CHAP. V. THE CHURCHES. 43 



handsome fortune ; but tlie peasants are on the whole poor, 

 and will doubtless remain so until railway communication 

 with Moscow is opened, or steamers run regulai'ly from the 

 mouth of the Petchora, either of which piojects seems at 

 present to be hopelessly impossible. The population of Ust- 

 Zylma does not probably exceed 1500 or 2000, increased in 

 winter by Samoyedes, who erect their chooms in the neigh- 

 bouring forest. "When we reached Ust-Zylma, and for a 

 week or more afterwards, a great migration of these curious 

 people was going on, and we often saw a score or more of 

 their sledges in a day, and sometimes there would be as 

 many reindeer as horses to be seen in the streets. 



The flat country on the banks of the Petchora, upon which 

 the village is built, does not extend more than a few hundred 

 yards. The land then rapidly rises, and these slopes are 

 cultivated for some way up the hillside. We found the 

 peasants busily employed in carting manure in sledges, and 

 spreading it on the snow. The monotony of the long village 

 is broken by three churches, one a very ancient and pictu- 

 resque structure, . in some places rather artistically orna- 

 mented. This was formerly the church of the Old Believers, 

 but it is now too rotten for use, and a more modern-looking 

 building has been erected. The third church is that of the 

 Orthodox Greek Church. All the houses in Ust-Zylma are 

 of course built of wood, solid balks of timber with moss and 

 tar in the joints, and notched into each other at the corner, 

 and more or less carved and ornamented in various places. 

 Sometimes the slopes of the hills are relieved by a large 

 tree which has been left standing, and here and there is an 



