478 FROM TOMSK TO PERM 



We were told that the railway was to be opened 

 between Perm and Ekaterinburg the following autumn. 

 Another mode of transit and conveyance in this direction 

 will be a boon to the overworked horses, and ought to 

 prove a profitable speculation to all concerned in it. 

 When the enormous traffic is removed from this road, 

 the chances of mending it will improve. 



The railway has since been opened, and my friend 

 Mr. Wardroper informs me that the price of wheat has 

 doubled in Tiumen in consequence of a concession 

 having been granted by the Government to a company 

 to form a line of rail from Ekaterinburg to that town. 

 When this line is completed there will be steam communi- 

 cation in summer from St. Petersburg to Tomsk, a 

 distance of 6630 versts, or 4200 miles. 



It was an immense relief to think that we had paid 

 off our last yemschik, and should finish our long journey 

 by steam. The distances that are travelled by horses 

 in Siberia are enormous, and yet there is probably no 

 country in the world where so much travelling is accom- 

 plished by the merchants, who are obliged to visit the 

 great fairs regularly if they wish to buy in the cheapest 

 and sell in the dearest market. In the course of con- 

 versation with one of these merchants Siberia was half- 

 jokingly described to me as a big village, the main street 

 of which, extending from Nishni Novgorod to Kiakhta, 

 was about five thousand miles long, where tliere were 

 always half a million horses on the road, and where every- 

 body knew everybody else from one end of the street to 

 the other. 



