118 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



There is a strong party in the country who look 

 forward to the day when Siberia shall receive her 

 autonomy, if not her independence. Whether this can 

 ever be in a land whose local needs and conditions differ 

 so profoundly remains to be seen. Siberia is as yet like 

 a giant in infancy, nursed by Russia. And Russia 

 herself, the youngest of the nations, is only just coming 

 into her own. She is still a country of enormous 

 possibilities, of the crudest paradoxes. With the most 

 autocratic government, hers is the most democratic 

 society in the world : with a church whose function has 

 dwindled into the effete repetition of ritual, religion is 

 the very fibre of her people. Apart from a strong vein 

 of Tatar blood, the Siberiaks are the siftings of the 

 Russians — even cruder, even less aware of their own 

 potential greatness. Nevertheless, if we believe that 

 nothing can finally check the onward progress of man, 

 then their development, though slow, is certain. Some 

 day the dream of such idealists as Michael Petrovitch 

 may be fulfilled, and a free United States of Siberia 

 extend from Chelyavinsk eastward to Vladivostock. 



