RUSSIAN COMMERCIAL MORALITY 291 



secretly very angry, as he assured me that Sideroff would 

 never recoup him for these losses. The Nihilists blame 

 the Emperor for all this sort of plundering, but most 

 unjustly. No Government can command honesty in its 

 servants unless it is supported by public opinion, and 

 hitherto public opinion in Russia remains on the side of 

 the successful thief. I need only point out the fate of 

 old Gazenkampf s predecessor to show how impossible it 

 is for an honest official to live in the present atmosphere 

 of commercial morality in Russia. Let us hope that the 

 valley of the Yenesei is exceptionally bad in this respect. 

 It is not at all improbable that the demoralisation which 

 usually emanates from gold-mines may be an important 

 factor in the case. Peculation has undoubtedly been 

 overdone in this district. The officials are gradually 

 killing the geese that lay the golden eggs ; the villages 

 are dwindling away ; Turukansk is only the wreck of what 

 it once was, and when one looks at the tumble-down 

 church and the few miserable straggling houses that 

 nowhere else would be called a town, one wonders how 

 Turukansk ever came to be printed in capital letters in 

 any map. 



OSTIAK CRADLE 



