excited the ill-will 

 of the students, who became so disorderly that 

 the troops were called out. There were simi- 

 lar occurrences at Kiev, Odessa. Kasan. and 

 other universities, all of which were closed. 

 The students hoped by uproarious demonstra- 

 tions to compel the Government to rescind the 

 recent regulations which curtail the liberty of 

 students by various vexatious restrictions, limit 

 the period in which they are allowed to re- 

 main at the universities, and exclude whole 



