418 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



present it is mainly a commercial town, doing a large and increasing trade in 

 corn, tobacco, tallow, soap, and leather. The St. Petersburg- Orenburg railway, 

 which will eventually be continued to the heart of Asia, passes through Samara 

 and up the Samara valley to Busuluk. 



Serg'ujevsh, to the north-east of Samara, is well known on account of its cold 

 sulphur springs ; and there, as well as in other towns of this region, the Kalmuk 

 method of curing diseases by the use of fermented mare's milk, or himis, is 

 successfully being practised. 



Sizran, on the Volga, has risen into importance since the completion of the 

 magnificent railway viaduct, 1,583 yards in length, which there spans the river ; 



Fig. 216. — SiMBiusK. 



Scale I : 70,000. 



E of P 



1 MUe. 



and whilst KJwalinsh and Volsk, below it, are mainly dependent upon the export 

 of the agricultural produce of their environs, this rising town posses?!es an 

 additional source of wealth in its productive ozokerite mines. 



Saratov, capital of a government and with a population of nearly 100,000, is 

 the largest place in the Lower Volga basin. Unless it be the Sari-tau of the 

 Tatar annals, it dates only from the end of the sixteenth century, and even 

 then did not occupy its present site, but lay about 6 miles farther up, and on the 

 left bank, at the junction of the little river Saratovka. Its political function 

 was to curb the nomads and Cossack "brigands," but it fell a prey itself to the 

 bands of Razin, Nekrasov, and Pugachov. Although enclosed by an amphi- 



